Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemAbraham Isaac (Alf) Salkin (1923-2005): An Investigation of his Contributions and Legacy in the Fields of Botany, Conservation and Environmental Education( 2022)This historical narrative explores Alf Salkin's salient contributions to the fields of botany, conservation and environmental education from the 1960s until his death in 2005. The thesis is not intended to be a chronology of events nor a biography of Alf Salkin, but rather an historical narrative focusing on Salkin's endeavours and the global, local and personal circumstances that might have influenced his activities. Alf Salkin contributed to botany through his academic articles and through his writings for a wider non-specialist audience, particularly with his focus on Banksias. He participated extensively in the Society for Growing Australian Plants (SGAP) and he established the Special Collections Area at Cranbourne Gardens. He was extremely generous with his sharing of botanical knowledge and materials and he inspired many people to further grow and research Australian plants. Salkin's contributions to conservation included initiating a program of student planting of Australian plants at Mount Waverley High School, establishing the 'Friends of Valley Reserve' in Mount Waverley and playing a leading role in the development of the concept of the importance of plant provenance in regeneration projects. Salkin based his teaching on the theories of learning that emphasised the need to align learning with real-life social and physical settings and he subscribed passionately to the viewpoint that art is an important element of environmental education. Consequently, he acquainted his students with the works and lifestyles of some relevant Australian artists in his attempts to create greater environmental awareness among the student cohort. Furthermore, he attempted to increase environmental awareness in his art students by discussing the distribution and variation of Banksias and by having students make leaf prints of various Banksia species. He contributed to environmental education outside formal education settings by increasing popular knowledge of Banksias through SGAP publications and through articles on the history of their European discovery and naming. This thesis contributes to knowledge through an analysis of Alf Salkin's accomplishments. It has the potential to be influential with regard to botany, conservation and environmental education by demonstrating what can be achieved by a modest individual imbued with passion, commitment and generosity.
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ItemFrom developing child to competent learner: a genealogical study of the kindergarten child and progressive reform in Aotearoa New Zealand( 2017)Historically through to the present day, early childhood education has been the focus of myriad and potent investments; a persistent, if variously inflected, feature is its reforming and progressive impulse. This thesis offers a history of the kindergarten child in Aotearoa New Zealand in which themes of subjectivity, knowledge, temporality, truth, and freedom are central. The history, a form of genealogy (Foucault 1984), examines two moments of significant early education reform in New Zealand. Analysis of these reforms is anchored by, and extends from, the landmark policy statements of Pre-School Education: Report of the Consultative Committee on Pre-School Educational Services (DOE 1947) and Education to be More: Report of the Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group (DOE 1988). Working with diverse historical sources – textual, visual, socio-spatial, expert, professional, and practice oriented – the thesis develops a historical account of these reforms and their respective elaboration as self-consciously new and leading-edge practices. It explores the kindergarten child as the subject of changing progressive discourses through analysis of epistemological and affective investments and close examination of practices within what I conceptualize as free-play, developmental pedagogies of freedom (late 1940s and 1950s), and sociocultural learning pedagogies of empowerment (late 1990s and 2000s). The identified pedagogies and their respective conditions of reform are situated in juxtaposed rather than linear temporal relations. That is, I conceptualize them as two differently liberating “timespaces” (Baker 2001, 24), each animated by fervently held understandings of the nature of young children, and what their good education should entail. Engaging a non-binary and practical understanding of processes of subject formation, I understand the pedagogies, spaces, concepts, materials, and practices under examination as technologies of government and subjectivity, and the forms of natural – free or empowered – conduct that they presumed and promoted are analysed. Motivated by critical genealogical aims, the thesis seeks to unsettle current certainties and commitments to the truth of the child in early education, a subject who is commonly understood and called forth as a competent, social and culturally diverse learner. Overall, the thesis argues that these reforms and their respective pedagogies have a “double gesture” (Popkewitz 2009, 397), entailing a valorization and promotion of particular forms of liberated conduct and work-upon the self, whilst simultaneously foreclosing alternative possibilities. Developing a somewhat anti-progressivist account, the history illuminates the surprising – and often neglected in present-day critique – forms of caring attention towards children as embodied, affective subjects within mid-century developmental pedagogies. It surfaces, too, the often overlooked essentializing effects of discourses of empowerment, diversity, and competence within recently ascendant learning-framed pedagogies. While illuminating the affordances of discourses of growth, along with the normative foundationalism of learning discourses, the thesis does not simply call for a restoration of developmental pedagogies or for the wholesale repudiation of empowerment and learning. Rather, this historical study seeks to produce an opening in which present-day investments, including those formulated as counter-discourses, may be appraised with an alertness to their subject-forming effects as well as the blindspots and ambivalence of progressive discourses. Further, while grounded in the cultural politics of Aotearoa New Zealand, the issues raised and arguments developed have relevance to wider shifts and flows in critique, policy, and practice in early education during the twentieth century through to the present day. Grappling with themes of knowledge, subjectivity and temporality, the thesis aims to contribute new and contextually rich insights into the history of the child in and through early education. In doing so, it seeks to reframe that history and open up fresh ways of rethinking the effects of progressive ideas in early education. Finally, this thesis attempts to contribute conceptually and methodologically to approaches for the exploration of educated subjectivities in the past. It does so through a reflexive engagement with Foucauldian concepts of government and ethics in critical interaction with space, materiality and the visual in the history of education.
