Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemFrom the industrial to the convivial ethos : Ivan Illich on needs, commodities, education and the politics of change( 1991)The appearance of the soul-stirring views of Ivan Illich in the early seventies made for an iconoclastic campaign against current claims and definitions of objective social progress in our industrial-computer-technology age. His controversial message expressed serious concern about the consumerist ethos of modern societies and the pathogenic nature of our institutions. Today, the radical literature boom, of which Illich was part, appears to have gone quiet. Additionally, aspects of his writings have been superseded by new radical discourses. Yet still, for all that, Illich has produced an imposing and provocative critique of modern industrial society that goes a long way to demythologize our world view of "what is" of the sociocultural reality around us. In this sense, Illich has posed problems and offered positions that remain relevant to radical politics, and that are likely to concern us for a very long time. Throughout this thesis, I will attempt to contextualize and present the matrix of Illich's thought. In view of the ample critical responses to Illich's work, I do not intend to present a comprehensive critical appraisal, though I will concentrate on an assessment of his proposed strategy for the transition to a more humane society. I will begin, in chapter one, by mapping out Illich's critique of the increased importance of commodity culture within both the production and social reproduction - the ways in which advanced industrial society reproduces itself in individual thought and behaviour. Illich's investigation of the consumer society points to how institutions and a wide variety of cultural phenomena within social life are becoming forms of commodification and consumption, thus engendering deleterious and dehumanizing consequences. Chapter two takes Illich's objections to the consumerist ethos and investigates the role of compulsory public schooling within the logic of the commodification process. On the whole, Illich illustrates that the school, by packaging knowledge as a consumer commodity, distorts the meaning of education for its own vested interests. While the first two chapters attempt to contextualize Illich's writings, chapter three explores his conceptualization of the "ideal society" and his proposals for social and educational transformation. In chapter four, I will critically appraise Mich's thinking on radical social reconstruction in contradistinction to his Marxist critics and their proposed strategies. Out of this debate, the relevance of Illich's political concerns to current radical politics will be further clarified. My purpose in chapter five will be to confront the dilemma posed by Mich: should a radical policy be directed to reform or to deschool? I will attempt to present and appraise some of the prominent critical views levelled against Illich's politics for social change. In the final chapter, an attempt will be made to reveal what the deschooling analysis does not take into account. Attention will be given to how "resistance" theories, in particular the work of Paul Willis, provide an alternative view of how school reproduces the social order. New possibilities for schools acting as agents of social change are presented. The efforts of "empowerment" theorists build up these possibilities and call for "transformative" pedagogies to be developed within the schools. The major concern here will be to ascertain whether there is a role for the school, as we know it, to play in radically transforming society, and whether some middle ground can be charted with respect to Illich's project for deschooling society.
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ItemTradition and change in the establishment of Mount St Joseph Girls' College 1964-1970( 1991)Social, political and economic influences invariably have bearing on the development of a school's philosophy, policies and practices, and must be considered integral to any school history. This is most evident in the post-war period, when the 'explosion' in numbers in post-primary schooling resulted not only in an expansion of schools but also, in a restructuring of traditional secondary school organisation and practice. For the first time post-primary schooling came to be recognised as a distinct and essential sphere of education. The establishment of Mt St Joseph Girls' College in 1964 by the Institute of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart was in direct response to changes in Australian society during the 1950s and 1960s. The Sisters of St Joseph, an Australian teaching Order, was established in the 1860s by Father Julian Tenison-Woods and Mary McKillop to provide Catholic primary education to the poor. However, in the 1960s, the Institute was prepared to adapt and meet the demand for secondary education by establishing secondary colleges. This thesis traces the establishment and development of the first secondary Josephite school in Victoria - Mt St Joseph Girls' College between the period 1964 and 1970. The recollections of students reveal that despite the Josephites' efforts to widen educational and occupational opportunities for working-class girls, school organisation, curriculum and practices, implicitly and explicitly directed girls to gender-specific educational and occupational paths; and to the notion that culturally valued womanhood was intrinsically related to marriage and motherhood. The study also indicates that it was not until 1969 that the Josephites introduced curriculum reform by replacing the multilateral form of school organisation (professional, commercial and domestic sciences), with a more integrated and comprehensive curriculum which cut across these divisions and catered for the needs and interests of a wide range of students. Although the benefits of this were not evident until the following decade, it must be emphasized that the Josephites had taken the first steps to remove the limitations placed on girls' aspirations, abilities and opportunities. v
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ItemTowards redressing the neglect of "dispositional knowledge"( 1991)Dispositional knowledge has been long neglected (with only few exceptions) by philosophers even though this topic should be of particular interest to philosophers of Education. All dispositional knowledge can be expressed in the grammatical form 'x knows how to 0'. So, in examining dispositional knowledge statements, we need only consider statements which are expressible in this form. Kyle's work on dispositional knowledge (or knowing how to) was misleading in that he assimilated cases of human dispositional knowledge with cases of physical dispositions. More recently David. Carr has proposed an alternative view of knowing how to which culminates in three criteria for the application of physical know how to an agent; these criteria are parallel to the widely acknowledged tri-partite account of propositional knowledge. Carr neglects an account of mental know how on the grounds that mental know how cannot be distinguished from mental ability. Carr's account of physical know how is flawed. And an analysis of mental know how is required. An examination of mental know how reveals criteria for mental know how which are parallel to the criteria for physical know how.
