Deana Leahy
Biographic Data
| ID | 234420 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Deana Leahy |
| GIVEN NAMES | Deana |
| FAMILY NAME | Leahy |
| SIGNATURE | LEAHY D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3763-1573 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Making space: A case for unruly food pedagogies
This article addresses the intersection of food pedagogies and disability. In particular, we consider what happens when unruly disabled bodies are centered and made space for in pedagogical approaches to food and cooking. We draw on data from a larger project in a community food space in Melbourne, Australia, involving ethnographic observation (160 hours over 9 months), participation, and qualitative interviews (n = 12). Using Carla Rice’s concep…
Engaging children in food systems literacy research: An analysis of children's drawings from the Little Food Festival
Purpose This study aims to explore the level of food system literacy amongst children and families attending a food sustainability festival and examine children's perspectives regarding which actions they consider feasible and within their sphere of influence to improve our future food system. Design/methodology/approach Conducted at the Little Food Festival in Australia, this study involved qualitative, child-friendly methods. Data were collecte…
Amplifying critical syncretism in Asia as method: Understanding policy enactments in a Hong Kong school through Mohap
Asia as method, in decolonial thinking, endorses the value of local knowledge while concurrently recognising colonial and global knowledges’ ongoing influence and potential value in knowledge production. Yet, how to apply Asia as method and articulate the diverse traditions of knowledge(s) is underexplored. To address this gap, we consider Asia as method’s critical syncretism is the means to show the interplay between different knowledges. Critic…
Sexual and reproductive health education in Australia: A qualitative study of health professionals’ views
Young people tend to have low levels of sexual health literacy. The aims of this work were to explore health professionals’ perspectives of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education in Australia and what they considered should be the core components of SRH curriculum, particularly for Year 11 and 12 students. In September and October, 2021, health professionals (n = 12) with expertise in SRH, in Victoria, Australia participated in semi-struc…
Sexual and reproductive health education for young people in Victoria, Australia: A mixed methods study
Young people aged >15 years (Years 11 and 12 students) in Australia are unlikely to receive school-based sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education. The aims of this study were to gather the perspectives of young people regarding their experiences of school-based SRH education and explore what they considered should be the core components of this form of education for Years 11 and 12 students. A mixed-methods study involving an online survey …
Categorical difference as affective assemblage: Experiences of Vietnamese women in the neoliberal university
In this article, we draw on interview data with three Vietnamese women to explore how categorical difference works through the ways that these women constitute themselves and are constituted as academics and doctoral students in Australian universities. Our analysis focuses on the arrangement of things that make neoliberalism an inexhaustive force, working via affective connections with other social, historical and material conditions in producin…
Educating young people to graduate school with the ability to protect their sexual and reproductive health: A mixed-methods study
Many young people in Australia leave secondary school with little understanding of sexual and reproductive health (SRH). This study aims to describe Australian teachers’ experiences when providing SRH education, map their use of resources, and explore barriers and strategies to increase students’ skills and confidence to protect their SRH. Quantitative data were gathered via an online questionnaire (n = 189) before qualitative data were elicited …
Teachers’ perspectives of sexual and reproductive health education in primary and secondary schools: A systematic review of qualitative studies
The ineffable allure of sugar - Hammer cake, That Sugar Film and contradictory pleasures
This article explores the complicated place of sugar in the display of family connectedness and health in a white, middle class Australian family. In the context of heightened anxiety about childhood obesity, we present the Baker family as a case study to explore the pleasures and tensions that sugar consumption produces in families. On their birthdays, each child has a luxurious “Hammer Cake” coated in chocolate studded with sweets; simultaneous…
The family meals imperative and everyday family life: An analysis of children’s photos and videos
At a time of increasing diversity in family forms and family practices the evening family meal is promoted as an imperative; a straightforward solution to complex social problems such as childhood obesity, family breakdown and depression. In this paper we discuss the challenges faced by families in achieving this imperative on an everyday basis drawing on visual data generated by children from a qualitative research project with 50 diverse famili…
Children, ‘healthy’ food, school and family: The ‘[n]ot really’ outcome of school food messages
