Cassandra Loeser

Does research degree supervisor training work? The impact of a professional development induction workshop on supervision practice

ABSTRACT Supervisor induction and continued professional development programmes constitute good practice and are enshrined in institutional policies and national codes of practice. However, there is little evidence about whether they have an impact on either supervisors’ learning or day-to-day practice. Set in a discussion of previous literature, this article unpacks the concepts ‘impact’ and ‘evaluation’ and assesses the medium- and longer term impact of the University of South Australias doctoral supervisor induction programme, Supervising@UniSA. It suggests that the workshop leads to the acquisition of understanding and knowledge and, for the majority of attendees, also has an impact on supervisory practice.

The rapture of the ride: Hearing (dis)abled masculinities in motorcycling

This article explores motorcycling as an arena for the choreography and performance of body practices of pleasure for young men with hearing disabilities. The article advances the argument that the discursive multiplicity of identities experienced in motorcycling destabilises precepts that privilege paid work and institutionalised competitive team sports as absolute bastions of masculine existence. Drawing on data collected from an interview with one young man with a severe hearing disability, it will be shown that his experience of both finding a stable occupation, and participating in institutionalised team sports, is marked by ongoing difficulties. By contrast, participation in motorcycling is an occasion by which he (re)constructs and enhances his masculine identity. The embodied experience of motorcycling invokes possibilities for an interconnection with the masculine, and dialogic exchange with the identity of hearing disability. This demonstrates an uncertainty of settlements regarding what constitutes ‘masculinity’ and ‘disability’ in different sites and contexts.

Muscularity, Mateship and Malevolent Masculinities: Experiences of Young Men with Hearing Disabilities in Secondary Schools.

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 constitute them as ‘Other’, the young men themselves do not believe that because they have a hearing disability, they are ‘abnormal’ or should tolerate acts of violence against their being. The young mens emphasis on the antagonistic nature of subjectivity in the context of dynamics of the schoolyard points to the uncertainty of settlements of what constitutes dominant masculinity in a given person between and within other groups. Their stories demonstrate the identities of masculinity and disability as fragile, antagonistic and mediated productions, contingent upon approximate performances grounded in what different male peer cultures deem ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’.

Disability and sexuality: Desires and pleasures

There is an ongoing missing discourse of pleasure in studies of sexuality and disability, and considerations of sexual pleasures and sexual desire in the lives of people with disabilities play very little part in public discourse. This opening article analyzes some of the major theoretical influences and debates informing prevailing assumptions about disability and sexuality. An exposition of the theoretical and conceptual terrains that underpin and shape this special issue works to canvas a series of often disparate sites of contestation, and suggests that disabled and sexual embodied subjectivities are much more than ‘asexual’ or ‘hypersexual’ pathological constructions. The articles explore the ways in which the intersection of disability and sexuality involves an understanding of the interlocking discourses of normality, sexuality, able-bodiedness, heteronormativity and desire, which can shape possibilities for sex, sexuality, pleasure and intimacy for people with a disability. What will become evident is that a greater attention to the phenomenology of sexual embodiment, pleasure, desire, and the diverse meanings of intimacy and the erotic, can make significant contributions to social and scholarly analyses of disability and sexuality. The utilization of different methodological approaches that can attend to complexity and diversity in the experience of sex and sexuality further constitutes part of the critique of ableist narratives of the ‘normal’ desiring and desirable subject that cannot account for the intersubjective conditions in which embodied subjectivity is constructed and pleasure experienced.

“My choice was not to become a tradesman, my choice was to go to uni”: Australian working-class masculinities, widening participation and lifelong learning

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the first-year university experience as an agent for the (re)learning and (re)making of masculine identity as it intersects with other categories of identity. Historically, male students from working-class backgrounds have often struggled with identity issues and many leave school early for vocational employment where their masculinity is reinforced and validated. A small percentage, however, re-enrol in higher education later in life. This paper explores how “Deo”, a tradesperson who became a university student, reconstructed his identity during this transition. Design/methodology/approach The primary methodology for this case study is semi-structured interviews. Findings Deo articulated his transition in terms of “change” and “transformation”, in which a theme of risk was central. He also drew attention to cultural practices that regulate hierarchies of masculinity as they intersect with the identities of age, sexuality, ethnicity and socio-economic status within his work and study. Research limitations/implications This study focusses on one student’s experience in an Australian public university, so findings may not be generalisable. However, single stories are an important means of illustrating the intersection of shared socio-cultural practices. Originality/value Within adult education literature there is limited engagement with intersecting cultural narratives that shape experiences, inequalities and barriers in learners’ lives. Deo’s story gives voice to socio-cultural narratives around masculinity, age, ethnicity, sexuality and socio-economic status, highlighting their central significance to learning, being and belonging.

Hearing (Dis)abled Masculinities in Australian Rules Football: Possibilities for Pleasure

This chapter argues that the multiplicity of identities offered through amateur Australian Rules football agitate against the complacency of utilitarian constructions of the male body as they figure in heteronormative masculine identifications. Drawing on interviews with two young heterosexual men with a hearing disability, it is revealed that the football code of Australian Rules grants a heterogeneity of embodied pleasures and possibilities for constructing desirable modes of ‘able-bodied’ masculinity that the institution of paid work does not permit. Performances of physical prowess on-the-field perform a subversion of disabled containment, mobilising a particular mode of spatiality, a distancing from their experiences of being ‘Othered’ in their respective workplaces. Hearing (dis)abled masculinities in football allows heterosexual desire to be heard as a powerful productive force for inciting and producing diverse pleasurable heterosexual modes of embodiment, subjectivity and intimacy. The young men’s stories point to a lack of fixity—the ‘always’ in the construction of disability and heterosexual modes of masculinity that renders these identities processes of hard labour.