Elizabeth Atkinson
Biographic Data
| ID | 133473 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elizabeth Atkinson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elizabeth |
| FAMILY NAME | Atkinson |
| SIGNATURE | ATKINSON E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sunderland |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5954-6807 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 129 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Adaptation of Gap Predictions in Filler-Gap Dependency Processing during Reading
Syntactic adaptation effects have been demonstrated for an expanding list of structure types, but the mechanism underlying this effect is still being explored. In the current work on filler-gap dependency processing, we examined whether exposing participants to a less common gap location-prepositional object (PO) gaps-altered their gap predictions, and whether these effects would transfer across tasks when this input was presented in a quasi-natu…
The nature of institutional heteronormativity in primary schools and practice-based responses
No Outsiders ’: Moving beyond a discourse of tolerance to challenge heteronormativity in primary schools
In this paper we describe a UK‐based participatory action research project that looks beyond the discourse of tolerance to investigate and challenge heteronormative processes in primary schools through reflective action research. This 28‐month ESRC‐funded project supports 15 primary teachers working in schools in three regions of the UK to develop action research projects that address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in their own s…
Permission to Talk About It: Narratives of Sexual Equality in the Primary Classroom
Based on practitioner interviews and action research, this article explores heteronormativity in U.K. primary schools, providing a performance venue where teachers' voices can be heard. Our particular focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality in the primary school makes the voices of minority practitioners and equalities activists, generally expected to be silent in the school context, appear to sound particularly loud. Shi…
Speaking the unspeakable in forbidden places: Addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in the primary school
The present paper interrogates the ways in which school is produced as a particular bounded place (or collection of places) where sexuality, and particularly non‐heterosexuality, is carefully policed by these boundaries. Drawing upon data generated in primary schools during a nationwide action research project ('No Outsiders'), we focus on three very different school places: the classroom, the staffroom and a school‐based after‐school art club. O…
Dangerous spaces: Constructing and contesting sexual identities in an online discussion forum
This paper explores ways in which the research design of an anonymous online discussion forum on sexual orientation and schooling fostered the creation, maintenance and/or disruption of linguistic constructions of participant identity. The paper focuses on the presentation of self and the performance of sex–gender–sexuality within a research environment carefully designed as a 'safe space': an environment in which the body is conspicuous by its a…
Un‐believing the matrix: Queering consensual heteronormativity
Two key concepts arising from Butler’s work are the heterosexual matrix – the conflation of sex‐gender‐sexuality which leads to the normalisation of heterosexuality – and performative reinscription – the discursive process by which the marginalised Other brings new meanings to normative identity constructions. While we have found both concepts useful, we consider the extent to which the very act of naming – or in Althusser’s words, hailing – the …
Imagining the homonormative: Performative subversion in education for social justice
This paper focuses on the operation of heteronormativity in online and face‐to‐face dialogues about sexualities and schooling, and seeks to tease out the means through which this operation is enacted. The data arise from two linked research projects focusing on participants' perceptions and concerns about addressing issues related to sexual orientation in school contexts. Analysis of data from both sources showed that participants' narratives wer…
Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities: Exploring Children's Gender and Sexual Relations in the Primary School - by Emma Renold
Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities: Exploring Children's Gender and Sexual Relations in the Primary School. By Emma Renold. Pp. 206. London and New York: Routledge-Falmer. 2005. £21.99 (pbk). ISBN 0-415-31497-6 (pbk)
Strategic Embodiment in Virtual Spaces: Exploring an on-line discussion about sexualities equality in schools
This paper analyses patterns of participation on a voluntary anonymous Web-based discussion forum, open to students and faculty in one UK university, concerning sexualities equality in schools. Analysis revealed that participants often rejected the security of anonymity and strategically embodied themselves and others (as gay, straight, parents, etc.) to provide authority and ethical grounding for certain arguments. These embodied arguments invit…
The sound of silence: Talking about sexual orientation and schooling
