Gender inequality and education : changing local/global relations in a ‘post colonial’ world and the implications for feminist research

This article explores the relationship between education reform and gender equity, both within and between nation states. Utilising feminist critical policy analysis and post-colonial theory, it examines how education reform over the past decade has impacted on gender equity, and how educational reform is itself gendered. It considers the nature of gender restructuring; maps significant shifts in gender equity policy in the wider context of educational and social inequality debates; and through an analysis of recent research on gender identity, schooling and leadership argues that gender can no longer be privileged when identifying and responding to educational inequality. Key assumptions underpinning how social change and education reform delivers equity are questioned, concluding with feminist theorising about how social justice may inform equity policy and practice in culturally diverse educational contexts.

Gender inequality and education: changing local/global relations in a ‘post-colonial’ world and the implications for feminist research

This chapter explores the relationship between education reform and gender equity, both within and between nation states. Utilising feminist critical policy analysis and post-colonial theory, it examines how education reform over the past decade has impacted on gender equity and how educational reform is itself gendered. It considers the nature of gender restructuring, maps significant shifts in gender equity policy in the wider context of educational and social inequality debates and, through an analysis of recent research on gender identity, schooling and leadership, argues that gender can no longer be privileged when identifying and responding to educational inequality. Key assumptions underpinning how social change and education reform deliver equity are questioned, concluding with feminist theorising about how social justice may inform equity policy and practice in culturally diverse educational contexts.

Constructing inclusive education in a neo-liberal context : promoting inclusion of Arab-Australian students in an Australian context

School systems are a major social change agent capable of challenging social inequalities and economic disadvantages. Yet, while schools in Australia are being confronted with increasingly culturally diverse populations as well as an increasing focus on student retention, this transformative role is increasingly being played out in a broader educational context that has been found to replicate rather than challenge patterns of social inequality. Successive governments in Australia have responded to this context with a raft of policy initiatives. This paper, based on three-year longitudinal research undertaken in the city of Melbourne, outlines this policy context and introduces the theoretical approach that underpins its innovative approach to managing cultural diversity in educational institutions. It argues for, and presents, a multidimensional model for managing cultural diversity in schools, one that provides the tools for transformative practices to be undertaken to effect positive change in school environments for the benefit of all students.

Cultural diversity in the Australian classroom and the experience of Arab-Muslim students

Table of Contents : Preface Introduction 1. Building the Australia-India Relationship- Bruce Bennett 2. Plural Cultures, Monolithic Structures- Kapila Vatsyayan 3. The Homogenised Other: Cultural Diversity and Social Inequality- Alan Mayne 4. Deliberative Democracy and Modern Pluralism- Subrata Mukherjee 5. ‘A long and winding road’. From Cultural Homogeneity to a Multicultural Society: An Analysis of Inclusion and Exclusion in Australia- David Roberts 6. Limits of Multiculturalism in a Liberal Polity: Need for a Shared Identity-Sushila Ramaswamy 7. “Australia is a Multicultural Community –you’ll feel at home”:Cultural Diversity and the Promotion of Australia Internationally- Andrew Hassam 8. Accommodation of Cultural Diversity in India: Reflections on Past and Present- Abdulrahim P. Vijapur 9. Gandhian Ideas on Cultural Diversity and Unity in India- Sailaja Gullapalli 10. Multiculturalism: Australian and Indian Approach-Sonu Trivedi 11. Post Colonial Formation, Paradigm Consolidation and Economic Marginalization- S. Ram Vemuri 12. Dalits and Indigenous Australians: Affirmative Actions and Existing Realities- Swaraj Basu 13. Exploring a Critical Tradition in Communications Research: A Cultural Discourse- Amita Singh 14. Education and Empowerment: Dalits and the Demand for Modern Education in Colonial India- Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay 15. Recent Developments in Indian Migration to Australia (with Special Reference to Academics)- Graeme Hugo and Gouranga Lal Dasvarma 16. Cultural Diversity in the Australian Classroom and the Experience of Arab-Muslim Students- Sally Percival Wood 17. Working Australia Efficiency and Equity- Liz Hall 18. North-East India’s Cultural Diversity: Trends of Unrest and Marginalization- Sudhir Jacob George 19. Socio-economic Inequities of Tribal Communities in India- Priti Singh 20. Reinventing Australian Identity-D. Gopal 21. Identity and Rights of the Diaspora in the Post-colonial Era- R. Narayanan 22. Understanding Cultural Diversity: Reflections from the Americas- Satya R. Pattnayak Contributors Index

