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Papers by Janean Robinson
In Australia, like many western countries, there has been a convergence of education policy aroun... more In Australia, like many western countries, there has been a convergence of education policy around a set of utilitarian and economistic approaches to vocational education and training in schools. Such approaches are based on the assumption that there is a direct relationship between national economic growth, productivity and human capital development resulting in the persuasive political argument that schools should be more closely aligned to the needs of the economy to better prepare 'job ready' workers. These common sense views resonate strongly in school communities where the problem of youth unemployment is most acute and students are deemed to be 'at risk', 'disadvantaged' or 'disengaged'. This article starts from a different place by rejecting the fatalism and determinism of neoliberal ideology based on the assumption that students must simply 'adapt' to a precarious labour market. Whilst schools have a responsibility to prepare students for the world of work there is also a moral and political obligation to educate them extraordinarily well as democratic citizens. In conclusion, we draw on the experiences of young people themselves to identify a range of pedagogical conditions that need to be created and more widely sustained to support their career aspirations and life chances.
This paper is based on two research projects. One considered 'unsettling'
Vignette – “a painting, drawing or photograph that has no border but is gradually faded into its ... more Vignette – “a painting, drawing or photograph that has no border but is gradually faded into its background at the edges.” (Encarta Dictionary) In this paper I use youth vignettes to provide a forum for marginalised voices capturing their cultural identity and experiences in the context of their schooling and family lives. These pictures are exposed to contrast against the rhetoric surrounding The Behaviour Management in Schools Policy (2001) which “requires schools to develop a learning environment that is welcoming, supportive and safe” (3). The ‘environment’ these students reveal is one in which they are expected to ‘perform’, not as the creative, expressive, engaging actor in drama, often embraced and encouraged, but as the docile, compliant unit. Student resistance to dominant discourses is thus “provoked, driven underground, where it becomes a subterranean source of acting out” (Shor 1992, p. 24). It is the intention of this paper that these vignettes have no borders; the stud...
Ethnography and Education, 2015
This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling be... more This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling because they were positioned as 'disengaged' and 'at risk of failing'. The authors argue that streaming students out of schooling needs serious questioning as an escalating number of young people are framed as non-performers within a globally competitive educational market. Throughout the paper we use critical ethnographic slices to expose the experiences of the 24 young people interviewed who together with mentors shared personal insights whilst attending a re-engagement programme in Australia in the year 2010. Their responses unearth a 'wickedness' and a preoccupation during their schooling with performance and school improvement. In response, we privilege student interpretations of their own marginalisation as an activist form of 'speaking back' to the social and economic conditions and limitations dominating their lives.
Journal of Education Policy, 2014
This paper tackles what is arguably one of the most pressing and intractable educational issues c... more This paper tackles what is arguably one of the most pressing and intractable educational issues confronting western democraciesthe disengagement and disconnection from schooling of alarming numbers of young people. The paper looks at the policy response in Victoria, Australia, and through ethnographic interviews with a small number of young people; it finds a significant mismatch between the policy intent of re-engagement programmes, and the experiences of young people themselves. It seems that this is an instance of what might be termed policy deafness, a situation that will likely produce devastating consequences unless corrected.
This report documents evidence from an Australian Research Council Linkage Project entitled "... more This report documents evidence from an Australian Research Council Linkage Project entitled "'Getting a job': identity formation and schooling in communities at disadvantage" - a project which traced the experience of 32 high school students over an 18 month period in the years 2011-2013. The purpose of the research was to listen to young people's stories with a view to better understanding the barriers and obstacles to 'getting a job' and from their vantage point, identity the educational, policy and practice context that needs to be created and more widely sustained to assist their career aspirations and life chances. The intent of the report is to provide schools, community organisations and educational institutions with a a set of resources organised around 16 conditions that are conducive to supporting young people in 'getting a job'. The report provides a toolkit of ideas, stories, reflective questions, provocations, and policy/practice im...