This paper arises from an online discussion project in the United Kingdom, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, in which higher education students and staff were invited to respond to a series of statements about sexual orientation in the context of schooling. This paper suggests that the silence of relative non‐participation may have been exacerbated by other levels of silence operating within the wider social, political and educational context of…
Thinking Outside the Box: An Exercise in Heresy
This article argues that the theme of the 2003 American Educational Research Association conference, "Accountability for Educational Quality: Shared Responsibility," reflects a disturbing move in educational research away from inquiry and interrogation and toward the purpose of serving policy. This is related to wider political and rhetorical moves by which we both construct and are constructed by what Ball described as "global policyscapes" with…
Education for Diversity in a Multisexual Society: Negotiating the contradictions of contemporary discourse
In spite of recent significant changes to the National Curriculum in England and Wales, including the introduction of personal, social and health education and citizenship, the subjects of sexuality and sexual identity remain virtually untouched in English primary and secondary schools. While diversity of sexual orientation is acknowledged in new government guidance on sex and relationship education, it receives no explicit recognition elsewhere …
The Responsible Anarchist: Postmodernism and social change
In recent years, the adoption of postmodern theoretical perspectives within educational research has prompted strong critical reaction. For some critics (particularly Marxist researchers), the greatest fault of postmodernism is that it lacks an agenda for social change. This paper takes issue with this argument, and with four associated arguments: (1) that postmodernism disempowers those to whom it claims to give voice; (2) that it appeals only t…
Deconstructing boundaries: Out on the inside
This paper explores multiple identities and their place in postmodern thinking, drawing on the arguments of MacLure (1996) and Stronach (1996) in seeking ways of accommodating and embracing multiplicity, and weaving a polyphonic text of postmodern voices in support of the discussion. The author explores the value of focusing on the self as the subject of inquiry and considers the benefits she has experienced in remaining on both sides of social, …
The promise of uncertainty: Education, postmodernism and the politics of possibility
This article is set in the context of current moves in British education policy towards a fixed concept of 'what works' and a questionable certainty about 'best practice'. The author explores the value of postmodern thinking in challenging these state-endorsed certainties and in opening up new possibilities for research, critique and practice. She identifies four key areas of educational authority to which postmodernism offers a significant chall…
In Defence of Ideas, or Why 'What Works' is Not Enough
The debate surrounding educational research in the UK has been fuelled by four recent government-funded publications that have thrown doubt on the validity, relevance and applicability of educational research. In this paper, the author offers a critique of these publications and questions their privileged role in informing government policy. She challenges the current trend towards instrumentalism in funded educational research, and explores the …
Residential and community treatment services utilized by a sample of youth with severe emotional disturbances
Analyzed case records to determine the costs and service usage patterns for a group of 25 youth randomly selected from the case load of a regional mental health agency. Study participants had extensive histories of publicly supported psychiatric hospitalizations. An average of 36.2 contacts per youth (905 total contacts) with human services providers were documented. Approximately 2 out of every 5 contacts resulted in out‐of‐home placements. The …
Acceptance and Perceptions of NORPLANT Among Users in San Francisco, USA
Two hundred and five women participating in a five-year clinical trial of NORPLANT and NORPLANT-2 were interviewed about their contraceptive and reproductive history, sources of information and knowledge of NORPLANT, experiences using the method, and the impressions of friends and family about the method. The most common reasons for trying the implants were dissatisfaction with other methods and perceptions about NORPLANT's ease of use. Forty-one…
Un‐believing the matrix: Queering consensual heteronormativity
Two key concepts arising from Butler’s work are the heterosexual matrix – the conflation of sex‐gender‐sexuality which leads to the normalisation of heterosexuality – and performative reinscription – the discursive process by which the marginalised Other brings new meanings to normative identity constructions. While we have found both concepts useful, we consider the extent to which the very act of naming – or in Althusser’s words, hailing – the …
The nature of institutional heteronormativity in primary schools and practice-based responses
No Outsiders ’: Moving beyond a discourse of tolerance to challenge heteronormativity in primary schools
