Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemDeepening Australian democracy: what can schools do?( 2000-11)The term, ‘civic deficit’, has been used to describe a situation in which a significant proportion of Australian citizens display low levels of knowledge and understanding of, and low levels of engagement with, Australian political and constitutional arrangements. This civic deficit has attracted increased attention by governments, policy makers, and the broad educational community within Australia in recent years. The Report of the Civics Expert Group (1994) identified school education as a major site in which to address this deficit, and the past decade has seen increased emphasis on civics and citizenship education in Australian schools. The thesis critically examines the role of civics and citizenship within Australia secondary schools. It does this, not purely from an educational perspective, but from within the broader context of the contemporary Australian political system. This thesis regards citizenship as inherently a political concept, and develops the notion of democratic citizenship as the most significant element of this. It is argued that democratic citizens are more than merely knowledgeable about their nation’s democratic traditions, government institutions and constitutional arrangements. While these elements of civics and citizenship education have a role, democratic citizens are genuine members of their political community. It is argues that they are inquisitive participants in that community.
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ItemSo near and yet so far: an ethnographic evaluation of an Australian transnational education program.( 2006-10)The multicultural classroom is a phenomenon now found in most countries. As a result of globalisation and the burgeoning transnational education market, university classrooms that span national borders are now commonplace. Within these classrooms the cultures of both the delivering and receiving countries converge, resulting in the creation of a new and complex cultural territory that is often unfamiliar to educators and students alike. Australia has been a key provider of transnational education in the South East Asian region, however little research has investigated the interplay of culture and pedagogy within Australian transnational programs, despite the cultural distance which exists between Australia and its Asian neighbours. This is surprising given the importance of transnational provision to both the Australian economy and the internationalisation agenda of Australian universities. The unfamiliar cultural territory found within these transnational programs places high demands on educators and students, yet the impact of exposure to cultural difference and culture learning seems rarely considered in the development and delivery of such programs. This thesis examines one transnational program that was delivered in Singapore by an Australian university. An ethnographic methodology is employed, applying a ‘cultural lens’ to an analysis of the program. The author provides background information on the Australian and Singaporean education systems and reviews a range of previous research which focuses on culture and pedagogy in the region. Interviews and classroom observations reveal educator and student experiences of the program. The author concludes that cultural phenomena have a profound impact on participants’ experiences of transnational education programs and that this is substantially unrecognised by key actors in the process. Recommendations are made for changes in practice that could be incorporated in transnational programs in order to ameliorate negative impacts of cultural difference.
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ItemYoung queers getting together: moving beyond isolation and loneliness( 2002-07)Over the last decade, education-focused research/studies on young queers (or same-sex attracted young people) have highlighted the many problems or difficulties they face growing up in a homophobic, heterosexist society. Strategies to address these issues (proposed in numerous research articles and reports) have largely focused on the school setting. I argue that these strategies are limited by heterosexual norms, which regulate and contain in advance what is possible (for queers) within the formal school system. I examine the ways in which these heterosexual norms work to constrain the queer subject in education-focused research and studies on young queers. Within this field of study, young queers have largely been characterized as victims: of homophobic abuse and harassment, and neglect by families and schools. They’re said to be lonely and isolated, at risk of attempted suicide, unsafe sex, drug and alcohol abuse, and homelessness. I argue that these representations convey a negative portrait of young queers as wounded subjects. I illustrate how the emphasis on the wounded queer subject can work against the interests of young queers. In particular, it obscures those queer perspectives involving agency: first, queer cultures and communities; second, the knowledge and experiences of those who have gained confidence in their queerness, who have queer social and sexual lives. These (agentic) queers can offer us ways of understanding how young queers move beyond isolation and loneliness. This study highlights the importance, for many young queers, of having opportunities and spaces where they can connect with each other. Socialization and sexualization among young queers involves a certain openness being and doing queer a practice which is unintelligible within most education-focused research/studies on young queers. This is illustrated and explored through comparative analysis of queer subjectivities in two differentiated spheres: on the one hand education-focused research and studies relating to the school context, and on the other gay/lesbian/queer studies and literature relating to queer social and sexual contexts. The key contexts and themes examined here are: early sexual experience and beats, queer cultures and communities, and queer youth support and social groups.
