The (im)possibility of poststructuralist ethnography : Researching identities in borrowed spaces
- Authors: Tsolidis, Georgina
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Ethnography & Education Vol. 3, no. 3 (2008), p. 271-281
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- Description: The notion of site is critical to ethnography and provides a sense of spatial stability - somewhere the researcher enters in order to research what is contained within. Using contemporary understandings of space, the author reflects on two studies to explore the (im)possibility of poststructuralist ethnography. The first study was undertaken in a 'real' school utilising a multi-method approach over a long period of time. The other was conducted in community-based schools where minority language and culture are taught. Such schools operate on a part-time basis and are often referred to as 'after hours' schools. These operate, as if by stealth, in borrowed spaces - schools not in use by their normal classes, during normal school times. The nature of these schools necessitated utilising different research approaches. The almost transient nature of 'after hours' schools reinforce temporal-spatial instabilities as critical to understanding site as social rather than fixed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Ethnography & Education is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
- Description: 2003006335
'Language can not encompass being' : Poststructuralism and postmodernism
- Authors: Cooper, Simon
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Arena Journal Vol. , no. 45/46 (2016), p. 28-50
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- Description: Writing in 2016, it's sometimes hard to believe the influence that poststructuralist and postmodernist 'theory' had on university and intellectual culture in the 1980s and 1990s. Virtually every humanities and social-science department (and even some science departments) either adopted or at the very least was forced to confront the body of work of half a dozen (mainly) French thinkers and the English-speaking colleagues who took up the implications of their work. In the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, 'theory' was deeply polarizing - either the high point of intellectual virtuosity, the voice of a new politics or a nihilistic assault on Western culture. English and Philosophy departments fractured or split entirely, newly formed cultural-studies journals enthusiastically applied theory's insights to the quotidian world, academic publication expanded massively. Outside the academy, theory was often denounced in the mainstream media as being meaningless jargon or politically dangerous, or both at the same time, while the theorists themselves retained a cult status both inside and outside the academy.
Evaluating sociocultural influences affecting participation and understanding of academic support services and programs (SSPs): Impacts on notions of attrition, retention, and success in higher education
- Authors: Weuffen, Sara , Fotinatos, Nina , Andrews, Tulsa
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice Vol. 23, no. 1 (2021), p. 118-138
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- Description: While no major change in relation to student attrition and retention data has been recorded over the past 20 years, the increasingly neoliberal agenda imposed on Australian higher education institutions has led to increased scrutiny around such data. In this case study, we explore discourses of attrition and retention to understand better the unique needs of students, and influences of targeted student support programs, as they transition to a regional higher education learning environment. We applied a mixed methods approach via a poststructuralist lens to identify frequency of nodes in relation to dimensions of the Kahu’s conceptual framework of engagement, antecedents and consequences model and present staff (n=6) and student (n=7) perceptions about the tangible value of knowledge, engagement, participation, and reportable outcomes of student support programs. Our findings indicate that staff tend to view student support programs from deficit discourses, whereas students view them as empowering. © The Author(s) 2018.
Surveying the landscape five years on : An examination of how teachers, and the teaching of Australia's shared-history, is constructed within Australian academic literature
- Authors: Weuffen, Sara
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Teaching and Teacher Education Vol. 78, no. (2019), p. 117-124
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- Description: The purpose of this paper is to conduct a literature review of academic debates relating to the Australian Curriculum: History (ACH), in particular subjective constructions of teachers, and the teaching of Australian History and Aboriginal peoples' and Torres Strait Islanders’ histories. The literature reviewed from a socio-political lens, examines functions of power/knowledge operating in discourses of education to illuminate how teachers, Aboriginal peoples, and Torres Strait Islanders, take up and/or resist subjectivities constructing them. Drawing from the toolbox of post-structuralism, this literature review troubles the notion of the non-Indigenous perspective as dominant, and the teacher as an active, non-critical participant in the process.
Young mothers: Discursive constructions of their lives and identities
- Authors: Felstead, Karen
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: The notion that early motherhood is a significant problem for society is widely documented in the academic literature, and there is a complicated history surrounding young pregnant and parenting women in social and educational policy contexts. Less is known about young mothers themselves and how they experience the social and material effects of early motherhood. The purpose of this study was to examine how young mothers, who attended a young parent program in Lake City in Victoria Australia, experienced early motherhood and how they contested the social discourses that framed their lives. Using a poststructural lens and drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, this thesis used narrative inquiry and discourse analysis to examine the complex nature of seven young mothers’ lives. Analysis of the narrative data showed that despite the complexities, early motherhood was a significant turning point as the young mothers drew on resources of resistance and responsibility to transform their lives. An analysis of the social welfare policy practices identified surveillance and regulation measures as responses to alleviate long-term welfare dependency but did not account for the structural and economic barriers that young mothers encountered in their lives. In educational contexts, the young mothers in this study had experienced disrupted education trajectories before moving to an alternative setting. The findings highlight that they were ‘invisible’ in mainstream educational contexts and while ‘learning from the margins’ in the young parent program. This study found that the voice of the young mother was missing in the social and educational policy discourses, and the complexities of early motherhood were not accounted for within the policies. This thesis argues that young mothers’ voices need to be included in strategic policy responses to address issues of inequity and reduce the structural and economic barriers faced by young mothers.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy