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Adelaide secondary school students’ participation in sport and their cultural identity: a humanistic sociological study.
Get PDFThe focus of this study is the relationship between secondary school students' sense of cultural identity and their participation in sports. Recent studies by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on the participation of Australian youth in sports and physical activities indicated that 25 per cent of young adolescents aged 12 to 14 years were not involved in sports. This figure rose to 36 per cent for students in one-parent families; to 44 per cent for those from overseas and non-English speaking countries. Other studies found that those of minority cultural background more often played Soccer, Australian Rules Football and Rugby than Cricket, Netball or Hockey. The participation of the larger minority ethnic groups of Australia within the established sports was the focus of a 1997 book, pointed to the need for studies which investigated individuals‟ personal understanding of their own and mainstream culture and how these factors influenced their involvement in sports. This study conducted such research with students from year 11 classes in six secondary schools in Adelaide. It adopted the humanistic sociological approach originating with the Polish-American sociologist Florian Znaniecki, and later developed by J J Smolicz for research on cultural pluralism in Australia. The concepts of group cultural values and individual personal cultural values were adopted to investigate individuals' participation in sport and their sense of cultural identity. The method involved collecting information on participants' personal and family background and analysing their written personal statements in to response open-ended guideline questions on their views and experiences concerning playing sport, and their sense of cultural identity. The students played a total of 24 sports, with Soccer being the most popular (32) followed by Australian Rules Football (21) and 14 sports having four or less participants. The reasons given by the 89 students who participated in sport, and their likes and dislikes about playing, indicated that fun and enjoyment, the social side of sport, fitness and health and, less often personal development, were regarded as the most important aspects of sport. The 22 students not playing sport expressed similar views, but focussed more on their dislikes of its physical demands and competitive element. In the students' view, family influence was most often in the form of support and encouragement; only a few reported that they had learned a sport directly from their parents. Friends were also seen as an important dimension of playing sport. In terms of their sense of cultural identity, 47 of the 89 who played sport were classified as Monocultural Mainstream Australians, while another ten identified with a different Monocultural group. The remaining 23 were Bicultural or Polycultural, linking their sense of being Australian to identification with one or more other cultural groups. Among those who did not play sport, nine were Monocultural Mainstream Australians, three identified with another group and four were Bicultural, identifying both with Australia and another group. For particular sports, the breakdown by cultural identity showed substantial variation. In Soccer players of diverse cultural identities were one more in number than those of mainstream Australian identity. By contrast, Netball and Cricket were dominated by players of Mainstream Australian identity. Very few respondents found their sense of cultural identity to be a barrier to sports participation, but its influence was apparent in their choice of sports.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Education, 201
Social Class and Australian Schooling
No full textThis chapter begins by first exploring the difference between understanding social class as stratification and understanding social class as a power relation between particular groups especially in Australian Schooling. Secondly, since teachers are often said to be 'middle class' and schools to promote 'middle class culture', then the exploration moves to examine the 'problem' of the middle class: does it exist and, if so, what is a useful way for thinking about this 'class' and its culture? This exploration of the notion of a middle class raises the issue of divisions within the working class and maintains that these divisions are in part the result of competition in the labour market, but ultimately are caused by the ruling class. Thirdly, the chapter returns to the question of stratification and reveals that schools, as part of the state, deliberately stratify students using a competitive academic meritocracy. This acts to 'divide and-rule' the working class. Finally, an assessment is made of the ambivalent opportunities in schools for fostering social justice
Florian Znaniecki's humanistic sociology in Australian studies on cultural and linguistic diversity and the implications for education
No full textFlorian Znaniecki’s humanistic approach to sociology was introduced into the Australian context and extended by Jerzy Smolicz, from the School of Education at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. Humanistic sociology
has been used to investigate social and cultural life from the perspective of human beings as active participants in the dynamic process of creating and maintaining the cultural values of their group. The main aims of this paper are to
review some key humanistic sociological studies related to Australian cultural and linguistic diversity approach and consider their implications for languages education in
Australia. Smolicz and his research students began to use Znaniecki’s humanistic sociological approach to investigate the attitudes of minority individuals from communities, such as Polish, Italian, Ethiopian, Indian, Arabic and Uighur, toward maintaining their cultural values, especially their ethnic language. The attitudes of individuals from the mainstream Anglo-Celtic Australian group towards cultural and linguistic
diversity has also been studied. A more recent study has focused on the diverse cultural identities and home language use of year 11 students from six secondary schools. The
findings from these studies provide support for the most recent draft of the Australian curriculum on languages and its plans to develop curriculum in nine key languages.Vegneskumar Maniamhttp://sydney.edu.au/education_social_work/professional_learning/conferences/2011/multiculturalism_australia_canada_china.shtm
Secondary school students' participation in sports and their parents' level of support: a qualitative study from six Adelaide schools
No full textThe study investigated student involvement in sports as part of co-curricular activities in the school and outside, and the effect of parental support upon their child’s sport participation. The purpose of the study was to investigate in-depth the views of year 11 students from six Adelaide schools about their parents’ influence on their participation in sport. The schools agreed to allow their students to participate on a voluntary basis. The primary data was gathered from 111 students in the form of written personal statements in response to the researcher’s open-ended guideline questions, based on the humanistic sociological approach of studying respondents’ personal perspectives on a particular phenomenon. The 80% of respondents who claimed to play sport were involved in a total of 23 different sports, with soccer being the most frequently mentioned (29%). Parental support for sports participation was evident in 89% of their comments, but only 11% of parents played an active role. The 20% of respondents who did not play sport all attended schools where participation in sport was not compulsory. The negative family constraints identified by 15% of respondents referred to issues such as lack of parental interest in sport, concerns about safety, maintaining a balance between sport and other areas of life, and the cost involved.Vegneskumar Maniamhttp://www.achpersa.com.au/wb/pages/national-conference---2011/home.ph