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ItemCultural mission of the sisters of St Joseph( 2004)This research study examines the history of Sacred Heart Catholic School, Newport, Victoria, established within the tradition and application of the educational philosophy of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, founded by Mary MacKillop in 1866. The work includes three distinct areas of research which are: 1. The MacKillop System of Education in its early stages. 2. The growth of multicultural theory and practice in Australia and in Catholicism. 3. The story of one school, Sacred Heart Catholic School, Newport, situated in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. These areas connect up and illuminate one another throughout the thesis, evoking a sense of school life as it was experienced by members of the school community at different stages of the school's development and within a variety of social and educational contexts. The research appreciates the integral vitality of the founding spirit manifest in Mary MacKillop, especially as it was reflected in the Sisters appointed to the school at Newport as administrators and as teachers. The study examines the long-term adaptation of the mission of the Church, namely the evangelisation of cultures in the local community of Newport throughout its hundred years history. Focus is brought to bear on the interpretation of Mary MacKillop's philosophy of education in its first fifty years and the changes perceived during the later period of massive and fundamental transformation in the ethnic composition of the local community as well as the broader Church and State. By reconstructing the past this study provides a reference point for those involved in education by shedding light on the present and raising questions for the future.
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ItemExpeditions, travels and journeys: reconceptualising teaching and learning about indigenous Australians in the early childhood curriculum( 2004)This thesis aimed to explore the terrain of early childhood educator's inclusion of Indigenous Australian peoples and cultures within their curriculum practice. Within this it was anticipated that these explorations would draw from early childhood reconceptualist literature to explore and trouble understandings of curriculum theory and practice. It was also anticipated that my research companions and I would use our beginning understandings of postcolonial theory to theorise, explore and disrupt our constructions and understandings of Indigenous Australian peoples and cultures that were based on the colonial understandings and discourse circulating within Australia and our local communities and that influenced our curriculum practices. In order to explore and disrupt this curriculum practice, my research companions and I set off on an action research journey. We travelled and journeyed within monthly meetings over one year as we located and explored curriculum practice. Action research provided the maps for this journey as we attempted to explore the curricula practices of my companions and locate and explore the issues and challenges that arose as they attempted to disrupt this practice and find reconceptualised ways towards inclusion of Indigenous peoples and cultures. Throughout this journey however, while curriculum practice was located and explored and changes to this practice occurred at superficial levels, discussions around how the reconceptualising of this practice was limited and constrained by the influences of colonial discourse upon our personal understandings of Indigenous peoples and cultures was avoided. As I travelled back into the research meetings after a prolonged absence from the research journey, I became more aware of the silences that existed within our travels that enabled us to resist change in our practices around inclusion of Indigenous peoples and cultures in ways that opened spaces for this inclusion in equitable and respectful ways. I journeyed again through postcolonial theory and while this provided me with important and useful waymarks in which to locate and understand the research travels and moments within it, this theory did not provide me with pathways to explore the resistances. Early childhood reconceptualist literature also provided and guided my reflections on curricula practice in important ways, however, similar to my struggles with postcolonial theory, did not provide for waymarks to understand and locate the silences within the research travelling group. Silences that ensured discussion of personal understandings of Indigenous people and how these understandings were constructed was avoided. Within my searching of alternate theories and ways of exploring the terrain of this research journey, I stumbled across whiteness theories and found that the silences in the research could be located, positioned and explored through and within these theories and understandings. The thesis journey then followed white pathways that led into explorations of whiteness within the research and made it possible to see how both the research companions and myself had constructed ourselves, Indigenous Australian peoples and curricula theory and practice through and within these white understandings. As I located and explored my experiences through narrative and mapped and traced whiteness within the research travels and journeys, it became possible to view how strategies of whiteness operated to discourage the explorations and locating of our personal within our professional understandings. Given this, the possibilities for shifts in personal understandings, and as a consequence, professional and curricula practice, were limited and constrained within this journey into reconceptualising Indigenous inclusion in early childhood curriculum. The journeying within this thesis into reconceptualising early childhood curriculum around Indigenous inclusion and the drawing from both postcolonial and whiteness theories, however, has resulted in more complex understandings of how this work could take place. Mapping postcolonial viewpoints and waymarks and tracing white viewpoints and waymarks within these can allow early childhood researchers and educators to view how these discourses intersect and overlap to silence Indigenous Australian peoples and cultures as well as work to avoid and limit discussion and awareness within white communities about the existence of prejudice and discrimination. Further, the effects of these colonial and white discourses on both personal understandings and the influence of these on curriculum practices aimed at including Indigenous peoples and cultures can be uncovered, located, explored and disrupted in order to create spaces and places for Indigenous voices within early childhood curricula practice.
