Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemColin Campbell : religion and education, 1852-1872( 1974)This thesis investigates the role of Colin Campbell in the church-state struggles over education. Having found squatting precarious, and possessing a large capacity for public life, Campbell was pleased to become involved in colonial events on the conservative side. As democracy advanced and his worst fears proved groundless, he endeavoured to liberalize his outlook. A spokesman for pastoral tenants, he was held accountable for squatter misdeeds. Only at the district level and within his church, was he allowed a full contribution. These aspects are illustrated throughout, but especially in chapters 1 and 7. Campbell believed in universal education bestowing on it temporal and religious responsibilities. He allotted church and state complementary functions, requiring them to work harmoniously in institutionalizing national education. His early concept of denominationalism is explored in chapter 2. However, in the 1850s society proved incapable of deciding the respective roles for church and state in education. This and Campbell's efforts in seeking a national school system are explored in chapters 3 and 4. Secretaryship of the Denominational School Board provided Campbell with an opportunity of applying administrative solutions to denominational school problems. He always endeavoured to apply educational principles and obtain an adequate and fair distribution of funds. But events smothered him. Rather than become a political tool,he resigned the secretaryship in 1859. Chapters 5 and 6 treat these themes. From the perimeter Campbell tried to save national education from secularism prior to 1872. Applying the principle of freedom of conscience, he asked that the state remain neutral on religious instruction. But unable to meet all requirements of society concurrently, it chose to equate secularism with neutrality. Campbell advised Anglicans to seek a "common Scriptural basis" compromise with other Protestant churches from which they might stand firm against secular liberalism. However, as chapters 8 and 9 demonstrate, his advice went unheeded. Finally, Campbell was reluctant to concede secularism a victory and accept the consequences, still hoping to revive a defunct church-state partnership. Although historically ignored, it is argued throughout that he made a considerable and worthy contribution to 19th century education.
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ItemPost-world war II development of commercial courses for girls in Victorian technical schools, with special reference to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 1945-1970( 1974)In the inter-war years (1919- 1939), commercial courses, traditionally part of the technical system of education and fast becoming the province of girls, suffered from the effects of the economic depression, made some slight gains during the recovery years and achieved importance in the war years. In the post-World War II years growing community interest in education in general, and technical education in particular, reflected the social and economic climate of the rapidly changing 1950s and 1960s. High population growth and an affluent society created new educational needs, and industry required new technical college courses to meet technological developments and the continuing emergence of new knowledge. Occurring initially when Victorian resources were being channelled mainly into other priorities owing to post-war conditions, these demands caused a crisis in education in the late 1950s and in the 1960s, the Victorian Government being unable to support the expansion of tertiary education to its fullest extent. Therefore the Commonwealth Government granted, under certain conditions, financial aid to tertiary technical education and, in Victoria, the already existing Victoria Institute of Colleges became the guardian of the course standards of its affiliated C.A.E.s. Thus technical education at the tertiary level was eventually in a position to offer its own degrees and provide what promised to be a viable alternative to university education. The technical system of education appeared to represent a man's world and echoed the general education practice of the day as far as girls were concerned, thus reflecting the community's attitude to the place of women in Australian society. Tradition was the over-riding influence on what girls were taught and, as a necessary corollary, the kind of careers they followed. Hence it transpired that girls confined their abilities to a narrow range of female occupations, one of the chief of these being office work. The popularity of office work in the 1950s and 1960s was reflected in the growing number of students enrolling for commercial courses in the technical system. Technical commercial education responded increasingly to community and industrial demands, and endeavoured to maintain relevance to the changing times as it pursued higher standards and created a new concept of vocational training at both junior and senior levels. With the onset of the 1970s commercial education in the Victorian technical system provided all but one of the known commercial courses and, in keeping with the technical educational philosophy of the times, retained its established diploma. In the pursuit of professional status for the potential secretary, degree courses in secretarial work were foreshadowed in two Victorian C.A.E.s, while the Institute of Private Secretaries (Australia) sought professional status for the secretary already within the workforce.