Journal of Youth Studies, 2014
ABSTRACT Education is an important and defining element in young people’s lives. When conceived p... more ABSTRACT Education is an important and defining element in young people’s lives. When conceived properly, it has the potential to transform opportunities and life chances. It hardly comes as news that in recent times the authors have witnessed the inappropriate intrusion into education of notions of school reform that while they might arguably be in the national economic interest, are highly questionable from the vantage point of young people. In this paper, the authors present some counternarratives from a group of young Australians who have ‘disengaged’ or been ‘shoved’ out of school and who resumed learning under a very different set of conditions to those that exiled them. Through the comments from young people, the authors construct an account of how they came to be categorised as ‘at-risk’ in the first place, what this pathologising meant to them, and how an alternative approach that invested them with power enabled a more positive identity formation to occur. Notwithstanding its altruistic intent and more humane approach, the authors remain unconvinced on the larger question of ‘re-engagement to where?’ for these young people, and whether the fundamentals have been sufficiently unsettled to enable them a different trajectory.
Ethnography and Education, 2014
This paper traces insights into the challenges and dilemmas experienced whilst researching studen... more This paper traces insights into the challenges and dilemmas experienced whilst researching students' interpretations and understandings of the Behaviour Management in Schools policy in Western Australia. Journal records, supported by student transcripts, are woven together in a reflexive ethnographic journeyfrom the beginning phase of searching formal approval; gaining access to the participants; and finally the challenge of 'letting go' of student voices. It is the reflexive process itself that illustrates and provides understanding, thereby creating spaces to not only confront but also work through to resolve research dilemmas. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to provide experiential insight and understanding of ethical deliberations when engaging in reflexivity that allow one to move forward in this form of research.
In neo-liberal times educational policy and practice is being realigned more closely to the shift... more In neo-liberal times educational policy and practice is being realigned more closely to the shifting imperatives of the market with damaging effects on the lives of young people. Whilst the rhetoric suggests that schools are safe, welcoming and caring environments for the benefit of all, the veracity is very different for significant numbers of marginalised students who face fragile, uncertain and unpredictable futures. This paper draws on a number of research projects in Australia to investigate the lived reality of students who are struggling to make sense of school and their transition to ‘getting a job’. The research is neither impartial nor neutral. It draws on the tradition of critical policy ethnography to identify, describe and map the kinds of conditions that both constrain and enable the aspirations, dreams and hopes of young people for productive and rewarding lives. The intent is to unsettle commonsense and deficit understandings of school life that serve to oppress and ...
In Australia, like many western countries, there has been a convergence of education policy aroun... more In Australia, like many western countries, there has been a convergence of education policy around a set of utilitarian and economistic approaches to vocational education and training in schools. Such approaches are based on the assumption that there is a direct relationship between national economic growth, productivity and human capital development resulting in the persuasive political argument that schools should be more closely aligned to the needs of the economy to better prepare 'job ready' workers. These common sense views resonate strongly in school communities where the problem of youth unemployment is most acute and students are deemed to be 'at risk', 'disadvantaged' or 'disengaged'. This article starts from a different place by rejecting the fatalism and determinism of neoliberal ideology based on the assumption that students must simply 'adapt' to a precarious labour market. Whilst schools have a responsibility to prepare students for the world of work there is also a moral and political obligation to educate them extraordinarily well as democratic citizens. In conclusion, we draw on the experiences of young people themselves to identify a range of pedagogical conditions that need to be created and more widely sustained to support their career aspirations and life chances.
This paper is based on two research projects. One considered 'unsettling'
Vignette – “a painting, drawing or photograph that has no border but is gradually faded into its ... more Vignette – “a painting, drawing or photograph that has no border but is gradually faded into its background at the edges.” (Encarta Dictionary) In this paper I use youth vignettes to provide a forum for marginalised voices capturing their cultural identity and experiences in the context of their schooling and family lives. These pictures are exposed to contrast against the rhetoric surrounding The Behaviour Management in Schools Policy (2001) which “requires schools to develop a learning environment that is welcoming, supportive and safe” (3). The ‘environment’ these students reveal is one in which they are expected to ‘perform’, not as the creative, expressive, engaging actor in drama, often embraced and encouraged, but as the docile, compliant unit. Student resistance to dominant discourses is thus “provoked, driven underground, where it becomes a subterranean source of acting out” (Shor 1992, p. 24). It is the intention of this paper that these vignettes have no borders; the stud...
