Samantha Mcmahon
Biographic Data
| ID | 3701497 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Samantha Mcmahon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Samantha |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcmahon |
| SIGNATURE | MCMAHON S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wollongong |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4448-0811 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 26 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
A Bourdieusian Analysis of Good Practice Partnerships
This article applies the theoretical lens of Bourdieu to explore leadership and the distribution of power between teachers and early childhood practitioners in the private voluntary and independent (PVI) sector in a good practice partnership. It questions the effectiveness of such partnerships in bringing about sustained improvements to practice in this sector. Data were collected in three focus groups with practitioners from 10 settings that wer…
Exploring students’ metaphors for learning in Western Sydney schools
In both academic and policy spaces, learning is often cast as lifelong, dynamic, constructive and in particular, agentic. Despite this focus students’ voices are rarely privileged in these spaces – especially in policy. We respond to this oversight by deploying Foucault’s theories of knowledge to explore how students understand themselves as learners, considering this alongside dominant political and academic discursive constructions of learning.…
No Shame at Aime
Shame is a 'slippery' concept in educational contexts but by listening to Aboriginal philosophy and Country, we can rethink its slipperiness. This article contemplates how multiple understandings of shame are derived from and coexist within colonised educational contexts. We focus on one positive example of Indigenous education to consider how these understandings can be challenged and transformed for the benefit of Indigenous learners. We discus…
Amidst the Reign of Behaviour and Disorder
In May 2013 one of the most profoundly influential books of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century was released in its fifth edition. Yet, it is not unreasonable to speculate that this newest edition will pass largely unnoticed, even as new diagnoses (and the loss of current ones) seep into the everyday. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) will undoubtedly be influential in education -…
The Politics of Widening Participation and University Access for Young People
Young people with tenuous relationships to schooling and education are an enduring challenge when it comes to addressing social inclusion, yet their experiences remain overlooked in efforts to widen participation in higher education. The Politics of Widening Participation and University Access for Young People examines the existing knowledges and feelings these young people have about higher education, and, through the authors’ empirical research…
Beyond the academic precariat
The ‘neoliberal turn’ in the higher education sector has received significant intellectual scrutiny in recent times. This scrutiny, led by many established academics working within the sector, has highlighted the negative repercussions for teaching and research staff, often referred to as the ‘academic precariat’ due to their tenuous employment prospects within an increasingly market-driven system. This critique of the modern university can also …
Students that just hate school wouldn’t go’
This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on widening university participation and brings a focus on the classed and embodied nature of young people’s imagination to existing discussions. We interviewed 250 young people living in disadvantaged communities across five Australian states who had experienced disengagement from compulsory primary and secondary schooling. We asked them about their education and their educational futures, s…
Foucauldian Archaeological Analyses
Foucauldian archeological analyses are useful for understanding how knowledge about a given topic is constructed. Because of this, Foucauldian archeology can be argued to be a powerful way to uncover the taken for granted and to inspire different ways of thinking about knowledge and the practices on which it is based. This entry provides a brief outline of Foucauldian archeology and then presents an example where this style of analysis was put to…
The medicalisation of food pedagogies in primary schools and popular culture
In this study we interrogate the ways nutrition and health have become increasingly influential to children's everyday life practices and conceptualisations of food. We challenge the orthodoxy of meanings afforded to food that draw a distinct binary between ‘good’/‘bad’ or ‘healthy’/‘unhealthy’; ideas widely promulgated in health texts, popular culture and pedagogical practice. Whilst these dominant medico-scientific discourses are pervasive in a…
Doctors diagnose, teachers label
A study in an Australian university investigated 150 pre-service teachers’ responses to and participation in discourses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Interesting data surfaced around the notion of ‘labelling’ children with ADHD. It seemed that the pre-service teachers did not believe ‘ADHD’ to be a label. Whilst the literature reviewed acknowledged diagnosing a child with ADHD to be tantamount to labelling (that is, ‘ADHD’ i…
Beyond the academic precariat
The ‘neoliberal turn’ in the higher education sector has received significant intellectual scrutiny in recent times. This scrutiny, led by many established academics working within the sector, has highlighted the negative repercussions for teaching and research staff, often referred to as the ‘academic precariat’ due to their tenuous employment prospects within an increasingly market-driven system. This critique of the modern university can also …
The medicalisation of food pedagogies in primary schools and popular culture
In this study we interrogate the ways nutrition and health have become increasingly influential to children's everyday life practices and conceptualisations of food. We challenge the orthodoxy of meanings afforded to food that draw a distinct binary between ‘good’/‘bad’ or ‘healthy’/‘unhealthy’; ideas widely promulgated in health texts, popular culture and pedagogical practice. Whilst these dominant medico-scientific discourses are pervasive in a…
Students that just hate school wouldn’t go’
