Stephanie Wescott
Biographic Data
| ID | 766460 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephanie Wescott |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephanie |
| FAMILY NAME | Wescott |
| SIGNATURE | WESCOTT S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3571-4228 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 61 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
From Compliance to Stewardship
Universities internationally are entering a new phase in their response to gender-based violence, shaped by shifting regulatory expectations and the growing influence of digitally-mediated misogyny among students. This commentary suggests the rise of the ‘manosphere’ (loosely connected online networks promoting misogynistic ideas) has reconfigured the conditions under which gendered harm emerges on campus, creating a mismatch between institutiona…
Introduction
When we first developed the proposal for this Special Issue in mid 2024, a high-profile incident at an elite co-educational school in Melbourne, Australia, had drawn national attention: a group of
What (and whose) evidence counts? Interrogating shifting conceptualisations of ‘evidence-based’ education in public discourse in Australia
Emphasis on ‘evidence-based’ practice in education has intensified in Australia over the past three decades. This article charts this rise by presenting a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of a purpose-built corpus of over 1,600 articles published in Australian national and capital city daily newspapers between 1988 and 2024. Using the conceptual lens of ‘media logic’ (Altheide, 2013), we explore four phases of ‘evidence-based’ practice linked t…
The limits of ‘backlash’ masculinity
This paper proposes a reconsideration of backlash as the dominant frame for analysing resistance to gender equality. Widely used to describe reactionary responses to feminist progress, the term often under-theorizes the strategic, organized and structural dimensions of contemporary masculinist mobilization. Building on feminist accounts of patriarchal adaptation, we foreground masculinity as a coordinated and politically organized project, well b…
The reanimation of normative manhood acts in schools
Drawing on qualitative survey data from 107 Australian teachers, we analyse how boys perform masculinity in schools through dominance, derision, defiance, and harassment, in ways that constitute reanimated normative manhood acts (Schwalbe, 2014). Teachers describe a noticeable shift around 2022, coinciding with the rising visibility and popularity of the manosphere, when some boys’ misogyny became more explicit, emboldened, and unchecked. Buildin…
Hybrid network governance
Policy networks connect policy actors across spaces and organizations to advance policy agendas. While much is known about forms of network governance, there is still a lack of research to date on how networks work across online and offline spaces, and the ways that this hybridity of networking arrangements may be influencing policy agendas. In the field of climate communication and education, a range of actors are involved in the network governa…
On the utility of the concept of ‘school-related gender-based violence’ (SRGBV) in the context of escalating gendered violence in schools
Adolescence’, manufactured outrage and instructed victimhood
This article examines the cultural and political discourse surrounding the Netflix series Adolescence (2025), analysing how boys’ alienation is positioned within reactionary, anti-feminist agendas. We argue that while the series has sparked significant debate about masculinity, gender violence, and youth identities, its reception reveals how grievance politics are cultivated. Through a consideration of what we describe as manufactured outrage and…
Institutional responses to sexual harassment and misogyny towards women teachers from boys in Australian schools in the post-#metoo era
Sexual harassment and misogyny are historical experiences of the teaching workforce in Australia. While #metoo promised a moment of reckoning for all girls and women, this reckoning has been less acutely felt in Australian schools, evidenced by a persistence of sexual harassment and misogyny despite progress allegedly made in political and public discourse. In this paper, we draw on data from interviews with 30 women teachers and critically exami…
Conceptualising school-level responses to sexual harassment of women teachers as institutional gaslighting
Beyond the Clickbait
There is now an expansive literature on the manosphere - the loosely connected groups of digital communities that revolve around men's rights, aspirations and entitlements, and the perceived constraints upon these. Such studies have produced important critical insights into the collective and organized dimension of the networked harassment of women in digital settings, as well as highlighting the manosphere's craving to reanimate regressive modes…
Manfluencers’, masculinities and the practice of misogyny in educational settings
On the uses and use of Naplan
This paper engages, Sara Ahmed's theorising on 'the uses of use' to frame an analysis of the hidden, embedded effects of standardised testing policy that have become normative practice/s in Queensland, Australia.It (re)examines data from an ethno-case study into the datafication of assessment and learning over one school year, in primary and secondary schooling contexts, to understand the uses of the National Assessment Program -Literacy and Nume…
The problem of anti-feminist ‘manfluencer’ Andrew Tate in Australian schools
There is growing visibility of online 'manfluencers' who espouse extreme masculine ideals and share them with their audiences of boys and young men.Taking this phenomenon as a launch-pad, we join the tradition of research that exposes sexism in schools and theorizes girls and women's experiences of working within and against masculine hegemony.Drawing on qualitative interviews with 30 women teachers in Australia, we suggest the sexism identified …