Ethnography and Education, 2015
This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling be... more This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling because they were positioned as 'disengaged' and 'at risk of failing'. The authors argue that streaming students out of schooling needs serious questioning as an escalating number of young people are framed as non-performers within a globally competitive educational market. Throughout the paper we use critical ethnographic slices to expose the experiences of the 24 young people interviewed who together with mentors shared personal insights whilst attending a re-engagement programme in Australia in the year 2010. Their responses unearth a 'wickedness' and a preoccupation during their schooling with performance and school improvement. In response, we privilege student interpretations of their own marginalisation as an activist form of 'speaking back' to the social and economic conditions and limitations dominating their lives.
Journal of Education Policy, 2014
This paper tackles what is arguably one of the most pressing and intractable educational issues c... more This paper tackles what is arguably one of the most pressing and intractable educational issues confronting western democraciesthe disengagement and disconnection from schooling of alarming numbers of young people. The paper looks at the policy response in Victoria, Australia, and through ethnographic interviews with a small number of young people; it finds a significant mismatch between the policy intent of re-engagement programmes, and the experiences of young people themselves. It seems that this is an instance of what might be termed policy deafness, a situation that will likely produce devastating consequences unless corrected.
This report documents evidence from an Australian Research Council Linkage Project entitled "... more This report documents evidence from an Australian Research Council Linkage Project entitled "'Getting a job': identity formation and schooling in communities at disadvantage" - a project which traced the experience of 32 high school students over an 18 month period in the years 2011-2013. The purpose of the research was to listen to young people's stories with a view to better understanding the barriers and obstacles to 'getting a job' and from their vantage point, identity the educational, policy and practice context that needs to be created and more widely sustained to assist their career aspirations and life chances. The intent of the report is to provide schools, community organisations and educational institutions with a a set of resources organised around 16 conditions that are conducive to supporting young people in 'getting a job'. The report provides a toolkit of ideas, stories, reflective questions, provocations, and policy/practice im...
Journal of Youth Studies, 2014
ABSTRACT Education is an important and defining element in young people’s lives. When conceived p... more ABSTRACT Education is an important and defining element in young people’s lives. When conceived properly, it has the potential to transform opportunities and life chances. It hardly comes as news that in recent times the authors have witnessed the inappropriate intrusion into education of notions of school reform that while they might arguably be in the national economic interest, are highly questionable from the vantage point of young people. In this paper, the authors present some counternarratives from a group of young Australians who have ‘disengaged’ or been ‘shoved’ out of school and who resumed learning under a very different set of conditions to those that exiled them. Through the comments from young people, the authors construct an account of how they came to be categorised as ‘at-risk’ in the first place, what this pathologising meant to them, and how an alternative approach that invested them with power enabled a more positive identity formation to occur. Notwithstanding its altruistic intent and more humane approach, the authors remain unconvinced on the larger question of ‘re-engagement to where?’ for these young people, and whether the fundamentals have been sufficiently unsettled to enable them a different trajectory.
Ethnography and Education, 2014
This paper traces insights into the challenges and dilemmas experienced whilst researching studen... more This paper traces insights into the challenges and dilemmas experienced whilst researching students' interpretations and understandings of the Behaviour Management in Schools policy in Western Australia. Journal records, supported by student transcripts, are woven together in a reflexive ethnographic journeyfrom the beginning phase of searching formal approval; gaining access to the participants; and finally the challenge of 'letting go' of student voices. It is the reflexive process itself that illustrates and provides understanding, thereby creating spaces to not only confront but also work through to resolve research dilemmas. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to provide experiential insight and understanding of ethical deliberations when engaging in reflexivity that allow one to move forward in this form of research.
In neo-liberal times educational policy and practice is being realigned more closely to the shift... more In neo-liberal times educational policy and practice is being realigned more closely to the shifting imperatives of the market with damaging effects on the lives of young people. Whilst the rhetoric suggests that schools are safe, welcoming and caring environments for the benefit of all, the veracity is very different for significant numbers of marginalised students who face fragile, uncertain and unpredictable futures. This paper draws on a number of research projects in Australia to investigate the lived reality of students who are struggling to make sense of school and their transition to ‘getting a job’. The research is neither impartial nor neutral. It draws on the tradition of critical policy ethnography to identify, describe and map the kinds of conditions that both constrain and enable the aspirations, dreams and hopes of young people for productive and rewarding lives. The intent is to unsettle commonsense and deficit understandings of school life that serve to oppress and ...