The Memoir Method in Educational Research From an Australian Perspective
Get PDFThis paper reviews some key memoir studies, which were carried out in South Australia, and considers their process of data collection and analysis. A second aim is to explore the current status and usefulness of Znaniecki’s memoir approach in contemporary educational research. Smolicz followed Znaniecki in emphasizing the need to accept social and cultural values and actions as facts, just as human agents themselves accept them. Every individual was seen as a member of various group social systems and interpreted as a center of experience and actions based on the cultures of those groups. Smolicz also adopted Znaniecki’s memoir method of collecting and analyzing personal data in order to understand the actions and attitudes of young people of immigrant families and their educational experiences in Australian schools. These conscious human agents played an important role in maintaining and changing their group’s cultural systems. This paper highlights examples of various forms of memoirs collected from four different studies focused specifically on the issue of cultural identity. The comments of the participants, who came from various minority ethnic groups living in Australia, illustrate the nature of the comments made, as well as the researchers’ analysis and findings. The research studies of Smolicz and his associates demonstrate that memoir method has an important place in understanding the culture of different groups, which can be applied in many contexts – global, ethnic, national, and local
Curriculum and Critical Inquiry
No full textThis chapter begins with a discussion of 'common sense' thinking as a way of apprehending the social and cultural environment and then moves on to discuss the challenges of critical thinking. In the second part, the role of critical thinking in two well-known curriculum frameworks is explored. These frameworks can be used as templates for the analysis and evaluation of current curriculum policies and practices. The final section includes an exploration of the impact on the curriculum of the current neo-liberal thinking in major English speaking countries
Investigating Human Conscioucness Through Florian Znaniecki's Humanistic Sociology and Memoir Method
No full textIn the search for social approaches that could contribute to deepening our understanding of issues related to what has been called the Age of the Anthropocene, the conceptual framework and memoir method of humanistic sociology are well worth considering. According to Znaniecki, memoirs (including letters, autobiographies and diaries), as well as personal statements on specific topics, were very valuable sources of data for humanistic sociological analysis. The humanistic conceptual framework and methods have proved to be well suited to investigating how individuals of different cultural communities, as well as those of the Anglo-Celtic majority, viewed the reality of cultural and linguistic diversity in Australia and how this affected their sense of identity. Examples from Australian research on the issue of individuals' sense of cultural identity are presented and analysed to show how the approach can provide insights into the consciousness of participants
Teaching for Social Justice
No full textThe topic of this chapter is social justice. It introduces a framework of concepts and language for thinking about social justice. It argues the validity of social justice for education, where knowledge of social justice theories and concepts enable teachers to interrogate current policies and practices, from the perspective of who benefits and who may be disadvantaged by their implementation. It advocates that education can play a key role in addressing social injustices - such as various forms of discrimination, bias, prejudice, bigotry and violence - provided that teachers recognise how social injustices are reproduced, and how they are able to take appropriate action that can lead to socially just teaching
Participation in outdoor recreational activities and cultural identity in Australia: An exploratory qualitative study
Get PDFThis paper focuses on personal statements written by 23 Year 11 students about what outdoor recreational activities they participated in and their sense of cultural identity in the culturally plural context of Australia.. A sociological approach of inductive analysis of their comments was employed to investigate the extent to which those of culturally diverse identities were actually participating in outdoor recreational activities. The respondents came from six Adelaide co-educational secondary schools which agreed to participate in the study. The responses given to the guideline questions provided evidence of participation in twelve different outdoor recreational activities, some involving individual pursuits and others group activities. Twelve students identified themselves as ‘mainstream Australian’, while eight claimed identities linked to other European and Asian cultural groups and three reported no sense of cultural identification. The evidence from this exploratory study was that those of culturally diverse identities were actually participating in outdoor recreational activities. However, they were more likely to be involved in individual rather than group activities. Furthermore they preferred land-based activities to those requiring water skills. The paper discusses the significance of the findings, implications for making future initiatives and policies in outdoor recreational activities more inclusive, as well as directions for further research
"Creating a better world": the International Baccalaureate and the reproduction of social inequality in Australia
Get PDFThe role of education in the reproduction of social inequality has been consistently demonstrated since the seminal research on the subject in the 1960s. Yet changes in the structures of education systems constantly re-problematise the (re)production of social inequality. In particular, new forms of educational differentiation bring the question of the social distribution of educational opportunities to the fore. One recent form of educational differentiation has been the development of curricular alternatives, and the most prevalent of these alternative curricula are the programs developed by the International Baccalaureate organisation. In this project, I attempt to understand the contribution of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, a two-year pre-university credential, to the reproduction of social inequality in Australia. To that effect, I examine the quality of the Diploma Programme opportunity, in comparison to alternative programs. I then assess the social background of students choosing the Diploma, in order to evaluate the implications of the introduction of this alternative senior secondary curriculum for the social distribution of educational opportunities. I conclude the analysis by addressing some elements of explanation for the Diploma Programme’s contribution to the reproduction of social inequality. Finally, I propose some modest reforms for using this new form of educational differentiation as an instrument for devising a fairer distribution of educational chances.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Education, 2016
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