Curriculum for entrepreneurial creativity and resourcefulness in New Zealand

This thesis asks: ‘How can tertiary education nurture entrepreneurial creativity?’ Entrepreneurship is considered to be a vital determinant of economic growth and the entrepreneur is understood as someone who innovates and commercialises their own innovation. The setting is New Zealand which is struggling to make the shift from relying on primary production to becoming a ‘creative economy.’ The creative individual has been identified as a new mainstream but it is argued that in New Zealand, education provision is inadequate for supporting the development of the practice of entrepreneurship. The problem is not unique. Various writers are critical of business education generally, and of the mismatch between the passion and chaos in entrepreneurs’ lives and the way education programs are typically organised as a linear sequence of discipline-based courses with prescribed content, activities and outcomes. Rich data were gathered from in-depth interviews with twelve nascent, new or experienced entrepreneurs and two associates (one a marketer, the other a scientist). Each participant was drawn from a different area of economic endeavour. They were asked to share their stories and views about creativity, the connections between creativity and entrepreneurship, business success, formal and informal education, and ways to improve tertiary education programs. The research found that a suitable environment for nurturing creativity will most likely have structure but will also enable chaos. It will present opportunities for experiencing diversity, and will stimulate unconscious and conscious mental processes. It will provide scope for hard work that is fun and involves authentic risk-taking, and will enable both individual and purposeful teamwork. The study also found that business success is not based on knowledge but is rather about being resourceful. The becoming of the creative entrepreneur thus includes developing capability to network with peers and mentors and communicate with customers and staff, and developing passion for and resilience in the pursuit of a dream. The findings suggest that in an age of uncertainty, nurturing entrepreneurial creativity and resourcefulness requires learning to be viewed as a practice-based community process where knowing and doing are interwoven with being. It is argued that this needs to align with Ronald Barnett and Kelly Coate’s (2005) notion of ‘a curriculum for engagement.’ It is suggested that an entire program might simply invite students to work collaboratively to identify and exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity by producing and commercialising an appropriate product/service innovation; to undertake this work as two separate projects – one within an existing organisation, and the other as a new venture; and to theorise their work. It is proposed that a suitable framework lies in William Doll’s (2002) advocacy for a curriculum based on a matrix of five Cs: ‘currere,’ complexity, cosmology, conversation, and community. To these, creativity is added as a sixth C.

Distance, dialogue and difference : a postpositive approach to understanding distance education in Papua New Guinia

This study focuses on the experiences of a group of educators engaged in a professional development program by distance education in Papua New Guinea. The participants in this study have been keeping professional journals, for periods of up to three years, about their experiences of distance education. Their discourses have been used to form a ‘connected group’ of research participants, who use an action framework to focus on problematic issues surrounding distance education in Papua New Guinea. It is a piece of research, framed by critical theory, and characterised by participation, collaboration, reflexivity, reciprocity and empowerment. The process of the study is based in dialogue, and takes the view that research is constituted of a transformative perspective, which alters the way research participants understand the multiple realities in which they live and work, arid ultimately results in improvements in their lived experiences. The nature of the methodology privileges Voice' and a discourse of difference from each participant which contributes to the problematic nature of the study. The study has concerned itself, increasingly, with issues of power and control in the research process, and this has resulted in significant changes in the research as participants have become more conscious of issues such as distance, dialogue and difference. The study has evolved over a period of time in significant ways, and evidence is available that teachers in Papua New Guinea, despite structural and pedagogical barriers, are critically reflective and are able to transform their practice in ways which are consistent with social, cultural and political contexts in which they live and work. A number of 'local1 theories about research and distance education in Papua New Guinea are developed by the participants as they become informed about issues during the research. The practice of distance education and professional development, at personal and institutional levels, undergoes reconstruction during the life of the research and the study 'signals' other ways in which distance education and professional development may be reconstructed in Papua New Guinea.

Case studies in human rights education and critical educational science

This thesis offers an account of the history and effects of three curriculum projects sponsored by the Australian Human Rights Commission between 1983 and 1986. Each project attempted to improve observance of human rights in and through Australian schools through participatory research (or critical educational science). That is, the research included, as a conscious feature, the effort to develop new forms of curriculum work which more adequately respect the personal and professional rights of teachers, especially their entitlement as persons and professionals to participate in planning, conducting and controlling the curriculum development, evaluation and implementation that constitutes their work. In more specific terms, the Australian Human Rights Commission's three curriculum projects represented an attempt to improve the practice and theory of human rights education by engaging teachers in the practical work of evaluating, researching, and developing a human rights curriculum. While the account of the Australian Human Rights Commission curriculum project is substantially an account of teachers1 work, it is a story which ranges well beyond the boundaries of schools and classrooms. It encompasses a history of episodes and events which illustrate how educational initiatives and their fate will often have to set within the broad framework of political, social, and cultural contestation if they are to be understood. More exactly, although the Human Rights Commission's work with schools was instrumental in showing how teachers might contribute to the challenging task of improving human rights education, the project was brought to a premature halt during the debate in the Australian Senate on the Bill of Rights in late 1985 and early 1986. At this point in time, the Government was confronted with such opposition from the Liberal/National Party Coalition that it was obliged to withdraw its Bill of Rights Legislation, close down the original Human Rights Commission, and abandon the attempt to develop a nationwide program in human rights education. The research presents an explanation of why it has been difficult for the Australian Government to live up to its international obligations to improve respect for human rights through education. More positively, however, it shows how human rights education, human rights related areas of education, and social education might be transformed if teachers (and other members of schools communities) were given opportunities to contribute to that task. Such opportunities, moreover, also represent what might be called the practice of democracy in everyday life. They thus exemplify, as well as prefigure, what it might mean to live in a more authentically democratic society.

