Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemSome had vision: P.L.C. and its teaching of science 1875 to 1912( 1989)In the 1980's, educators have devised programs which have encouraged girls to broaden their career aspirations. An important goal has been to persuade more girls to study maths and the physical sciences {physics and chemistry) at years 11 and 12. This thesis sets ou1 to investigate whether the 1980's has been the only period when females have been encouraged to study science, and if encouragement was given, was it limited to domestic science subjects which even today some believe are particularly suited to females. The thesis focuses in particular on science teaching at the Presbyterian Ladies' College (P .LC.) from 1875 to 1912. The cost of apparatus, the lack of qualified staff and a matriculation system which gave very little incentive to studying science subjects, meant that science was not a significant part of the curriculum in either girls' or boys' schools in the nineteenth century. Science was perceived as light relief from more rigorous study in English, mathematics and the Classics. While institutions such as the Vieusseux Ladies' College and P.LC. offered a broad and academic curriculum which included lectures in science, it was understood that this knowledge was not to be used ou1side the private sphere of home and family. Science lectures of a general nature, as a break from rigorous study, fitted comfortably with notion of a female accomplishments education and therefore were seen as a legitimate area of study for girls. During the Edwardian period science became more closely linked to economic and political power, and to the fortunes of the nation-state. In VICtoria, the Fink Royal Commission encapsulated the belief that 'hard' science needed to be developed for Australia's Mure strength and security. This paradigm of science, which exalted the physical sciences, physics and chemistry with their industrial, mechanical and technical potential, was increasingly linked to masculinity and therefore seen as inappropriate for females. Acceptable areas of science study for females were perceived to be botany and physiology - and as the Edwardian period progressed, domestic science. The domestic science movement argued that the role of wife and mother was the most appropriate for all women, and mounted a powerful and successful campaign which saw the introduction of some domestic science courses at nearly all levels of the education system. Unlike In the 19th century when P.LC. 's science teaching was typical of other girls' (and boys') schools, in the. Edwardian period P.LC. did not follow the trend, and domestic science courses remained a minimal part of the overall curriculum. Instead, James Bee and S.G. Mclaren worked collaboratively to give P.LC. students the opportunity to study the physical sciences, building the first substantial laboratory in a girls' school in Australia. This emphasis on the physical sciences gave an elite at P.LC. the opportunity to pursue careers in medicine; it also gave many a valuable lesson - that girls could succeed in areas which society had deemed to be masculine areas of study. What makes the work of Bee and Mclaren significant is that they had the commitment and vision to pursue their beliefs which were against the dominant societal views of their time. As we move into the 1990's educators must continue to confront the idea that science is gendered.
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ItemThe transmission of the charism of Marcellin Champagnat by principals in Marist schools( 2000)Members of religious orders in Australia face generally declining numbers and aging membership. Some, both within the orders and among their lay partners, have recognised the desirability of transmitting the charisms beyond the members of the order, if those charisms are to continue to inform the vision and culture of the enterprise. The Marist Brothers are no exception. Education is their main focus and the schools that they have established have been recognised as having a particular 'flavour' to them. The Marist way of educating has identifiable characteristics, inspired by the charism of the founder, Marcellin Champagnat. The success of the Marist style of education can be seen in the strong support for the schools. There is a clear desire among many, both religious and lay, to nurture and carry on conducting schools in the Marist way. As more lay people assume responsibility for these schools, it has been acknowledged that attention needs to be formally given to the ways in which the charism can continue to be transmitted. This study has examined the ways in which selected principals in Marist schools have influenced the transmission of the charism within their schools. Through the use of the case study methodology, it has documented actions that have been identified as conducive to passing on the charism to the school community. It has observed that certain characteristics of leadership style are more likely to positively influence the transmission of charism. The study has also identified some factors that may work against such a cause. As a result of the study, certain recommendations have been made which may assist in the process of ensuring that the charism of Marcellin Champagnat continues to flourish in those schools founded in his name.
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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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ItemThe system of payment by results in Victorian elementary schools, 1864-1905( 1977)"Payment by results" was a system used to determine teachers' salaries, in full or in part, in some parts of the world in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was originally conceived in England by Robert Lowe, Vice-President of the Education Department, and incorporated in regulations issued in 1861. These regulations led to considerable dispute but reappeared, in a slightly modified form, in the Revised Code of 1862. The system came to an end in England in 1897 but at the turn of the century still remained in Mauritius and Victoria. It was first proposed in Victoria in 1862 by the Premier, (Sir) John O'Shanassy but was firmly rejected by the Legislative Assembly. Nevertheless a modified version came into operation in 1864. The Board of Education, newly created under the Common Schools Act was responsible for this. Whether O'Shanassy put covert pressure on this Board whose members were appointed by his Ministry is open to conjecture. Certainly at the time a large number of people, inside and outside Parliament, thought so. Educationists and historians have tended to view the system as something of a curio. However its ramifications were so great that it has to be viewed more seriously. The system lasted in Victoria for forty-one years - almost one-third of the history of the State - and therefore cannot be lightly dismissed. Not wanted in the first place, it nevertheless remained in operation until the end of 1905. It survived Royal Commissions, newspaper campaigns, political criticism, opposition from teachers, educationists, and the general public. However its grip on Victorian elementary education was broken only when the forces of change, heralded by the "New Education" towards the end of the nineteenth century, made it an anachronism.
