The Construction of Girls' Desires Through Secondary Education
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Testing Times: The Construction of Girls' Desires Through Secondary Education Sarah O'Flynn PhD Cardiff University School of Social Sciences 2007 Testing Times: The Construction of Girls' Desires Through Secondary Education Sarah O'Flynn PhD Cardiff University School of Social Sciences 2007 UMI Number: U584927 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U584927 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed (candidate) Date STATEMENT 1 This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.Q............... (insert MCh, MD, MPhil, PhD etc, as appropriate) Signed (candidate) Date STATEMENT 2 This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by explicit references. Signed...... ...................................................... (candidate) Date T rJ STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed.............................vf-.................................................(candidate) To My Father Patrick Joseph Jarleth O'Flynn Acknowledgements I would like first and foremost to thank Debbie Epstein who has been my PhD supervisor throughout the long process of this research. Her unstinting advice and support has been much appreciated, as has her support for me in getting my work published. I would also like to thank her partner Rebecca Boden for her encouragement and both of them for their many years of friendship and hospitality during my stays in the west country, especially during times of personal crisis. Amanda Coffey and Emma Renold read some of the chapters and offered clear advice to me in my upgrade, which was gratefully received. I would never have been able to do this PhD without the support of Fran O'Neill who made it possible for me to embark on it in the first place and to Nicky Walton, without whose love I never would have completed it. Finally I would like to thank the young women from Manor School who took part in the research and the staff at the school for allowing me to complete my fieldwork there, when they too were going through testing times. Abstract This thesis explores the links between sexuality and academic achievement for girls in secondary education. It investigates primarily how sexual and learner identities are embodied by young women and the implications of this for their educational success or failure, their emotional well-being, their relationships and their imagined adulthoods. I research a range of young women's experiences across the spectrum of educational attainment and draw from a range of self-identified and emergent sexualities and a/sexual practices. In contrast to much work which explores only the experience of young women's developing heterosexualities, the research presented here focuses particularly on young women who have emergent lesbian, bisexual or trans-gendered identities or who practise culturally marginalised forms of heterosexuality. Although based on a small selection of case studies, it includes the experience of asylum seekers pupils, Traveller pupils and minority ethnic pupils. I argue here that the Cartesian mind/body split as it is enshrined in the standards and school effectiveness agendas has detrimental consequences for both highly achieving pupils and those who are not academically successful as defined within these agendas. The study concludes by suggesting that learning about sexuality and sexual knowledge needs to be more centrally and openly present in schools in order that marginalised sexual identities are able to participate more fully in learning; that the complexity of the relationship between sexuality and learning in psychoanalytic accounts is made available to teachers and that more research is undertaken to make visible girls who 'do girl' differently, by adopting non-normative sexualities or through the practice of masculinity. Contents Chapter 1 Sexual Regulation and the Production of Educational Success in Secondary Education.......................................... 1 Introduction............................................................................... 1 'The Autobiography of the Q uestion'.................................... 7 Critical Incident One. Licence to Expel: Section 28, Teaching Homophobia and Failing Gays.............................. 8 Critical Incident Two. Licence to Expel: Sexuality and Exclusion from School.............................................................. 19 Conclusion.................................................................................. 25 Chapter 2 Researching Young Women's Sexualities in School 28 Introduction............................................................................... 28 Introducing the Study............................................................... 30 Manor High School................................................................... 31 Pupils' Homes/Areas................................................................. 36 My Roles at Manor High School............................................. 38 Table 2.1: Interview and Observation Schedules.................. 43 Teacher/Researcher, 'Miss Sarah' and Me: Revealing Relationships through the Mode of Address ......................... 44 Moments of Closeness and Moments of Distance............... 47 Ethical Considerations of Teacher/Researcher Identity 50 My Sexuality.............................................................................. 57 Epistemological Issues: Representing the Self...................... 60 Doing Feminist Research.......................................................... 67 Conclusion.................................................................................. 73 Chapter 3 Sexuality and Success in Secondary Schools..................... 75 Introduction............................................................................... 75 Taking Sexuality Seriously...................................................... 76 Good sex/Bad sex - Charmed Circles and the Difficulty of Getting into Them..................................................................... 78 That still 'Missing Discourse of Desire' and Government Determination It Should Remain Hidden.............................. 86 Historical Explanations of When, Why and How the 'Discourse of Desire' went Missing......................................... 90 A National Disgrace.................................................................. 98 The B ody ..................................................................................... 102 Working with Sexuality............................................................ 106 Common Understandings about Childhood and Adolescent Sexuality................................................................. 110 Researching Sexuality............................................................... 115 Sexuality Meets the Standards Agenda in Research............. 118 Conclusion.................................................................................. 119 Chapter 4 Bodies that Learn: Negotiating Educational Success through the Management of Sexuality................................ 122 Introduction.............................................................................. 122 Fitting in with Institutional Heterosexism............................ 125 Education, Heterosexuality and the Phallic Body................. 131 Negotiating Success against a Deadline for Compulsory Heterosexuality.......................................................................... 142 Conclusion.................................................................................. 156 Chapter 5 Sexual Rebellions against Education and the Standards Agenda....................................................................................... 160 Introduction.............................................................................. 160 Mercedes: Building Traditions of Seamless Community....................... 166 Location and Community........................................................ 168 Moving to the Centre of one's Community.......................... 172 Hester: The Great Escape....................................................................... 183 Location as destiny................................................................... 184 Sexuality..................................................................................... 194 Sexuality and Schooling............................................................ 199 Social Justice............................................................................... 204 Contradictions..........................................................................