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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/221883 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | W.Martino@murdoch.edu.au, Wayne Martino |
| Publisher | Murdoch University |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.murdoch.edu.au/goto/CopyrightNotice, Copyright Wayne Martino |
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