New teachers, professional knowledge and educational reform in New Zealand

This thesis examines the professional knowledge of new secondary school teachers in New Zealand, their negotiation of multiple discourses encountered in policy and practice, and their processes of professional identity formation. It is also a study of policy reform. In New Zealand, as elsewhere, recent educational and social reforms have brought about major changes to the way education is managed and implemented. These reforms emphasise market ideologies promoting consumer choice and responsibility, while measuring and monitoring quality and effectiveness. At the same time, the reforms attempt to alleviate social inequality. Teachers' negotiation of an accountability culture and the dominant equity policies is a major focus of this study. The study draws upon group interviews held with nine new teachers during the first two years of their teaching careers. The group interviews were designed to elicit extended narratives from individual teachers, as well as promote more interactive dialogue and reflections within the groups. Because the interviews were conducted at different points in their early careers, the study also has a longitudinal element, allowing insight into how teachers' views are formed or changed during an intense period of professional learning. Analysis of the teachers' narratives is informed by poststructural and feminist understandings of identity and knowledge and by a methodological orientation to writing as a method of enquiry. The thesis develops three main types of discussion and sets of arguments. The first examines new teachers' negotiation of the 'macro' context of teacher knowledge formation that is, their negotiation of an educational policy environment that juxtaposes an equity agenda with accountability controls. In order to historically situate these dilemmas, the particular political, social and educational context of New Zealand is examined. It is argued that teachers negotiate competing political and conceptual debates about social justice, equity and difference, and that this negotiation is central to the formation of professional knowledge. The analysis illustrates ways in which teachers make sense of equity discourses in educational policy and practice, and the apparent contradictions that arise from placing tight accountability standards on schools and teachers to achieve associated equity goals. The second type of discussion focuses on teachers' negotiation of the 'micro' dimension of professional knowledge, looking closely at the processes and practices that form professional identity. Against stage or developmental models of teacher identity, it is argued that professional identity is formed in an ongoing, uneven and fluid manner and is socially and discursively situated/embedded. It is further argued that professional knowledge and identity are entwined and that this relationship is most usefully understood through analysis of the discursive practices that frame teachers' working lives and through which teachers work out who they are or should become and what and how they (should) think. This analysis contributes new perspectives to debates in teacher education about teacher preparation and the knowledge required of teachers in current 'new times'. The final cluster of arguments brings together these macro and micro aspects of professional knowledge and identity with a case study of how new teachers negotiated a recent educational reform of senior secondary school qualifications in New Zealand. This reform has had a significant impact on secondary schools and on the way teachers, and New Zealanders in general, think about education, achievement and success. It was found that this reform significantly challenged new teachers to question their beliefs about assessment and justice in education, and what counts as success. This case study draws attention to the tensions between equity, academic excellence and standards-based assessment, and contributes to understanding how teacher professional knowledge forms both in the context of a specific educational policy reform and in relation to educational reform in general. This study contributes new knowledge to the formation of teacher professional knowledge and identity in an educational climate of change in New Zealand. The findings offer new insights for teacher educators, policymakers and schools into how teachers build, shape and sustain professional knowledge; how they juggle contradictions between a desire for justice, policy imperatives and teacher education rhetoric; the self-constructed, but contingent nature of professional knowledge and identity; and the urgency to address identity formation as part of teacher education and to take account of the dynamic ways in which identities form. These matters need to be articulated in teacher education both pre-service and in-service in order to address teacher retention and satisfaction, and teachers' commitment to equity reform in education.

