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Abstract
This paper discusses a recent Australian study of boys' education using case studies to determine successful practices. It focuses on an early childhood site where access to ‘discourses of power’ for students and parents and a valuing of students' ‘action knowledge’ created a particular democratic culture achieving improved outcomes for boys. The data are drawn from focus groups with families, interviews with educators, conversations with children and on‐site observations over two days. The findings are discussed in terms of those factors deriving from Henry Giroux's work on democracy and hope. In addition, we build on the work of Giroux by discussing the site as an exemplar of what we have come to call ‘robust hope’.
Notes
1. This paper reports on research funded by the former Australian Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST).
2. Schooling for democracy (Citation1989) was later re‐printed as Schooling and the struggle for public life (Citation2005). Except for the Introduction to the latter, page numbers are the same in both the 1989 and 2005 editions.
3. The United Nations has recently highlighted the importance of the early childhood years in realising children's rights (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Citation2005).
4. See the September 2007, edition of Discourse devoted to the notion of ‘voice’.
5. Primary schooling in NSW is Kindergarten–Year 6 (ages 5–12) and high school is Years 7–12 (ages 12–18). Compulsory schooling is currently to Year 10 (age 15–16).
6. In NSW, the Higher School Certificate is the exit credential from schooling at the end of Year 12.