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ItemCritical pedagogy and its application to curriculum policy( 1991)Curriculum theory can be seen as social theory because a curriculum interrelates knowledge and social practices that legitimate the dominant culture. The relationship between society and schooling is reflected in the curriculum; a critical pedagogy attempts to reveal the ideological content within the curriculum as it is related to the question of power. An analysis of schooling and the curriculum traditionally has been divided into two main categories. The functionalist mode comprises various human capital economists, such as Becker (1964), who give emphasis to the functional role between schooling and economic and social requirements. In this case, schools' role is to prepare their students for the job market.-Within this functionalist mode, a more critical analysis has also been developed by Bowles and Gintis (1976) and Carnoy and Levin (1976), among others, who argue that schools reproduce the prevailing class structure. The other tradition wants to see schools as autonomous so that schools can be used as initiaters of social and political_ change, as was emphasized by Dewey (1916) and other progressive educational theorists. This paper addresses the question of whether different classes can benefit From the same academically oriented curriculum. Bourdieu and Passeron [1977) argue that the educational system merely reproduces the cultural capital which has been distributed before students enter education; those with the highest amount of cultural capital will benefit most from schooling. The same argument is taken up by Bantock [1965) who maintains that working class children are for cultural reasons likely to be inhibited from gaining the best of education even if they were given equal chances; because, as he continues to argue, 'high culture' for the working classes is meaningless. Thus, these different writers would agree that members of the working class are inhibited because of their working class culture rather than their measured IQ. Jencks (1972) and Boudon (1974) in a slightly different way argue that the class inequalities which have deeply structured roots, and are maintained by social forces, are beyond the reach of equalitarian educational reform. However, it will be argued in this paper that schooling must promote a common culture for all if all participants in schools are to benefit equally. An 'organic' curriculum suited to either class will only cement and fortify class divisions. Instead, this paper argues for the adoption of a strict academic curriculum as a means of redistributing knowledge, and thus political power, so that education may be disengaged from serving the ands of an exploitative, capitalist economy.
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ItemThe pedagogy of St Thomas Aquinas and its significance for contemporary catechetical methodology( 1991)This thesis sets out to achieve two related tasks. First, it aims to extract from the massive corpus of the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) a coherent pedagogical theory. The Introduction gives a brief overview of the man in history, sets out the confines of the investigation and establishes a working definition of pedagogy. Chapter One argues that for pedagogy to be effective it must cooperate with the operation of the intellect. It then proceeds to examine St. Thomas's understanding of the operation of the intellect. It also considers the role of the senses in intellection and the notion of the perfection of the intellect. Chapters Two and Three work systematically through St. Thomas's basic epistemology. They analyse his principles of cognition, abstraction, the use of reason, the purpose of knowledge, the divine truth and Catholic doctrine. Secondly, this thesis draws specific (Thomisitic) catechetical principles from this pedagogy. Chapter Four examines St. Thomas's explicit pedagogy. It considers the teacher, potency to knowledge, discovery and instruction. It reviews the notion of pre-existent knowledge, derived and perfected by St. Thomas from the Greek philosophers. It also deals with the letter written by St. Thomas to Brother John on "How to Study". Chapter Five draws thirteen catechetical principles from St. Thomas's pedagogy. It considers the use of intellect, will and reason, teaching and instruction within this catechetical framework. In the process of completing this second task Chapter Six examines a contemporary Catholic catechetical document and evaluates its methodological precepts in the light of Thomisitic catechesis derived in Chapter Five.
