Doctoral Thesis
Interrogating masculinities: regimes of practice
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Murdoch University
1998
Abstract
This thesis draws on post-Foucauldian theories of governmental power and technologies of the self to critically examine the deployment of post-structuralist, psychoanalytic, sociological and cultural studies' paradigms for theorising and researching masculinities. It is argued that a particular dialectical mode of rationality and a project of cultural completion inform these approaches which are based on a requirement to reconcile oppositional categories such as freedom and determination, subject-determining state and self-determining subject, social structure and social actor. The limits are outlined of theorising subjectivity in terms of the restoration of consciousness to the individual and as the means by which 'culture' is mediated via repressive andlor ideological mechanisms.
An alternative theorisation of subjectivity, conceiving of masculinities as enacted within regimes of historically contingent nomalising practices, is applied to an investigation of how specific groups of boys learn to relate as gendered subjects in a particular school. Surveys, observational methods and semi-structured interviews are used to trace the specific effects of practices implicated in the formation of masculinities for the boys. Attention is also drawn to the relationship of specific models of masculinity to the boys' literacy practices.
On the basis of this research, important implications for practice at policy and pedagogical levels are identified.
Details
- Title
- Interrogating masculinities: regimes of practice
- Authors/Creators
- Wayne Martino
- Contributors
- Annette Patterson (Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Murdoch University; Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Identifiers
- 991005544405007891
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Doctoral Thesis
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