Exploratory surgery of the female psyche

The thesis explores the visual narrative concerning a journey of empowerment for women. To enable the journey to advance the inquiry is directed into two areas. The first area is female gender, which is argued to be socially constructed and implicit in the marginalisation of women in western society. The second area is ‘feminine authority’, which is gained by developing an understanding and acceptance of the characteristics which have historically been considered as belonging to the feminine. Granting these characteristics agency would recognise their authority and assist in the elevation of the female to a position of equality in western society. Beginning from a feminist position, the research supported the belief that the female is marginalised in western society. It also confirmed the notion that empowerment and authority can be attained by women if they actively pursue the following; • Explore their own psychology beyond the existing socially constructed gender roles. • Develop an understanding of their feminine self by applying Jung's theories on individuation and archetypes. • Expose the underlying patriarchal influence in western epistemology and science by challenging existing deeply held cultural and scientific beliefs and by actively contributing as feminists to the areas of epistemology and science. Archetypal myths of the ‘feminine’ have developed from an androcentric position. They enforce and perpetuate gender imbalance which contributes to the disenfranchisement of women in western society, ‘Individuation’ is a process in which a person explores aspects of themselves to bring forth parts of their unconscious into their conscious mind in an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of themselves. As a consequence the consciousness develops closer links with archetypal memories which assists the exploration. The ‘true feminine’ is the feminine not restricted or defined by the dominant androcentric view. Knowledge of the feminine empowers women to address the marginalisation of the female in western society and assists in the process of gaining female authority. This enquiry also investigated the four stages of female psychological development with regard to patriarchal influences. Of particular importance is the second stage of psychological development where the female identifies with historically perceived inferior characteristics of the female. This is when she rejects her connections with the primacy of female power and her deep connections with nature which were inherited from archaic times. It is at this stage that she absorbs the myths associated with western patriarchal society which effectively disempower her. Western epistemology, with its emphasis on ‘objective’ investigation and empiricism contributes to the support for and promotion of ‘inferior’ female gender. This type of investigation is brought into question when areas of research into primates and human evolutionary theory is shown to develop from an androcentric view. Western knowledge has associations with power and justice and power is commonly associated with dominance. Regard for ‘truth’ and ‘absolute’ can be viewed as key elements in the support for knowledge and its associations with power. Knowledge has historically maintained suppression of individual experience which promotes a universalised account. This suppression of beliefs other than the dominant authority maintains the existing dominant social structure. Foucault's view of the genderised or inscribed body alerts us to areas where dominance, resistance and power play a part in maximising masculine power and control. Gender becomes an instrument of power within the existing patriarchal structure. Gender, knowledge and power are identified as areas obstructing female empowerment. Part 3 of this exegesis examines the imagery which embodies the visual narrative. Particularly, the harlequin image, its historical background and connections with ancient mythology including reference to Jungian psychology. The harlequin image is developed sequentially in the earlier black and white drawings on paper. These drawings contained a female figure which was often placed in juxtaposition with a Venus or goddess image, reference was also made to ‘eve’ and the ‘siren’. These elements provided the framework which enabled the harlequin image to emerge and evolve. The narrative developed with an understanding of the ‘feminine’ aspects of the psyche which resulted in the harlequin acquiring the elevated authority of a goddess. The Harlequin evolved from my need for symbolic representation of the female psyche. It represents contradiction and dualism. It is a composition of opposites, reflects masculine and feminine traits, the dark and light of the conscious and unconscious mind, it houses both comic and sinister elements, is a trickster and menace. The costume, colours and patterns are expressive elements conducive to fragmentation and layering within the composition of the paintings. Jung examined the harlequin in Picasso's paintings. He concluded that as Picasso drew on his inner experiences the harlequin became important as a symbol; it was a pictorial representation from the unconscious psyche. It travelled freely from the conscious to the unconscious and represented the masculine and feminine, chthonian and apollonian. The final painting in the series, a triptych, completes the narrative and stands alone as a salutatory work. It unites the series by combining existing compositional devices and technique while making reference to imagery from previous works, ‘The Three Graces Victorious’, expresses the authority of the feminine. It completes a victorious stage of a journey where the harlequin is empowered by archaic memories and knowledge of the psyche. The feminine is hailed, elevated and venerated. Other elements which assist in expressing the visual narrative are; colour, technique and influence. Colour is explored and its use as an emotive devise in expressionism. Paul Klee's writing on the use of colour and it's symbolic meaning and Julia Kristeva's investigation on colour from a psychoanalytic and semiotic view are also discussed. To indicate influences and connections within my oeuvre, reference is also made to the following: Jasper Johns' for his use of imagery in his ‘Four Seasons’ series with it's reference to a journey of maturation and Louise Bourgeois' work which deals with issues of gender, memories and past journeys. Although ‘The Three Graces Victorious’; the concluding painting for the investigation is celebratory and represents a finality to the thesis, it points to further areas that impede feminine development and need future examination. Reference is made to a continuation of the exploratory journey by plotting the Harlequin/Goddesses future directions. Although the Harlequin/Goddess is empowered with newly acquired authority, her future journey does not need to be bound by mathematics or limited by rationality. She does not require power to dominate or gender structures to subjugate, but requires limitless boundaries and contexts. The Harlequin/Goddess's future journey is not fixed.