The post-truth tyrannies of an evidence-based hegemony
A trend towards evidence-based practice has developed in policy and practice in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia in recent years, evolving to become a powerful hegemonic force. This paper considers this latest impetus to teach according to the mandates of a narrow evidence base as a symptom of the post-truth condition, one that elevates a limited body of evidence to an infallible position. Drawing on interviews with practicing…
What an English Teacher Knows
Post-truthism entered mainstream consciousness after being named Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year in 2016, denoting a turn in the Western relationship with truth as a certain and indisputable object. Simultaneously, and paradoxically, rising distrust around teachers’ professional judgement and a desire for certainty in practice saw the proliferation of ‘evidence-informed’ approaches and the impetus for teachers to use data to inform their dec…
The child and the strict father
The Safe Schools Coalition Australia’s teaching resource All of us, or ‘Safe Schools’, as it became known, was subjected to unrelenting attack from politicians in the Australian Parliament. This paper draws on analysis of the Australian Parliamentary Hansard, examining 18,000 words spoken about Safe Schools by Senators and Members of Parliament from November 2015 to August 2016. This dataset was interrogated with discourse analysis strategies to …
The problem of anti-feminist ‘manfluencer’ Andrew Tate in Australian schools
There is growing visibility of online 'manfluencers' who espouse extreme masculine ideals and share them with their audiences of boys and young men.Taking this phenomenon as a launch-pad, we join the tradition of research that exposes sexism in schools and theorizes girls and women's experiences of working within and against masculine hegemony.Drawing on qualitative interviews with 30 women teachers in Australia, we suggest the sexism identified …
Institutional responses to sexual harassment and misogyny towards women teachers from boys in Australian schools in the post-#metoo era
Sexual harassment and misogyny are historical experiences of the teaching workforce in Australia. While #metoo promised a moment of reckoning for all girls and women, this reckoning has been less acutely felt in Australian schools, evidenced by a persistence of sexual harassment and misogyny despite progress allegedly made in political and public discourse. In this paper, we draw on data from interviews with 30 women teachers and critically exami…
Conceptualising school-level responses to sexual harassment of women teachers as institutional gaslighting
Beyond the Clickbait
There is now an expansive literature on the manosphere - the loosely connected groups of digital communities that revolve around men's rights, aspirations and entitlements, and the perceived constraints upon these. Such studies have produced important critical insights into the collective and organized dimension of the networked harassment of women in digital settings, as well as highlighting the manosphere's craving to reanimate regressive modes…
Manfluencers’, masculinities and the practice of misogyny in educational settings
On the utility of the concept of ‘school-related gender-based violence’ (SRGBV) in the context of escalating gendered violence in schools
On the uses and use of Naplan
This paper engages, Sara Ahmed's theorising on 'the uses of use' to frame an analysis of the hidden, embedded effects of standardised testing policy that have become normative practice/s in Queensland, Australia.It (re)examines data from an ethno-case study into the datafication of assessment and learning over one school year, in primary and secondary schooling contexts, to understand the uses of the National Assessment Program -Literacy and Nume…
The child and the strict father
The Safe Schools Coalition Australia’s teaching resource All of us, or ‘Safe Schools’, as it became known, was subjected to unrelenting attack from politicians in the Australian Parliament. This paper draws on analysis of the Australian Parliamentary Hansard, examining 18,000 words spoken about Safe Schools by Senators and Members of Parliament from November 2015 to August 2016. This dataset was interrogated with discourse analysis strategies to …
The child and the strict father
The Safe Schools Coalition Australia’s teaching resource All of us, or ‘Safe Schools’, as it became known, was subjected to unrelenting attack from politicians in the Australian Parliament. This paper draws on analysis of the Australian Parliamentary Hansard, examining 18,000 words spoken about Safe Schools by Senators and Members of Parliament from November 2015 to August 2016. This dataset was interrogated with discourse analysis strategies to …
What an English Teacher Knows
Post-truthism entered mainstream consciousness after being named Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year in 2016, denoting a turn in the Western relationship with truth as a certain and indisputable object. Simultaneously, and paradoxically, rising distrust around teachers’ professional judgement and a desire for certainty in practice saw the proliferation of ‘evidence-informed’ approaches and the impetus for teachers to use data to inform their dec…
The post-truth tyrannies of an evidence-based hegemony
A trend towards evidence-based practice has developed in policy and practice in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia in recent years, evolving to become a powerful hegemonic force. This paper considers this latest impetus to teach according to the mandates of a narrow evidence base as a symptom of the post-truth condition, one that elevates a limited body of evidence to an infallible position. Drawing on interviews with practicing…