In this paper we describe a UK‐based participatory action research project that looks beyond the discourse of tolerance to investigate and challenge heteronormative processes in primary schools through reflective action research. This 28‐month ESRC‐funded project supports 15 primary teachers working in schools in three regions of the UK to develop action research projects that address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in their own s…
Dangerous spaces: Constructing and contesting sexual identities in an online discussion forum
This paper explores ways in which the research design of an anonymous online discussion forum on sexual orientation and schooling fostered the creation, maintenance and/or disruption of linguistic constructions of participant identity. The paper focuses on the presentation of self and the performance of sex–gender–sexuality within a research environment carefully designed as a 'safe space': an environment in which the body is conspicuous by its a…
In Defence of Ideas, or Why 'What Works' is Not Enough
The debate surrounding educational research in the UK has been fuelled by four recent government-funded publications that have thrown doubt on the validity, relevance and applicability of educational research. In this paper, the author offers a critique of these publications and questions their privileged role in informing government policy. She challenges the current trend towards instrumentalism in funded educational research, and explores the …
Permission to Talk About It: Narratives of Sexual Equality in the Primary Classroom
Based on practitioner interviews and action research, this article explores heteronormativity in U.K. primary schools, providing a performance venue where teachers' voices can be heard. Our particular focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality in the primary school makes the voices of minority practitioners and equalities activists, generally expected to be silent in the school context, appear to sound particularly loud. Shi…
Deconstructing boundaries: Out on the inside
This paper explores multiple identities and their place in postmodern thinking, drawing on the arguments of MacLure (1996) and Stronach (1996) in seeking ways of accommodating and embracing multiplicity, and weaving a polyphonic text of postmodern voices in support of the discussion. The author explores the value of focusing on the self as the subject of inquiry and considers the benefits she has experienced in remaining on both sides of social, …
Thinking Outside the Box: An Exercise in Heresy
This article argues that the theme of the 2003 American Educational Research Association conference, "Accountability for Educational Quality: Shared Responsibility," reflects a disturbing move in educational research away from inquiry and interrogation and toward the purpose of serving policy. This is related to wider political and rhetorical moves by which we both construct and are constructed by what Ball described as "global policyscapes" with…
Imagining the homonormative: Performative subversion in education for social justice
This paper focuses on the operation of heteronormativity in online and face‐to‐face dialogues about sexualities and schooling, and seeks to tease out the means through which this operation is enacted. The data arise from two linked research projects focusing on participants' perceptions and concerns about addressing issues related to sexual orientation in school contexts. Analysis of data from both sources showed that participants' narratives wer…
The Responsible Anarchist: Postmodernism and social change
In recent years, the adoption of postmodern theoretical perspectives within educational research has prompted strong critical reaction. For some critics (particularly Marxist researchers), the greatest fault of postmodernism is that it lacks an agenda for social change. This paper takes issue with this argument, and with four associated arguments: (1) that postmodernism disempowers those to whom it claims to give voice; (2) that it appeals only t…
The promise of uncertainty: Education, postmodernism and the politics of possibility
This article is set in the context of current moves in British education policy towards a fixed concept of 'what works' and a questionable certainty about 'best practice'. The author explores the value of postmodern thinking in challenging these state-endorsed certainties and in opening up new possibilities for research, critique and practice. She identifies four key areas of educational authority to which postmodernism offers a significant chall…
Adaptation of Gap Predictions in Filler-Gap Dependency Processing during Reading
Syntactic adaptation effects have been demonstrated for an expanding list of structure types, but the mechanism underlying this effect is still being explored. In the current work on filler-gap dependency processing, we examined whether exposing participants to a less common gap location-prepositional object (PO) gaps-altered their gap predictions, and whether these effects would transfer across tasks when this input was presented in a quasi-natu…
Strategic Embodiment in Virtual Spaces: Exploring an on-line discussion about sexualities equality in schools