Within and against performativity : discursive engagement in adult literacy and basic education

The field of adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) has undergone dramatic changes in recent years with the advent of labour market programs, accreditation, competency-based assessment and competitive tendering for program funds. Teachers' working conditions have deteriorated and their professional autonomy has been eroded. ALBE has been increasingly instrumentalised to fulfil the requirements of a marketised economy and conform to its norms. The beliefs and value systems which traditionally underpinned the work of ALBE teachers have been reframed according to the principle of 'performativity' and the demands of the 'performative State' (Lyotard, 1984: 46, Yeatman 1994: 110). The destabilisation of teachers' working lives can be understood as a manifestation of the 'postmodern condition' (Lyotard 1984; Harvey 1989): the collapse of the certainties and purposes of the past; the proliferation of technologies; the impermanence and intensification of work; the commodification of knowledge and curricula; and the dissolving of boundaries between disciplines and fields of knowledge. The critiques of the modernist grand narratives which underpin progressivist and critical approaches to adult literacy pedagogy have further undermined the traditional points of reference of ALBE teachers. In this thesis I examine how teachers are teaching, surviving, resisting, and 'living the contradictions' (Seddon 1994) in the context of struggles to comply with and resist the requirements of performativity. Following Foucault and a number of feminist poststructuralist authors, I have applied the notions of 'discursive engagement' and 'the politics of discourse' (Yeatman 1990a) as a way of theorising the interplay between imposed change and teachers' practice. I explore the discursive practices which take place at the interface between the 'new' policy discourses and older, naturalised discourses; how teachers are engaged by and are engaging with discourses of performativity; how teachers are discursively constructing adult literacy pedagogy; what new, hybrid discourses of 'good practice' are emerging; and the micropractices of resistance which teachers are enacting in their speech and in their practice. My purpose was to develop knowledge which would support the reflexivity of teachers; to enrich the theoretical languages that teachers could draw upon in trying to make sense of their situation; and to use those languages in speaking about the dilemmas of practice. I used participatory action research as a means of producing knowledge about teachers' practices, structured around their agency, and reflecting their standpoint (Harding 1993). I describe two separate action research projects in which teachers of ALBE participated. I reflect on both projects in the light of poststructuralist theory and consider them as instances of what Lather calls 'within/against research' (Lather 1989: 27). I analyse written and spoken texts produced in both projects which reflect teachers' responses to competency-based assessment and other features of the changing context. I use a method of discourse mapping to describe the discursive field and the teachers' discursive practices. Three main configurations of discourse are delineated: 'progressivism', 'professional teacher' and 'performativity'. The teachers mainly position themselves within a hybridising 'progressivist /professional teacher' discourse, as a discourse of resistance to 'performative' discourse. In adapting their pedagogies, the teachers are in some degree taking the language and world view of performativity into their own vocabularies and practices. The discursive picture I have mapped is complex and contradictory. On one hand, the 'progressivist /professional teacher' discourse appears to endure and to take strength from the articulation into it of elements of performative discourse, creating new possibilities for discursive transformation. On the other hand, there are signs that performative discourse is colonising and subsuming progressivist /professional teacher discourse. At times, both of these tendencies are apparent in the one text. Six micropractices of resistance are identified within the texts: 'rational critique', 'objectification', 'subversion', 'refusal', 'humour' and 'the affirmation of desire'. These reflect the teachers' agency in making discursive choices on the micro level of their every day practices. Through those micropractices, the teachers are engaging with and resisting the micropractices and meanings of performativity. I apply the same multi-layered method of analysis to an examination of discursive engagement in pedagogy by analysing a transcript of the teachers' discussion of critical incidents in their classrooms. Their classroom pedagogies are revealed as complex, situated and eclectic. They are combining and integrating their 'embodied' and their 'institutional' powers, both 'seducing' (McWilliam 1995) and 'regulating' (Gore 1993) as they teach. A strong ethical project is apparent in the teachers' sense of social responsibility, in their determination to adhere to valued traditions of previous times, and in their critical self-awareness of the ways in which they use their institutional and embodied powers in the classroom. Finally, l look back on the findings, and reflect on the possibilities of discursive engagement and the politics of discourse as a framework for more strategic practice in the current context. This research provides grounds for hope that, by becoming more self-conscious about how we engage discursively, we might become more strategic in our everyday professional practice. Not withstanding the constraints (evident in this study) which limit the strategic potential of the politics of discourse, there is space for teachers to become more reflexive in their professional, pedagogical and political praxis. Development of more deliberate, self-reflexive praxis might lead to a 'postmodern democratic polities' (Yeatman 1994: 112) which would challenge the performative state and the system of globalised capital which it serves. Short abstract Adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) teachers have experienced a period of dramatic policy change in recent years; in particular, the introduction of competency-based assessment and competitive tendering for program funds. 'Discourse politics' provides a way of theorising the interplay between policy-mediated institutional change and teachers' practice. The focus of this study is 'discursive engagement'; how teachers are engaged by and are engaging with discourses of performativity. Through two action research projects, texts were generated of teachers talking and writing about how they were responding to the challenges, and developing their pedagogies in the new policy environment. These texts have been analysed and several patterns of discursive engagement delineated, named and illustrated. The strategic potential of 'discourse polities' is explored in the light of the findings.

