Seth Brown

Choosing whether to resist or reinforce the new managerialism: the impact of performance‐based research funding on academic identity

This article uses four academics’ gendered and cultural responses to life in a university in Aotearoa New Zealand under the new managerialist regime. Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF) requires academics to submit evidence‐based portfolios every six years to categorise and rank them, with government funding assigned accordingly. When the authors met as members of a writing group, the talk often turned to negative aspects of PBRF. Using co‐operative enquiry, the four co‐researchers began writing observations of their individual experiences, differences and identities to help them reflect and understand the impact of the changed environment. The four phases of writing as enquiry were: deciding on a focus, writing observations, engaging with the written accounts and interpreting the outcome through metaphor. The article process facilitated a positive outcome by helping the authors regain a sense of collegiality and mutual support, along with a sense of preserving their academic identity by writing and publishing as a group.

Masculinities in Physical Recreation: The (Re)Production of Masculinist Discourses in Vocational Education.

Educators have criticised vocational education in Australia and elsewhere for being gendered and classed, thereby not giving those students who choose to undertake this form of study the broadening of opportunities envisioned (e.g., Falk, 1999; Huws, 2000; Host & Michelson, 2001). Recently, the Queensland Studies Authority (formally the Queensland Board of Senior Secondary School Studies) implemented the subject Physical Recreation, a new stream of vocational education. The aim of this study was to examine how power operates in two Physical Recreation case study schools using Foucaults techniques of power. Qualitative data were collected using field notes from observations, interviews using partially constructed questions and supplementary materials. The data collected were clustered into key themes addressing masculinities (re)produced by the Physical Recreation teachers and students. The discourses within these themes that position both teachers and students in particular power relationships were deconstructed using Foucaults techniques of power. The paper concludes that Physical Recreation perpetuated a male hierarchy that favoured elite athletes and offered limited educative experiences to the majority of students.1

A Lost Opportunity? Vocational Education in Physical Education.

Background: Vocational education in Australia and elsewhere has a history of being gendered and classed, thereby limiting the post-school options of students undertaking this form of study. Drawing on Foucauldian theory, the authors used Gores eight techniques of power to examine the micro-functioning of power relations at two case sites. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine learning outcomes of Physical Recreation (PR), motivation of students selecting PR, and the implications of training in this vocationally-oriented subject in terms of their learning and post-school options. More specifically, we explored the following research questions: what motivated students to select PR; what were the learning outcomes for PR students and what did PR students perceive as their post-school options. Participants, setting and research design: Two schools (Seinfeld and Bedrock), each with different socio-economic and PR strand composition, were purposefully selected for the study. The PR Year 11 and 12 students, aged 15–19 years, at both schools were invited to complete an introductory survey. From the survey data 12 key informant students, two teachers and two teacher aides became central to the ongoing qualitative data collection for this study. Data collection: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key informant students (one to four interviews), teachers (two to three) and teachers’ aides (one to two). During the class visits, field notes were recorded using a hand-held tape recorder focusing upon key informants’ reactions to course content, their learning experiences, and the social interactions between key informants and teachers. Documents were also collected to contextualize PR. Data analysis: First, the authors analyzed the data following the method of constant comparison using NVivo, a software package that assists researchers in the analysis of qualitative or text-based data. The authors analyzed the units emerging from the data and the placement of those units into key themes. After the data were clustered into key themes, the authors examined the discourses within the themes that positioned both teachers and students in particular power relationships using Gores eight techniques of power. Findings: Results indicated that the students selected PR based on the expectation of minimal academic requirements. The students’ learning focused on technical skills using logbooks to monitor their completion of modules for certification rather than more complex and engaging tasks. The binary system of vocational and academic streams of learning impacted the career pathway options available to students undertaking PR and teacher expectations of the students’ post-school options. There was a lack of interest (or willingness of teachers to take action) and resources invested in post-school options for PR students, contributing to limited life pathway options. Conclusions: The authors concluded that a curriculum model of physical education that has a vocational orientation could be beneficial to the schooling of senior secondary students. In order for students to receive favourable outcomes, it must employ educational content and pedagogies that offer alternatives to competency-based training and provides students with a range of post-school options.