This paper analyses patterns of participation on a voluntary anonymous Web-based discussion forum, open to students and faculty in one UK university, concerning sexualities equality in schools. Analysis revealed that participants often rejected the security of anonymity and strategically embodied themselves and others (as gay, straight, parents, etc.) to provide authority and ethical grounding for certain arguments. These embodied arguments invit…
Acceptance and Perceptions of NORPLANT Among Users in San Francisco, USA
Two hundred and five women participating in a five-year clinical trial of NORPLANT and NORPLANT-2 were interviewed about their contraceptive and reproductive history, sources of information and knowledge of NORPLANT, experiences using the method, and the impressions of friends and family about the method. The most common reasons for trying the implants were dissatisfaction with other methods and perceptions about NORPLANT's ease of use. Forty-one…
Acceptance and Perceptions of NORPLANT Among Users in San Francisco, USA
Two hundred and five women participating in a five-year clinical trial of NORPLANT and NORPLANT-2 were interviewed about their contraceptive and reproductive history, sources of information and knowledge of NORPLANT, experiences using the method, and the impressions of friends and family about the method. The most common reasons for trying the implants were dissatisfaction with other methods and perceptions about NORPLANT's ease of use. Forty-one…
Residential and community treatment services utilized by a sample of youth with severe emotional disturbances
Analyzed case records to determine the costs and service usage patterns for a group of 25 youth randomly selected from the case load of a regional mental health agency. Study participants had extensive histories of publicly supported psychiatric hospitalizations. An average of 36.2 contacts per youth (905 total contacts) with human services providers were documented. Approximately 2 out of every 5 contacts resulted in out‐of‐home placements. The …
The promise of uncertainty: Education, postmodernism and the politics of possibility
This article is set in the context of current moves in British education policy towards a fixed concept of 'what works' and a questionable certainty about 'best practice'. The author explores the value of postmodern thinking in challenging these state-endorsed certainties and in opening up new possibilities for research, critique and practice. She identifies four key areas of educational authority to which postmodernism offers a significant chall…
In Defence of Ideas, or Why 'What Works' is Not Enough
The debate surrounding educational research in the UK has been fuelled by four recent government-funded publications that have thrown doubt on the validity, relevance and applicability of educational research. In this paper, the author offers a critique of these publications and questions their privileged role in informing government policy. She challenges the current trend towards instrumentalism in funded educational research, and explores the …
Deconstructing boundaries: Out on the inside
This paper explores multiple identities and their place in postmodern thinking, drawing on the arguments of MacLure (1996) and Stronach (1996) in seeking ways of accommodating and embracing multiplicity, and weaving a polyphonic text of postmodern voices in support of the discussion. The author explores the value of focusing on the self as the subject of inquiry and considers the benefits she has experienced in remaining on both sides of social, …
Education for Diversity in a Multisexual Society: Negotiating the contradictions of contemporary discourse
In spite of recent significant changes to the National Curriculum in England and Wales, including the introduction of personal, social and health education and citizenship, the subjects of sexuality and sexual identity remain virtually untouched in English primary and secondary schools. While diversity of sexual orientation is acknowledged in new government guidance on sex and relationship education, it receives no explicit recognition elsewhere …
The Responsible Anarchist: Postmodernism and social change
In recent years, the adoption of postmodern theoretical perspectives within educational research has prompted strong critical reaction. For some critics (particularly Marxist researchers), the greatest fault of postmodernism is that it lacks an agenda for social change. This paper takes issue with this argument, and with four associated arguments: (1) that postmodernism disempowers those to whom it claims to give voice; (2) that it appeals only t…
Thinking Outside the Box: An Exercise in Heresy
This article argues that the theme of the 2003 American Educational Research Association conference, "Accountability for Educational Quality: Shared Responsibility," reflects a disturbing move in educational research away from inquiry and interrogation and toward the purpose of serving policy. This is related to wider political and rhetorical moves by which we both construct and are constructed by what Ball described as "global policyscapes" with…
The sound of silence: Talking about sexual orientation and schooling
