Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemStanding strong or standing weak? Equal opportunity, violence against women and the school curriculum : a case study( 1994)Despite violence against women becoming a very public issue in recent years, remarkably little material on this subject has so far found its way into the school curriculum. This thesis examines a set of curriculum materials called Standing Strong, which specifically aims to help students make sense of violent and sexually abusive relationships. The thesis outlines and evaluates the materials in light of their ability to achieve one of the major objectives of recent equal opportunity policy, namely, to help achieve "equality between the sexes, and...improv(e) the conditions of life for girls and women...taking account of their cultural, language, and socio-economic diversity...". (Commonwealth Schools Commission, 1987: Recommendation 2, p. 25). The evaluation takes two main forms, one theoretical, the other empirical. The theoretical evaluation draws upon recent post structuralist and constructionist feminist writings. The empirical evaluation is undertaken by drawing upon the research findings derived from in-depth interviews with 24 young women who had used the Standing Strong materials during their secondary school education. The thesis argues that Standing Strong is flawed theoretically, and that this is likely to hamper its usefulness in practice. The research data confirm this pessimistic conclusion. The thesis concludes by reflecting on whether a focus on education might be more of a hindrance than a help to the development of a meaningful and effective solutions to violence against women.
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ItemA context-based evaluation of the Australian overseas student policy( 1991)In this thesis, the implications of "exporting" Australian higher educational services to overseas countries are explored. Since the introduction of the Overseas Student Program (OSP) in 1985, courses have been "marketed", often quite aggressively, by Australian colleges and universities. In most cases, overseas students have responded by coming to study in Australia in existing courses. The cultural implications of the policy are evaluated using a hypothetical case - Hong Kong Registered Nurses undertaking a post-graduate Public Health Nursing course in an Australian higher education institution to prepare for work with the Vietnamese in Hong Kong's refugee camps. The evaluation is based on an application of Dunn's jurisprudential metaphor and transactional model of argument to a consideration of the contextual and cultural issues which arise from a consideration of the impact of the course. Following an examination of the relevant policies in Australia and Hong Kong as applied to three pertinent contexts, several shortcomings of the OSP are identified. Based on a study of the refugee context, comparative education issues including cross-cultural cognition, and the experiences of overseas students studying in Australia, it is concluded that an existing course would not be appropriate; students could have serious difficulties coping with a second language, and with living and studying in a foreign country. More importantly, however, it was shown that an Australian curriculum would not equip the nurses for their roles in the camps. Arguments developed from the hypothetical case were found to be generalizable to the export of other professional courses, and the relevance of many other course offerings was questioned. It was concluded that Australian institutions needed to be aware of the cultural difficulties experienced by students while studying, and the relevance of the course offerings, if their courses were to be viable in the new international climate of aggressive marketing of education overseas. Failure to do so could have far reaching implications for Australian higher education and Australia's relations with countries in the Asian region.