This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on widening university participation and brings a focus on the classed and embodied nature of young people’s imagination to existing discussions. We interviewed 250 young people living in disadvantaged communities across five Australian states who had experienced disengagement from compulsory primary and secondary schooling. We asked them about their education and their educational futures, s…
No Shame at Aime
Shame is a 'slippery' concept in educational contexts but by listening to Aboriginal philosophy and Country, we can rethink its slipperiness. This article contemplates how multiple understandings of shame are derived from and coexist within colonised educational contexts. We focus on one positive example of Indigenous education to consider how these understandings can be challenged and transformed for the benefit of Indigenous learners. We discus…
Doctors diagnose, teachers label
A study in an Australian university investigated 150 pre-service teachers’ responses to and participation in discourses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Interesting data surfaced around the notion of ‘labelling’ children with ADHD. It seemed that the pre-service teachers did not believe ‘ADHD’ to be a label. Whilst the literature reviewed acknowledged diagnosing a child with ADHD to be tantamount to labelling (that is, ‘ADHD’ i…
Doctors diagnose, teachers label
A study in an Australian university investigated 150 pre-service teachers’ responses to and participation in discourses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Interesting data surfaced around the notion of ‘labelling’ children with ADHD. It seemed that the pre-service teachers did not believe ‘ADHD’ to be a label. Whilst the literature reviewed acknowledged diagnosing a child with ADHD to be tantamount to labelling (that is, ‘ADHD’ i…
The medicalisation of food pedagogies in primary schools and popular culture
In this study we interrogate the ways nutrition and health have become increasingly influential to children's everyday life practices and conceptualisations of food. We challenge the orthodoxy of meanings afforded to food that draw a distinct binary between ‘good’/‘bad’ or ‘healthy’/‘unhealthy’; ideas widely promulgated in health texts, popular culture and pedagogical practice. Whilst these dominant medico-scientific discourses are pervasive in a…
The Politics of Widening Participation and University Access for Young People
Young people with tenuous relationships to schooling and education are an enduring challenge when it comes to addressing social inclusion, yet their experiences remain overlooked in efforts to widen participation in higher education. The Politics of Widening Participation and University Access for Young People examines the existing knowledges and feelings these young people have about higher education, and, through the authors’ empirical research…
Beyond the academic precariat
The ‘neoliberal turn’ in the higher education sector has received significant intellectual scrutiny in recent times. This scrutiny, led by many established academics working within the sector, has highlighted the negative repercussions for teaching and research staff, often referred to as the ‘academic precariat’ due to their tenuous employment prospects within an increasingly market-driven system. This critique of the modern university can also …
Students that just hate school wouldn’t go’
This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on widening university participation and brings a focus on the classed and embodied nature of young people’s imagination to existing discussions. We interviewed 250 young people living in disadvantaged communities across five Australian states who had experienced disengagement from compulsory primary and secondary schooling. We asked them about their education and their educational futures, s…
Foucauldian Archaeological Analyses
Foucauldian archeological analyses are useful for understanding how knowledge about a given topic is constructed. Because of this, Foucauldian archeology can be argued to be a powerful way to uncover the taken for granted and to inspire different ways of thinking about knowledge and the practices on which it is based. This entry provides a brief outline of Foucauldian archeology and then presents an example where this style of analysis was put to…
Amidst the Reign of Behaviour and Disorder
In May 2013 one of the most profoundly influential books of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century was released in its fifth edition. Yet, it is not unreasonable to speculate that this newest edition will pass largely unnoticed, even as new diagnoses (and the loss of current ones) seep into the everyday. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) will undoubtedly be influential in education -…
No Shame at Aime
Shame is a 'slippery' concept in educational contexts but by listening to Aboriginal philosophy and Country, we can rethink its slipperiness. This article contemplates how multiple understandings of shame are derived from and coexist within colonised educational contexts. We focus on one positive example of Indigenous education to consider how these understandings can be challenged and transformed for the benefit of Indigenous learners. We discus…
A Bourdieusian Analysis of Good Practice Partnerships
This article applies the theoretical lens of Bourdieu to explore leadership and the distribution of power between teachers and early childhood practitioners in the private voluntary and independent (PVI) sector in a good practice partnership. It questions the effectiveness of such partnerships in bringing about sustained improvements to practice in this sector. Data were collected in three focus groups with practitioners from 10 settings that wer…
Exploring students’ metaphors for learning in Western Sydney schools
In both academic and policy spaces, learning is often cast as lifelong, dynamic, constructive and in particular, agentic. Despite this focus students’ voices are rarely privileged in these spaces – especially in policy. We respond to this oversight by deploying Foucault’s theories of knowledge to explore how students understand themselves as learners, considering this alongside dominant political and academic discursive constructions of learning.…
Sociology (9 works) · Political science (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Pedagogy (5 works) · Media studies (4 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Medicine (3 works) · Politics (3 works) · Social science (3 works)