Changing bodies, changing discourses : women's experiences of early menopause

Early menopause has been constructed by discourses of biological determinism as an untimely, but natural, failure of the female body. Medical discourses in particular have interpreted early menopause as a congenital irregularity and a rare anomaly of menopause at midlife. In this thesis I challenge the notion that early menopause is an innate imperfection related only to women’s age. I propose that early menopause is dependent upon the cultural interpretations of individual women and is constituted through the mercurial and multiple discourses of women who have this embodied experience. Moreover, I reveal that early menopause is a contemporary condition and that its location in history is inextricably bound to discourses of risk, naturalism and the self. Further I make the assumption that having an early menopause both affects and is an effect of women’s fertility, sexuality and subjectivity. I have drawn upon a broad range of sources to provide a sociological analysis of early menopause. Literature on early menopause is dominated by positivist discourses, yet many alternate discourses negotiate these influential constructions. I suggest here that the perception of early menopause as a natural fault is merely a construction by medical discourses and does not incorporate the dynamic discourses of early-menopausal women. Moreover, the restriction of early menopause to a genetic female failure excludes the majority of women who have an early menopause through iatrogenisis. This omission occurs through the failure of positivist discourses to accommodate diversity in discourses. Recent sociological and feminist studies have vindicated menopausal women. They have reconstructed menopause through notions of embodiment and have removed the veil of negativity used by the medical sciences to contain menopausal women (Komesaroff, Rothfield and Daly 1997). The visibility of menopausal women, however, remains connected to age. Menopause has been created as a predictable consequence of aging and as such has come to be synonymous with middle age. Nowadays, even men are said to experience menopause at midlife (Carruthers 1996). But early menopause is constituted within the discourses of women who have this experience. Medico-scientific discourses, based upon theories of genetic inevitability, disregard this perspective. Consequently early menopause is subsumed by naturalistic discourses that relate menopause to midlife. Such restraint reflects the unease created by menopause that does not coincide with prescribed life stages. Women's experiences of their changing bodies are largely unheard. Thus, women who have an early menopause are faced with a chasm of ‘cultural non-recognition’ (Fraser 1997). Conjointly with this discursive repression early-menopausal women face social imbalances that are transacted as both cause and consequence of early menopause. In particular the contemporary creation of early menopause is bound to the social and historical location of women as a group. Women are exploited by the institution of medicine, ‘exposure to environmental toxicity’ (Fraser 1997: 11) and commercialization as causes of early menopause. Yet the corporeal effects of practices of risk avoidance (Beck 1993), social practices (Shilling 1993) and Western consumerism (Lupton 1994) fail to be recognized. I address these problematics through a poststructural and feminist critique that assumes moments of commonality among women, while at the same time recognizes shifting and multiple differences (Nicholson 1999). I suggest here that early menopause falls into cultural misrecognition in Fraser's (1997) terms and argue that it is united concurrently with the gender injustice of androcentrism (Fraser 1997: 21). Fraser (1997: 16) suggests that it is only by relating these dual problematics that we are able to make sense of current dilemmas. Thus I have critiqued early menopause through a connection between individual embodied experiences of early menopause and early menopause as a modern phenomenon that is specific to women. I have attempted to unravel these arguments that simultaneously call to ‘... abolish gender differentiation and to valorize gender specificity’ (Fraser 1997: 21) while at the same time acknowledging their interconnectedness. An approach of merely combining women’s discourses with overarching social issues would be inadequate as not only do these problematics intersect but they also can be opposed. As Fraser (1997: 25) notes with her theory, redressing one aspect of cultural or social analysis can further imbalance another. For instance making visible the diversity and uniqueness of individual experiences of early menopause could detract from acknowledging the contemporary construction of early menopause through social inequality. Crucial to this understanding is a destabilizing of the binary construction of differences between the sexes that makes way for a reconstruction of early menopause through ‘sexual slippage’ (Matus 1995). In this thesis I look for a subtlety between the particular and the collective that views early menopause as concurrently a singular and changeable experience as well as imbedded in social practice. I suggest that these concepts are entwined as interactive effects of early menopause. Thus I have analyzed the bivalent problematics of the embodiment and social location of early menopause as imbricated, dynamic and unending discourses. From this perspective I reviewed the literature that was available on early menopause. In Chapter One I look to descriptions of early menopause and note that it has disappeared into a conglomeration of disparate, mostly medical, discourses that are contradictory. Nevertheless