Codes of ethics in large private sector Australian businesses

This thesis deals with codes of ethics in the top 500 companies operating in the private sector in Australia. We seek to answer two questions. First, can businesses adopt codes of ethics in a meaningful way, or are business ethics a contradiction in terms for profit seeking organisations in competitive markets? Second, to what extent do Australia’s top 500 private sector firms show commitment to codes of ethics? A number of ancillary questions are explored to form a picture of the current Australian situation and to compare it to the rest of the world, especially the US and Canada. Chapter 1 discusses these questions and the origins of the author’s interest in business ethics. This chapter develops a focus upon codes of ethics and their role in assisting to establish and maintain an ethical culture. The chapter looks at previous research on codes of ethics and demonstrates a lack of understanding in Australia on the subject and the need for research into it. Also included in Chapter 1 is the plan for the thesis. Chapters 2 to 4 review the literature upon which the thesis is based. In Chapter 2, the meaning of the terms ethics and business ethics are considered. Deontological and teleological approaches are distinguished and a (largely) teleological model of business ethics is developed. This chapter also asks whether business ethics are possible. The contention that ethics may be good for a business’s profit is explored in-depth and the conclusion is reached that ethics should be pursued for its inherent worth regardless of the economic benefit that can be attributed to it. A number of models of ethical decision making are discussed in Chapter 3 starting with Kohlberg and Kramer (1969). This discussion leads to the conclusion that organisations must create an ethical culture for staff if they require them to embrace ethical practices. If this is a correct conclusion, then the role of senior managers becomes critical in the process. Chapter 4 looks further at the role of senior managers, organisational culture and ethical/unethical behaviour in organisations. The conclusion is that senior managers do play an integral part in shaping the culture of an organisation. Their actions, either overtly or covertly, impact upon their staff and highlight behaviour that the organisation is or is not willing to tolerate. Sims (1991) proposed ten ways to foster an ethical culture and these ideas are set out and further explored through the work of other writers on management ethics. Finally, the link between ethics and strategic planning is examined. In Chapter 5 the methods used for empirical data gathering are described and justified. A number of factors that can lead us to consider a company’s ‘commitment’ to ethics are outlined. A survey of Australian companies was the primary means of data collection. Each question in the survey instrument is listed and explained. Also the survey response rate is reported, as are major demographic characteristics of respondents. Chapter 6 provides the research findings from the survey of the top 500 companies operating in the private sector in Australia. The research examines: i) the current Australian usage and implementation of codes of ethics; ii) the measures put in place in organisations in order to support a code; From this analysis conclusions are drawn about the ‘commitment’ of companies operating in Australia to codes of ethics. Australian companies are becoming aware of the potential of code usage. Companies operating in Australia that have codes appear to be good at implementing codes and examining staff performance in relation to codes. However, they lack the procedures that incorporate education and training and the implementation of the support mechanisms necessary to enhance employee understanding of the code. In Chapter 7, Australian codes are compared to American and Canadian codes for similarity and disparity. The assessment found that in all three countries codes are primarily concerned with company continuance. Australian codes do tend to be more socially oriented than in the other two countries and also less legalistic. Chapter 8 looks at 4 companies from the first survey that were asked for more in-depth information in a quest to determine current best practice in Australia. These organisations were chosen because they appeared, from the first survey instrument, to have put in place mechanisms to assist employees to better understand the code. The implication is that companies must make a conscious, positive effort to ensure that employees are considered in the process of ethical development. They should have input into the process, rather than just being directed to follow another management initiative. The final chapter summarises the research findings and looks at answers to the two major questions and the seven subordinate empirical questions posed at the start of the thesis. The conclusion reached is that companies operating in Australia appear to be moving towards establishing codes of ethics. Those who already have codes display a real commitment to them. The movement appears to be gathering momentum as more organisations see the value of incorporating ethical business practices into the every day workings of their individual companies. Generally, most Australian companies lag behind the rest of the world, but the pace-setting companies are defining their own best practice and achieving positive outcomes for themselves, their employees and other stakeholders.

