Faculty of Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
-
ItemPathways to work: a micro-study of young people through post-compulsory education to work( 2009)Social background and gender have long been recognised as factors which shape the quality of post-school outcomes. The children of professional families and girls have stayed longer in school and achieved better than the children of non-professional families and boys. Governments, both in Australia and around the world, use policy to counter this persistent problem. The focus of these policies on preventing school dropout presumes that the longer a young person is engaged in school the better the post-school outcome. This is still not always the case. One such policy was the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) which, amongst other things, increased the breadth of post-compulsory school curriculum to address the needs of an increasingly diverse student body and act as a conductor of relevant learning through these years. The aim of this work is threefold - A better understanding of both the pathways, including curriculum, taken through school taken by each of the members of the Class of ’95 and the work outcomes of the school experience, including academic achievement, of each of them. - A better understanding of the connection, if any, of these pathways and outcome with individual family background and gender. - An appraisal of the contribution of the school in neutralising social origin as a factor determining the quality of post-school outcomes. In order to explore the quality of post-school outcomes this research follows the pathways through secondary school to work of one hundred and sixty-three young people who commenced their secondary school journey in Year 7 together at the same college. A longitudinal case study, this work explores the journey of these students for thirteen years by which time all were established in work. The secondary education of this cohort was provided by a non-selective co-educational Catholic Regional College located in the outer urban fringe of Melbourne. The cohort was socially diverse and dominated by children from the families of non-professional white-collar workers. This dominance increased over time since students from this social background were the least likely to drop-out of school for work. It was found that social background permeated all aspects of school experience from Year 7 to Year 12 academic achievement to the decision to stay on in school and choice of subjects in the post-compulsory secondary school years. The latter influenced competitiveness for university and TAFE course places. All in the cohort who stayed in school passed the VCE. But competitiveness for university and TAFE course places was again aligned on social and gender grounds which favoured the traditional users of education who studied the traditional VCE. This meant that school policy of providing a broad based curriculum aimed at meeting needs of the very diverse student population was in tension with the limiting policy of university course selectors.
-
ItemPolitics and prescription: an analysis of reading texts in Victorian government primary schools 1872-1970( 2007)For a period of almost one hundred years - from the 1872 Education Act until 1970 the Victorian Education Department prescribed the reading curriculum of children in government primary schools, using texts from Ireland and Britain, followed by three sets published by the Department. This thesis describes the procedures undertaken in the selection of these texts, and analyses their contents in the light of the educational thinking of the times and the prevailing political, social and economic conditions. The Irish Books of Lessons were components of a national system of education in Ireland designed to provide a non-denominational religious education for all children. Emphasis was placed on literary and moral values, Old Testament history and political economy. Transplanted to the colony of New South Wales, the Irish ideal of a common education failed because of intractable religious disputes between Anglican and Roman Catholic clerics. In Victoria there was discord in parliament relating to the contents of the books and the secular provision in the 1872 Education Act. In 1877 these books were replaced by the British Royal Readers, containing informational matter, English literature, and history related in terms of battles won and deeds of service for the Empire. Alterations to some items in the Royal Readers on the order of the Minister of Public Instruction because of their religious content caused further contention in parliament. Action from Roman Catholic sources succeeded in the banning of other books from schools on sectarian grounds, an outcome that had important ramifications for the administration of education in Victoria. Religious sensibilities were appeased with the Minister's decision to replace imported texts with the locally-produced School Papers in 1896. These monthly publications contained literature, informational items, stories for enjoyment and others of a moralistic bent. The Anglophile nature of the Royal Readers was maintained with material promoting loyalty to Britain and the Empire. Wide coverage of the Boer War and World War I was included. The inter-war period saw a growing emergence of an Australian identity in the School Papers, with fewer items calling for fealty to Crown and Empire, and local writers increasingly featured. The Victorian Readers, introduced in 1928, were the repository of the literature that remained an important element of the reading curriculum, much of it from Australian authors. Articles promoting peace in the reading material at this time foreshadowed the muted coverage of World War II in the School Papers. The new set of reading books published in the 1950s and 1960s continued in the literary style of their predecessors, with writing by current Australian and international authors. The capacity of the School Papers to respond to events as they unfolded enabled the readers to be kept informed of Australia's increasing involvement with Asia, the decline of old affiliations and the formation of new geopolitical alliances.
-
ItemIndigenous self-determination and early childhood education and care in Victoria( 2008)This thesis explores how Victoria’s early childhood community negotiates colonial constructions of Aboriginality around dualisms such as Indigenous/non Indigenous and intersecting constructions of the child as ignorant or innocent of race and power both in concert and conflict with the non Indigenous early childhood community. It found a need for a reconceptualisation of Aboriginality around complexity and multiplicity as well as continuity and uniformity. Such a reconceptualisation can better address those issues of race, culture, identity and racism that see Indigenous communities marginalised within non Indigenous early childhood programs. These negotiations around the colonial and the implications for Indigenous inclusion within the early childhood field are framed within post colonial theory which unites and connects major themes across tensions and contradictions. These themes act as a basis for each data chapter.