medical discourses offer ‘conclusive’ definitions of early menopause that are based on naturalistic views of the body (Shilling 1994). The determinants used are inconsistent and do not include women's discourses of early menopause. Thus, dominant medical discourses obscure women’s embodied experiences of early menopause and ignore the contemporary causes of early menopause. In Chapter Two I examine the causes of early menopause as a way of explaining the disparity between medical discourses and my anecdotal observations of early menopause as a fairly common contemporary occurrence. The relatively recent escalation in gynaecological surgery, especially hysterectomy, appears to account almost single-handedly for early menopause as a current phenomenon. Moreover, the extraordinary number of women who have their uterus removed at hysterectomy can be interpreted as a modern implementation of ancient anxieties. Women's sexuality has been constructed throughout history as problematic and this unease has been translated through women's bodies as dangerous and in need of control (Greer 1992). Thus social concerns which have evolved historically have emerged through the representation of a woman's uterus as an unseen, dark and mysterious risk (Beck 1993). Medical discourses define this risk and are able to negate the so-called dangers of women's sexuality through the surgical removal of their organs. Widespread negotiation of medical discourses is apparent, as hysterectomy in the modern Western world is the most common of all surgical operations (Hufnagel 1989). It is overwhelmingly the most common cause of early menopause as well. I examine also the historical condemnation of infertile women and how this anxiety has been transposed to the modern world through the commercialization of reproduction. Transactions of this social unease can cause early menopause. For instance the medical technology of in-vitro fertilization (I.V.F.) has been offered as a panacea for the infertility of early menopause but, paradoxically, can cause early menopause as well. Conception through technology has been normalized as a viable option for women who are unable to conceive and understandings of I.V.F. have moved into everyday discourse. Medical discourses have constructed fertility as a saleable item and infertile women expect that they can purchase this merchandise. Human eggs have become lucrative commodities that now are available in the market place. Egg ‘donation’ for I.V.F. programs can hasten the attrition rate of eggs and can cause early menopause in some pre-menopausal women (Rowland 1992: 24). Even the recycling of a woman’s uterus supposedly has become a possibility through the transferring of this ‘used’ organ at hysterectomy to a recipient woman who can use the other woman’s uterus as a ‘gestational garage’ (Rogers 1998). In this way women have been disembodied as mechanical systems with inter-changeable body parts and the potentially detrimental consequences of these commercial transactions are ignored. In addition I show how early menopause can be caused by the connection between the self and the social structure. Women's subjectivity is constituted through the cultural discourses available to them and these discourses affect social behaviour (Lupton 1995). For instance smoking and dieting have been identified as causes of early menopause. These activities have been related to the creation of women’s bodies as hetero-sexually desirable and are endemic to young women (Evans-Young 1995). This suggests that cultural causes of early menopause are transactions of sexual politics. Yet there is a paucity of literature that acknowledges the relationship between women’s subjectivity and early menopause. Thus the second chapter exposes a link between sexual politics and causes of early menopause through women's relationships with risk, naturalism and the self. In Chapter Three I deconstruct early menopause through theoretical considerations. I rely on an overarching poststructuralism that embraces the concept of fragmented plural discourses and the subjectivity of menopausal women as a continuous process (Komesaroff 1997: 61). I have woven these variables through broad feminist critiques (Leonard 1997). Through this eclectic approach I hoped to find some loose alignment between the corporeal, ontological and embodied dimensions of early menopause. The recurring themes of sexuality, fertility and subjectivity emerge through deconstructing discourses of sexual difference as immutable and non-negotiable; exposing ‘premature ovarian failure’ as a discursive construction that censures early-menopausal women; and acknowledging the discourses of individual women as unique, diverse and dynamic. I looked to a method of exposing some of these individual discourses and in Chapter Four I describe a critical research process aimed at understanding early menopause as a lived experience. In the remaining chapters I align these ontological arguments with an analysis of the discourses of women who had experienced or were experiencing an early menopause. This section partly relieves the ‘cultural non-recognition’ of the discourses of early-menopausal women. I recorded the narratives of fifty early-menopausal women through in-depth interviews and used this empirical data to direct the study. This data provides the opportunity to understand early menopause as an assortment of embodied experiences. For instance women’s experiences of age at commencement of menopause spanned over three and half decades. They did not reflect the age specifications prescribed by medical discourses. Rather women interpreted their experiences within their own discourses and determined their menopause as early based upon the expectations of their cultural