Faculty of Education - Theses
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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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ItemFrom the industrial to the convivial ethos : Ivan Illich on needs, commodities, education and the politics of change( 1991)The appearance of the soul-stirring views of Ivan Illich in the early seventies made for an iconoclastic campaign against current claims and definitions of objective social progress in our industrial-computer-technology age. His controversial message expressed serious concern about the consumerist ethos of modern societies and the pathogenic nature of our institutions. Today, the radical literature boom, of which Illich was part, appears to have gone quiet. Additionally, aspects of his writings have been superseded by new radical discourses. Yet still, for all that, Illich has produced an imposing and provocative critique of modern industrial society that goes a long way to demythologize our world view of "what is" of the sociocultural reality around us. In this sense, Illich has posed problems and offered positions that remain relevant to radical politics, and that are likely to concern us for a very long time. Throughout this thesis, I will attempt to contextualize and present the matrix of Illich's thought. In view of the ample critical responses to Illich's work, I do not intend to present a comprehensive critical appraisal, though I will concentrate on an assessment of his proposed strategy for the transition to a more humane society. I will begin, in chapter one, by mapping out Illich's critique of the increased importance of commodity culture within both the production and social reproduction - the ways in which advanced industrial society reproduces itself in individual thought and behaviour. Illich's investigation of the consumer society points to how institutions and a wide variety of cultural phenomena within social life are becoming forms of commodification and consumption, thus engendering deleterious and dehumanizing consequences. Chapter two takes Illich's objections to the consumerist ethos and investigates the role of compulsory public schooling within the logic of the commodification process. On the whole, Illich illustrates that the school, by packaging knowledge as a consumer commodity, distorts the meaning of education for its own vested interests. While the first two chapters attempt to contextualize Illich's writings, chapter three explores his conceptualization of the "ideal society" and his proposals for social and educational transformation. In chapter four, I will critically appraise Mich's thinking on radical social reconstruction in contradistinction to his Marxist critics and their proposed strategies. Out of this debate, the relevance of Illich's political concerns to current radical politics will be further clarified. My purpose in chapter five will be to confront the dilemma posed by Mich: should a radical policy be directed to reform or to deschool? I will attempt to present and appraise some of the prominent critical views levelled against Illich's politics for social change. In the final chapter, an attempt will be made to reveal what the deschooling analysis does not take into account. Attention will be given to how "resistance" theories, in particular the work of Paul Willis, provide an alternative view of how school reproduces the social order. New possibilities for schools acting as agents of social change are presented. The efforts of "empowerment" theorists build up these possibilities and call for "transformative" pedagogies to be developed within the schools. The major concern here will be to ascertain whether there is a role for the school, as we know it, to play in radically transforming society, and whether some middle ground can be charted with respect to Illich's project for deschooling society.
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ItemOn democratic schooling: an analysis of developments in Victoria( 1990)This is a thesis in philosophy of education. There are many points of contact between philosophy and, education, and there are bodies of intellectual enquiry in the English-speaking analytic tradition of philosophy which are centrally concerned with issues clustering around teaching and learning, the formal provision of these in schooling and society in general, and more generally, the nature of knowledge, truth, justice, identity and reality insofar as these are part of educative processes and outcomes. Traditions of philosophical enquiry which have engaged with these issues in influential ways have become philosophies of education in their own right, and have contributed to, and informed, continuing debates over the provision and practice of schooling in western societies which are themselves democratic in political outlook, and capitalist in economic activity. Indeed, it can be shown that these two aspects of western societies have symbiotically influenced philosophical enquiry in general and deliberations on education in particular. Relatively discrete philosophies of education, it would seem, can then be fairly regarded as products, as much as ingredients, of the intellectual and material life of a society. Bearing all this in mind, then, any substantial philosophical enterprise centering on education and related issues must take into account the contextuality of that enterprise itself, as much as it recognises and deals with the contextuality of other philosophical contributions to the issues under consideration. This thesis has schooling provision, policy and practice in the Australian state of Victoria as its material context. The intellectual context is provided by a consideration of the central concepts, "democracy" "education" and "schooling", as these have evolved since the seventeenth century, in English-speaking capitalist democracies. Chapter One is concerned with this, and ends with a plan for the rest of the thesis. In brief, Chapters Two, Three and Four argue for an emergent theory and practice of democratic schooling. This is taken to be an extension of liberal education, which is itself in some tension with the closely related notion of the provision of schooling in a liberal democracy. A more effective democracy, it is argued, will result if at least the type of schooling it provides and encourages breaks with excessively individualistic and inequitable "marketplace" models of curriculum, achievement and resourcing. Democratic schooling, by contrast, will seek co-operative participation, more inclusive teaching and learning strategies, and, most important, a recognition and fostering of the diversity present in the members of a western society in the late twentieth century. Accordingly, all three are present in each of "cultural formation", "educational' autonomy" and "social justice", which are argued for in detail as the cornerstones of democratic schooling. In Chapter Five, these, and the considerations of Chapter One, are drawn together, and suggestions are made about the future: there is much to be learned from current feminist thinking on democracy and education.
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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.