Retallack, Hanna Maria;
(2023)
Feminism in Schools? A discursive-psychosocial study of teenagers' constitutions of feminist subjectivities.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Responding to a popular resurgence in young people’s interest in feminism, this thesis explores how teenagers constitute feminist subjectivities in their schools during a time that both enables feminism groups, whilst simultaneously reconstituting postfeminist and antifeminist ideologies within these same institutions. The study was conducted over an academic year in six schools; a suburban comprehensive, an inner-city private dance school, an inner-city all-girls’ private school, an inner-city private all boys’ school, a rural private all-boys’ boarding school and an inner-city academy school. Through focus groups and one-to-one interviews, the research investigates teenagers’ engagements with different feminisms, how these relate to their school contexts and how they constitute feminist subjectivities. To explore this, I draw specifically upon psychosocial conceptualisations of relational identifications, defensiveness and melancholia. The research argues that participants from each of the groups form feminisms in relational and occasionally intersubjective ways to the discourses available to them at school and in wider society, as well as to other members of their feminism groups. With an intersectional perspective on gender, race and class, the study also suggests that elite boys’ negotiations of feminisms are mediated through defensive anxieties of taking up a subordinated masculine position. The study also proposes that a group of girls express a melancholic longing for a feminism that would empower them everywhere, including in their heterosexual encounters. This research also engages with my own subjectivity to consider the dynamics that my own ‘feminist’ positionality produces and the ways this intersects with the narratives of the participants. This thesis deepens understandings of how teenagers engage with and constitute feminisms, and how these open up the potential for affecting gendered and sexualised norms in schools.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Feminism in Schools? A discursive-psychosocial study of teenagers' constitutions of feminist subjectivities |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10180263 |
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