context. Many of the women experienced changes attributed to menopause at midlife. It was not these changes that were significant to early-menopausal women it was how each woman translated these changes that provided meanings of early menopause. In Chapter Five I introduce the women through a table that connects the varying experiences of each woman. This profile shows that, in the main, the women’s experiences of early menopause were unexpected. I suggest that this is due to the disparity between early-menopausal women’s experiences and the current age and social norms of menopause. By bracketing the women into cohorts patterns emerged displaying differences between women who had menopause in their teens, twenties, thirties and forties. Adolescent women had intense feelings of abnormality and despair. Women who were in their twenties were less devastated by menopause than the younger women but described their sexuality and self-identity as changing. And although some women in their thirties were shocked or dismayed to have an early menopause others were ambivalent or happy. These women also described their sexuality and self-identity through changing discourses. A number of the women who were in their forties said that they were ‘too young for the menopause’ but were far less despondent than the younger women. It seemed that the greater the distance between age norms and social norms the more negatively women responded. Age norms that determine the social norms of women's lives through a ‘biological clock’ are constructed to reflect social values. But age is a social construction that changes over time. Thus it would appear that women’s changing bodies and changing discourses of early menopause are in the process of recreating age and social norms around menopause. In Chapter Six I draw upon women’s narratives that describe a connection between early menopause and sexuality. Yet the respondents were not unified in their constructions of sexuality. For instance a number of the women rejected the containment of their sexuality as absolute and defined in terms of bi-lateral hetero-sexual opposition. The discourses of these women constructed their sexuality as continuously flexible. Some early-menopausal women described this sexual mobility as an equivocal relationship between their sexuality, reproductive capacity and female organs. Other women articulated their sexuality as vacillating, ambiguous and unrepresentative of the so-called ‘true woman’. Several felt that they were not meant to have female reproductive organs at all. Nearly one third of the women had had their uterus removed at hysterectomy and the reproductive organs of two women were rudimentary. Women’s narratives showed that the social value of fertility influences constructions of early menopause. In Chapter Seven I record the contrast between the poignant responses of women who wished to have a baby of their own and other women who resisted discourses that entwine reproductivity with being a woman. For instance some women negotiated fertility through economic discourses of consumerism with the expectation that they could purchase conception as a commodity. Other women welcomed their early menopause as freedom from contraceptive concerns and others had no interest in reproduction at all. Thus discord arose through discourses that problematize early-menopausal women as non-reproductive and discourses that value variability. In addition many of the women’s accounts constructed their subjectivity as mobile, challenging the notion that discourses of the self are immutable. Chapter Eight presents narratives which suggest that the subjectivity of many women was altered continuously by early menopause. Yet some of the women rejected the construction of their subjectivity as unfluctuating. These contradictions reflect the uncertainties of the contemporary world. Nevertheless most respondents found that the tethering of menopause to constructions of midlife was incongruous with their own experiences. Many women refused to accept the label of social redundancy attached to middle-aged women. They moved their subjectivity beyond the reproductive body to a shifting and tractable identity of the self. This thesis demonstrates that the medical construction of early menopause as a rare and natural female flaw varies from women's experiences which suggest that early menopause is common and discursively constructed. This disparity has occurred through the privilege placed upon the construction of bodies as immutable and sexually static. This privileging has obscured the multi-dimensional causes of early menopause and given preference to a mono-causal theory. By exposing the variety of causes of early menopause the medical construction of women through a universal and unalterable body of reproduction is challenged. Moreover, women's discourses of early menopause demonstrate that the medical reduction of early menopause to a spontaneous bio-chemical malfunction has ignored the volatility of women’s embodied experiences. Women experience early menopause variously and through mercurial discourses. I suggest here that women's discourses of their experiences of early menopause reflect recurring and restructuring philosophical quandaries of fertility, sexuality and subjectivity. While there can be no representative claims made from this thesis it contributes to an understanding of the embodied experiences of early menopause. It provides an understanding of the creation of early menopause through social practices and goes part way to redressing the problematics of what Fraser terms ‘cultural non-recognition’. But, more importantly, it acknowledges early menopause as a variety of experiences where women interpret their changing bodies through changing discourses.

