Kerry H. Robinson

Reinforcing hegemonic masculinities through sexual harassment: issues of identity, power and popularity in secondary schools

This paper, based on the perspectives of young men, explores the relationship between dominant constructions of masculinities and the sexual harassment of young women in Australian secondary schools, within a feminist poststructuralist theoretical framework. Of particular importance in this process are the ways in which sexual harassment is integral to the construction of hegemonic heterosexual masculine identities; the importance of popularity, acceptance and young mens fears within male peer group cultures; and the utilization of sexual harassment as a means through which to maintain and regulate hierarchical power relationships, not just in relation to gender, but how it intersects with other sites of power such as ‘race’ and class. It is highlighted that sexual harassment is considered a legitimate and expected means through which to express and reconfirm the public and private positions of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ within a heterosexualized, racialized and classed gender order.

Making the Invisible Visible: gay and lesbian issues in early childhood education

This article, based on empirical qualitative data gained from a survey and interviews with a group of early childhood educators, argues for the inclusion of sexual differences, or more specifically, gay and lesbian equity issues, in approaches to anti-bias. The article examines the discourses that prevail in the field, that perpetuate the perceived irrelevance, invisibility and exclusion of lesbian and gay issues in early childhood settings and education generally. The discussion focuses on several main areas, including: the prevalence of the dominant discourses of childhood and sexuality that intersect to constitute sexuality as irrelevant to children; the pervasiveness of the discourse of compulsory heterosexuality and the assumed absence of gay and lesbian families in settings; or the assumed absence of significant gay and lesbian adults in childrens lives; the presence of homophobia and heterosexism in early childhood settings; and the perceived irrelevance of broader social, political and economic issues to the ‘childs world’. This article highlights some crucial issues for practice and policy development in the area of anti-bias education concerned with sexual differences.

‘Difficult citizenship’: The precarious relationships between childhood, sexuality and access to knowledge

In this discussion children’s difficult citizenship is examined within the contentious context of children being considered sexual citizens. The relationship of childhood to sexuality is fraught with difficulties, controversies, and complexities; it is one openly and officially based on exclusion, with children constituted as requiring protection from sexuality, considered an ‘adults’ only’ domain, dangerous to children. Hegemonic discourses of childhood and innocence are examined in the ways in which they have been utilized to strictly regulate children’s access to knowledge of sexuality and to deny their relevance and access to sexual citizenship. Utilizing a Foucaultian theoretical framework, it is argued that the regulation of children’s access to knowledge of sexuality is primarily linked to the ways in which childhood and innocence are utilized as a means through which the ‘good’ heteronormative adult citizenship subject is constituted and governed. Children’s education is foundational in the development of the heteronormative good future citizen and sexual citizen subject. Through institutions such as schooling, adults have heavily regulated children’s education and access to information, strictly defining what knowledge children should and should not be privy to. A focus is given to Australian primary schooling and pre-school education. Moral panic is regularly mobilized to reinforce this regulation when the boundaries of what is perceived to be ‘appropriate’ knowledge for children are transgressed. It is argued that this regulation has critical implications for children’s early education, their increased vulnerabilities, and for their health and well-being, not just in their childhood but throughout their lives.

Doing Sexuality Research with Children: Ethics, Theory, Methods and Practice:

This article is a critical reflection on undertaking qualitative research with children and young people about sexuality issues. Framed within a feminist post-structuralist and queer theoretical perspective, the authors understand sexuality as a historically and culturally contingent category of subjectivity, and a complex signifying system founded on individual and institutional relations of power. Based on Australian research that has spanned the past decade, the authors reflect on their experiences of research with children and young people around sexuality, and the issues encountered in gaining approval to undertake this research from institutional human ethics committees. The authors also discuss the use of images from popular culture and media representations as a methodology to engage children, young people and adults in discussions on relationships and sexuality issues within the context of interviews and focus groups. In conclusion, the authors reflect on what it means to be a researcher in this field and offer some thoughts on how best to support researchers to continue engaging in this research.

Children’s Gendered and Sexual Cultures: Desiring and Regulating Recognition through Life Markers of Marriage, Love and Relationships

Children’s gendered and sexual cultures are dynamic and involve complex negotiations between various stakeholders, including children, families, educators, the media and the broader community. This chapter, based on qualitative research undertaken with children, parents/guardians and educators in Australia, examines how the discourse of marriage features predominantly in children’s gendered and sexual cultures, significantly influencing their understandings of love, intimacy and relationships.1 Employing a theoretical lens that encompasses feminist post-structuralism, queer theory and post-developmentalism, we explore how children constitute their own gendered and sexual subjectivities. Fundamental to this process is heteronormativity, which regulates many children’s perceptions of the ‘appropriate’ girl and boy subject, ideals of romantic love and marriage. The ritual of marriage, which in Western cultures is linked to discourses of romantic love, family and having children, is central to children’s enculturation within heteronormative values and morals. Children take up the discourse of marriage, mimetically incorporating its symbolic meaning into their imaginary worlds. The hegemony of the romantic, fairytale and carnivalesque nature of Western marriages further captures children’s desire to be part of this sociocultural ritual.