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ItemDrama with vision impaired children( 1991)This project addresses the application of educational drama with vision impaired children. It reports on three years of research and practical experience in the area and aims to highlight how important and relevant drama is for this population, thus pioneering a broad and purposeful usage of drama with vision impaired children. An implementation of educational drama with vision impaired children requires an understanding of both drama, in its educational and therapeutic forms, and vision impairment and its implications. In this way the project sought to investigate the areas of drama, drama therapy and vision impairment separately before addressing the application of drama with vision impaired children. The first part of the thesis reports on this theoretical background information. The second part of the thesis links these areas and reports on the application of drama with vision impaired children in the form of a manual. After establishing a case for drama with vision impaired children, the project provides practical information as to how to implement drama techniques with the vision impaired child. An 'action cycle' is put forward involving observation, planning, implementation and evaluation stages. Teaching methods are given and discussed for the singularly impaired vision impaired child, the child with additional impairment and, to a lesser extent, the multiply impaired vision impaired child. Examples are used extensively throughout and case-study material is provided. The project addresses the following audiences: (i) teachers working with vision impaired children who would like to implement drama techniques (ii) teachers, including drama teachers, who have a vision impaired child in their class and who would like to know more about vision impairment and how drama can be utilised with a vision impaired child (iii) others, outside the field of education, such as therapists, medical practitioners and care-givers who are involved with vision impaired children (iv) parents of vision impaired children (v) as the vision impaired population includes many children with additional disability, including physical, intellectual, hearing, emotional and social problems, the project may be useful for those working with children with impairments other than visual.
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ItemGetting the words out: facilitated communication training and the integration of students with disabilities into mainstream schools( 1991)Facilitated communication training is a new method of training individuals with severe communication impairments (SCI) to use communication aids. It has been used with success to enable students with very limited speech and writing skills to undertake the regular syllabus in mainstream classrooms in Victoria. This paper describes the technique of facilitated communication training including: a. its place in the current repertoire of augmentative and alternative communication techniques b. the development and use of facilitated communication training at DEAL Communication Centre c. the rationale for the use of facilitation with individual students d. the nature of the technique, including descriptions of specific hand function problems with appropriate remedial strategies e. reduction of facilitation f. a review of the literature on facilitated communication training g. the integration of users of facilitated communication into mainstream schools in Victoria h. problems with facilitated communication training i. future directions for facilitated communication training
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ItemAnton Semyonovich Makarenko and progressive education: a study of Pedagogicheskaya Poema, or, The Road to Life( 1991)The aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in the U.S.S.R, brought about a climate of radical reforms in the entire education system. The first minister of education, Lunacharsky, introduced experimentation in schools; he encouraged the implementation of a school curriculum influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideology combined with the ideals of John Dewey and the Western Progressive tendencies in education. In Russia, a product of the October revolution was also a multitude of 'bezprizornie', homeless children who needed urgent educational attention. In 1920, a young Ukranian teacher, imbued with the fervour of revolutionary ideals, was given the task of running a colony for 'bezprizornie'. Antonich Makarenko accepted the task with reluctance but also with a firm belief that educational processes could re-educate children. He also believed that the education system could cater for the interests of both the individual and the group. Makarenko's educational experiment became known as 'The Gorky Colony', in honour of his source of inspiration, the Russian writer, Maxim Gorky. In the running of the Gorky Colony, after initial difficulties, Makarenko, experienced fame and success. He recorded his pedagogical experience in a literary work which he called: A Poem of Education, translated into English and thereafter known as: The Road to Life. His work, first published in 1933, coincided with the end of the Lenin-Lunacharsky's influence in education and with the rise of Stalinist policies of return to traditionalism in education. Makarenko survived the party purges of the early Bolsheviks by adopting the Stalinist policies in education. Calling his methodology 'the Soviet Way', and by stressing the belief in 'collective education', he gained favour within the Stalin regime and also during the 'de-Stalinization' years of the Khrushchov regime. Detailed analysis of The Road to Life, reveals that the 'Makarenko method' remains most of all a reflection of the child-centred, progressive approach to education of the early Bolshevik years, the 1920's.
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ItemNon-English speaking background females as students and as teachers( 1991)In contrast to literature on female teachers generally, of which there is an abundance, there is little research on the specific category of female Non English Speaking Background (NESB) teachers in schools. Equally, there is no literature available which outlines the progressive experience of NESB girls, initially as students and later as professional teachers. This study aims to do a little of both by tracing the experiences of NESB girls as students and as teachers in the educational environment. This study has relied on the qualitative methodological approach. Interviews were preferred over rigid questionnaires as this method allowed for an experience based comparative study where issues raised could be pursued, expanded upon and further developed as the need arose. The results of this study show that NESB women (as students and teachers), are not only disadvantaged in regards to their gender, but also in relation to ethnicity. It became evident that although NESB teachers had reached the other end of the educational spectrum, they were still being subjected to the biases and discrimination which they had. experienced earlier as students in the education system.