Second person : a point of view? The function of the second person pronoun in narrative prose fiction

This thesis looks at the functions and effects of the ‘second-person’ pronoun in narrative prose fiction, with particular focus on the fluidity and ambiguity of the mode that I will call Protean-'you.' It is a mode in which it is unclear whether the ‘you’ is a character, the narrator, a reader/narratee, or no-one in particular—or a combination of these—so that readers find ‘second-person’ utterances at once familiar and deeply strange. I regard the ‘second person’ as a special case of narrative ‘person’ that, at its most fluid, can produce an experience of reading quite unlike that of reading traditional ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ narrative. Essentially, this unique experience comes about because Protean-‘you’ neglects to constitute the stable modes of subjectivity that readers expect to find within narrative textuality. These stable modes of subjectivity, modelled on what I will refer to as Cartesianism’s hegemonic notion of the self, have been thoroughly formalised and naturalised within the practices of ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ narrative. The Protean-‘you’ form of ‘second-person’ narrative, conversely, is a mode of narrative discourse that puts readers in a place of doubt and uncertainty, its unsettling equivocations forcefully disrupting accustomed, mimetic explanations of narrative and denying us access to the foundational, authorising subject of classical Cartesian thought. Rather than founding a notion of ‘second-person’ narrative and narrative ‘person’ generally on Cartesianism's ‘self-ish’ logic of unified, privatised identity, I turn to C.S, Peirce's notion of the semiotic self and to developments in post-structuralist thought. Essentially, the conception of subjectivity underpinning my arguments is Peirce's proposition that the self is to be conceived of not as a cogito, but as a sign by which the conscious entity knows itself. It is a sign, moreover, that is constantly being re-read, reinterpreted, so that identity is never self-complete. This reconception of subjectivity is necessary because 1 will argue that the effects of Protean-‘you’ arise in some part from a tension between Cartesianism's hegemony and what philosophical pragmatism and post-structuralism glimpse as the actual condition of the human subject—the subject as dispersed and contingent rather than unified and authoritative. Most discussions of ‘second-person’ narrative conceive of the mode in terms of implicit communicative relations, in some measure instituting Cartesianism's notion of the intentionalist self at the centre of literary meaning. I contrast the paradigmatic address model that arises from this conception against a model that approaches the analysis of ‘second-person’ narrative modality in terms of a referential function, that is, in terms of the object or objects referred to deictically by the ‘second-person’ pronoun. Two principal functions of ‘second-person’ textuality are identified and discussed at length. The first is generalisation, which is rarely dissipated altogether, a situation that contributes to the ambiguities of the pronoun's reference in much ‘second-person’ fiction. The second principal function is that of address, that is, the allocutionary function. Clearly, although stories that continually refer to a ‘you’ can seem quite baffling and unnatural, not all ‘second-person’ narratives unsettle the reader. In order to make the ‘second person's’ outlandish narratives knowable and stable, we bring to bear on them in our habits of reading whatever hermeneutic frames, whatever interpretive keys, come to hand, including a large number of unexceptional forms of literary and ‘natural’ discourse that employ the ‘second-person’ pronoun. These forms include letter writing and internal dialogue (i.e., talking to one's self), the language of the courtroom, the travelogue, the maxim, and so on. In looking at the ways in which the radicalising potentials of ‘second-person’ discourse are contained or recuperated, I focus on issues of vraisemblance and mimesis. Vraisemblance can be described as the ‘system of conventions and expectations which rests on/reinforces that more general system of ‘mutual knowledge’ produced within a community for the realisation and maintenance of a whole social world’. All of the forms of the vraisemblable are already instituted within social, cultural relations, so that what vraisemblance describes is the way we fit the inscriptions we read-that is, the way in which we naturalise what we read-into those given cultural and social forms. I also look at the conventionalising and naturalising work done by notions of mimesis in explaining relations between the world, our being in it, and texts, proposing that mimesis provides a principle buttress by which the good standing