Dr Beverley Axford (PhD), University of Canberra, Professional work in the new work order.Supervisors: Marie Brennan & Peter Putnis.

How do moves away from the modern bureaucratically-structured professions, and a professional ideal based on the concept of universal service, impact on graduates currently entering professional employment domains in which new 'performativity-based' management regimes are replacing the older control structures? This study draws on a range of sociological literature to explore both the structural and discursive changes in the meaning of profession practice. The study also draws on a number of research projects, including materials from focus group interviews of final year undergraduate students, recruitment brochures, ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) statistical analyses and DEST (Australia: Department of Employment, Science and Training) graduate destination studies, and policy documents. These materials are used to argue that the employment destinations of those with professional qualifications and credentials are now more stratified and more diverse and no longer necessarily coupled with a lifelong career. In addition, the new management regimes that accompany the move to more flexible work processes and work practices are changing how those in professional work locations construct their sense of themselves as professional practitioners. Changes in the nature of professional work, and in the structural and discursive location of professional workers, have implications for education and training institutions. These institutions not only prepare workers for these occupational domains but are the main conduits through which access to work in the restructured labour markets is mediated. The study concludes by drawing attention to the need for educational research to be anchored in a 'sociology of employment' that is able to provide a more critical account of the relationship between education and training and entry into high status/low status employment domains.

Schooling is charged with the formal and compulsory education of young people yet processes and practices go well beyond formal curriculum and constitute society within the individual (Bourdieu, 1977; 1990). In Australia, knowledge around the experiences of young people in their middle years of schooling and the influence of 'practice' as enculturation and/or agentic processes is minimal. Chapter 1 contextualizes the study within Australian education, the field of physical education and the middle years of schooling, literature informing these fields being visually mapped in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 outlines the theoretical perspectives drawn from (critical pedagogy, post-structural feminism, cultural studies, and youth studies). Through the use of these perspectives the relational positioning of 24 students within their physical education class is suggested using Bourdieu's conceptual tools of habitus, field, capital, and practice. The participants included 24 students in one Year 7 class (final year of primary school) into their Year 8 classes (first year secondary or middle school), and 7 teachers. Data was generated through a multi-method approach (interviews, field observations, questionnaires, journals, videoing, photography, and Qsorts), then analyzed using grounded theory, critical discourse analysis, descriptive statistics and Qmethodology to constitute a theory of practice (Bourdieu, 1977; 1990). Issues arising from the reflexive research process between data, theory, and my own habitus were ongoing throughout the study and reflected upon in an Epilogue. Chapters 4 to 6 present literature, data, and discussion focussing on three dimensions relating to the thesis questions. Chapter 4 centres on the practices and processes of transition within the middle years of schooling. Physical education as a social field acts as the organizing theme for Chapter 5 before concentrating on student habitus in Chapter 6. Key findings suggest that schooling in general, and physical education in particular, needs to redefine and refocus practices within the middle years, before, during and after transfer. Transfer can be situated as a powerful disruption, and therefore possible learning process, as part of the middle years, warranting explicit attention (to learning, habitus, and the social nature of the class) by students, teachers, and adults involved in education. Consideration towards notions of student "participation" and "difference" inform a list of principles in Chapter 7 targeting different agents within the field, to promote shifts from currently oppressive to more socially just practices within schooling and physical education. Two possible future education scenarios, using and promoting a pedagogy of imaginative praxis, are then suggested.

Dr Carl Leonard (PhD), University of Newcastle, Quality of Life and Attendance in Primary Schools. Supervisors: Sid Bourke & Neville Schofield.

This dissertation presents the results of a study to assess the impact of a stress management, a self-development, and a relaxation technique on the quality of school life and attendance of 448 Year 5 and 6 students in 16 classes at 4 Lower Hunter Valley primary schools in New South Wales, Australia, in 2000. The importance of contextualising student quality of school life as a key indicator of school effectiveness and measure of school improvement is also argued. The Quality of School Life questionnaire (Ainley & Bourke, 1992) scales were used pre- and post- intervention as indicators of student perception of aspects of their school life including stressful and satisfying elements. Various student, teacher, and class contextual variables were also investigated. Overall, the interventions implemented in this study appeared to have had some small impact on student quality of school life, student absence, teacher stress, teacher satisfaction, and teacher absence. Of particular interest are the apparent differential effects of some of the interventions for: teachers and students, classes, schools, and, at least in part, the effectiveness of the implementation of the interventions. Possible explanations of these differences are discussed while implications including the apparent importance of positive peer relationships and an exciting and enjoyable curriculum in ensuring students have a high quality of school life are described. In the broader context of school effectiveness and school improvement, it is hoped that further investigation will be undertaken of the intervention strategies explored and refined in this study, and perhaps other strategies intended to enhance student quality of school life. In particular, interventions are needed that facilitate the establishment of classroom environments where students and teachers want to be, where educational outcomes are enhanced, and students are led to a broader life experience.

Dr Brad Shipway (PhD), Southern Cross University, Implications of a Critical Realist Perspective in Education

Critical realism has established itself as a significant intellectual force in the social sciences, and its potential in a number of theoretical and practical disciplines continues to be explored. This thesis explores the implications of a critical realist perspective for the field of education. Areas of consonance and divergence between two traditions of critical realism which have previously not referenced each other are outlined. It is argued that both theological critical realism and "Bhaskarian" critical realism are consonant in terms of their base tenets, and support the concept of a postfoundational, dialectical, stratified and alethic model of truth. The implications of this model, and the potential of other critical realist doctrines for education are then examined. It is argued that the combination of critical realism's epistemological relativism and ontological realism allows it to steer a course between the extremes of other dominant positions, which are ultimately susceptible to either the foundationalism of positivism, or the regression of idealism. It is suggested that critical realism is uniquely positioned to provide an antidote to the problems besetting contemporary educational research - especially in instances where modern and postmodern influences are involved in a recalcitrant, self-sustaining conflict. The postfoundationalist doctrines of critical realism enable it to appropriate deconstructionist research methods, but deploy them from within a realist framework. The implications of a critical realist perspective also go beyond educational research, indicating a conception of education as an emancipatory enterprise. By virtue of its evolutionary, stratified model of human rationality, critical realism raises significant challenges to dominant views of pedagogy and praxis in education. Given its concern with absenting constraints upon human freedom, it is claimed that critical realism reveals the real task of education as facilitating the emergent rationality of students towards emancipation. In light of this emancipatory mission, the possible contribution of critical realism to the field of education is too significant to ignore.