Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemConstructing a map of Australian occupations: Gottfredson's hypotheses and relationships within the world of work( 1994)This dissertation evaluates L. S. Gottfredson's concept and graphical depiction of the Cognitive Map of Occupations and the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations. The evaluation is guided by a revised version of Popper's argument that there are three types of existence. These he names 'World 1' (the world of material objects and processes) 'World 2' (the world of subjective experience) and 'World 3'. It is argued that Popper misconstrues World 3 by describing it as consisting of the products of the human mind. By adapting the arguments of Bhaskar, it is shown that World 3 can be interpreted as social existence. This theoretical framework shows that the Cognitive Map of Occupations is appropriately conceptualised by Gottfredson. It indicates that the graphical depiction that she presents of the Cognitive Map of Occupations should be regarded only as a heuristic device. When the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations is so regarded, it is argued that Gottfredson erroneously infers its existence because she uses concepts which refer to World 2 processes to extrapolate into World 3. Her graphical depiction of the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations is, consequently, also flawed. When the critique of the Cognitive Map of Occupations and the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations is completed, new data are described and a theoretical context is developed to interpret these data. This theory starts from the critique of Gottfredson's ideas. A map of Australian occupations is then constructed. This map and related data are explored using Exploratory Data Analysis showing that the World of Work may consist of subcultures related to the nature of the work environment. These sub cultures are found to be internally divided along various dimensions. Despite these divisions, they have strong enough boundaries to retain their field type identity. These findings help to show that the Map of Australian Occupations provides a coherent view of the world of work.
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ItemActive participation in the emergence of musical phenomena: a commentary and guide( 1994)It is intended that this work be used by students of music, and specifically, by students of conducting. For that reason, it is both epistemological commentary and developmental guide. Part A of the study identifies a perceived deficiency of artistic feeling in contemporary musical life. It argues that human consciousness is a continuum which, as it evolves, develops modes of thinking which it believes to be appropriate for human existence in the world at this time, and further, that the history of humankind is, at the same time, a contraction of consciousness rather than, as is commonly thought to be the case, an expansion. The commentary argues, correlatively, that in seeking freedom from dependence, consciousness has not only developed thinking which it believes to be applicable to all human endeavour, but has unwittingly accommodated modes of thinking which are singularly inappropriate for the creation of artistic as distinct from acoustic phenomena. The discussion centres around the cognitive confusion in formal education and in musical life generally, a situation which, it is contended, has grown out of failure firstly, to recognise the abovementioned cognitive distinction, and secondly, to formulate epistemological questions in a manner which might lead to the explication of musical knowing, or that which enables us to be musical prior to any speculation about what music is. Part B of the study, which grew out of a period of phenomenological research, takes the form of a corrective to the hidden presupposition that musical artistry is an expression of self dependent on unconscious inspiration rather than a liberation of potentially perfect, and therefore, objective tone-forms, whose actualization in sound is reliant on conscious acts of imagination leading to intuition. For musical purposes, the retrieval of this lost but essential mode of thinking is possible only through the acknowledgment of a more capacious, qualitative concept of knowing, and in the systematic education of previously neglected inner faculties. As a method, Part B of the study is an experiential response to the questions, 'How does a musician know a musical tone?' and, 'Can this knowledge be drawn on to enhance performance?'
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ItemIntrinsic value and education( 1994)The object of this enquiry was, firstly, to investigate the nature of intrinsic value, and, secondly, to discover what relationship, if any, it has with education. While intrinsic value remained difficult to actually define, several broad senses of the term were identified. That is, value of something as part of its intrinsic nature, value of something for its own sake as distinct from value due to something else of value to which it leads, and the prima facie sense of value attaching in the first instance to certain basic kinds of experience instinctively judged to be good or bad. Two broad approaches as to how value, and intrinsic value in particular, is conceived were identified, these being the objective and subjective approaches respectively; and much of Part I was occupied with examination and comparison of the different problems encountered by each. While the objective approach was held to be relatively untenable, due to its lack of assimilation of the inalienable element of human cognition in the meaning of value, the subjective approach was considered not to offer an acceptable alternative in the relativistic form in which it is generally known. An alternative version of the subjective approach was suggested, which provides a more stable and enduring foundation than can relativism, while incorporating the agent-basing element of value. Under this alternative approach, intrinsic value can be identified in the latter two senses in which the term is used. The views of three educationalists were considered, of whom two (Plato and Rousseau) have specifically accorded instrumental value to their respective conceptions of education, while the third (R. S. Peters) has related intrinsic value to his. It was found that this relationship is one of conceptual necessity, which offers little further enlightenment as to the nature of intrinsic value, yet indicates that such a relationship is nevertheless possible.