This paper draws on a multi-method study with 50 families in Victoria, Australia. Primary school children were asked about food knowledge from school and whether they felt motivated to bring knowledge home. Generally, children and parents felt school food messages are unclear, contradictory and not relevant to them and this reduced the likelihood of messages coming home from school. We identify a critical difference in how families thought about …
I Feel We are Inclusive Enough”: Examining Swimming Coaches’ Understandings of Inclusion and Disability
In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight Victorian swimming coaches to examine the discourses of disability1 and inclusion that they expressed in relation to their current coaching practices. Analysis specifically pursued links between neoliberalism, ableism, elitism, classification and inclusion in coaching, with the intention of exploring what discourse relations are possible, imaginable and practical within what have…
Youth, Sexuality and Sexual Citizenship
Sexual citizenship is a powerful concept associated with debates about recognition and exclusion, agency, respect and accountability. For young people in general and for gender and sexually diverse youth in particular, these debates are entangled with broader imaginings of social transitions: from 'child' to 'adult' and from 'unreasonable subject' to one 'who can consent'. This international and interdisciplinary collection identifies and locates…
Someone has to keep shouting: Celebrities as Food Pedagogues
In a recent interview with the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver stated that ‘Food is the most basic issue [...] it’s about health [...] someone has to take responsibility for this. Someone has to keep shouting’. Oliver’s statement reflects his position as a chef, a public pedagogue and, importantly for the purposes of this article, a celebrity. Oliver’s is one of many voices that have entered the public realm to educ…
The political is critical: Explorations of the contemporary politics of knowledge in health and physical education
This special issue has been conceived to acknowledge the advances in inquiry and understandings that political and critical scholarship has facilitated. Perhaps more importantly, it seeks to reveal the limits of contemporary ‘political’ and/or ‘critical’ research in the field and encourage fresh thinking about a number of issues, including not least, the relationship between political and critical research. In our editorial we highlight a number …
Biopedagogical Assemblages: Exploring School Drug Education in Action
Public health 'perspectives' position school-based drug education as a key site whereby public health imperatives can be brought to life through the 'empowerment' of young people to take charge of their bodies to ensure their own good health. Foucauldian governmentality scholarship has been extremely useful in the task of critically examining these attempts to govern the population's health and drug use, drawing attention to the ways in which cla…
A critical ‘critical inquiry’ proposition in Health and Physical Education
A critical inquiry approach is one of five key charateristics that have shaped the development of the new Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education (AC: HPE). However, what this means is open to interpretation. In the various documents leading to the consultation draft AC: HPE and in this document itself, critical inquiry is used in varying ways with differing intentions. In this paper, we examine the conditions of possibility for part…
Assembling a health[y] subject: Risky and shameful pedagogies in health education
As a school subject, health education functions as a contemporary apparatus of governmentality by attempting to shape the health[y] conduct of young people. Currently, health education, along with many other institutions and programmes, is heavily shaped by neoliberal logics of risk. This paper is interested in exploring how these tenets shape versions of curriculum and classroom practices. The article draws on ethnographic data and the analytica…
Children, ‘healthy’ food, school and family: The ‘[n]ot really’ outcome of school food messages
This paper draws on a multi-method study with 50 families in Victoria, Australia. Primary school children were asked about food knowledge from school and whether they felt motivated to bring knowledge home. Generally, children and parents felt school food messages are unclear, contradictory and not relevant to them and this reduced the likelihood of messages coming home from school. We identify a critical difference in how families thought about …
I Feel We are Inclusive Enough”: Examining Swimming Coaches’ Understandings of Inclusion and Disability
In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight Victorian swimming coaches to examine the discourses of disability1 and inclusion that they expressed in relation to their current coaching practices. Analysis specifically pursued links between neoliberalism, ableism, elitism, classification and inclusion in coaching, with the intention of exploring what discourse relations are possible, imaginable and practical within what have…
Biopedagogical Assemblages: Exploring School Drug Education in Action