Sexual harassment in schools : issues of identity and power : negotiating the complexities, contexts, and contradictions of this everyday practice

Over the past three decades educational researchers in Australia, United States, United Kingdom and Canada, in particular, have provided an extensive overview of the practice of sexual harassment in high schools and its impact on the students and teachers who experience and/or witness this behaviour (Brown et al., 2007; Epstein, 1997; Gruber & Fineran, 2007; Halson, 1991; Herbert, 1992; Howard & England Kennedy, 2006; Jones, 1985; Keddie, 2007; Klein, 2006; Larkin, 1994; Leach & Sitaram, 2007; Mahony, 1985, 1989; Renold, 2002; Robinson, 1996, 2000, 2005c). Much of this research reinforces that sexual harassment is an integral part of schooling cultures, experienced on a daily basis, and is often dismissed or rendered invisible through its ‘normalisation’ within hegemonic discourses of gender and sexuality, especially heterosexuality. However, the ‘everydayness’ of this widespread practice in schooling and its foundations within socio-cultural relations of identity and power continue to be eclipsed by the dominant discourse of sexual harassment as stemming from the psychopathological behaviours of problematic individuals. Further, in more recent years sexual harassment in schools has tended to be viewed within the more general framework of bullying, which is also constituted within psychopathological discourses. Within this context, sexual harassment becomes both depoliticised and increasingly more invisible (Brown et al., 2007).

Responsibilities, Tensions and Ways Forward: Parents' Perspectives on Children's Sexuality Education.

Abstract Children’s sexuality education continues to be plagued with tensions and controversies. In consequence, children’s access to sexuality education is severely compromised, especially in terms of the time dedicated to this topic, the content addressed, how it is taught and by whom. Based on a study of 342 Australian parents of primary school aged children we explore: (i) parents’ perceptions of the relevance and importance of sexuality education to their primary school aged children and the discourses that inform their perspectives; (ii) parents’ views on who should be responsible for the sexuality education of young children; (iii) whether there are certain aspects of sexuality education considered more appropriate for the family to address with children; and (iv) what the implications of these findings are for sexuality education policy and practice in Australian primary schooling. Despite the controversial nature of the topic, the majority of parents in this study believed sexuality education was relevant and important to primary school children and that it should be a collaborative approach between families and schools. However, some parents/carers acknowledged that while that they believed that some topics should only be addressed at home they also indicated that this often does not happen.

Introduction: The Case for Rethinking School Violence

School violence is a complex issue that raises important questions about social and educational relationships and about the nature of schooling itself. Explanations of possible causes abound, as researchers, educationalists and communities alike look for answers to a problem that persists – and at times erupts with deadly consequences – in what are ordinarily considered to be safe and supportive places for children and young people. Numerous definitions of violence have attempted to describe, delineate and categorise terms such as ‘bullying’ and ‘violence’, yet these are subject to ongoing debate and generally reflect the philosophical and ideological underpinnings of particular disciplinary fields. Contributors to this book locate their work within a broad sociocultural research tradition, informed by fields as diverse as sociology, anthropology, education, criminology and literary, media and cultural studies.

Conclusions : rethinking school violence : implications for theory, policy and practice

Each of the authors in this book has highlighted the complexities involved in the manifestation of school violence in its multiple contexts. Integral and foundational to each of the chapters has been the importance of reconceptualising school violence through the lens of socio-cultural, political and historical discourses that impact on the ways in which violence is constructed, understood and situated. As discussed in the introduction to this book, to date, understandings of and approaches to school violence have continued to be largely dominated by psychological discourses that focus on individual pathologies, rather than in complex relations of power that underpin the interplay between individual identities, social, cultural and environmental factors. This has limited understandings of and approaches to dealing with school violence. Each of the chapters also highlights the ways in which violence is often normalised in young people’s lives through the hegemonic socio-cultural and political practices that operate in different cultural contexts. What has been argued in this book is that the ‘everydayness’ of school violence in many young people’s schooling experiences, and lives more generally, stemming from broad socio-cultural, political and historical discourses, is missing from many analyses of school violence, rendering much of this behaviour as invisible and/or unremarkable in the eyes of many students, teachers and educational researchers.

Celebrating pioneering and contemporary feminist approaches to studying gender in early childhood

This chapter charts feminist research in early childhood and the generative potential it offers to continually revisit childhood and gender—and the important ways in which this has shifted over time. This review celebrates the significant contributions feminist scholars have made to the field; and demonstrates the potentialities within contemporary approaches such as new materialism and posthumanism to respond to postfeminist claims that gender is no longer an issue. Our intention is to identify the centrality of feminism to the field of early childhood studies and the continued relevance of gender to all early childhood debates. The chapter addresses the following issues: the influence of feminist theory to conceptualizations of the child/childhood; the relationship of feminist theory to post-structuralism and to queer theory in relation to understandings of childhood, gender, and sexuality; equitable and transformative pedagogies in early childhood education; advances in theoretical perspectives that contribute to contemporary understandings of gender in the lives of young children, including the tensions that can exist around some feminist perspectives and gender diverse and trans children; the perceived relevance of gender issues in early childhood policy and curricular frameworks; and identifying the current gender issues pertinent to early childhood education and to young children’s lives.