Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemGirls can do science!!! : a personal history of professional development(University of Melbourne, 1992)
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ItemSurvivors : a theatre in education project(University of Melbourne, 1991)The function of this kit is to accompany the performance of the play "Survivors" with follow up material for classroom use. It is designed for senior secondary students, between the ages of fifteen and eighteen years. The purpose of this material is : 1) To provide historical information about the Holocaust which will give the students a factual context with which to consider the events of the play. 2) To provide exploratory dramatic experiences which will enhance their understanding of the issues raised in the play. The specific aim of the kit is to extend the experience of the play "Survivors" so that the students have the opportunity to consider the content of the play in more depth. The material and dramatic experiences included in the kit aim 1) to build empathy and identification by working from the students own feelings. 2) to encourage further research and documentation in the area of Holocaust studies. 3) to encourage the examination of prejudice in contemporary society in the context of the play. 4) to further develop the students understanding of dramatic process.
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ItemMore than the noise of shoes on asphalt : a history of the Advisory Council for Children with Impaired Hearing(University of Melbourne, 1990)This history of the ACCIH spans twenty years from 1969-1989 - from its inception by a small group of formidable women to a large organisation run by a council of more than twenty people; catering for the education of children, both hearing impaired and normally hearing, teachers of the deaf and audiologists. Its main thrusts have been in the areas of early intervention, pre-school and post-graduate education and the provision of physical facilities in which to pursue these. It has had a significant impact on education of the hearing impaired and forms an important part of its growth and increased educational standing. The growth in strength of the ACCIH has been dependent on the hard work of many individuals - including parents and family of hearing impaired children, teachers and other professionals concerned with the deaf - who have held honorary council positions and in paid capacities. Its development was also aided by the fortunate meeting of the founding members of the Council; the Council's careful financial husbandry and its funding policies; as well as technological improvements and increased social respect for the needs and rights of individuals with impairments. The background to this history comes from several people who were, and continue to be, personally involved in education of the hearing impaired and in the foundation of the ACCIH. This study also relies on the more general information available about the past twenty years contained in some educational histories, writings of professionals involved in deaf education, unpublished theses and various general references which pertain to certain idiosyncratic features of the ACCIH.
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ItemLearning and language : some problems and some possible solutions(University of Melbourne, 1990)The Language Across The Curriculum movement of the seventies seems to have had little impact on current teaching practice. The first chapter of this pilot study,Centres on the theoretical basis and historical background of this movement. It also surveys learning and . obstacles to it. Teachers limit- learning by limiting the scope for students to explore ideas. The second chapter suggests teaching strategies to maximise the opportunity for students to discuss their work and hence. examine ideas in detail. They have an opportunity to theorise and experiment with their thoughts. The third chapter is based on four interviews with. a range of teachers. The subjects discussed were their teaching styles, the reasons for them and their opinions of group work. The teachers were chosen on the basis of their experience as teachers and their attitudes to group work. My conclusions are that teacher training should once agaln feature the methodology advocated by the LATC movement. There is also a need for further study of the relationship between personality and teaching styles with reference to this kind of strategy, and of teacher and student attitudes to group work.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableSt. John the Baptist : a parish school and church in suburban Melbourne, Clifton Hill, 1875-1988(University of Melbourne, 1990)In 1864 a site at Clifton Hill was reserved under the Land Act for the Catholic Church Authorities for church purposes. The projected church was delayed due to the small number of Catholics living In the area. In November 1875 non-Catholics embarked upon petitioning the government to place the land up for auction on the grounds that the Catholics, by not taking possession of their land, had forfeited their claim. On the initiative of a prominent local resident, the land was retained by the Catholic Church and the building of a church begun. The depression of the late 1880's slowed down the building until 1890 due to a shortage of money, materials and labour. In 1884 a Sunday school existed and on the 1st November 1885, St. John's, semi-built, became a separate parish from St. Brigid's and a parish Catholic school was founded the same year in suburban Clifton Hill, Melbourne, with an attendance of eighty students. For nine years the school was conducted by lay teachers and supported by the parish and student fees until 1894 when the Sister's of Charity arrived with their Irish convent traditions. They worked hard to maintain discipline, upgrade the schools academic profile and to please the visiting State and Catholic Inspectors. In 1950 commenced a course which later, with the aid of multiculturism, flourished into a Commercial Secondary College. Demographic, social and economic circumstances caused the school numbers to fluctuate and eventually take a plunge. The Secondary section closed in 1988 while the Primary section remained open.