of the metaphor of ‘person’ is preserved in traditional and pre-critical modes of analysis. Indeed, the critic’s recourse to ‘person’ is in some measure always an engagement with mimesis. Any discussion that maintains that mimesis is in some way productive of meaning-which this thesis in fact does-must identify mimesis as a merely conventional category within practices of reading and semiosis more generally, and at the very least remove that term from its traditional position of transparent primacy and authority. Some of the most interesting and insightful arguments about ‘second-person’ narrative propose that the ‘second person’s’ most striking effects derive from the constitution of an ‘intersubjective’ experience of reading in which the subject positions of the ‘you’-protagonist, reader-narratee and narrator are combined into a fluid and indeterminate multiple subjectivity. Notions of intersubjectivity frequently position themselves as liberating the reader from Cartesianism's fixed, authoritative modes of subjectivity, Frequently, however, they tend implicitly to reinstate Cartesianism's notion of the self at the centre of textual practice and subjectivity. I look at Daniel Gunn's novel ‘Almost You’, at length in this context, illustrating the constant overdetermination of the ‘you’ and the novel's narrating voice, and demonstrating that this overdetermination leaves the origin of the narrative discourse, the identity of the narrator, and the ontological nature of both principal protagonists utterly ambiguous. The fluidity and ambiguity of Protean-‘you’ in ‘Almost You’ is discussed in terms of ‘second-person’ intersubjectivity, but with a view to demonstrating the indebtedness by the notion of intersubjectivity to Cartesianism's hegemony of ‘person’. I then turn to a discussion of what might be a more ‘old fashioned’ if perhaps ultimately more far-reaching approach to the ‘second person’s’ often startling ambiguities. This is Keats's notion of negative capability, a capacity or quality in which a person ‘is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.’ I suggest that Protean-‘you’ texts will license all of the readings of ambiguity and fluidity proposed in my discussion of ‘Almost You’, but conclude that the instances of indeterminacy illustrate no more than that: the fluidity and deep ambiguity, and thus, finally, the lack of coherence, of Protean-‘you’ discourse. This has particular implications for how we are to consider readers’ experiences of narrative texts. More fundamentally, it has implications for how we are to consider readers as subjects. I suggest that unstable, ambiguous instances of ‘second-person’ narrative can tear the complex and systematic embroidery of ideological suture that unifies Cretinism’s experience or sense of subjectivity, leaving the reader in a condition of epistemological and ontological havoc. I go on to argue that much of the deeply unsettling effect of Protean-‘you’ discourse anises because its utterances explicitly gesture towards Cretinism’s notion of self. Protean-‘you’ involves a sense of address that is much more pronounced than we are accustomed to facing when reading literary narrative, alerting us to the presence of inscribed anthropomorphic subjects. At the very same time, protean-‘you’ leaves its inscribed subjects indeterminate, ambiguous. This conflict generates a tension between the anticipation of the emergence of speaking and listening selves and our inability to find them. I go on to propose that Protean-‘you’ narrative's lack of coherence is also to be understood as the condition of narrative actuality generally, but a condition that is vigorously mediated against by dominant practices of reading and writing, hocusing my discussion in this respect on the issue of narrative ‘person,’ I argue that narrative ‘person’ is constituted within texts as an apparent unity, but that it is in fact, produced as unitary solely within the practice of making sense, that is, Within our habits of reading, and so is never finally unified. I propose that this is the case for ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ modes no less than for the ‘second.’ Where ‘second-person’ narrative at its most radical and Protean differs from conventional ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ narratives is the degree to which each has been circumscribed by practices of tantalization, containment and limit, and, in particular, Cretinism’s hegemony of ‘person.’ It may be that the most significant insights ‘second-person’ narrative has to offer are to be found within its capacity to reveal to the engaged reader the underlying condition of narrative discourse, and more generally, its capacity to reveal the actual condition of the human subject-a condition in which, exactly like its textual corollary of narrative ‘person,’ the self is glimpsed as thoroughly dispersed and contingent.