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ItemThe sixth-form college in England and Tasmania( 1974)The sixth-form college is an experiment in the organisation of education for the sixteen to nineteen year old student. An examination of the historical context of its evolution reveals its origins in the demands for expansion of upper secondary education and in the concern for a more equitable and broader-based provision for the expanded student body. Further examination exposes the social and political factors promoting and retarding its development. What began in most cases as a practical expedient became an institution providing a wide range of courses and study options to students, the academic or vocational emphasis depending on local conditions. The separate college idea attracted some idealists who saw an opportunity of establishing in the public sector of education an institution capable of rivalling the sixth-form of the better independent school. It had at the same time a strong appeal in its apparent economy and efficiency. It could offer a centralisation and concentration of specialist teachers and resources to provide for perhaps eight hundred students. Establishment of actual colleges has been cautious, few authorities being prepared, like the Tasmanian Education Department or the Teesside Education Committee to give the scheme unqualified approval. Earlier ideas of academic exclusiveness have been modified by the emergence of the "new sixth-former", the fifteen-plus student whose staying-on in full-time secondary education is as much a matter of law as of inclination. For the most part the purely academic college enjoyed a limited period of existence before the change in political or educational philosophy ordered its modification. The colleges of 1974 may differ rather significantly from those intended by their founders. However, what was enthusiastically regarded as a panacea for the problems of upper secondary organisation must now be soberly accepted as one of a number of possible ways of organising sixth-form education.
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ItemSources of maladjustment in male sixth form students( 1974)Following Hohne (1951) and a pilot study by Conway (1960) an in-depth investigation was made of 96 sixth form boys from two large metropolitan private secondary schools - one a Catholic college, the other a grammar school. It was planned to test hypotheses that there would be significant differences in personal adjustment between both schools and curricular groupings (Maths-Science versus Humanities- Commercial). It was further planned to investigate the sources of various kinds of maladjustment by qualitative analysis, using individually administered projective tests and interviews. Apart from an appreciable difference in I.Q. between the two curricular groups, no really significant difference was found between schools and groups. There were, however, some differences in the kind of values espoused by contrasted schools and contrasted groups. Furthermore, qualitative analysis established, with a large measure of confidence, that the chief sources of stress experienced by students in their terminal secondary year were not curricular or scholastic. Maladjustments from domestic and extracurricular sources were found to decisively outrank those deriving (or believed to have derived) from the requirements imposed by the syllabus and school milieu. This finding was considered to have some value as a basis for criteria for further enquiry into the relationship between intrapsychic stresses and educational performance.
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ItemA century of Presbyterian mission education in the New Hebrides : Presbyterian mission educational enterprises and their relevance to the needs of a changing Melanesian society, 1848-1948( 1974)The role of mission educational enterprises in developing territories during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been examined in recent years. The relationship between mission schools and social, political and religious change has been reviewed in case studies of African, Asian and Pacific nations. The New Hebrides provides a unique opportunity to study the development of mission education policies in a territory in which government assistance and control over education was completely absent. On most of the islands of the New Hebrides group, the history of education from 1848 to 1948 is the history of Presbyterian Mission education.The New Hebrides Presbyterian Mission possessed neither the resources nor the policies necessary for the task of providing a broadly based national education system. Yet for more than a century, civil administrations left the entire responsibility for the provision of education in the hands of the Christian missions. The Presbyterian Mission willingly accepted this responsibility. It regarded education as an integral and essential part of its three-fold programme of evangelism, healing and teaching.(For complete abstract open document)
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ItemMelbourne High School and state secondary education in Victoria( 1974)After being appointed to the staff of Melbourne High School in 1958, I became aware that this School had a distinctive educational environment which was outside any previous experience as a secondary school teacher. During the next ten years as a staff member, I had frequent opportunity to reflect on the School's peculiar position in Victorian state secondary education. This study has provided a means of examining this issue in greater depth. It should be emphasized at the outset that I have not attempted a chronological account of the history of Melbourne High School. As no satisfactory educational history of the School has been written, I have attempted to make a preliminary study of some aspects of its development in the context of the growth of state secondary education. I have concentrated on the School formative years, and its more recent years, because these seem the periods of greatest change. It was during these periods that the function of the School was in question. Consequently I have not dealt in any detail with the rniddle period, 1934 Lo 1950.