Hilary Whitehouse | James Cook University (original) (raw)

Papers by Hilary Whitehouse

Gender and education, Mar 21, 2024

This issue of Gender and Education explores aspects of the relationship of ecofeminisms and the e... more This issue of Gender and Education explores aspects of the relationship of ecofeminisms and the environment to gender and education in the broadest sense. It provides an opportunity to re-think how ecofeminisms have, or could, inform educational theory and practice.

[Extract] You may or may not have noticed, but we are now living in a condition known as the Anth... more [Extract] You may or may not have noticed, but we are now living in a condition known as the Anthropocene. The term was coined about a decade ago and refers to the fact that human activities are now a dominant force within planetary systems. In Hamilton's (2012) words, "humans have imprinted themselves on every cubic metre of the biosphere". The development of our highly complex and complicated global techno-industrial society was predicated on a period of relatively benign planetary conditions known as the Holocene. Our present social order has its origins in mass agriculture, which frees people up to invent and take part in activities not associated with growing and raising food. Formal education, from early childhood to postgraduate tertiary education, is only possible when basic human needs are met and supported by wider society. The conditions for all our phenomenal social, cultural, technological, scientific and educational achievements to date have been predicated on relatively stable planetary conditions. The Holocene could have lasted many thousands of years into the future, except that humans happen to be so successful at changing things that those planetary drivers of stability are now being messed up.

Routledge eBooks, Apr 14, 2016

Curriculum perspectives, Apr 1, 2017

This article addresses the questions of what and how educators should teach and how students migh... more This article addresses the questions of what and how educators should teach and how students might be engaged to learn in preparation for an uncertain future arising from the risks and the human and ecological impacts of climate change. Relevant literature is briefly reviewed on student and teacher understandings of climate change and conceptions of climate change education as education for preparing students for future climate change mitigation and adaptation measures and the potential for disaster. Opportunities in Australian schools for teaching climate change mitigation and adaptation are critically examined. Climate change should be understood as a complex social as well as scientific issue characterized by uncertain and context-specific knowledge. This demands educators engage in inquiry and co-learning with students. The lack of time and the reported curriculum opportunities to address climate change in the classroom suggest a need for using co-curricular and community initiatives for student investigations and learning. Teachers must encourage students to think critically and creatively about approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation and develop their capacity to respond with meaningful actions.

Historically, sustainability education is a call to responsible action based on rational principl... more Historically, sustainability education is a call to responsible action based on rational principles drenched in an ethic of care. How can we enhance the quality of human life without also enhancing the quality and robustness of the natural systems that support our life? We can't. Our interdependence is inevitable. The cross-curricululum priority (CCP) males it clear the sustainability is not an add-on. The CCP is constructed as an integrating principle and body of knowledge, understandings and skills within the constituted disciplines with which we are so familiar.

Australian Educational Researcher, 2008

[Extract] Sexual dimorphism arose in the deep mists of biological time as a strategy for successf... more [Extract] Sexual dimorphism arose in the deep mists of biological time as a strategy for successfully conferring genetic diversity. Dimorphism is evidence in many animals. Decapods, arachnids, marine and freshwater fish, birds, as well as mammals, have differentiated female and male bodies. It is not the fact of difference, so much as the historical and contemporary freight of social and cultural meanings applied to human bodies that is of interest here. The history of education is awash with ideas of who was and was not considered educate-able, and in what ways and to what levels beased on their reproductive category. This is the great divide examined in Judith Gill's excellent book, which is a clear sighted and well-structured analysis of the research concerning gender and schooling in Australia and overseas

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, Jun 29, 2018

The purpose of this study is to explore and identify possible barriers and challenges experienced... more The purpose of this study is to explore and identify possible barriers and challenges experienced by migrant African women entrepreneurs in the establishment and operation of their businesses in North Queensland. The study adopts a qualitative approach and employs in-depth, semi-structured interviews and site visits to participants businesses. Findings revealed that cultural factors, family, human capital, social capital and networks, and institutional factors potentially acted as barriers to the establishment and operation and of their businesses. This is a small-scale pilot study. The data was gathered from eleven migrant African women only, in a specific region, so the results are limited in applicability and cannot be assumed to apply to other cultures. The context of the research might not be considered a representative of Australia. This study provides empirical data regarding the barriers and challenges encountered by migrant women entrepreneurs and contributes to a new body of knowledge, providing a foundation for further research in this area. The study also serves to inform policymakers.