Adolescent girls in physical education and sport : an analysis of influences on participation

This study investigates the influences on participation in physical activity of thirty adolescent girls from a metropolitan secondary school in Victoria. It seeks to understand how they perceived, experienced and explained their involvement or non involvement in both competitive and non competitive physical activity during four years of their secondary schooling. Participants experienced physical education as both a single sex group in Years 7 and 9 and a coeducational group in Years 8 and 10. They were exposed to a predominantly competitive curriculum in Years 7 to 9 and a less structured, more social, recreational program in Year 10. These experiences enabled them to compare the differences between class structures and activity programs and identify the significant issues which impacted on their participation. Large Australian population studies have revealed that fewer girls participated in sport and regular physical activity than boys. An important consequence is that girls miss out on the health benefits associated with participating in physical activity. Other research has found adolescence is the time that girls drop out of competitive sport. However, an important issue is whether girls who drop out of competitive sport cease to be involved in any physical activity. There are some studies which have reported good participation rates by adolescent girls in non competitive, recreational forms of physical activity and the possibility exists that they may drop out of competitive and into non competitive physical activity. This study primarily utilises a qualitative approach in contrast to previous studies which have largely relied upon the use of surveys and questionnaires. Whilst quantitative research has provided useful information about the bigger picture, there are limitations caused by reliance on the researchers' own interpretations of the data. Additionally there is no opportunity for any clarification and explanation of findings and trends by the respondents themselves. The current study utilized qualitative individual and collective interviews in three stages. Questions were asked in the broad areas of coeducation and single sex classes, preferences for competitive or recreational activity and body image issues. Some quantitative information focusing on nature and extent of current activity patterns was also gathered in the first stage. Thirty Year 10 girls participated in individual first interviews. Nine selected girls then took part in the second (individual) and third (collective) interview stages. Results revealed three groups based on the nature of physical activity involvement: [1] competitive activity group, [2] social activity group and [3] transition group. The transition group represented those who were in the process of withdrawing from competitive sport to take up more non competitive, recreational activity. The most significant difference between groups was skill level. On the whole those entering adolescence with the highest skill levels, such as those in the competitive group, were the most confident and relished competing against others. The social group was low in skill and confidence and had predominantly negative experiences in physical education and sport because their deficiencies were plainly visible to all. Similarly, a lack of skill improvement relative to those of 'better performers' affected the interest and confidence levels of those in the transition group. Boys' domination in coeducational classes through verbal and physical intimidation of the less competent and confident girls and exclusion of very competent girls was a major issue. Social and transition group members demonstrated compliance with boys' power by hanging back and sitting out of competitive activities. Conversely, the competitive group resisted boy's attempts to dominate but had to work hard to demonstrate their athletic capabilities in order to do so. Body image issues such as the skimpy physical education and sport uniform along with body revealing activities such as swimming and gymnastics, heightened feelings of self-consciousness and embarrassment for most girls. When strategies were adopted by social and transition group members to avoid any body exposure or physical humiliation, participation levels were subsequently affected. However, where girls felt confident about their physical abilities and body image, they were able to ignore their unflattering uniforms and thus participation was unaffected. Specific teaching practices such as giving more attention to boys, for example by segregating the sexes in mixed classes to focus attention on boys, reinforced stereotypical notions of gender and contributed to the inequities for girls in physical education. The competitive group were frustrated with having to prove themselves as capable as boys in order to receive greater teacher attention. The transition group rejected teacher's attempts to coerce them into participating in the inter school sports program. The social group believed that teachers viewed and treated them less favourably than others because of their limited skills. Girls were not passive in the face of these obstacles. Rather than give up physical activity they disengaged from competitive sport and took up other forms of activity which they had the confidence to perform. These activity choices also reflected their expanding social interests such as spending time with male and female friends outside school and increased demands on their time by study and part time work commitments. This study not only highlighted the diversity and complexity of attitudes and behaviours of girls towards physical activity but also demonstrated that they display agency in making conscious, sensible decisions about their physical activity choices. Plain Language Summary of Thesis Adolescent girls in physical education and sport; An analysis of influences on participation by Julia Whitty Submitted for the degree of Master of Applied Science Deakin University Supervisor: Dr Judy Ann Jones This study investigates the influences on participation in physical activity of thirty adolescent girls from a metropolitan secondary school in Victoria in order to understand how girls' perceived, experienced and explained their involvement or non involvement in both competitive and non competitive physical activity. Qualitative individual and collective interviews were conducted. Questions focussed on attitudes about coeducation and single sex classes, preferences for competitive or recreational activity and feelings about body image. Some quantitative information about the nature and extent of current activity patterns was also gathered in the first stage. Thirty Year 10 girls participated in individual first interviews. Nine selected girls then took part in the second (individual) and third (collective) interview stages. Results revealed three clearly different groups based on the nature of physical activity involvement (1) Competitive, (2) Social and (3) Transition (those in the process of withdrawing from competitive sport to take up more non competitive, recreational activity). The major difference between groups was skill level. Those entering adolescence with the highest skill levels were more competent and confident in the coeducational and competitive sport setting. Other significant issues included boys' domination, body image and teaching behaviours and practices.

Rewriting Australian planning from the margins

If planning is the conscious formulation of a preferred.future and deliberate actions to realise that future in the landscape, then Indigenous Australians have long been involved in planning settlements and regions. Yet such actions - pre and post-contact - are absent from the history of Australian planning, as evidenced by some major texts on the subject. That also passes without serious comment in the planning literature and contemporary practice are the theoretical implications of admitting key aspects of recent Indigenous history - such as prior occupancy, ongoing sovereignty, resistance strategies, ghettoisation and Native Title. There are, therefore, significant gaps in the history and theory of Australian planning which impact negatively on its current teaching and practice. The consequences of such omissions range.from incomplete histories to ongoing injustices in Australian planning practice. My larger research project will collate these absences before reworking the history of Australian planning from the perspective of those systematically excluded from it -women, migrants from racially marked non-white backgrounds and Indigenous Australians. This paper will consider only a small part of this larger project. It will first examine some of the key texts which construct the history of Australian planning before examining one place - Lake Condah in Western Victoria - as one site of permanent settlement by the Gundijmara people who lived in stone houses arrayed in villages around an engineered sophisticated fish farming enterprise. Here then is but one example - admittedly subject to contestation over its scale, anthropological and archaeological fundamentals - which challenges the view of indigenous Australians as not only nomadic and "primitive" but also as legitimately placed outside the history of Australian planning. I will conclude by speculating on what this example might mean to any reworking of that history.