Learning to be a 'goody-goody': Ethics and performativity in high school elite athlete programmes

Over the past few decades, New Zealand schools have started elite athlete programmes (EAPs) to develop talented sportspeople. The purpose of this study was to evaluate teachers/coaches and elite athletes’ perspectives of their learning experiences in two EAPs. Ball’s concept of performativity and Gore’s techniques of power were integral in examining the relationships between power, knowledge and social practices. The results showed that the EAPs emphasised corporate values of loyalty, self-sacrifice and work ethic and perpetuated the dichotomies of theory/practice, thinking/doing and mind/body discourses that assisted in the marginalised academic status of the EAP. Most of the elite athletes struggled to reconcile their athletic identity with their teenage identity as they sacrificed time with friends, pleasures such as frozen colas and other pursuits to be role models for younger athletes and others in their community.

Reconceptualising Elite Athlete Programmes: "Undoing" the Politics of Labelling in Health and Physical Education.

High-performance sport is a big business, with nations such as Australia and New Zealand dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of facilities and in creating sporting centres of excellence. Historically, high-performance sport and elite athlete programmes (EAPs) were regulated to an extra-curricular space in schools or local communities, but over the last couple of decades, schools in Australia and New Zealand have introduced EAPs into health and physical education (PE). Recent work has begun to explore the rationale for these programmes and their educational priorities, but little research has explored how the elite athlete body is being constructed within this curriculum space. In this paper, I consider two interrelated problems. The first concerns the conflicting discourses of winning in high-performance sport versus getting everyone healthy and active in health and PE. The second involves an explanation of how the elite athlete body is being constructed in these programmes. I argue the juxtaposition of the elite athlete body as disciplined, attractive and healthy to other bodies as lazy, unattractive and unhealthy renders the other bodies as pathological or resistant to disciplinary institutions of the school. In particular, I focus on the ways in which young peoples bodies are conceptualised within EAPs in relation to recreation, health, PE and other curriculum spaces. Throughout this paper, I provide examples to illustrate how EAPs may perpetuate normative ways of thinking that legitimatise elitism in schools. I propose that under radical reform, EAPs may have the potential to provide educational value and opportunities to students. I conclude by offering the cultural studies curriculum model that retains sport and desirable educational outcomes for health and PE as an alternative to elite athlete or talent development models.

De Coubertin's Olympism and the Laugh of Michel Foucault: Crisis Discourse and the Olympic Games

De Coubertin developed the sport philosophy of Olympism and the Olympic Games as a response to social and political crisis to promote peace, fair play, and the development of Christian masculinity. The purpose of this paper is to examine how crisis discourse functions as an important shaper of contemporary understandings of Olympism and how conflicting discourses have mobilized crisis discourse to produce competing ‘truths’ in which to rationalize and understand the Olympic Games. In drawing from Foucaults work and de Certeaus text, Heterologies: Discourse on the other, I argue that ‘crisis’ as the rationalization for Olympism and the Olympic Games has proven an unsuccessful venture for de Coubertin; as the Olympic Games have produced conservative outcomes based on a neoliberal agenda focused on elitism, professionalism, nationalism, and commercialism. This historical case raises important questions about the role of Olympism and its power to act as a catalyst for change.

‘Tidy, toned and fit’: locating healthism within elite athlete programmes

ABSTRACT Coaches and athletes have been increasingly inundated with power related ‘truths’ about their bodies, health and performance as they construct their subjectivities. Over the last couple of decades in New Zealand, schools have initiated elite athlete programmes (EAPs) for a select few students based primarily on their athletic ability and fitness levels. Drawing on Gores techniques of power, my study investigated how healthism and the cult of the body discourses were (re)produced, negotiated and resisted by coaches and elite athletes and how body pedagogies defined and shaped bodies in two high school EAPs. My analysis suggested that ‘toned and fit’ bodies signified responsible athletes compared to ‘fat’ bodies and that elite athletes disciplined their bodies to overcome pain to remain productive. In both EAPs, power circulated at the micro-level of pedagogical practice to normalise and monitor the athletes’ diet, body weight and shape, and reinforced tensions between prudentialism and hedonism.