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ItemOrigins of the Victorian Apprenticeship Commission: a history of apprenticeship regulation in Victoria 1896-1927( 1970)By the eighteen nineties, factory methods had encouraged looseness or avoidance of apprenticeship contracts. The improver system, under which employers were not responsible for teaching, flourished. Youths grew up insufficiently skilled to command full tradesman's pay, thus threatening adult jobs and wages. In 1896, following anti-sweating agitation, wages boards were established to determine minimum rates and maximum numbers of juveniles in certain seriously exploited trades. By 1900, this system was extended to other trades, but the minimum duration of apprenticeship contracts was set at only one year. Because employers resented limitation, wages boards in 1903 lost the power to fix the proportion of apprentices; but in compensation an apprentice was redefined as one bound to be taught for at least three years. Nevertheless, without adequate means of training, adequate definition of trade skills, or an adequate tribunal, the situation remained unsatisfactory. Trade classes were developed to supplement workshop experience, but they had little effect. In 1907 a Conference recommended that an Apprenticeship Commission take control of certain skilled trades and establish the numbers to be admitted as apprentices, their wages, and the goals and methods of their training, including technical education. Improvers would be excluded from those trades. Although wages boards gained power to prescribe indentures in 1909, and regained their limitation powers in 1910, when Bills to establish a Commission were presented in 1911 and 1912, both the form of the proposals and the antagonism of employers resulted in their rejection. A second Conference in 1911 recommended that apprenticeship be left to the wages boards. Between 1911 and 1921, the Federal Arbitration Court improved apprenticeship conditions in some trades; the technical school system developed its capacity, especially in preparatory work; and a Repatriation Training Scheme adopted organisational machinery similar to that proposed in 1907.
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ItemMary Hutton: a biography( 2002)This thesis is an exploration of Mary Hutton's life and her career in the Victorian Education Department. It presents an outline of the woman as teacher, headmistress and principal. It traces the origins of the Melbourne Continuation School, the Collingwood Domestic Arts School, and MacRobertson Girls' High School as a context for her remarkable career. In 1899 Mary Hutton joined the Education Department as a pupil-teacher, the worst possible time for a woman to become a teacher. Victoria was emerging from a harsh depression and the resources of the Education Department were severely curtailed. Teachers' careers were disrupted and legislation ensured that, as a woman teacher, Mary Hutton would be confined to a career path separate from and unequal to that of her male counterpart. She would be denied access to most headships, be paid at best four-fifths of the male rate and be subject to informal and formal marriage bars. In spite of these constraints Mary Hutton was one of an emerging professional class of "scholar spinsters" who made it to the top of the State secondary teaching service. Hutton was a success story within the possibilities of her time. Her career spanned fifty years with the Victorian Education Department and her contribution to Victorian education was significant. Whilst not possessing the status of the private school headmistress Mary Hutton was a high-achieving, scholarly woman who became the first woman to have the title of principal in the State secondary system. Mary Hutton is little known and little written about yet she had a passion for education which, shaped her life. In spite of the limited access that women have had to educational leadership her contribution to the education of girls, given that she was in charge of two schools at particularly difficult times, deserves recognition.