Addressing declining metropolitan park use : a case study of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

One might expect natural area visitation to offer time-conscious leisure seekers a competitive, low-cost alternative to the vast array of activities available in a major metropolitan area. However, data obtained by Parks Victoria revealed that there has been a decline in the number of regional visitors to Melbourne's metropolitan parks over the past few years. Interviews with regional visitors highlighted the importance of the role that their Melbourne-based friends and relatives were as an information resource. This article investigates the reasons for the decline in park visitation by incorporating the viewpoints of both regional visitors and residents of Melbourne. Focus groups and in-depth interviews provided useful information about pull factors of metropolitan parks and how these parks should be promoted to attract more visitors.

Exporting sports rights to overseas markets : the case of European football

In recent years major European clubs have become conscious of the need to develop a wider, more global approach to their existence in order to increase revenues. There have increasingly been developments involving clubs attempting to forge relationships with major Asian markets. The essay focuses on factors influencing the international trade of input (talent) and output (football TV programmes) – covering both the supply and the demand sides. It illustrates how the development in recent years has widened the revenue gaps between the ‘big five’ European nations and the rest of the world – and its consequences for the distribution of talent in the football world.

A grounded theory of intuition among occupational therapists in mental health practice

Objectives: This study aimed to explore occupational therapists’ understanding and use of intuition in mental health practice.
Method: Using a grounded theory approach, a theoretical sample of nine occupational therapists practising in mental health settings participated in semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using the constant comparative method.
Findings: Intuition was found to be embedded within clinical reasoning. From the data, intuition was defined as knowledge without conscious awareness of reasoning. The participants viewed intuition as elusive and underground, and suggested that professional experience led to a more comfortable use of intuition. Using intuition relied on therapists’ understanding of their own and others’ emotions, and intuition partnered analysis within their clinical reasoning. A grounded theory of the use of intuition in mental health settings is proposed.
Conclusion: Occupational therapists practising in mental health settings understand intuition to be an instinctive understanding of situations, resulting from their professional experience and the understanding of emotions.

Utilizing and adapting leisure constraints models to enhance 'short-break' vacations : case study of Melbourne, Australia

Short-break tourism is likely to continue as a popular vacation for time-, income- and special interest conscious tourists. With the competition for visitors, destinations need to consider the constraints and facilitators associated with tourist decision-making for short-break vacations. This study presents the application of a leisure model toward better explaining such vacation choices. This study found key constraints, such as time and awareness, inhibited visitors from visiting attractions. The importance and influence of word-of-mouth recommendations plays a key role in gaining the attention of future visitors.

Writing as tribal practice : revisiting online collaborative writing

Many teachers encourage sharing ideas and knowledge through collaborative group writing to build self-confidence in developing writers. However, some students do not appear to gain a sense of belonging in the collaborative experience. This evolving study explores online collaborative writing with the purpose of creating a 'third author' - the group (tribal) voice. One aim is to reclaim writing as a conscious collaborative act where meaning is attained only at the end of the thought-sharing process. Therefore, the process of writing is seen as more important than the product. A further aim is to observe how intensive writing collaboration will affect both the writers and the writing during the process. A group of language teachers from Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and the USA meet every two weeks in cyberspace for a two-hour intensive writing session. The group has met for the past three months. Different discourses appear to be fusing into a metamorphosed new hybrid author - the tribal group voice. These early findings suggest that such practices may assist learners who experience difficulty entering or contributing to collaborative writing or group-work tasks. Additionally, online group work may benefit, as no physical human contact exists to gain a sense of 'group'.

The role of NCCP time for enhancing children's creativity in technology

The focus of our research project was the question Can children‘s creativity be enhanced by including a period of non-conscious cognitive process (NCCP) time? During this non-thinking time the brain makes connections between independent ideas, forgets inappropriate responses, and makes available more relevant responses for problem solving. The research generated cases of several primary school classrooms as the teachers incorporated NCCP time in their design technology sessions. Children were observed and teachers interviewed about their perceptions of children‘s creativity as the children designed and produced recycling devices. The cases revealed an optimum time frame of several days for nonconscious cognitive processing. These findings have implications for teachers of technology who assign the same day and time each week for technology learning. During the non-task time, which included the NCCP time, children were able to discuss their ideas with family members. As children learn in socio-cultural contexts, these discussions can be fruitful. The teachers indicated that peer discussions also played an important role after the generation of designs.