Springer international handbooks of education, 2020

Australian journal of environmental education, 2001

Implementing environmental activism at school can be socially risky business. This paper explores... more Implementing environmental activism at school can be socially risky business. This paper explores the narratives of three women who undertook award winning environmental projects in two regional Australian schools. Tara (student, age 15), Anne (student, age 15) and Andrea (principal, age 42) document the complex and courageous social negotiations they were forced to undertake in response to being negatively constituted as “a greenie” at school. Tara and Anne met resistance from their peers and family and Andrea fielded complaints from members of the local school community. This micro-qualtitative analysis shows that, despite the heartfelt rhetoric of environmental education, assuming an environmental identity at school can be problematic and difficult to enact. Environmental action is still not seen as a “cool” social practice in some adolescent peer groups. Nor is environmental action positioned as central to the “legitimate” practices of schooling in some communities. Successful projects rely on students and staff who are willing to actively, and persitently, negotiate social opposition to their achieving an ecological vision for school practice.

Routledge eBooks, Jan 31, 2022

Australian journal of environmental education, 2006

[Extract] The global socio-ecological crisis we face in the twenty-first century has been well de... more [Extract] The global socio-ecological crisis we face in the twenty-first century has been well described in many contemporary works. The harder question of how we get out of our present quagmire to create a more sustainable future is more complex to answer. The problem, as you know, lies in our present suite of social, political and economic arrangements, which do not reward the conservation of natural resources, but instead actively reward the untrammelled, and often, unthinking, consumption of resources. The Federation Press is publishing a series of books on environmental and sustainability issues in Australia. Sustainability Strategy by Paul Martin and Miriam Verbeek is a practical guide to achieving sustainability in the public sector, business and natural resource management. This book is not directed towards an education readership. Rather, this book examines a number of resource management approaches that hold promise for improving institutional sustainability. Having said this, many of the systemic impediments environmental educators commonly encounter are explained from the very first page. And the strategies explored throughout the book are transferable to teachers who work in education institutions. Therein lies the value of this book. We are all consumers of natural resources.

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, Dec 31, 2015

Purpose: To explore the financial literacy of eleven migrant African-Australian women entrepreneu... more Purpose: To explore the financial literacy of eleven migrant African-Australian women entrepreneurs in the Cairns region. Methods: A qualitative case study approach was used to investigate financial literacy of eleven women via semi-structured interviews; survey questionnaire; and researcher's reflective journal. Findings: revealed that: (1) all the participating women had a high level of financial literacy; (2) the higher the level of education and English language proficiency of the women, the higher the level of financial literacy. Research limitations/Implications: The data was gathered from migrant women in one geographical region, so the results are limited in applicability and cannot be inferred to be similar to different regions and cultures. Similar research could be undertaken and cover a wider region, in order to gather more substantial data from a larger number of women and obtain more representative findings. Originality/value: This study provides empirical data of financial literacy among participating women, contributes to a new body of knowledge and provides a foundation for further research in this area. The study serves to inform aspiring migrant African-Australian women entrepreneurs themselves and may inform policymakers.

