Researching Corporeality in Education: an Investigation of Knowledge Production in Gender and Education Research on Boys and Masculinities
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RESEARCHING CORPOREALITY IN EDUCATION: AN INVESTIGATION OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN GENDER AND EDUCATION RESEARCH ON BOYS AND MASCULINITIES A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2019 OMAR A KAISSI SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENT, EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT MANCHESTER INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION List of Contents List of abbreviations ............................................................................................................................ 7 List of tables ........................................................................................................................................ 8 List of figures ....................................................................................................................................... 9 Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. 10 Declaration of original contribution ................................................................................................. 11 Copyright statement ......................................................................................................................... 12 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................... 13 Chapter 1: Toward creating a collective story of scholarship in the field of education ................... 16 1.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 16 1.2. Rationale ............................................................................................................................... 19 1.2.1. Gender identity, the body and extra-rational, corporeal knowing ............................... 20 1.2.2. Neoliberalism, higher education and knowledge production ...................................... 22 1.2.3. Recognising positionality: a tit-for-tat with the field .................................................... 25 1.3. Structure of the thesis .......................................................................................................... 27 Chapter 2: Scoping the landscape of sociological knowing in the field of education ...................... 32 2.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 32 2.2. Sociology: a troubled and troubling profession .................................................................... 32 2.3. From certainty to uncertainty and back again: sociological knowing in education ............. 37 2.3.1. Political Arithmetic: knowing as replication ................................................................. 38 2.3.2. New Sociology of Education: knowing as reflective ..................................................... 40 2.3.3. School Effectiveness and School Improvement: knowing as demonstration ............... 44 2.4. Corporeality and corporeal knowing: past, present and future ........................................... 47 2.4.1. The location of corporeality in the sociology of education .......................................... 48 2.4.2. The future of corporeal knowing: demise or continuity? ............................................. 52 2.5. Summary of chapter two ...................................................................................................... 54 Chapter 3: Methodology ................................................................................................................... 55 3.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 55 3.2. Critical realism: a methodology for investigating knowledge production ............................ 56 3.2.1. Ontological and epistemological assumptions ............................................................. 57 3.2.2. Operationalising critical realism ................................................................................... 61 3.3. Phase one: knowing and knowledge .................................................................................... 64 2 3.3.1. Rationale ....................................................................................................................... 64 3.3.2. Data generation ............................................................................................................ 65 3.3.3. Data analysis ................................................................................................................. 68 3.4. Phase two: knowing and knowers ........................................................................................ 70 3.4.1. Rationale ....................................................................................................................... 70 3.4.2. Population list and sample ............................................................................................ 73 3.4.3. Access ............................................................................................................................ 74 3.4.4. Designing and conducting the interviews ..................................................................... 76 3.4.5. Analysis and interpretation ........................................................................................... 78 3.5. From documents to interviews: writing a collective story of scholarship ............................ 81 3.6. Trustworthiness and research integrity ................................................................................ 83 3.7. Constructing the thesis ......................................................................................................... 85 3.7.1. A critical realist investigation of knowledge production in gender and education research on boys (chapter four) ................................................................................................... 85 3.7.2. Corporeal knowing and the participation-protection dilemma in gender and education research on boys (chapter five) .................................................................................................... 86 3.7.3. Knowledge, the body and the challenges of doing intellectual work in gender and education research (chapter six) .................................................................................................. 86 3.7.4. On corporeal knowing, educational research and state-led hysteresis in the neoliberal university (chapter seven) ............................................................................................................ 87 3.8. Summary of chapter three .................................................................................................... 87 Chapter 4: A critical realist investigation of knowledge production in gender and education research on boys ............................................................................................................................... 89 Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. 89 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 89 Investigating ways of knowing in research on boys and masculinities............................................. 91 Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 92 Methods ........................................................................................................................................ 93 The predominance of agency............................................................................................................ 96 Examining the shift from sociological to social theory in the field ................................................... 98 Sociological theory and the view of the social from above ........................................................... 99 Social theory and the views of the social from below and from within ...................................... 101 The corporeal, the sociological and the persistent tensions of gender theorising ..................... 102 Summary and concluding thoughts for future research ................................................................. 104 3 References ...................................................................................................................................... 106 Chapter 5: Corporeal knowing and the participation-protection dilemma in gender and education research on boys ............................................................................................................................. 114 Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 114 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 115 Investigating potential limitations to knowing about boys and gender ......................................... 116 Methods ...................................................................................................................................... 118 Researching boys as