Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemGeelong High School 1909-16 : a study of local response( 1978)The years 1909-16 saw the expansion of public secondary education within Victoria. It represents the working out of certain aims and policies for secondary schools between a centralised Education Department in Melbourne and the local communities that were financially involved in the provision of these facilities. This thesis will attempt to identify the forces shaping the development of Geelong High School. It will outline the aims and values of this community and evaluate the significance of their perception of what secondary education should be about. The study will look at the role of the Education Department - its director, its administrative philosophy and the attitude of the State Government towards the expansion of secondary education. The study will examine the interplay of these factors with the significant contribution of the school's educational leadership and philosophy. The main argument of the thesis is that the success of Geelong High School was to a large extent due to its support from a middle class. They saw in the school opportunities for their children resulting from an education that was financially beyond them at the prestigious fee-paying public schools. In responding to these needs the school would survive in spite of almost overwhelming odds in its early years. A comparative study with Colac Agricultural High School will be made to clarify the point that it was community support, and not legislation and regulations from the Department, that was to be the main reason for the success of Geelong High School.
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ItemA philosophical analysis of the concept of education( 1989)The thesis critically examines some of the concepts involved In the elucidation of the concept of education developed by R.S. Peters who says that education Is a family of processes whose purposes are the development of desirable states of mind. In particular, it critically examines the concept of mind built into Peters' conception of education and argues that Peters is correct to imply that the mind cannot be reduced to brain states. Education, I .claim is a telological concept primarily concerned with the transmission of cultural values. The thesis begins by briefly looking at behaviourist views of mind, and introduces the Identity Theory as an attempt to provide a better explication of the nature of mind. Feigl's views on the nature of mind are examined, in particular, his attempted reduction of the mental to the physical. His rejection of the concept of emergence is challenged and what is meant by the reduction of one theory to another is elucidated. It is concluded that the mental cannot be reduced to the physical. The features of scientific explanation in general are explored. It Is found that scientific explanation is applicable largely in physical science contexts, and so is of limited use in explaining the concept of mind, and so the concept of education. Teleological explanations are examined, since it is apparent that education is a teleological explanation. The question of whether teleological explanations can be reduced to non-teleological explanations is considered. It is found that there are at least three forms of teleological explanation, (i) functional explanation, (ii) goal-directed explanation and (iii) purposive explanation. It is clear from an examination of these that education is explained in terms of purpose. An examination of the concept of intention and its relationship to action forms a major portion of the thesis. The problem of whether there can be several descriptions of one action is considered, as well as whether Intentions are entailed by desires. The relationship between actions and events is considered, discussing in particular the concept of cause. Five uses of the term "cause" are outlined. It is postulated that the causal power In agent causation is the "act of will", which forms part of the intention to act. The concept of a process, and some of the ways in which it may be defined, is examined. The concept of development is briefly considered in the light of the analysis of the concept of a process. It is concluded that education may be termed a super-process. As a process, education can never be completed, but continues throughout an Individual's life. The purposes of education and what might be meant by desirable states of mind are discussed. The primary purpose of education, it is asserted, is the imparting of values. The question of who decides what states of mind might be termed desirable is considered and it is concluded that it is society, or the community who decide what values are to be imparted.
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ItemTransforming professional development goals( 1996)The overall purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of goals as understood by the participants involved in the various stages of implementation of a professional development program, and the ways in which the goals were transformed as the program was implemented. In this thesis, "stage" is used in the sense of sequence, rather than development. The participants in the study were members of each of four stages of implementation of a professional development program, designed to support curricular reform, for teachers of mathematics. The development and implementation of the program were categorised into four stages. These can be identified with the actions of the participants: program initiators; program developers; workshop presenters and the teachers who would ultimately implement classroom content described in the program. The investigation involved description and analysis of the language used by the participants and how it communicated the character of their understanding of the goals. It is assumed that a participant's awareness of the goals influences the way the program is implemented. Data were collected from a range of documents used in the program, during interviews, via questionnaires and through observations of training sessions. For each stage of implementation, the main goals were summarised. Of particular interest was the way in which the goals were changed; as evidenced by the changes in meaning of key words and phrases. These changes were evident with respect to several key groupings into which the goals were classified by the researcher. The choice of words and phrases by participants at each stage revealed the nature of their goals. It was found that the goals of the initiators were usually to do with the altering of teacher practice. The developers' goals, while also concerned with altering teacher practice, were less directed. The goals as understood by the presenters were to do with promotion of a change in attitude in teachers (rather than practice), while the teachers' understanding of the goals were to do with relating the proposed change to their practice. In general participants at each stage had an understanding of the goals of the program that made sense to them, were achievable, and conformed to their perceived role in the program. For a given grouping of goals, there was a great diversity of both key words and phrases, and in meaning of goals as they were articulated at each stage. At times there was little change in the words used, and yet a large corresponding change in meaning. For other key groupings there was a great change in the words and phrases, with little alteration in the essence of the goal. Overall the character of the changes in goals, as understood by the participants at each stage of the professional development program, related to their perspective according to their role. This emergent character appears to be able to be generalised to all professional development programs This point of view ranges from that of a policy perspective, where policy solicits a change in teacher practice, to a practice perspective where the adaption of policy is sought in order to tie it with existing practice. The implications of this study are discussed concerning the effect that the transforming of goals in curriculum initiatives and professional development programs might have on the success of implementing changed teacher practice.
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ItemAims and purposes of education: Australia, India: a comparative study( 1960)This is an essay in comparative education. It may be described as philosophical, but it is not the sort of philosophical essay which would be written by a professional philosopher; it is rather an attempt to show, by comparison of selected elements in the educational practice of Australia and India, some of the distinctive characteristics of the two nations. The aims and purposes of education to a large extent reflect the cultural, social and political philosophies of any country. For this reason it is necessary to give some attention to the forces working behind the educational scene: basic beliefs, the cultural heritage, religious traditions, racial, linguistic and economic factors, and the political background. In this way it is proposed that the aims and purposes of education should be studied in the discussion of the meaning of elementary and secondary. Tertiary, kindergarten, adult and technical education will not be discussed, and some other problems of education � examinations, teachers' training, discipline for example � will be omitted. We shall concentrate mainly on the contents of the primary and secondary curricula and extra-curricular activities, the ideas behind all these, the legal foundations in which these ideas have taken shape and the administrative and organizational problems which have arisen out of them. As the State school curriculum is largely followed by non-State schools also, we shall not deal with these schools separately but occasionally mention factors peculiar to them. Both Australia and India are federations of States and each state in each country has its own educational policy independent of others. But in India there is an All-India educational policy which is formulated through All-India organizations, such as the Central Advisory Board of Education and All-India Council for Secondary Education, and followed in principle by each state. In Australia, however, as there is no such co-ordinating body, the system of education in each State differs in detail. For our purpose we shall mainly depend on the two most progressive States, namely Victoria and New South Wales, although occasional reference will be made to the other States also. (From Introduction)