Springer eBooks, Sep 7, 2019

The purpose of this chapter is to justify, theorise and contextualise a way to unlearn the binary... more The purpose of this chapter is to justify, theorise and contextualise a way to unlearn the binary oppositions of the Anthropocene (e.g. nature<culture). We define unlearning as a disassembling part of the whole of learning involving the realisation and removal of deep commitments to obsolescent learnings. We justify unlearning the binary oppositions of the Anthropocene on the premise that they have failed to represent the genuinely wicked problems of being human. We theorise the unlearning of binary oppositions with a form of monistic dualism, which simultaneously represents the division and unification of ‘opposites’. Finally, we contextualise the unlearning of binary oppositions in relation to the wicked problems of the Anthropocene, including sustainability, education and globalisation. The authors’ hope is that this way of unlearning binary oppositions may help diversify the community of socioecological learners who recognise, and respond to, the Anthropocene.

CSR, sustainability, ethics & governance, 2015

The concept of the finite planet underpins all education for sustainability in its current and fu... more The concept of the finite planet underpins all education for sustainability in its current and future forms and iterations. This chapter describes the opportunities available across the formal school and tourism sectors to educate together for a more sustainable means of organizing our lives. International frameworks for environmental education and education for sustainability are described and the Australian frameworks developed in response to the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) are explained. Education for sustainability “promotes learning beyond the boundaries of educational institutions” to equip people “with the knowledge, skills and values to address [the] social, environmental and economic challenges of the 21st century” including preparing for jobs that “preserve or restore the quality of the environment” (UNESCO. Five reasons to support ESD—education for sustainable development. http://www.unesco.org/new/index.php?id=96295, 2013). Educators, interpreters and communicators can create networks and relationships for action and learning. There are many variations on this theme of cooperation and accommodation. The formal education sector is porous. The tourism enterprise sector has a huge impact to make in terms of educating and interpreting for sustainability. Aspects of the sustainability cross curriculum priority in the new Australian Curriculum support recalibrating learning practices that enhance sustainability through building partnerships between tourism enterprises and schools. Contemporary policy and curriculum support education for sustainability and the challenge for tourism is to innovate new ways of organizing educational practice. Increasingly we know that cross-sector partnerships can be a highly productive means for learning sustainability. Three examples of practice from far north Queensland reveal how tourism partnerships can be successfully developed with the formal school sector.

Journal of Gender Studies, Nov 1, 1997

Abstract This study explores the intricate layers of meanings lived out by men in tropical enviro... more Abstract This study explores the intricate layers of meanings lived out by men in tropical environments. These men, having adopted positions as 'environmentalists', see themselves more in tune with 'nature'than with 'culture'. The paper documents some of the discursive ...

Australian journal of environmental education, 2008

Recently the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for Today's Students and Tomorrow's Workfor... more Recently the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for Today's Students and Tomorrow's Workforce were released to guide American state education authorities in redeveloping their science curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 12.   The US plans to introduce sweeping science education reforms. Does Australia need to open up the same discussion? Flickr/Sidereal 29/7/18, 3*22 pm Teaching climate change to the young Page 2 of 4 https://theconversation.com/teaching-climate-change-to-the-young-13538 Unlike Australia, the U.S. Federal Government is not responsible for the national school science curriculum. The NGSS project is privately funded and was developed by a group of 26 American states.

Rowman & Littlefield eBooks, 2000

The discourses of environmentalism are not peculiar to Australia or to the West, or even to men. ... more The discourses of environmentalism are not peculiar to Australia or to the West, or even to men. But in this chapter, written in collaboration with Hilary Whitehouse, we explore the take-up of environmental discourses by a small group of men living in the northeast corner of Australia. What these inteiviews allow us to do here, in this chapter, is to exainine the complex relations between a particular discourse, environmentalism, and a particular set of landscapes in the tropical north of Australia, as they both constitute and are constituted by the men in our study. Before we begin, it is important to give some indication of the cultural and political elements of the landscape with/in which environmental discourses in Australia are taken up. In the following story of traveling into the far reaches of the Australian desert, Robert Dessaix touches on some of the most salient features of that landscape. He describes traveling from his safe, familiar city landscape and inoving farther and farther away from anything he recognized, towards a place called Patjarr in the Gibson desert.