Dr Megan Watkins

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• Biography
• Areas of Research / Teaching Expertise
• Grants / Current Projects
• Selected Publications
• Contact Details
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Biography

Dr Megan Watkins is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education and a core member of the Centre for Cultural Research (CCR). Her research interests lie in the cultural analysis of education and the formation of human subjectivities. In particular, her work engages with issues of pedagogy, embodiment, discipline and affect and the interrelation of these to human agency. These interests mesh with her exploration of the impact of cultural diversity on education and the ways in which different cultural practices can engender divergent habits and dispositions to learning. Megan also has extensive experience as a literacy educator, conducting pioneering work in the field of genre-based approaches to teaching writing and post-progressivist pedagogies. She is a recipient of two Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkages grants: Rethinking Multiculturalism/ Reassessing Multicultural Education and Discipline and Diversity: Cultural Practices and Dispositions of Learning.

She has worked in a consultancy capacity for the New South Wales Department of Education and Training and the Australian Curriculum Corporation.

Megan is the Higher Degree Research (HDR) Coordinator at the CCR, responsible for HDR training for the PhD and Doctor of Cultural Research (DCR) programs.

Qualifications

PhD, 2003, Humanities, University of Western Sydney, Australia

Master of Linguistics, 1997, Macquarie University, Australia

BA Dip Ed., 1982, Macquarie University, Australia

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Areas of Research / Teaching Expertise

Cultural Pedagogies; Affect; Habit and Embodiment; Education; Literacy; Qualitative Research Methodologies

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Grants / Current Projects

External

2010 - 2013: Watkins, M. and Noble, G. Rethinking Multiculturalism/ Reassessing Multicultural Education. ARC Linkages Grant. Research Partners: NSW Department of Education and Training, NSW Institute of Teachers.

2008 - 2009: Watkins, M. and Noble, G. Reassessing Multicultural Education Pilot Project. NSW Department of Education and Training Commissioned Research.

2006 - 2008: Noble, G. and Watkins, M. Parents, Diversity and Cultures of Home and School. Department of Education and Training Commissioned Research.

2005 - 2007: Noble, G. and Watkins, M. Discipline and Diversity: Cultural Practices and Dispositions of Learning. ARC Linkages Grant. Research Partner: NSW Department of Education and Training.

Internal

2004: Watkins, M. - University of Western Sydney Seed Grant - Questions of Desire and Subjectivities of Teaching

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Selected Publications

Books

Watkins, M. 2011 forthcoming, Discipline and Learn: Lessons on Embodiment, Rotterdam: Sense Publications.

Knapp, P. and Watkins, M. 2005, Genre, Text, Grammar: Technologies for Teaching and Assessing Writing, Sydney: UNSW Press. [US Edition, 2005, University of Washington Press. Korean Language Edition, 2007, Pagijong Press. Indian Edition, 2010, Orient BlackSwan].

Book Chapters

Noble, G. and Watkins, M. 2011, 'The Productivity of Stillness: Composure and the Scholarly Habitus', in, Bissell, D. and Fuller, G. (eds), Stillness in a Mobile World, London and New York: Routledge, pp 107-124.

Watkins, M. 2010, 'Desiring Recognition, Accumulating Affect', in, Gregg, M. and Seigworth, G. J. (eds), The Affect Theory Reader, Durham: Duke University Press, pp 269-285.

Watkins, M. 2010, 'Discipline, Diversity and Agency: Pedagogic Practice and Dispositions to Learning', in, Millei, Z., Griffiths, T. G. and Parkes, R. J. (eds), Re-Theorizing Discipline in Education: Problems, Politics, and Possibilities, New York: Peter Lang, pp 59-75.

Watkins, M. 2009, ‘Deleuze, Habit and the Literate Body’, in, Masny, D. and Cole, D. R. (eds), Multiple Literacies Theory: A Deleuzian Perspective, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, pp 31-49.

Refereed Journal Articles

Watkins, M. 2011, 'Teachers' Tears And The Affective Geography Of The Classroom', Emotion Space and Society, 4(1).

Noble, G. and Watkins, M. 2009, ‘On the Arts of Stillness: For a Pedagogy of Composure’, Media/Culture Journal, 12(1).