Contact Profile Address

Assoc/Prof Martin Forsey

Associate Professor
Anthropology and Sociology

Research Interests

• Anthropology and sociology of education
• Anthropology and sociology of organisations
• Australian society and culture
• Human variation and racism
• Multicultural education
• Social, cultural and organisational change

Qualifications:

BSc BA PhD <em>W.Aust</em>.

Teaching:

I currently teach units in Australian Studies and the Anthropology of business and enterprise. I also teach in first year and coordinate the unit titled 'Global Change Local Responses'.

Future Research:

The perceptions and realities of public and private schools - a study funded by the UWA Grant Scheme. http://www.anthropology.arts.uwa.edu.au/education

Debates about the relative worth of public and private schools are as old as the nation. These debates have been reignited recently with various commentators, including the Prime Minister, suggesting that public schools lack values. Over the past two decades there has been a clear movement away from public education towards the private sector. Continuing my doctoral research into government school education, I am embarking upon a study of attitudes and experiences of public and private schools in Western Australia. By interviewing teachers, students and parents who have been associated with the two school systems, I aim to move beyond opinions about what both systems do and do not achieve towards a systematic documentation of the experiences of those who have worked and studied in both public and private schools.

Radio National Interviews
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/perspective/stories/2006/1671775.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lm/stories/s1320022.htm

Recruits wanted for Private and Public Education Research
http://www.uwa.edu.au/media/statements/2005/february/recruits_wanted_for_publicprivate_education_research

I have also received a grant from the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences to develop a comparative project with Professor Geoffrey Walford (Oxford University) http://www.edstud.ox.ac.uk/NF_Staff_Pages/NF_Walford.htm and Associate Professor Scott Davies (McMaster University) http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/sociology/davies.htm The project aims at an interdisciplinary and comparative study of the values associated with private education in Australia, Great Britain and Canada. By considering the continuities and changes evident in the development of the education system in all three nations and the contemporary realities that they reflect, this project with illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of current educational policy development and educational practices in the three nation states, particularly as they pertain to private education.

Memberships:

Current Committee Involvement
Elected Member of UWA Admissions Committee
Member of the School of Social and Cultural Studies Teaching and Learning Committee
Member of Steering committee for Integrated Human Studies discipline group
Member of UWA Centre for Global Studies steering committee
Convenor of UWA Policy Studies Group

Current Professional Membership
Australian Sociological Association
Australian Anthropological Society
Australian Studies Association

Publications:

Books/Monographs
Forsey M., Davies S. & G. Walford eds., 2008, The Globalisation of School Choice? Oxford: Symposium Books

Forsey M., 2007, Challenging the System? A Dramatic Tale of Neo-liberal Reform in an Australian High School. Education Policy in Practice: Critical Cultural Studies series, B. Levinson & M. Sutton series eds. Greenwich CT: Information Age Publishing.

Refereed Journals
Forsey M., (in press) The Problem with Autonomy: An Ethnographic Study of Neoliberalism in Practice at an Australian High School, Discourse

Forsey M., 2006,Producing Cosmos? The Explanatory Power of Social Drama for School Reform. Ethnography and Education 1(3)

Forsey M. 2004,‘Global Ideals, Local Perspectives: Neo-liberalism and Australian Society’. A special edition of Anthropological Forum 14(3):227-236. M. Forsey and C. Lockhart (eds).

Forsey M., 2004, Equity versus Excellence: Local Responses to Neo-liberal Imperatives in a Western Australian Government High School. A special edition of Anthropological Forum 14(3):283-296. M. Forsey and C. Lockhart (eds).

Forsey M., 2000, The Anthropology of Education: Cultural Critique or Ethnographic Refusal. Anthropological Forum 10(2):201-221.

Chapters in refereed collections
Forsey M., (in press) Ethnographic Interviewing: From Conversation to Published Text. In G. Walford (ed) How to do Ethnography. London, Tufnell Press.

Forsey M., 2008, No Choice but to Choose: Selecting Schools in Western Australia . In M. Forsey, S. Davies, and G. Walford (eds) The Globalisation of School Choice? pp 73-93. Oxford: Symposium Books.

Forsey M., Davies S. & G. Walford, 2008, The Globalisation of School Choice? An Introduction to Key Issues and Concerns. In M. Forsey, S. Davies, and G. Walford (eds) The Globalisation of School Choice? pp 5-95. Oxford: Symposium Books.

Forsey M., 2007, The Strange Case of the Disappearing Teachers: Critical Ethnography and the Importance of “Studying In-Between”. In G. Walford (ed) Developments in Ethnographic Methodology Studies in Educational Ethnography Volume 12. Amsterdam, New York, Oxford, JAI/Elsevier.

Forsey M., 2006, Australian Public Schools and the Eloquent Fiction of the Free Market. In G. Willett (ed) Thinking Down Under: Australian Politics, Society and Culture in Transition. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier

Forsey M., 2004, “He’s Not a Spy, He’s One of Us”: Ethnographic Positioning in a Middle-Class Setting. In L. Hulme and J. Mulcock (eds) Anthropologists in the field : cases in participant observation. New York: Columbia University Press.

Refereed Proceedings
Forsey M., 2004, Teachers, schools and social class: An ethnographic study. Refereed Conference Proceedings, Australian Sociological Association Conference, La Trobe University, Beechworth Campus, December 2004

Forsey M., Wilding R., Poleykett B., McNamara B., & I. Jonikis, 2004, Incorporating online learning into existing high-contact first year units, Teaching and Learning Forum, Murdoch University, February 2004.

Other Publications
Forsey M., 1997, Teaching About Race. American Anthropological Association - Anthropology Newsletter October, p.14.

Forsey M., 1996, Reinforcing Racial Stereotypes: a consideration of the effects of cultural evolutionism on the Western Australian Human Biology Syllabus. Australasian Society for Human Biology - News. 8(1):5-9.

Forsey M., 1995, Do Races Exist? Reflections on the Year 12 Human Biology Syllabus. SCIOS - Journal of the Science Teachers’ Association of Western Australia. 30(3):12-15