Opportunity lost? Victorian Labor's enactment of community development 1999-2006

The idea of community development has been evoked by Australian governments over many decades. The expressions of community have differed widely, often as a result of politics rather than informed policy. In 1999, after seven years of radical neo-liberal restructuring in Victoria, the Bracks government found itself unexpectedly elected to power. They faced new challenges such as a diminished public sector, growing social inequality and climate change. The first two terms of Victorian Labor were a seminal period in terms of the role they would invoke for ‘community’. Did grass roots participation take a central place, or did rhetoric rule over substance? The evidence points to a government maintaining a neo-liberal trajectory, and thereby losing an opportunity to enable an active citizenry.

Institutional processes and the production of gender inequalities: the case of Australian child support research and administration

This article analyses the administrative and research capture of child support data as a case study of how institutional data collection processes are performative in perpetuating gendered inequalities. We compare interviews with 19 low-income single mothers and their longitudinal survey responses from the same research to reveal how low-income women strategically or inadvertently ‘smoothed’ their experiences when responding to data collection processes. This directly resulted in material and symbolic costs in the form of reduced welfare benefits and limited evidence with which to lobby for policy reform. These processes in turn provided benefits to fathers and the state in the form of reduced child support liabilities and enforcement action, and welfare outlays, respectively. We conclude that current administrative and research data collection practices provide a limited and gendered evidence base for administrative justice and policy reform.

Gaps in understanding health and engagement with healthcare providers across common long-term conditions: a population survey of health literacy in 29 473 Danish citizens

OBJECTIVES: To (1) quantify levels of subjective health literacy in people with long-term health conditions (diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, musculoskeletal disorders, cancer and mental disorders) and compare these to levels in the general population and (2) examine the association between health literacy, socioeconomic characteristics and comorbidity in each long-term condition group.

DESIGN: Population-based survey in the Central Denmark Region (n=29,473). MAIN

OUTCOME MEASURES: Health literacy was measured using two scales from the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ): (1) Ability to understand health information and (2) Ability to actively engage with healthcare providers.

RESULTS: People with long-term conditions reported more difficulties than the general population in understanding health information and actively engaging with healthcare providers. Wide variation was found between disease groups, with people with cancer having fewer difficulties and people with mental health disorders having more difficulties in actively engaging with healthcare providers than other long-term condition groups. Having more than one long-term condition was associated with more difficulty in engaging with healthcare providers and understanding health information. People with low levels of education had lower health literacy than people with high levels of education.

CONCLUSIONS: Compared with the general population, people with long-term conditions report more difficulties in understanding health information and engaging with healthcare providers. These two dimensions are critical to the provision of patient-centred healthcare and for optimising health outcomes. More effort should be made to respond to the health literacy needs among individuals with long-term conditions, multiple comorbidities and low education levels, to improve health outcomes and to reduce social inequality in health.

An Examination of the merits of a human rights-based approach to higher education teaching and learning, compared with welfare and market-based approaches.

The thesis concludes that a human rights-based approach to higher education will produce better teaching and learning outcomes than welfare state or market-based approaches. It is intended that this research might influence an improvement in policy-making, identify a ‘feasible utopia’ for higher education, and contribute to discussion about the public interest role of higher education.