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ItemA political malaise: education for political understandings in Australian curriculum: history( 2016)This study examines the notion that Australia has entered a condition of political malaise. It seeks to find explanation for this development in a particular domain: Australian history education. Recent developments therein are assessed for the extent to which political understandings have been made available to students. On this basis the newly implemented Australian Curriculum: History is evaluated. The study employs a methodology of discourse analysis. Perspectives of politicians, experts and theorists are collected to examine contemporary political conditions. Theories regarding the manner in which history and education are harnessed for the purpose of constituting political and national identities are considered. Australian Curriculum: History is scrutinized in the context of the contestation that surrounded its creation and reception. The study posits the notion that the historical discourse has been coopted into the ideological conflicts of Australian party politics; that Australian Curriculum: History is constitutive of ideological predilections of antagonistic parties rather the historically informed critical faculties necessary for useful democratic participation.
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ItemThe nature of the studio: an artist's method of inquiry( 2016)The studio is traditionally regarded as a hallowed space, one that underpins the artist’s process, temperament, inquiry and work. It is steeped in a history of myth and mystery. From cave to monastery, medieval guild to Renaissance study, Romantic genius working alone in the garret to a site recording experiences of natural phenomena and scientific perceptual observations, from the 1960s Factory, to the kitchen table and laptop, the nature of the studio has responded to cultural shifts and critical contexts. The demise of the studio was first coined in the 1960s and 1970s and heralded the idea of the ‘post studio’ age. In recent literature, particularly in the visual arts, the ‘fall’ of the studio is declared again and suggests it is still suspect to speak of certain kinds of solitary studio-based art practice. Yet, further debates position a ‘post-post-studio’ era, one that supports a reinvestment of the space via artistic practices of an expanded, collective or hybrid nature. These perceptions are said to be symptoms of a bigger picture: the ‘persistent lacunae’ in critical scholarship on the artist’s studio. This research seeks to address that gap. This research project backgrounds the history of the studio, its myths and legacy in order to present an understanding of the studio now. It examines the studio from the cave to the contemporary space exploring how the studio has responded to changes in cultural contexts and shifting modes of production. As we are in another cycle of change with information technology, globalisation and neoliberal values that favour ‘immaterial labour economies’, this research investigation asks: What is the nature of the studio today? What were the terms and conditions that made the proclamation, ‘post-studio’ possible? What is the nature of the post-post-studio and how do different models of the studio function across the arts in an academic setting? By examining the studios from disciplinary perspectives at the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne, this research investigates the nature of the studio in contemporary art practices across six disciplines: Music, Dance, Art, Theatre, Production and Film and Television from student and academic perspectives, to give an Australian outlook on the function of the studio in the early 21st century. Using a mixed method study the project engages a quantitative and qualitative survey and qualitative interviews to reveal findings that declare the importance of the studio space as a vital ingredient to teaching and learning across all the art disciplines at the VCA.
