The purpose of this study is to discover if there has been quantitative
change in the gender balance of the employment profile of the ACT
Department of Education from 1976 to 1991 and to explore possible reasons
for such change.
It should be noted that the Department has had several changes of
name over the period covered by this study including the ACT Department
of Education, the ACT Department of Health, Education and the Arts, and it
is presently known as the ACT Department of Education and Training. For
the sake of clarity it will be referred to throughout as the ACT Department of
Education.
The employment configuration will be studied from 1976, the earliest
year of available data, to 1991 to measure relative changes in the position of
men and women. This paper will examine significant events in the ACT
Education system, in particular the introduction of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) legislation in 1984, to determine whether the
introduction of legislation and/or other initiatives brought about moves
toward Equal Employment Opportunity for women.
The study will develop and consider hypotheses and examine several
theoretical explanations for the changes or lack of them in the position of
men and women. Recommendations will be made concerning future
directions for research and action to achieve equal employment opportunity
for women, the largest group of the four groups targeted in the EEO
legislation.
The central argument of the study is that the adoption of quantitative
approaches to measure success/failure in EEO programs is of limited use.
These theoretical approaches, largely informed by liberal feminism, offer
inadequate understanding of the resistances to change. Other theoretical
perspectives are needed if the issue is seen as "what are the resistances and
what are the policies and strategies that can be developed to overcome
them?".
Feminist critical theory, however, enables more productive questions
to be raised about how social power is constructed and maintained, about
hegemonic culture, and about the language and cultural biases embedded in
administrative structures in education. Insights thus gained into issues,
events and resistances give individuals and groups agency, the power to act
for change.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218878 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Dawson, Elizabeth, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Elizabeth Dawson |
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