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ItemFact and fiction in Joan Lindsay's "Picnic at Hanging Rock"( 1990)Joan Lindsay's novel Picnic at Hanging Rock, has been examined on a variety of levels. Scholars have viewed the novel as a study of the conflict of humanity versus nature, in symbolic terms as the embodiment of an archetypal religious myth, as a philosophical treatise on the passing of time and merely as an ambiguous and sinister disappearance. The purpose of this thesis has been to discriminate between fact and fiction in Picnic at Hanging Rock, with particular reference to the education of women. The novel has been explored in historical terms in an attempt to ascertain how much it is a reflection of Joan Lindsay's educational experiences at the Clyde Girls' Grammar School and her social experiences as a daughter of a prominent Melbourne family. Lindsay's experiences as a student at Clyde Girls' Grammar from 1911-1914 and the lifestyle of her family provide a historical picture of an upper middle-class family and their pattern of behavior at the turn of the century. This thesis examines Joan Lindsay's family, married life and literary works, paying particular attention to her childhood. The upper middle-class lifestyle, social mores and customs of the Weigall family provide much of the raw material for Lindsay the novelist's portrayal of turn-of-the century life at Appleyard College and the village of Macedon. This thesis also studies the staff, educational objectives and teaching methods employed at the fictional Appleyard College and compares these with a historical study of the staff and teaching practices of the Clyde Girls' Grammar of Joan Lindsay's experience. It concludes that although Lindsay has portrayed Appleyard College as institution with a shallow, haphazard approach to education, embodying all of the negative facets associated with education of females in the Victorian period, the education offered at Clyde appeared to be of sound intellectual standard and of the best quality available to the females of her generation. Through the characters in her novel Lindsay highlights different approaches towards education in the late Victorian era. Through Appleyard's imposing headmistress, Mrs Appleyard, Lindsay satirizes the attitude that social status in the most important value no matter what the cost. Mrs Appleyard is obsessed with her students' social background and displays little concern for their intellectual development. The character of Dianne de Poitiers plays out the role of the accomplished woman, a teacher who is hired for her ladylike appearance and demeanor and fluent French rather than any outstanding intellectual qualities. And in contrast to de Poitiers, Lindsay casts Greta McCraw as a mathematic mistress whose little appreciated mathematical brilliance and outlandish physical appearance designate her as a bluestocking. The different approaches of these two teachers personify the acceptable and unacceptable gender characteristics for women in the late Victorian era. Lindsay would have been well aware that the superficial education offered at Appleyard College defended class boundaries and the lifestyle of the upper middle classes which she so humorously describes later in the novel. Her examination of the manners, prejudices and social practices of this privileged sector of society is humorous in its intention and often scathing in its perceptions. And although her depiction of Appleyard College is not a reflection of her years at Clyde, Lindsay's position as a daughter of a privileged Melbourne family has provided her with an intuitive understanding of the upper-middle-class lifestyle of the late Victorian era.
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ItemVictoria's baby health centres: a history 1917-1950: how did a statewide system of Baby Health Centres grow from the efforts of a small group of concerned women in 1917?( 2005)Victoria’s first Baby Health Centre opened in June 1917 in the inner Melbourne suburb of Richmond. By 1950, 398 centres including fifteen mobile circuits, were available to mothers across Victoria. This study documents and analyses the combination of influences that underpinned the growth of Victoria’s Baby Health Centres. Firstly, concern about infant mortality rates encouraged the growth of the international welfare movement. The international movement provided legitimacy for local concerns and motivated and sustained the women who acted locally. In addition, the changing role of women following the achievement of suffrage and the rise of voluntarism combined to establish a combination of professionalism and voluntarism which was socially acceptable for the women involved. Baby Health Centres were instigated through municipal councils by local groups such as the Country Womens Association, and with the centralized support of the Victorian Baby Health Centres Association and the Society for the Health of the Women and Children of Victoria. The development of two dedicated voluntary associations caused both friction and competition and a dynamic which created a model of service provision still in existence today. Secondly, the study looks at the role of several individual women in the growth of Victoria’s centres and circuits. Both voluntary and professional workers made significant contributions to the development of a model of universal service provision for mothers and babies. Thirdly, the study records the voices of eight mothers and two Infant Welfare sisters of the 1940s. Their comments and stories illuminate the relationship between baby health centre sisters and mothers and the mother’s willingness to incorporate the advice into daily practice. The history of Victoria’s Baby Health Centres is one of a unique combination of professional and voluntary activism. This recipe led to the development of a well utilized statewide service which has become part of Victoria’s societal and health framework.
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ItemThe Victorian agricultural high schools : origins, development and failure: with special reference to Ballarat, Sale, Shepparton and Wangaratta agricultural high schools( 1977)The concept of the vocational secondary school is not unique to Victoria and, as in other places, the questions of its origin, development and success or failure are integrally tied to the political, social and economic conditions of its environment. The agricultural high schools of Victoria, established in the first decade of this century, were not, as some would have us believe, poorly considered experiments proposed by a few optimistic educators in a fledgling State which provided education for its children only up to grade six level. Rather, they represented the first major move by an ambitious young Director of Education, Frank Tate, into a field hitherto dominated by independent interests. That they were vocational, that they were rural, was determined by the political and economic realities of the time: that they were failures was determined by the liberal philosophies and, therefore, approach of Tate and other department men, and by the social realities in a State where industrialization and resultant social mobility militated against any attempt to keep the boys "down on the farm". Poorly constructed, and unwanted by the rural populace, the vocational aspect of the agricultural high schools was, in the main, dysfunctional to the composition of Victorian society, and the thinly veiled contempt of the Education Department could be seen in the words and deeds of its administrators. But they had to pay lip-service to their political masters, and the façade was necessarily maintained until long after the passing of the 1910 Education Act, the composition of which, had Tate been so allowed, would have brought to fruition his dream of a large and integrated State secondary system. When it finally disappeared from the Victorian educational scene, the agricultural course was lamented by few. It had been, however, the necessary medium through which the initial steps along the road to a State-wide system of secondary education had been taken. The schools lived on, as district high schools, and helped to provide the model for that system.