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ItemThe aspiring spires: momentum and the status university( 2013)Higher education is in many respects governed by market relations and state direction; in some ways, however, it is not. In prestige, it falls back on an elusive force. The university is entrepreneurial, and it is public spirited, and it is also itself. According to perceptions of how much of a university a university is, it is able to relay credibility. Rankings and taxonomical mapping may come at this nebulous prestige from more solid data, including the tracing of market performance and state backing. Crucially, though, it is prestige that any ranking hoping to gauge the calibrations of trust and belief is after, whether prestige already detected or that anticipated according to momentum. Aware of this, inasmuch as an organization can think, the status university continues to grow as a magnet for competitive but remarkably peaceable human endeavour, and as a major junction for the forces of civil religion. The thesis seeks to update the appraisal of the highly evolved sense of status in universities and in progressively expanded higher education systems, and to deepen appreciation of the energy and history with which they swell.
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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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ItemA century of Presbyterian mission education in the New Hebrides : Presbyterian mission educational enterprises and their relevance to the needs of a changing Melanesian society, 1848-1948( 1974)The role of mission educational enterprises in developing territories during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been examined in recent years. The relationship between mission schools and social, political and religious change has been reviewed in case studies of African, Asian and Pacific nations. The New Hebrides provides a unique opportunity to study the development of mission education policies in a territory in which government assistance and control over education was completely absent. On most of the islands of the New Hebrides group, the history of education from 1848 to 1948 is the history of Presbyterian Mission education.The New Hebrides Presbyterian Mission possessed neither the resources nor the policies necessary for the task of providing a broadly based national education system. Yet for more than a century, civil administrations left the entire responsibility for the provision of education in the hands of the Christian missions. The Presbyterian Mission willingly accepted this responsibility. It regarded education as an integral and essential part of its three-fold programme of evangelism, healing and teaching.(For complete abstract open document)
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ItemJohn Thomas Lawton (1878-1944): biography of an educational and social reformer( 1978)John Thomas Lawton (1878-1944) was a pioneer of progressive education in Australia. His school, St. Andrew’s College, Kew, (1921-1933) trained a generation of students into new ideals in education of truth, individual freedom and self-government. Through his school, Lawton sought social reconstruction, following the trauma of World War I. He was convinced that human nature is perfectible in an imperfect society and that the youth of the country must assert their strength against the demands of industrial society with its exploitation and materialism. Apart from his educational experiment of the Twenties, Lawton was a broad social reformer with radical views. He was quick to espouse the new psychology from Germany and America and the social idealism from Britain, Europe and America. His originality lay not in the ideas but in his application of these in the emerging Australian nation. As a Presbyterian minister, his radicalism led to serious opposition from his clerical colleagues and a personal disillusionment. To some extent he withdrew from direct involvement with the Workers’ Co-operative Movement and the Movement Against War and Fascism. He took the stance of a Christian Socialist and avoided all contact with the Communist Party of Australia in order to keep his Ministry. Lawton came from a strict Presbyterian pioneering family in an isolated bush setting of the Western District of Victoria. He was a product of the 1872 Education Act, precariously implemented by consistent community pressure to open a school in the area. He suffered the repressions and stern social and family conventions of the Victorian era in Australia and his childhood presents us with the curious mixture of freedom and independence, physical hard work and initiative and a mother's driving ambition for her children to escape the harsh and alien environment which held little future for her large family. Lawton responded to his mother's ambition, excelled scholastically as a pupil-teacher and pursued his studies in Melbourne. Lawton's own personal drive and ambition can surely be traced to his bush childhood. He was consistent in his ideals but moved readily and somewhat impatiently into new areas of social reform. His educational experiment lasted only eleven years and he soon realised that social reform through education is necessarily a long term proposition. Returning to the Ministry, he took up new causes for peace and social and fiscal reform. He died relatively young during the Second World War. Lawton was earnest and sincere, strong willed and, at times, dogmatic. His commanding stature and eloquence of speech and manner made it possible to attract a large following of forward-thinking people of all social classes and, although he did not live long enough to see the fruits of his labour, his influence can be clearly discerned to-day in those who knew him and in the better society which has developed from the past.
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ItemProvision for the education of Catholic women in Australia since 1840( 1988)An historical perspective of the Religious Orders of women which entered the Catholic education scene in nineteenth-century Australia, and an appraisal of their adaptation to the forces within Australian society which influenced their provision for the education of Catholic women in this country as they operated under the powerful direction of the bishops.
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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.