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ItemPredictors of overseas study for secondary 7 students in Hong Kong: implications for educational policy development( 2000)This study sought to ascertain the relative importance of school, personal and societal variables prompting the decision making of students in Hong Kong to choose overseas study. The significance of the project arose from the increasing number of students deciding to study overseas in the past twenty years or so. Based on studies carried out in overseas countries and relevant information available in Hong Kong from various sources, hypotheses related to the phenomenon of Hong Kong student international mobility were formulated. Both the positive and negative forces exerted by countries chosen for overseas study were also examined. Data collection involved the use of a student questionnaire and structured interviews. From logistic regression analysis and discriminant analysis applied to the questionnaire responses of the Hong Kong sample of20 schools, consisting of 1,341 students, the most important predictor for overseas study was found to be academic expectations and the greatest attraction of the host countries came from their prestigious universities. Information collected from interviews with students and teachers, parents and school principals, educators and policy makers in the present study corroborated these findings. To effectively meet the expectations of students in higher education and the change in market requirements, the government officers in Hong Kong and other countries may have to decide on policies or means to develop and improve their education systems. Retaining or attracting students are important issues. It is envisaged that policies and data banks may also evolve to promote international student growth for the benefit of both Hong Kong and the countries chosen for overseas study. In view of the majority of students proclaiming their preference for overseas study and the significant findings of this investigation, it would be worthwhile to replicate the survey in other countries. This would be in the form of case studies and longitudinal predictive studies on this important educational phenomenon of international student mobility.
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ItemThe effect of intervention in pretend play on social participation of pre-adolescents with severe to profound hearing loss( 2002)This study investigated the effect of intervention in pretend play on the social participation of children with severe to profound hearing loss. Twenty-four participants were involved in the study. All participants were enrolled in regular schools in inclusive settings and each communicated using listening and speech. The intervention was conducted within this regular school setting by teachers of the deaf in the role of visiting teacher. Goals for the intervention were included in the participant's individual education plan. The major hypothesis investigated was that intervention in pretend play increases the ability of the child with hearing loss to engage in rule-based games. The minor hypotheses were concerned with the effect of the intervention on communicative turns, on game rule knowledge, on social role knowledge and on rule articulation. Results showed that while no statistically significant results were found in behaviours that could be directly attributed to the intervention, there were increased performances for the group as a whole across the period of the intervention on six of the variables measured. These were appropriate game turns, violated game turns, directing others, rule language, rule explanation and rule recall. The findings of this study provide further insight into the skills required for effective participation in play and rule-based activity. As the study shows, playing a game does not necessarily imply full participation. Full participation occurs when there is communication about the rules, articulation and clarification of the rules, and negotiation when rules are violated. Full knowledge of the script of the game and the ability to act in accordance with the rules have the potential to increase a child's social participation.
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ItemSecond class theatre: theatre for young people in Victoria 1966-2000( 2003)The thesis examines the formation of theatre companies servicing schools and the community in Victoria. It traces the evolution of amateur children's theatre to the formation of full-time professional theatre companies. Many of these were called Theatre In Education (TIE) or Theatre For Young People (TYP) companies. The lack of historical research in this field contrasts with the number of journals and research articles on the growth and development of Drama In Education. There exists no comprehensive history of these theatre companies and their contribution to the development of Australian Theatre for Young People. The research in this thesis involves the use of primary research using audio recordings of oral histories, archival materials, company reports and supporting secondary research materials. The thesis sees the parallel growth of theatre and drama in education as integral to the operations and survival of these companies. Drama and Theatre Studies arc now part of the Victorian Certificate of Education for students in Years 11 and 12. Subsidy provided by State and Federal arts bodies has fostered and maintained a small number of companies in Victoria over a thirty two year period. Self sufficient, unfunded companies co-exist with subsidised companies by focusing on the Curriculum Standards Framework. Subsidised and non subsidised companies vary in the range and quality of theatre presented in schools and other venues. The research findings support the thesis that Theatre for Young People in Victoria has been undervalued in terms of its contribution to Victoria's theatre history. It has been treated as second class or less important than adult theatre. Funding bodies and theatre companies have placed an over emphasis on cultivating young people as the audiences of the future. Victorian Education policies have failed to regulate standards for artists and adequately support them in schools. This has resulted in a high turnover of artists and companies servicing schools.