This article reports on a survey of 332 Year 3 students from 14 Australian schools. We are interested in exploring Year 3 primary school student aspirations and what this data shows us about any societal changes, or not. This study is timely as it reports on contemporary data within an Australian educational context marked by significant…

While consent forms part of the Health, Wellbeing and Relationships strand of the New South Wales (NSW) Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) curriculum in Australia, it is not consistently or effectively delivered within schools. The recent e-campaign, "Teach Us Consent" in NSW, drew attention to the alarmingly…

The fields of science and literacy education continue to be shaped by pervasive gender inequality. Previous research has documented how the formation of a 'science identity' is contingent on access to science capital while research in literacy education continues to highlight how boys struggle in their literacy acquisition. Despite a robust…

Pre-service teachers of physical education (PE) bring understandings about gender and bodies to their university studies. These understandings are partially informed by biographies and experiences and bear potential to mediate learning and processes of becoming teachers. In this paper we explore technologies of power/knowledge and technologies of…

This article explores the use of critical and post-critical pedagogies in a rural Australian high school for the purposes of unsettling life-limiting gender beliefs and practices. The paper problematises two examples whereby site-specific knowledges, curriculum dictates, media texts and critical pedagogies were enmeshed to create politically…

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of a group of young rural men's and women's understandings of 'the city' and 'the country', and the relationship between this and their educational decision making. The analysis adds to a growing body of literature on young rural people's experiences and the emerging research on education in a rural…

This paper reports on research undertaken in a middle-class Australian school. The focus of the research was on the relationship between gender and students' engagement with high school chemistry. Achievement data from many OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries suggest that middle-class girls are achieving equally…

It is generally accepted that hearing homophobic language can be detrimental to the well-being of same-sex attracted young people. "Writing Themselves In 3," a survey of Australian same-sex attracted young people, found that almost half of the respondents reported hearing such language on a regular basis, and considered it offensive.…

In this paper, we explore how what we term "sext education" pedagogies intersect with young people's understandings of, and talk about, sexting through a feminist analysis of two cyber-safety campaign films: "Tagged" from Australia and "Exposed" from the UK. The films tell alarming stories about the ways in which…

Exploring the diverse nature of students' interpretations of their reading experiences, this study moves beyond broad generalizations about boys and girls to consider complexities inherent in the social processes that influence students' engagement in reading. While the study aimed to develop understandings about the ways notions of masculinity…

This book presents an ethnographic study of the experiences of teenage boys in an Australian high school. It follows a group of thirteen to fifteen year olds over a period of more than two years, and seeks to understand why so many boys say they hate school yet enjoy being with one another in their daily confrontations with the formal school. The…

Across the analysis of interview fragments from two young men with hearing disabilities who attended secondary schools in Australia, this paper will demonstrate that masculinity in the schoolyard frequently emerges within and as a collective form of violence and malevolence against the disabled body. Yet while certain individuals or groups may…

High fee-charging non-government schools for boys comprise a small but significant sector of the Australian schooling market. In different ways in different historical periods these schools have represented themselves as being concerned with more than just an instrumental or utilitarian education, making both explicit and implicit claims about the…

This paper focuses on what is known internationally from research about some aspects of men's learning. It explores the similar and different factors that shape men's attitudes towards learning in diverse national and cultural contexts. It also identifies some possible parallels (and differences) between the experiences, participation and outcomes…

Stereotypes and self-perceptions are important in understanding how people develop their self-knowledge and social identity, become members of groups, and view groups and their members. While we have some understanding of the stereotypical view of the physical education teacher, we currently have little knowledge of how physical education…