George Variyan
Biographic Data
| ID | 766301 |
|---|---|
| NAME | George Variyan |
| GIVEN NAMES | George |
| FAMILY NAME | Variyan |
| SIGNATURE | VARIYAN G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5566-2533 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Culture wars in education news reporting: Affective atmospheres of anti-woke discourse
This paper uses affect theory to analyse how Australian education news reporting operates as a technology of political affect. Drawing on 25 education reports by the Education Editor at The Australian, we identify four interrelated techniques through which anti-woke affect is composed: crisis amplification, nostalgic restoration, binarised framing, and outrage over aberrant cases. Together these compose affective atmospheres that render progressi…
Making room for ‘feelings’: What's at stake for the theory of practice architectures?
This paper responds to Thelin, K. [2024. What about feelings? Elaboration on and consideration of the theoretical construct of emotions in practice and practice architectures. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1–14] intriguing proposal that the theory of practice architectures (hereafter TPA) would benefit from an augmentation to its oft-repeated analytical mantra of ‘sayings, doings and relatings’ by adding the notion of feelings…
The subterranean masculinities of elite private boys’ schools
The curriculum of privilege: Elite private boys’ school alumni’s engagements with gender justice
The theory of practice architectures and its discontents: Disturbing received wisdom to make it dangerous again
This paper critically examines the theory of practice architectures in response to a call for its reinvigoration towards more politically charged scholarship. While such goals seem acceptable, necessary even, it raises questions about the consequences of strengthening the moral imperatives that already undergird the theory. Drawing on a Foucauldian analytical ‘toolkit’, we explore why Schatzkian philosophy, which is conspicuous in its ongoing usa…
The girl (w)hole: A genealogy of elite boys’ school alumni’s encounters with feminine gender
This article shares findings from a small, largely qualitative empirical study of elite Australian boys’ school alumni’s perspectives on feminine gender and gender justice. The article focuses on the purported absence in these men’s memories of learning about gender at school and the paradox that the research interviews are full of gender-related memories. Using the metaphor of the ‘(w)hole’ to guide feminist poststructuralist analysis of data, t…
Researcher reflexivity in studying elite schooling: Old school ties that bind
This article discusses the methodological challenges of researching elite boys’ schooling, in a study involving interviewing alumni who attended these schools from the 1970s to the 2020s. In particular, through a feminist poststructuralist methodological framing, it considers the necessity for researcher reflexivity in engaging in research in such politically charged and publicly debated spaces. Through strategic interventions that require reflec…
Academic, interrupted: Exploring learning, labour and identity at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic
This paper explores the learning and labour of academics during the beginnings of the novel coronavirus outbreak in 2020. Our photo-based research project surveyed academics about their experiences, and makes visible the impact, of the changing built and virtual environments, on academics' practices, relationships and identities. We theorise these shifting work-home arrangements, the academics' learning, their emergent agencies and renegotiations…
The least we could do’: Troubling school leaders’ responses to the school strikes for climate in Australia
News coverage of the Thunberg-inspired student climate strikes in Australia in 2019 and 2020 framed school leaders ‘in conversation’ with politicians, education system spokespeople, political pundits, the public and student activists. While previous scholarly interest has mainly focused on the student protestors, we examine the intertextual framing of school leaders in the news. While our analysis affirms previous understandings of the politicall…
The erasure of sexual harassment in elite private boys’ schools
This paper details the gendered oppressions of young female teachers in three elite boys' private schools in Australia. Drawing on Foucauldian analytics and the theory of practice architectures, we explore the discourses and practices that work together to silence and disempower female teachers in these schools. There is an unevenness in these accounts, as there are also female teachers in the study who appear to successfully circumnavigate these…
Missionaries or mercenaries? How teachers in elite private schools embrace privilege
This article is based on a multi-site study of teachers in elite private schools in Australia. Teachers’ accounts from this study bring nuance to the reasons one might short-handedly expect they have in working for these exclusive institutions. It is not that everyday motivations don’t matter, for example, the financial compensations, the beautiful grounds and the status payoffs, but that teachers bring their own discourses, histories and intenti…
Teacher identity past and present: What can a genealogy of schooling tell us
The evolution of teachers’ identities in Australia highlights the struggles between state and civic over the control of schooling and also the contingent nature of the teacher identity itself. A genealogical analysis of this history makes visible these contingencies, but more importantly suggests that little reckoning has been afforded to teachers’ agency within these social struggles. This gap in understandings of teacher identity, as even poten…
The erasure of sexual harassment in elite private boys’ schools
This paper details the gendered oppressions of young female teachers in three elite boys' private schools in Australia. Drawing on Foucauldian analytics and the theory of practice architectures, we explore the discourses and practices that work together to silence and disempower female teachers in these schools. There is an unevenness in these accounts, as there are also female teachers in the study who appear to successfully circumnavigate these…
Missionaries or mercenaries? How teachers in elite private schools embrace privilege
This article is based on a multi-site study of teachers in elite private schools in Australia. Teachers’ accounts from this study bring nuance to the reasons one might short-handedly expect they have in working for these exclusive institutions. It is not that everyday motivations don’t matter, for example, the financial compensations, the beautiful grounds and the status payoffs, but that teachers bring their own discourses, histories and intenti…
Teacher identity past and present: What can a genealogy of schooling tell us