The other side of social exclusion : interrogating the role of the privileged in reproducing inequality

As the chapters in this book demonstrate, social exclusion is a key concept used to understand various forms of inequality in contemporary capitalist societies. I argue in this chapter that while the concept of social exclusion has been important in illustrating the structural dimensions of unequal social relations and examining the costs of those relations for excluded groups, it has done little to address those of us who benefit most from existing social divisions and inequalities. Nor do most of the writings on social exclusion examine how these inequalities are reproduced by and through the daily practices and life-style pursuits of privileged groups.

In this chapter I will interrogate the concept of privilege as the other side of social exclusion and will argue that the lack of critical interrogation of the position of the privileged side of social divisions allows the privileged to reinforce their dominance. I aim to make privilege more visible and consider the extent to which those who are privileged can overcome their own self interest in the maintenance of dominance to enable them to challenge it.

`I feel enlightened now, but...`: the limits to the pedagogic translation of critical social discourses in physical education

The emancipatory goal that underpins critical theories of teaching and learning is built on a theory of rational self-determination. In the context of physical education, critical educators believe that through a process of enlightenment teachers can recognize and transform elements of injustice and inequality that exist, albeit unwittingly, in their practice. However, despite the broad appeal of this orientation there are relatively few empirical accounts of how theories of enlightenment manifest themselves in the practice of emancipation. Propelled by the lacuna that clearly exists between critical theory and critical practice, this paper reports on the introduction of critical social discourses to a preservice PE program. It uses a case study methodology to report on two student-teachers' engagement with a range of critical social discourses during a year-long PE unit. The paper discusses some of the ways these students engaged with the theory and practice of a critical orientation for teaching and learning in physical education. Aspects of their experiences are then interpreted through Fay's (1987) critical but postmodern "limits to change" thesis. The paper concludes with tempered optimism about the potential for critical social discourses to guide preservice teachers in practical ways.

Arts curriculum reform : social and cultural reproduction in Victorian schools

This thesis examines the implementation of the government educational policy document The Curriculum and Standards Framework. I examined the historical and political motivation behind the development of this document and how it introduced a pervasive new initiative of outcomes based education and accountability based on economic rationalism. In particular I examined the implications this new approach had for visual arts education and the subsequent changes to the arts curriculum. This has entailed the introduction of the aesthetic appreciation of the arts as an outcome of the CSF: The Arts. I applied Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction in education which draws predominantly on a Weberian view and a theory of practice. Bourdieu discusses differential educational achievement according to cultural capital stating education requires certain forms of cultural capital that are not equally distributed among the classes. This therefore impedes or enhances life chances according to social class i.e. educational qualifications become a commodity in the labour market and other social fields. I examined how aesthetic appreciation of the arts has evolved historically as a form of social distinction. This entails an abstract element of arts discourse, which demands a certain linguistic competence, and familiarisation, which Bourdieu claims, is developed in the family, as 'cultural capital' this is further perpetuated in schools. The likely outcome is that the introduction of aesthetic appreciation in arts education i.e the demand to 'write about' and 'talk about' art, will perpetuate class inequality due to social and cultural difference. The study has been to examine the practices of arts education in four schools and the extent to which aesthetic appreciation was implemented in the visual arts. Data was collected by case study methods of observation, questionnaire and interview and was interpretive in both quantitative and qualitative methods. I analysed the data based on class differentiation by socioeconomic divisions and examined the school ethos and attitude towards the Arts along with differentiation in cultural capital between student population. I also found teacher and student habitus played a vital role in the implementation of the CSF. This is because habitus can cause resistance to change due to the division between the formulation of the curriculum in the bureaucratic order and the practice of teachers in classrooms. My thesis interprets education as a form of social reproduction, perpetuating the existing social order. However, as Bourdieu asserts and I agree education is a form of symbolic power as it conceals its social function under the guise of neutrality and the technical functional premise. Therefore, this thesis aims to make transparent how the education system serves the interests of the dominant group through curriculum policy. Consequently, it becomes clear how education has far reaching social implications where the distinctions of class are perpetuated through cultural reproduction.