Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T21:26:30.730Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Performative Pedagogy and the Creation of Desire: The Indigenous Athlete/Role Model and Implications for Learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

Stella Coram
Stella Coram*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Education, Building 6, Monash University, Victoria, 3800, Australia
Get access

Abstract

The athlete role model has emerged as the new pastor invested with the task of leading young people classed “at-risk” from entering into self-destructive pathways. The logic invested in the athlete role model is that young people identify with their sporting heroes and in the process try to emulate them. This holds for the major sporting codes in Australia including the Australian Football League (AFL), which supports the formation of role model programmes based on the input of Indigenous athletes to target Indigenous youth living in rural outposts. Armstrong (1996) sees the push to emulate the deeds of elite athletes in terms of a mythic function, the creation of desire to be like the hero. This article explores the theoretical implications for Indigenous learning grounded in the athlete/hero as role model. It is proposed that the athlete role model in the contemporary context of capitalism can work to obscure the realities of competition in sport and in the process promulgate false opportunity through sport at the expense of education.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , 2007 , pp. 56 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Armstrong, E. (1996). The commodified 23 or Michael Jordan as text. Sociology of Sport Journal, 13 (4), 325–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Attwood, A, (2000, 16 September). The athletes and performers finally take centre stage. The Age, p. 3.Google Scholar
Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre (A1LC). (n.d.). About the AILC. Retrieved 3 Jan, 2003, from http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/ailc/whatis.htm.Google Scholar
Australian Football League. (2002). Australian Football League information sheets: Influence of Aboriginal players. Retrieved 3 October, 2006 from http://www.afl.com.au/Season2007/News/NewsArticle/tabid/208/Default.aspx?newsld=2539.Google Scholar
Baum, G., (2006, 29 April). Laud Byron: Melbourne is glad to have employed the sometimes undisciplined but gifted Byron Pickett. The Age, Football p. 5.Google Scholar
Bhabha, H. (1994). The location of culture. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Birnbauer, W., (2004, 12 April). Mad dog Muir: Sex, drugs, violence. The Age, pp. 4–5.Google Scholar
Blake, M., (2004, 27 March). A man of his people. The Age, p. 5.Google Scholar
Blucher, P., (2004, 2 June). White’s voyage from troubled youth to role model. The Age, p. 22.Google Scholar
Britzman, D. (1993). Rolling models: Gender and multicultural education. In Bilken, S. & Pollard, D. (Eds.), Gender and education: Ninety–second yearbook of the national society for the study of education (pp. 25–42). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex’. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Castine, S., & Roberts, G. (1974). Modeling in the socialization process of the black athlete. International Review of Sport Sociology, 9, 59–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coram, S. (2004). The relevance of Indigenous role model policy utilizing elite Indigenous athletes to Indigenous education policy: A critical race approach. Unpublished PhD thesis, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria.Google Scholar
Coram, S. (2007). The real and the unreal: Hyper narratives of Indigenous athletes and the changing significance of race. Melbourne, VIC: Common Ground.Google Scholar
Crichlow, W. (1999). Be like who? The end of the innocent role model in higher education. Journal of ‘Curriculum Theorizing, 15, 13–38.Google Scholar
Dodson, M. (2003, 23 September). How an Indigenous leader should look and sound today. The Age, p. 11.Google Scholar
Dyson, M. (1993). Be like Mike: Michael Jordan and the pedagogy of desire. Cultural Studies, 7 (1), 64–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, H. (1969). The revolt of black athlete. London, UK: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Entine, J. (2000). Taboo: Why black athletes dominate sport and why we’re afraid to talk about it. New York, NY: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Fisher, B. (1988). Wandering in the wilderness: The search for women role models. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 13, 211–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Given, J. (1995). Red, black, gold to Australia: Cathy Freeman and the flags. Media Information Australia, 75, 48–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guinier, L. (1997). Of gentlemen and role models. In Wing, A. (Ed.), Critical race feminism: A reader (pp. 73–80). New York, NY: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Gullan, S. (2003, 23 August). King of the hit parade. Herald Sun, pp. 110–111.Google Scholar