Public health 'perspectives' position school-based drug education as a key site whereby public health imperatives can be brought to life through the 'empowerment' of young people to take charge of their bodies to ensure their own good health. Foucauldian governmentality scholarship has been extremely useful in the task of critically examining these attempts to govern the population's health and drug use, drawing attention to the ways in which cla…
Amplifying critical syncretism in Asia as method: Understanding policy enactments in a Hong Kong school through Mohap
Asia as method, in decolonial thinking, endorses the value of local knowledge while concurrently recognising colonial and global knowledges’ ongoing influence and potential value in knowledge production. Yet, how to apply Asia as method and articulate the diverse traditions of knowledge(s) is underexplored. To address this gap, we consider Asia as method’s critical syncretism is the means to show the interplay between different knowledges. Critic…
The ineffable allure of sugar - Hammer cake, That Sugar Film and contradictory pleasures
This article explores the complicated place of sugar in the display of family connectedness and health in a white, middle class Australian family. In the context of heightened anxiety about childhood obesity, we present the Baker family as a case study to explore the pleasures and tensions that sugar consumption produces in families. On their birthdays, each child has a luxurious “Hammer Cake” coated in chocolate studded with sweets; simultaneous…
A critical ‘critical inquiry’ proposition in Health and Physical Education
A critical inquiry approach is one of five key charateristics that have shaped the development of the new Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education (AC: HPE). However, what this means is open to interpretation. In the various documents leading to the consultation draft AC: HPE and in this document itself, critical inquiry is used in varying ways with differing intentions. In this paper, we examine the conditions of possibility for part…
Assembling a health[y] subject: Risky and shameful pedagogies in health education
As a school subject, health education functions as a contemporary apparatus of governmentality by attempting to shape the health[y] conduct of young people. Currently, health education, along with many other institutions and programmes, is heavily shaped by neoliberal logics of risk. This paper is interested in exploring how these tenets shape versions of curriculum and classroom practices. The article draws on ethnographic data and the analytica…
Biopedagogical Assemblages: Exploring School Drug Education in Action
Public health 'perspectives' position school-based drug education as a key site whereby public health imperatives can be brought to life through the 'empowerment' of young people to take charge of their bodies to ensure their own good health. Foucauldian governmentality scholarship has been extremely useful in the task of critically examining these attempts to govern the population's health and drug use, drawing attention to the ways in which cla…
The political is critical: Explorations of the contemporary politics of knowledge in health and physical education
This special issue has been conceived to acknowledge the advances in inquiry and understandings that political and critical scholarship has facilitated. Perhaps more importantly, it seeks to reveal the limits of contemporary ‘political’ and/or ‘critical’ research in the field and encourage fresh thinking about a number of issues, including not least, the relationship between political and critical research. In our editorial we highlight a number …
Youth, Sexuality and Sexual Citizenship
Sexual citizenship is a powerful concept associated with debates about recognition and exclusion, agency, respect and accountability. For young people in general and for gender and sexually diverse youth in particular, these debates are entangled with broader imaginings of social transitions: from 'child' to 'adult' and from 'unreasonable subject' to one 'who can consent'. This international and interdisciplinary collection identifies and locates…
Someone has to keep shouting: Celebrities as Food Pedagogues
In a recent interview with the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver stated that ‘Food is the most basic issue [...] it’s about health [...] someone has to take responsibility for this. Someone has to keep shouting’. Oliver’s statement reflects his position as a chef, a public pedagogue and, importantly for the purposes of this article, a celebrity. Oliver’s is one of many voices that have entered the public realm to educ…
The family meals imperative and everyday family life: An analysis of children’s photos and videos
At a time of increasing diversity in family forms and family practices the evening family meal is promoted as an imperative; a straightforward solution to complex social problems such as childhood obesity, family breakdown and depression. In this paper we discuss the challenges faced by families in achieving this imperative on an everyday basis drawing on visual data generated by children from a qualitative research project with 50 diverse famili…
Children, ‘healthy’ food, school and family: The ‘[n]ot really’ outcome of school food messages
This paper draws on a multi-method study with 50 families in Victoria, Australia. Primary school children were asked about food knowledge from school and whether they felt motivated to bring knowledge home. Generally, children and parents felt school food messages are unclear, contradictory and not relevant to them and this reduced the likelihood of messages coming home from school. We identify a critical difference in how families thought about …
I Feel We are Inclusive Enough”: Examining Swimming Coaches’ Understandings of Inclusion and Disability
In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight Victorian swimming coaches to examine the discourses of disability1 and inclusion that they expressed in relation to their current coaching practices. Analysis specifically pursued links between neoliberalism, ableism, elitism, classification and inclusion in coaching, with the intention of exploring what discourse relations are possible, imaginable and practical within what have…
Teachers’ perspectives of sexual and reproductive health education in primary and secondary schools: A systematic review of qualitative studies
The ineffable allure of sugar - Hammer cake, That Sugar Film and contradictory pleasures
This article explores the complicated place of sugar in the display of family connectedness and health in a white, middle class Australian family. In the context of heightened anxiety about childhood obesity, we present the Baker family as a case study to explore the pleasures and tensions that sugar consumption produces in families. On their birthdays, each child has a luxurious “Hammer Cake” coated in chocolate studded with sweets; simultaneous…
Categorical difference as affective assemblage: Experiences of Vietnamese women in the neoliberal university
In this article, we draw on interview data with three Vietnamese women to explore how categorical difference works through the ways that these women constitute themselves and are constituted as academics and doctoral students in Australian universities. Our analysis focuses on the arrangement of things that make neoliberalism an inexhaustive force, working via affective connections with other social, historical and material conditions in producin…
Educating young people to graduate school with the ability to protect their sexual and reproductive health: A mixed-methods study
Many young people in Australia leave secondary school with little understanding of sexual and reproductive health (SRH). This study aims to describe Australian teachers’ experiences when providing SRH education, map their use of resources, and explore barriers and strategies to increase students’ skills and confidence to protect their SRH. Quantitative data were gathered via an online questionnaire (n = 189) before qualitative data were elicited …
Sexual and reproductive health education in Australia: A qualitative study of health professionals’ views
Young people tend to have low levels of sexual health literacy. The aims of this work were to explore health professionals’ perspectives of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education in Australia and what they considered should be the core components of SRH curriculum, particularly for Year 11 and 12 students. In September and October, 2021, health professionals (n = 12) with expertise in SRH, in Victoria, Australia participated in semi-struc…
Sexual and reproductive health education for young people in Victoria, Australia: A mixed methods study
Young people aged >15 years (Years 11 and 12 students) in Australia are unlikely to receive school-based sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education. The aims of this study were to gather the perspectives of young people regarding their experiences of school-based SRH education and explore what they considered should be the core components of this form of education for Years 11 and 12 students. A mixed-methods study involving an online survey …
Amplifying critical syncretism in Asia as method: Understanding policy enactments in a Hong Kong school through Mohap
Asia as method, in decolonial thinking, endorses the value of local knowledge while concurrently recognising colonial and global knowledges’ ongoing influence and potential value in knowledge production. Yet, how to apply Asia as method and articulate the diverse traditions of knowledge(s) is underexplored. To address this gap, we consider Asia as method’s critical syncretism is the means to show the interplay between different knowledges. Critic…
Making space: A case for unruly food pedagogies
This article addresses the intersection of food pedagogies and disability. In particular, we consider what happens when unruly disabled bodies are centered and made space for in pedagogical approaches to food and cooking. We draw on data from a larger project in a community food space in Melbourne, Australia, involving ethnographic observation (160 hours over 9 months), participation, and qualitative interviews (n = 12). Using Carla Rice’s concep…
Engaging children in food systems literacy research: An analysis of children's drawings from the Little Food Festival
Purpose This study aims to explore the level of food system literacy amongst children and families attending a food sustainability festival and examine children's perspectives regarding which actions they consider feasible and within their sphere of influence to improve our future food system. Design/methodology/approach Conducted at the Little Food Festival in Australia, this study involved qualitative, child-friendly methods. Data were collecte…
Sociology (15 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Political science (10 works) · Social science (9 works) · Medicine (7 works) · Politics (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Physical Education and Pedagogy (5 works)