The evolution of teachers’ identities in Australia highlights the struggles between state and civic over the control of schooling and also the contingent nature of the teacher identity itself. A genealogical analysis of this history makes visible these contingencies, but more importantly suggests that little reckoning has been afforded to teachers’ agency within these social struggles. This gap in understandings of teacher identity, as even poten…
The theory of practice architectures and its discontents: Disturbing received wisdom to make it dangerous again
This paper critically examines the theory of practice architectures in response to a call for its reinvigoration towards more politically charged scholarship. While such goals seem acceptable, necessary even, it raises questions about the consequences of strengthening the moral imperatives that already undergird the theory. Drawing on a Foucauldian analytical ‘toolkit’, we explore why Schatzkian philosophy, which is conspicuous in its ongoing usa…
The least we could do’: Troubling school leaders’ responses to the school strikes for climate in Australia
News coverage of the Thunberg-inspired student climate strikes in Australia in 2019 and 2020 framed school leaders ‘in conversation’ with politicians, education system spokespeople, political pundits, the public and student activists. While previous scholarly interest has mainly focused on the student protestors, we examine the intertextual framing of school leaders in the news. While our analysis affirms previous understandings of the politicall…
Teacher identity past and present: What can a genealogy of schooling tell us
The evolution of teachers’ identities in Australia highlights the struggles between state and civic over the control of schooling and also the contingent nature of the teacher identity itself. A genealogical analysis of this history makes visible these contingencies, but more importantly suggests that little reckoning has been afforded to teachers’ agency within these social struggles. This gap in understandings of teacher identity, as even poten…
Missionaries or mercenaries? How teachers in elite private schools embrace privilege
This article is based on a multi-site study of teachers in elite private schools in Australia. Teachers’ accounts from this study bring nuance to the reasons one might short-handedly expect they have in working for these exclusive institutions. It is not that everyday motivations don’t matter, for example, the financial compensations, the beautiful grounds and the status payoffs, but that teachers bring their own discourses, histories and intenti…
The erasure of sexual harassment in elite private boys’ schools
This paper details the gendered oppressions of young female teachers in three elite boys' private schools in Australia. Drawing on Foucauldian analytics and the theory of practice architectures, we explore the discourses and practices that work together to silence and disempower female teachers in these schools. There is an unevenness in these accounts, as there are also female teachers in the study who appear to successfully circumnavigate these…
Academic, interrupted: Exploring learning, labour and identity at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic
This paper explores the learning and labour of academics during the beginnings of the novel coronavirus outbreak in 2020. Our photo-based research project surveyed academics about their experiences, and makes visible the impact, of the changing built and virtual environments, on academics' practices, relationships and identities. We theorise these shifting work-home arrangements, the academics' learning, their emergent agencies and renegotiations…
The least we could do’: Troubling school leaders’ responses to the school strikes for climate in Australia
News coverage of the Thunberg-inspired student climate strikes in Australia in 2019 and 2020 framed school leaders ‘in conversation’ with politicians, education system spokespeople, political pundits, the public and student activists. While previous scholarly interest has mainly focused on the student protestors, we examine the intertextual framing of school leaders in the news. While our analysis affirms previous understandings of the politicall…
The girl (w)hole: A genealogy of elite boys’ school alumni’s encounters with feminine gender
This article shares findings from a small, largely qualitative empirical study of elite Australian boys’ school alumni’s perspectives on feminine gender and gender justice. The article focuses on the purported absence in these men’s memories of learning about gender at school and the paradox that the research interviews are full of gender-related memories. Using the metaphor of the ‘(w)hole’ to guide feminist poststructuralist analysis of data, t…
Researcher reflexivity in studying elite schooling: Old school ties that bind
This article discusses the methodological challenges of researching elite boys’ schooling, in a study involving interviewing alumni who attended these schools from the 1970s to the 2020s. In particular, through a feminist poststructuralist methodological framing, it considers the necessity for researcher reflexivity in engaging in research in such politically charged and publicly debated spaces. Through strategic interventions that require reflec…
The curriculum of privilege: Elite private boys’ school alumni’s engagements with gender justice
The theory of practice architectures and its discontents: Disturbing received wisdom to make it dangerous again
This paper critically examines the theory of practice architectures in response to a call for its reinvigoration towards more politically charged scholarship. While such goals seem acceptable, necessary even, it raises questions about the consequences of strengthening the moral imperatives that already undergird the theory. Drawing on a Foucauldian analytical ‘toolkit’, we explore why Schatzkian philosophy, which is conspicuous in its ongoing usa…
The subterranean masculinities of elite private boys’ schools
Culture wars in education news reporting: Affective atmospheres of anti-woke discourse
This paper uses affect theory to analyse how Australian education news reporting operates as a technology of political affect. Drawing on 25 education reports by the Education Editor at The Australian, we identify four interrelated techniques through which anti-woke affect is composed: crisis amplification, nostalgic restoration, binarised framing, and outrage over aberrant cases. Together these compose affective atmospheres that render progressi…
Making room for ‘feelings’: What's at stake for the theory of practice architectures?
This paper responds to Thelin, K. [2024. What about feelings? Elaboration on and consideration of the theoretical construct of emotions in practice and practice architectures. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1–14] intriguing proposal that the theory of practice architectures (hereafter TPA) would benefit from an augmentation to its oft-repeated analytical mantra of ‘sayings, doings and relatings’ by adding the notion of feelings…
Sociology (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Social science (8 works) · Elite (7 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Agency (philosophy (4 works) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (4 works)