The project proposal I came across was one that answered the question: From finishing school to feminist academy: the impact of changing social constructions of gender on education in a private girls school in western Australia 1945-97. This proposal was published on the University of Western Australia’s website under their graduate school of education and is written by a women named Karen Marais. The aim of this particular project is to investigate the way that the social construction of gender changed over time and how it effected the experience offered by an independent Christian girls school. She describes in her abstract how this study is set against a background of significant change in western Australian education, and that the main focus of this study is to examine the impact of gender on the education given to girls enrolled in private school. She proceeds her abstract with a section called her rational for the study in which she integrates, background, a statement of purpose, her central question along with 9 sub questions, and the significance of the study. She discloses to us that the reason this study is significant is because it will make a theoretical contribution to the study of gender in schools in western Australia and that The significance of the study is that “it should provide the richness of a case study scenario to underpin the impact of the social construction of gender and class on the type of education offered to girls from 1945 to 1990.”
From that we learn that the format of this study is a case study taking place in a historical context, with a postmodern conceptual framework. Her data gathering methods were the studying of documents, of archived material on this subject and of semi structured in-depth interviews, all quantitative data, all with the intent of broadening the knowledge of the changing gendered expectations in and after schooling. After thoroughly describing her conceptual framework, Ms. Marais reviews all of the literature, which relates to her topic. Though there is lots of literature published surrounding this topic, she specifies that the framework of this project is premised on the social construction of gender and how it effects the education which girls receive. Because this study deals with qualitative data instead of quantitative data, the data analysis method is interpretivist. This means the researcher is no longer a neutral bystander to the data like with quantitative data, but rather becomes an observer and interpreter of human condition. If completed this study will provide “a multi- vocal and multi-generational representation of “lived” experiences of girls and women”
Throughout the last half of the proposal she delves deeper into each on of the sections. She describes her research methods, her data collection methods, how she will recruit people to participate in her study, the interview questions she will ask, and how she will analyze each piece of data. She also makes sure to discuss the limitations to her study, the ethical concerns connected, a time line for her study and lastly the budget she will need to complete it. She includes 4 pages of references as well, bringing the grand total page count to 30 pages.
This is a very well put together and thought out proposal, which I think would be a very successful project if attempted. She was very through and detailed, especially in her literature review, making sure to address all of the different related literature and how it related to her topic. There was nothing to my knowledge that was left unsaid regarding this topic.