The problem of anti-feminist ‘manfluencer’ Andrew Tate in Australian schools
There is growing visibility of online 'manfluencers' who espouse extreme masculine ideals and share them with their audiences of boys and young men.Taking this phenomenon as a launch-pad, we join the tradition of research that exposes sexism in schools and theorizes girls and women's experiences of working within and against masculine hegemony.Drawing on qualitative interviews with 30 women teachers in Australia, we suggest the sexism identified …
Manfluencers’, masculinities and the practice of misogyny in educational settings
On the uses and use of Naplan
This paper engages, Sara Ahmed's theorising on 'the uses of use' to frame an analysis of the hidden, embedded effects of standardised testing policy that have become normative practice/s in Queensland, Australia.It (re)examines data from an ethno-case study into the datafication of assessment and learning over one school year, in primary and secondary schooling contexts, to understand the uses of the National Assessment Program -Literacy and Nume…
On the utility of the concept of ‘school-related gender-based violence’ (SRGBV) in the context of escalating gendered violence in schools
Adolescence’, manufactured outrage and instructed victimhood
This article examines the cultural and political discourse surrounding the Netflix series Adolescence (2025), analysing how boys’ alienation is positioned within reactionary, anti-feminist agendas. We argue that while the series has sparked significant debate about masculinity, gender violence, and youth identities, its reception reveals how grievance politics are cultivated. Through a consideration of what we describe as manufactured outrage and…
Institutional responses to sexual harassment and misogyny towards women teachers from boys in Australian schools in the post-#metoo era
Sexual harassment and misogyny are historical experiences of the teaching workforce in Australia. While #metoo promised a moment of reckoning for all girls and women, this reckoning has been less acutely felt in Australian schools, evidenced by a persistence of sexual harassment and misogyny despite progress allegedly made in political and public discourse. In this paper, we draw on data from interviews with 30 women teachers and critically exami…
Conceptualising school-level responses to sexual harassment of women teachers as institutional gaslighting
Beyond the Clickbait
There is now an expansive literature on the manosphere - the loosely connected groups of digital communities that revolve around men's rights, aspirations and entitlements, and the perceived constraints upon these. Such studies have produced important critical insights into the collective and organized dimension of the networked harassment of women in digital settings, as well as highlighting the manosphere's craving to reanimate regressive modes…
From Compliance to Stewardship
Universities internationally are entering a new phase in their response to gender-based violence, shaped by shifting regulatory expectations and the growing influence of digitally-mediated misogyny among students. This commentary suggests the rise of the ‘manosphere’ (loosely connected online networks promoting misogynistic ideas) has reconfigured the conditions under which gendered harm emerges on campus, creating a mismatch between institutiona…
Introduction
When we first developed the proposal for this Special Issue in mid 2024, a high-profile incident at an elite co-educational school in Melbourne, Australia, had drawn national attention: a group of
What (and whose) evidence counts? Interrogating shifting conceptualisations of ‘evidence-based’ education in public discourse in Australia
Emphasis on ‘evidence-based’ practice in education has intensified in Australia over the past three decades. This article charts this rise by presenting a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of a purpose-built corpus of over 1,600 articles published in Australian national and capital city daily newspapers between 1988 and 2024. Using the conceptual lens of ‘media logic’ (Altheide, 2013), we explore four phases of ‘evidence-based’ practice linked t…
The limits of ‘backlash’ masculinity
This paper proposes a reconsideration of backlash as the dominant frame for analysing resistance to gender equality. Widely used to describe reactionary responses to feminist progress, the term often under-theorizes the strategic, organized and structural dimensions of contemporary masculinist mobilization. Building on feminist accounts of patriarchal adaptation, we foreground masculinity as a coordinated and politically organized project, well b…
The reanimation of normative manhood acts in schools
Drawing on qualitative survey data from 107 Australian teachers, we analyse how boys perform masculinity in schools through dominance, derision, defiance, and harassment, in ways that constitute reanimated normative manhood acts (Schwalbe, 2014). Teachers describe a noticeable shift around 2022, coinciding with the rising visibility and popularity of the manosphere, when some boys’ misogyny became more explicit, emboldened, and unchecked. Buildin…
Hybrid network governance
Policy networks connect policy actors across spaces and organizations to advance policy agendas. While much is known about forms of network governance, there is still a lack of research to date on how networks work across online and offline spaces, and the ways that this hybridity of networking arrangements may be influencing policy agendas. In the field of climate communication and education, a range of actors are involved in the network governa…
Sociology (11 works) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (7 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Feminism (4 works)