Masculinities in Physical Recreation: the (re)production of masculinist discourses in vocational education

Educators have criticised vocational education in Australia and elsewhere for being gendered and classed, thereby not giving those students who choose to undertake this form of study the broadening of opportunities envisioned (e.g., Falk, 1999 Falk, I. 1999. The convergence of vocational and adult education in learning communities. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 23: 697–716. Taylor Huws, 2000 Huws, U. 2000. “The changing gender division of labour in the transition to the knowledge society”. In Transition to the knowledge society: policies and strategies for individual participation and learning, Edited by: Rubenson, K. and Schuetze, H. G. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, Institute for European Studies. [Google Scholar; Host & Michelson, 2001 Host, H. and Michelsen, S. 2001. “The new careworker: expanding the apprentice system into new fields of work”. In Gender perspectives on vocational education, Edited by: Gonon, P., Haefeli, K., Heikkinen, A. and Ludwig, I. Bern: Peter Lang. Google Scholar). Recently, the Queensland Studies Authority (formally the Queensland Board of Senior Secondary School Studies) implemented the subject Physical Recreation, a new stream of vocational education. The aim of this study was to examine how power operates in two Physical Recreation case study schools using Foucault's techniques of power. Qualitative data were collected using field notes from observations, interviews using partially constructed questions and supplementary materials. The data collected were clustered into key themes addressing masculinities (re)produced by the Physical Recreation teachers and students. The discourses within these themes that position both teachers and students in particular power relationships were deconstructed using Foucault's techniques of power. The paper concludes that Physical Recreation perpetuated a male hierarchy that favoured elite athletes and offered limited educative experiences to the majority of students.1 Dr. Seth Brown undertook this work while he was a PhD student at The University of Queensland.