Hallinan, C., Bruce, T., & Coram, S. (1999). Up front and beyond the centre line: Australian Aborigines in elite Australian rules football. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 34, (4, 369–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, S. (1990) Two–way Aboriginal schooling: Education and cultural survival. Canberra, ACT: Aboriginal Studies Press.Google Scholar
Hoberman, J. (1997). Darwin s athletes: How sport has damaged black America and preserved the myth of race. Boston, MA: Houton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Houston, B. (1996). Role models: Help or hindrance in the pursuit of autonomy? In Diller, A. Houston, B. Morgan, K. & Ayim, M. (Eds.), The gender question in education: Theory, pedagogy and politics (pp. 144–160). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Howard, J. (2000, 29 March). Practical steps to improve Indigenous education [Media release]. Retrieved 23 September, 2007, from http://www.pm.gov.au/media/release/2000/IndigenousEducation2903.cfm.Google Scholar
Indigenous Ambassador’s Program (IAP). (n.d.). Retrieved 3 January, 2003, from http://www.dest.gov.au/schools/indigenous/ambassadors.htm.Google Scholar
Indigenous Sport Program (ISP). [Brochure], (n.d.). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), Active Australia, Australian Sports Commission: Author.Google Scholar
Ker, P. (2006, 25 February). Protestors to set up camp in no–go zone. The Age, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar
Lapchick, R. (1995). Race and college sport: A long way to go. Race and Class, 36, 87–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lines, G. (2001). Villains, fools, or heroes? Sports stars as role models for young people. Leisure Studies, 20, 285–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linneil, G. (1997, 4 August). AFL aiding in search for next Michael Long. The Age, Football, p. 8.Google Scholar
Lockwood, P., & Kunda, Z. (1997). Superstars and me: Predicting the impact of role models on the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, (1), 91–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacCallum, J., & Beltman, S. (1999). Role models for young people: What makes an effective role model program. A report to the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme. Hobart, TAS: Australian Clearinghouse for Youth Studies.Google Scholar
Malin, M. (1997) Theorising Aboriginal education: Moving on to...what?. Education Australia, 35, 6–9.Google Scholar
Marqusee, M. (1995). From role model to Mohamed Ali. Race and Class, 36, 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messner, M. (1994). Sports and the politics of inequality. In Messner, M. & Sabo, D. (Eds.), violence and power in sports: Rethinking masculinity (pp. 128–149). Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, K. (1996). The perils and paradoxes of the bearded mothers. In Diller, A. Houston, B. Morgan, K. & Ayim, M. (Eds.), The gender question in education: Theory, pedagogy and politics (pp. 124–134). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Niall, J. (2000, 5 March). Aboriginal AFL boom. The Sunday Age, News p. 3.Google Scholar
Osbourne, P., & Segal, L. (1994). Extracts from gender as performance: An interview with Judith Butler. Radical Philosophy, 67, 32–39.Google Scholar
Russell, D. (2004, 8 August). The new king Richard. The Sunday Age, p. 36.Google Scholar
Schwab, R. (1996). Having it “both ways”: The continuing complexities of community–controlled Indigenous education (Discussion Paper 111). Canberra, ACT: Australian National University, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research.Google Scholar
Silvester, J. (2004, 22 May). Magic turned tragic: When the smallest cog paid the highest price. The Age, p. 6.Google Scholar
Taussig, M. (1993). Mimesis and alterity: A particular history of senses. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporated and Office of School Education. (1990). Yalca: A partnership in education and training for the new millennium. Melbourne, VIC: Department of Education, Science and Training.Google Scholar
Walls, R. (2006, 6 May). Syd magic usher in the magicians. The Age, Sport p. 2.Google Scholar
Webster, A. (2004, 22 May). Saints and a hard man helping homeless kids. The Age, p. 3.Google Scholar
Wilson, C. (2004a, 8 May). Why football needs women. The Age, p. 5.Google Scholar
Wilson, C. (2004b, 17 October). Pickett incident hurts image as role model. The Sunday Age, p. 6.Google Scholar
Yancey, A.K. (1998). Building positive self–image in adolescents in foster care: The use of role models in an interactive group approach. Adolescence, 33, 253–267.Google Scholar
Zylinska, J. (2004). Judith Butler and the bio–politics of immigration. Cultural Studies, 18 (4): 523–537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar