1. Reading Log Book

FOAR8005 class seminars will be held fortnightly on Fridays from the first week of the first semester (February 28th) until Friday May 16th. We will meet face-to-face in Weeks 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, and 10.The seminar will be devoted to a discussion of course readings, but we will also consider writing tasks and thesis research strategies. Students are expected to read the set readings and to participate in discussion.

To facilitate seminar discussion, over the course of the unit students are required to submit five one-page responses to the readings, one each fortnight we meet. Each reading response is marked out of 6. Log book responses should be structured according to the three 'I's – Insight, Interest, and Incomprehension. In your reading response present what you thought was the author’s main insight. Discuss something of particular interest to you. And puzzle out which argments or claims seemed confusing or even incomprehensible that you would like to discuss in the class. Responses should be submitted at the seminar in which the reading is to be discussed. The Reading Log Book mark will be awarded on the basis of the written work.

All readings can be found on the Unit ILearn page.

2. Reflective Writing

Referencing ideas from the readings that we have discussed in the seminars, the task in this 1,300 word piece of writing is to reflect upon your own experiences and processes of learning something. This may be a musical instrument, a sport, craftwork, religion, caring for an animal, a language, becoming a national citizen, or even your own formation in an intellectual discipline. This short piece of writing is due on Friday April 11th at the end of Week Seven just before the term break. 

3. Project Writing Essay

This project writing essay is required to be approximately 2,500 words in length. In it you should relate, compare, and assess the relevance of the unit's fortnightly readings to central concerns of your own discipline. For example, how do you think structural theories of society or phenomenological perspectives on human perception are relevant and useful to understanding research in your disciplines, as well as the lives of the people your disciplines seek to understand?   

This essay is due in Week 12, on Friday 30th May. One copy must be uploaded through TURNITIN on this date.

Late Penalties

Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, a 5% penalty (of the total possible mark) will be applied each day a written assessment is not submitted, up until the 7th day (including weekends). After the 7th day, a mark of ‘0’ (zero) will be awarded even if the assessment is submitted. Submission time for all written assessments is set at 11.55pm. A 1-hour grace period is provided to students who experience a technical issue. This late penalty will apply to written reports and recordings only. Late submission of time sensitive tasks (such as tests/exams, performance assessments/presentations, scheduled practical assessments/labs will be addressed by the unit convenor in a Special consideration application."

The following is intended to provide you with essential information concerning unit organisation for FOAR8005. Students in FOAR8005 are studying in different disciplines. This being the case, not everything you read in this unit will be perfectly relevant for your thesis topic. Nevertheless, everything will be fascinating and applicable to your discipline in some way or other. Because the concern of this unit is better seen as researching society and education, we will also read more general theoretical pieces that will allow you to apply their arguments and presumptions to each of your disciplines.

This semester we will meet fortnightly in a class seminar, in 25WW, Room GB31. Classes begin Week 1 on Friday 28th February and finish in Week 10 on Friday 16th May. The seminar is designed to provide a supportive environment in which students can assist each other in discussing their ideas and interpretations of the readings, in conceptualising their essay and in clarifying their thesis topic. Secondly, over the course of the semester students will be able to listen to six one-hour zoom interviews with academics in your disciplines.

The coursework year that makes up your Graduate Diploma of Research is a transitional year. You are moving from undergraduate studies, where tutors and lecturers have closely directed your work, in the direction of postgraduate, independent research. In the Master of Research or PhD, a supervisor advises you about your research thesis but a degree of independence is expected of each student. This year is thus a demanding one. Mutual support amongst students themselves will help to make it both intellectually and emotionally more stimulating and manageable.

The FOAR8005 Convenor in 2025 is Christopher Houston. I am available on extension 8471 and my email address is chris.houston@mq.edu.au. Please feel free to contact me about problems of any nature that affect your studies this semester.

Seminar Series of School of Education, and School of Communication, Society & Culture. 

School seminars involve a wide range of speakers, including staff and postgraduates from each School’s different disciplines. Please feel welcome to attend. Attendance provides FOAR8005 students with the opportunity to listen to and engage in debate with working scholars.

This semester the School of Communication, Society & Culture seminar series will be held regularly on Wednesdays at 3.00pm - 4.00pm, and School of Education seminars are scheduled for ...

RESEARCHING SOCIETY AND EDUCATION PROVISIONAL SEMINAR CONTENT 

Seminar One: Core Concepts Agency and Structure

Reading: Pierre Bourdieu (2000) 'Habitus', in Habitus: A Sense of Place (eds. Hillier and Rooksby) Aldershot, Ashgate (pp. 27-33).

Nigel Rapport and Joanna Overing (2000) ‘Agent and Agency’, in Social and Cultural Anthropology: The Key Concepts. London, Routledge (pp.1-8).

Seminar Two: Skilled Learning, Apprenticeship, Person-Making

Readings: Rebecca Bryant (2008) 'The Soul Danced into the Body: Nation and Improvisation in Istanbul', American Ethnologist 32(2): pp. 222-238. 

Daniel Santori-Trantor (2024) Introduction and Chapter One in Lithic Intimacies. PhD Thesis. pp. 1-20.

Seminar Three: Moral Development, Intersubjectivity, Self-Transformation

Banu Senay (2024) 'Exemplary Masters, Exemplary Reeds: Pedagogies of Self-alteration in Sufi Music', in Self-Alteration. How People Change Themselves Across Cultures (eds JP Baldacchino & C Houston), New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press (pp.25-40).

Max Harwood (2024) 'Transcendental Terror. Zen Self-transformation through White Supremacist Atrocity, from Nazi Germany to Utoya and Christchurch', in Self-Alteration. How People Change Themselves Across Cultures (eds JP Baldacchino & C Houston), New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press (pp. 90-110).

Seminar Four: Socialisation, Embodiment, Perception

Iris Murdoch (1980) 'Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality', HUMAN STUDIES 3 (pp.1-19).

Christopher Houston (2022) 'Why Social Scientists Still Need Phenomenology', Thesis Eleven 168, 1: 37-54. 

Seminar Five: Ethnography and/of Education

Readings: Norma Gonzalez (2010) 'Advocacy Anthropology and Education', Current Anthropology 51, (pp. 249-258)

Paul Willis (1980) Learning to Labour, London, Saxon House (Chapter One pp. 1-47). 

Seminar Six: Education and the Formation of Subjects

Joel Kaplan (2006) The Pedagogic State. Education and the Politics of National Culture in Turkey. Stanford University Press (pp. 1-36).