This paper arises from an online discussion project in the United Kingdom, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, in which higher education students and staff were invited to respond to a series of statements about sexual orientation in the context of schooling. This paper suggests that the silence of relative non‐participation may have been exacerbated by other levels of silence operating within the wider social, political and educational context of…
Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities: Exploring Children's Gender and Sexual Relations in the Primary School - by Emma Renold
Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities: Exploring Children's Gender and Sexual Relations in the Primary School. By Emma Renold. Pp. 206. London and New York: Routledge-Falmer. 2005. £21.99 (pbk). ISBN 0-415-31497-6 (pbk)
Strategic Embodiment in Virtual Spaces: Exploring an on-line discussion about sexualities equality in schools
This paper analyses patterns of participation on a voluntary anonymous Web-based discussion forum, open to students and faculty in one UK university, concerning sexualities equality in schools. Analysis revealed that participants often rejected the security of anonymity and strategically embodied themselves and others (as gay, straight, parents, etc.) to provide authority and ethical grounding for certain arguments. These embodied arguments invit…
Speaking the unspeakable in forbidden places: Addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in the primary school
The present paper interrogates the ways in which school is produced as a particular bounded place (or collection of places) where sexuality, and particularly non‐heterosexuality, is carefully policed by these boundaries. Drawing upon data generated in primary schools during a nationwide action research project ('No Outsiders'), we focus on three very different school places: the classroom, the staffroom and a school‐based after‐school art club. O…
Dangerous spaces: Constructing and contesting sexual identities in an online discussion forum
This paper explores ways in which the research design of an anonymous online discussion forum on sexual orientation and schooling fostered the creation, maintenance and/or disruption of linguistic constructions of participant identity. The paper focuses on the presentation of self and the performance of sex–gender–sexuality within a research environment carefully designed as a 'safe space': an environment in which the body is conspicuous by its a…
Un‐believing the matrix: Queering consensual heteronormativity
Two key concepts arising from Butler’s work are the heterosexual matrix – the conflation of sex‐gender‐sexuality which leads to the normalisation of heterosexuality – and performative reinscription – the discursive process by which the marginalised Other brings new meanings to normative identity constructions. While we have found both concepts useful, we consider the extent to which the very act of naming – or in Althusser’s words, hailing – the …
Imagining the homonormative: Performative subversion in education for social justice
This paper focuses on the operation of heteronormativity in online and face‐to‐face dialogues about sexualities and schooling, and seeks to tease out the means through which this operation is enacted. The data arise from two linked research projects focusing on participants' perceptions and concerns about addressing issues related to sexual orientation in school contexts. Analysis of data from both sources showed that participants' narratives wer…
No Outsiders ’: Moving beyond a discourse of tolerance to challenge heteronormativity in primary schools
In this paper we describe a UK‐based participatory action research project that looks beyond the discourse of tolerance to investigate and challenge heteronormative processes in primary schools through reflective action research. This 28‐month ESRC‐funded project supports 15 primary teachers working in schools in three regions of the UK to develop action research projects that address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in their own s…
Permission to Talk About It: Narratives of Sexual Equality in the Primary Classroom
Based on practitioner interviews and action research, this article explores heteronormativity in U.K. primary schools, providing a performance venue where teachers' voices can be heard. Our particular focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality in the primary school makes the voices of minority practitioners and equalities activists, generally expected to be silent in the school context, appear to sound particularly loud. Shi…
The nature of institutional heteronormativity in primary schools and practice-based responses
Adaptation of Gap Predictions in Filler-Gap Dependency Processing during Reading
Syntactic adaptation effects have been demonstrated for an expanding list of structure types, but the mechanism underlying this effect is still being explored. In the current work on filler-gap dependency processing, we examined whether exposing participants to a less common gap location-prepositional object (PO) gaps-altered their gap predictions, and whether these effects would transfer across tasks when this input was presented in a quasi-natu…
Sociology (17 works) · Political science (14 works) · Gender Studies (12 works) · Law (10 works) · Human sexuality (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Heteronormativity (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Gender Studies (6 works)