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ItemChildren's perceptions of changes in families( 1991)The three studies reported in this thesis take as their subjects over one thousand "ordinary primary school children" from state primary schols in the western region of Melbourne. The sample has not been drawn using methods such as newspaper requests (Burns, 1980), from Parents without Partners groups (Kurdek and Siesky, 1978), from university towns (Franz and Mell, 1981) or through court records (Hess and Camara, 1979; Dunlop and Burns, 1988). The western region of Melbourne is socioeconomically and ethnically diverse and predicted to grow faster than most other areas of Melbourne in the next decades. In essence, these children are that future. Certainly, their perceptions of families and of changes in families will help to shape their own futures. Children have much to say about families as has been noted in studies by Ochiltree and Amato (1985) and Goodnow and Burns (1985). Children in Studies 1 and 2 in this thesis wrote eloquently and often with passion about families generally and about family changes specifically. Previous studies (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, 1981; Silcock and Sadler, 1980; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980; Riach, 1983; Ochiltree and Amato (1985) and Cooper (1986) have looked at children's perceptions of families. Some, like Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, (1981) and Cooper (1986) have drawn attention to gender differences; others, like Silcock and Sadler, (1980), to techniques employed in the collection of data. In addition, Selman and his colleagues (1979, 1980, 1986) have focussed on children's developing understanding of social relations. Selman's stages of development of social understanding, like those of Hoffman (1983) for empathy development are based on Piagetian stages of cognitive development. The present studies are an attempt to draw together around a single theme, children's perceptions of families, the impact of a range of techniques for data collection (as Silcock and Sadler, (1980) have suggested is appropriate) and consideration of age/stage differences as defined by Selman et al. Additionally, gender differences are investigated as suggested by Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg -Halton, (1981). In Study 1, a group of forty Grade 5/6 children completed a questionnaire, Children's Perceptions of Changes in Families. Subsequently, this group of forty was divided into a target and a control group. The target group of children took part in an eight week videotape/discussion program with family matters as content while the control group continued with general classroom activities. At the completion of this, children were presented with the responses they had prepared previously to the questionnaire and invited to change these in any way they considered appropriate. Analysis revealed that elaboration occurred in the responses of children in both target and control groups. Statistical analysis revealed very little in the way of differences between the responses made by those children who had taken part in the videotape/discussion program and those who had not. Coming out of this study, however, were gender differences and tendencies for children to describe parents in stereotypic roles which are reminescent of other larger studies (Goodnow and Burns, 1985; Cooper, 1986; Ochiltree and Amato, 1985). Girls, for example, expressed far more interest than boys in the experience of caring for a new baby; boys referred more than did girls to the fights likely to ensue should a new child come into the family. Father's movement from the children's home to live elsewhere was considered unhappy because of his loss as a playmate; in mother's case, it was her inability to continue caring for the children which was noted. Such patterns were revealed in the content analysis of the children's responses to the questionnaire. The children in this first study served as a window into the other studies reported in this thesis in that the researcher spent considerable time speaking with both groups through their two completions of the questionnaire and with the target group during the videotape/discussion program. In addition, statements made by these forty children were used as the basis of Study 3. In Studies 2 and 3, children prepared written responses to the tasks set them. In Study 3, 1118 Grade 3/4 and Grade 5/6 children drawn from twelve state primary schools in the western region of Melbourne were read statements by their teacher and invited, on one occasion, to indicate their thoughts about each statement and, on another, to indicate their feelings. The phrases from which children were invited to select in indicating their responses were based on the definition of problem and expression of feelings components of the Interpersonal Negotiation Strategies Model (Selman et al., 1986b) and were representative of levels of complexity of thought and feeling described in the model. Girls' marked superiority over boys in their choice of feeling responses representing higher levels of complexity was the most significant finding in this study. This finding coupled with findings from Study 2 that girls made significantly more references than boys in their descriptions of families to emotional aspects of families makes gender differences a powerful finding in the studies presented in the thesis. The emotional aspects of families to which girls referred significantly more often than boys in responses to the question, "What is a Family?" were love, care, sharing/belonging, understanding problems/talking. In contrast, boys and younger children (Grade 3/4) referred significantly more often than girls and older children (Grade 5/6) to family structure. The finding that older children made significantly more references than did the younger children to many aspects of families is not surprising and likely to be due to their general experience and superior verbal ability (Jacklin and Maccoby, 1983). The gender differences in the content analysis was reinforced in coding undertaken of children's responses according to levels based on Bruss-Saunders' levels (1978) of social understanding of parent-child relationships. Here, the descriptions written by Grade 5/6 girls were coded as representing highest levels of complexity and the descriptions written by Grade 3/4 boys as representing lowest levels of complexity. In the studies, levels of complexity of children's responses are considered according to theories of cognitive development. In addition, the influence of contextual factors on the thoughts and feelings children express about families are discussed. Questions about the relationship between these two are raised with regard to the capacity children acquire for coping in their present and future families.
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ItemThe educational theory of G.H. Bantock in the context of British educational thought 1965-1975( 1990)The 1960s and early 1970s witnessed changes in many social values in Britain; the educational world was not immune to the turbulence of these years. The classifications of `traditionalist', `conservative', `progressive' and 'radical' were attributed indiscriminately to the wide spectrum of party affiliations. As a result, the characteristics of these `parties' became difficult to isolate amid the vague condemnatory generalisations and intense criticism of personalities which characterized the period. G.H. Bantock (b. 1914) was considered a prominent traditionalist of these times, and as such, attempted to swim against the tide of what he believed was an increasing, uncultured progressivism. This study attempts to present a summary of Bantock's principal concerns, and to offer a profile of the main thrusts of the arguments which he advanced in over eighty major publications. As a subsidiary theme, it considers the nomenclature of the period, particularly from the perspective of the traditionalist, and seeks to isolate the foundations of that philosophical stance. Part 1 is a summary of the main concerns which consumed Bantock's attention during his career. Part 2 considers the means by which Bantock believed the problems of contemporary education could be solved, and Part 3 presents the author's evaluation of the ideas outlined in the previous sections.
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ItemThe school production : a study in four parts( 1991)An academic introduction to relevant material and an overview of the major philosophical themes and debates in Drama in Education over the past fifty years. This also provides important background information to the rest of the study, placing the school production, Drama, the teachers and the curriculum development work in a broader context.
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ItemThe theatre and the emotions( 1992)
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ItemStudent expectations of the future( 1992)Specific aims of the study To investigate how present-day students view the future and their place in the workforce of the future. To establish whether or not students regard their present educational experiences as an adequate preparation for their future work. To investigate acceptance of unconventional futures scenarios as possible futures.