For five years, Jim Walker followed the stories of four groups of young men, from their last years at an inner-city high school to their early twenties. Louts and Legends is a rich portrayal of their ways of life, their responses to school and teachers, and their experience of job-seeking, employment, unemployment, further education and training. Louts and Legends presents a unique perspective on Australian culture, showing the problems, achievements, and social context of four distinct cultural styles: the macho 'Aussie' culture of the footballers; the competitive challenge of the Greeks; the 'nice guy' friendliness of the handballers; the artistic aspirations of the stigmatised three friends. The interview and participant observation data gathered over a long period contains fresh insights on youth culture as well as moving individual stories. The findings in this book pose a challenge to educational and social policy, but they also offer realistic suggestions for teachers, youth workers, parents and for other young people.
An examination of the major classical sociological theories relevant to education and of the rise and decline of the new sociology of education. Author also discusses the vexed questions of equality of opportunity, the relationship between school and society, the growth of educational bureaucracies and the roles of state, church and family in education in Australia since 1949. Includes endnotes, tables and index.
This is an exciting new edition of R.W. Connell's ground-breaking text, which has become a classic work on the nature and construction of masculine identity. Connell argues that there is not one masculinity, but many different masculinities, each associated with different positions of power. In a world gender order that continues to privilege men over women, but also raises difficult issues for men and boys, his account is more pertinent than ever before. In a substantial new introduction and conclusion, Connell discusses the development of masculinity studies in the ten years since the book's initial publication. He explores global gender relations, new theories, and practical uses of mascunlinity research. Looking to the future, his new concluding chapter addresses the politics of masculinities, and the implications of masculinity research for understanding current world issues. Against the backdrop of an increasingly divided world, dominated by neo-conservative politics, Connell's account highlights a series of compelling questions about the future of human society. This second edition of Connell's classic book will be essential reading for students taking courses on masculinities and gender studies, and will be of interest to students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences.
The future of schooling and education, and the role of schools and teachers in social reconstruction is critically examined. The text shows great respect for and understanding of the position of teachers in contemporary society and is internationally orientated.
This timely and authoritative book provides a critique and deconstructs the myths that serve to uphold the current "moral panic" around boys' supposed failures in literacy and diminished chances of success. Readers are asked to look beyond simple gender binarism to see different, more complex and often more egregious categorizations of students in their classrooms, other than the simplistic male/female categories, and begin to question and address some of those issues: poverty, racism, violence, environment, and more complex issues of gender, patriarchy, and hegemony. The authors suggest different ways of teaching literacies to both boys and girls and propose that while solutions are not simple, they are critically important in promoting positive educational experiences for all students, regardless of gender, class, culture, race, or sexual orientation.
This text offers an international and comparative analysis of social division rooted in race, ethnicity and national identity. It provides an overview of the key issues underlying ethnic conflict which has now risen to the top of the international political agenda.; This book is intended for academics, postgraduates and senior undergraduates within sociology, race and ethnicity, social anthropology, as well as those involved in other areas such as politics, geography, development studies and international relations with an interest in ethnicity.
“This book bears the hallmark of Open University Press texts. It is well laid out and nicely produced. It manages a good balance between textbook and cutting edge research… The book is impressive in its command of a wide range of writings on sexuality, gender, masculinity and schooling.” - Educational Review "Secondary school teachers, principals and school counsellors would be the primary audience for this book, although youth workers and other workers with adolescent males should also find the boys' perceptions of school and adolescent culture of great interest and considerable use." -Youth Studies Australia This book focuses on the impact and effects of masculinities on the lives of boys at school. Through interviews with boys from diverse backgrounds, the authors explore the various ways in which boys define and negotiate their masculinities at school. The following questions and issues are addressed: What does it mean to be a 'normal' boy and who decides this? How do issues of masculinity impact on boys from culturally diverse backgrounds, indigenous boys, those with disabilities and boys of diverse sexualities? What issues of power impact on these boys' lives and relationships at school? What effects do these issues have on boys' learning at school? Through problematizing and interrogating the question of what makes a boy a boy, this fascinating title offers recommendations and indicates future directions for working with boys in school.
′This book is jam-packed with a wide range of material related to qualitative research.... [T]his is a quality text and has much to offer the reader, especially the novice researcher′ - Nurse Researcher `This comprehensive collection of almost 40 chapters - each written by a leading expert in the field - is the essential reference for anyone undertaking or studying qualitative research. It covers a diversity of methods and a variety of perspectives and is a very practical and informative guide for newcomers and experienced researchers alike′ - John Scott, University of Essex `The best ways in which to understand the issues and processes informing qualitative research is to learn from the accounts of its leading practitioners. Here they come together in what is a distinctive and wide-ranging collection that will appeal to postgraduates and social researchers in general′ - Tim May, University of Salford `This excellent guide engages in a dialogue with a wide range of expert qualitative researchers, each of whom considers their own practice in an illuminating and challenging way. Overall, the book constitutes an authoritative survey of current methods of qualitative research data collection and analysis′ - Nigel Gilbert, University of Surrey This concise paperback edition of the best selling handbook, Qualitative Research Practice, is particularly aimed at the student reader. The chapters are written by leading, internationally distinguished qualitative researchers who recount and reflect on their own research experiences as well as others, past and present, from whom they have learned. It demonstrates the benefits of using particular methods from the viewpoint of real-life experience. This is also a good philosophy for students to adopt in planing research work: to begin from a practical conception of the research process and to treat a book like this as an opportunity to learn a valuable craft. From the outside, good research seems to be produced through practitioners learning and following standard theoretical, empirical and procedural formats. But from the inside we learn that qualitative research (like other forms of scientific endeavour) is also a biographical engagement, rendering its scholarly and practical contributions in its own terms. Standards take on practical meaning as the distinct activities of qualitative research resonate throughout the enterprise, complicating its accountability to itself and to others. In an authoritative yet accessible manner, Qualitative Research Practice reveals the special features of this engagement, teaching us that qualitative research is as much a craft and practice as it is a way of knowing. Presenting a comprehensive examination of contemporary and traditional varieties of qualitative research practice, Qualitative Research Practice will be an invaluable resource for advanced students and researchers in any discipline. It is an essential and definitive guide to the major forms of qualitative methods in use today, written by leaders in the relevant fields of research practice.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has achieved celebrity status in many Western countries, yet despite considerable effort to prove its existence as a «real» disorder, ADHD still suffers from a crisis of legitimacy. Nonetheless, diagnosis and prescription of medication has grown at a phenomenal rate since the late 1980s, particularly in Western culture. Numerous accounts exist explaining how the ADHD diagnosis functions as a convenient administrative loophole, providing schools with a medical explanation for school failure, medication to sedate the «problem» into submission, or the means to eject children from mainstream classrooms. This book provides a more holistic interpretation of how to respond to children who might otherwise be diagnosed with and medicated for «ADHD» - a diagnosis which, whether scientifically valid or not, is unhelpful within the confine of the school. Training teachers to recognise and identify «ADHD symptoms» or to understand the functions of restricted pharmaceuticals will only serve to increase the number of children diagnosed and the sale of psychoactive medications. Research has shown that such activities will not help those children learn, nor will it empower their classroom teachers to take responsibility for teaching such children well. This book seeks to provide school practitioners with knowledge that is useful within the educational context to improve the educational experiences and outcomes for children who might otherwise receive a diagnosis of ADHD.
