Faculty of Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 8 of 8
-
Item
-
ItemA comparative study of primary school social studies in three Australian states : Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia, 1952-1975( 1976)This study is concerned with the way in which Primary school Social Studies curricula have been revised, organized and developed from 1952 to 1975 in three Australian States - Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia. As few commercially produced Social Studies courses, or indeed Social Studies units, have been forthcoming in these States, coverage in this thesis concentrates on those syllabus revisions which have been produced by Revision Committees organized by the respective Education Departments in these States. Underlying factors which have been instrumental in Social Studies revisions and their final outcome - a Social Studies Syllabus - have been analyzed by considering those constraints which form a part of the Curriculum Materials Analysis System (1967). The constituent six part cluster questions have been used in horizontal analysis to highlight features of Social Studies courses in the 1950's as compared to those of the 1960's, and the most significant changes which have occurred in the most current revisions. From courses which presented a high degree of uniformity in their emphasis on facts, social living and citizenship, have emerged State revisions which, though differing in format and degree of inclusiveness, reflect attributes commonly associated with 'new' Social Studies.
-
ItemApproaching the undiscussable : investigating learning in an educational policy making organisation( 2004)This study investigates the learning culture in the Professional Support & Curriculum Directorate, part of the policy-making section of the New South Wales Department of Education in Australia. It is based on the premise that organisations learn through the collaborative efforts of the staff who work in them. This learning results from an alignment of two theories: the 'espoused' and the 'enacted'. The 'espoused' theory represents the organisation's intent and usually resides in written documents. The 'enacted' theory is demonstrated through the organisation's practice. When these theories fail to align, the organisation's capacity to learn becomes inhibited. The gap between these two theories is 'undiscussable'. It creates tensions that the organisation does not discuss. The participants in this study were staff members located in the Professional Support & Curriculum Directorate. They included administrative and support staff as well educators and the Directorate's leaders. Data were gathered from these staff members using a survey and interviews. By comparing and contrasting their perceptions and experiences of the Directorate's 'espoused' and 'enacted' theories, the study describes the nature of the Directorate's learning culture and its effect on the staff. A model for learning in organisations, derived from the literature, provided the theoretical frame for this investigation. The study identified that the respondents experienced tension in their practice because their 'espoused' theories did not align with the Directorate's 'enacted' theories. This tension represented four 'undiscussables' or processes that hindered its learning: absence of trust, treating knowledge as a product, harmful 'knowledge-power' relationships and a 'failure' to examine critically the educational and socio-political assumptions on which its work was based. The study concludes with a description of the type of learning organisation that the Professional Support & Curriculum Directorate could become if it discussed these undiscussables constructively.
-
ItemThe things that remain : reflections on science education at Scots School Albury( 2008)This science curriculum study is sited on Scots School Albury and its predecessor, Albury Grammar School. This study began as a reprise to a curriculum study written by the author in 1948 and a survey in 2005-6 of Scots Alumni memories of their junior general science over fifty years. The survey analysed their perceptions of its purpose and impact relative to other subjects and to the overall education provided by the School. Because early in its history the school insistently saw itself as heir to the English Public School tradition the origins of the Scots tradition of science teaching were sought in 19'11 century English education when 'the Tradition' developed. This wider quest led to an enquiry about the place of science in 19th century English education which found points in common between the classical, liberal teaching of Thomas Arnold and the science-oriented teaching of headmasters at two notable schools, Queenwood College in the middle of the century and Oundle School at the end of the 19th century. The enquiry found that an early hunger for science knowledge manifested in the almost spontaneous rise of mechanics' institutes was later met by municipal technical institutes, and the adventure of the new subject of science in schools, despite a few brilliant exceptions, settled into the pre-professional training that has come to characterise school science. Early in the 20'h century in England, and later in Australia, a General Science movement emerged in protest at uninspired teaching and irrelevant programs for general education. In Australia, from the early writings of George Browne and Roy Stanhope, researchers and educators have pointed ways to get that early sense of adventure back into science teaching. The early science educators such as George Edmondson and Frederick Sanderson stressed methods of practice and application taking precedence before theory to maintain that sense of personal engagement. The things that remain are what reformers urged: strongly felt images that are of powerful but not remote abstractions. At the same time there is an impression of repeated waves of attempted reforms beating against but failing to breach the barriers of academic gloss.
-
ItemWhat it means to be a volunteer with the Baptist Community Services of New South Wales( 2001)Stimulated by the recent public and scholarly interest surrounding the International Year of the Volunteer, and a corresponding recognition of limitation in academic explanations of the meaning or significance of volunteerism, this project examines the phenomenon of what it means to be a volunteer with Baptist Community Services of New South Wales (BCS). Using case study methodology, qualitative data was obtained through individual in-depth interviews and focus groups consisting of a representative selection of volunteers, managers and clients of BCS. The project found that whilst academics and research participants alike contribute many relevant and helpful insights in answer to the research question of what it means to be a volunteer with BCS, their perceptions of the issue are noticeably different. Among academics, on the one hand, there is a prevailing big picture or macro conceptualisation of volunteering. Their concepts embrace the whole world of volunteering and are expressed theoretically in the form of paradigms such as the educative one of Lave and Wenger who view the meaning of volunteering in terms of situated learning within communities of practice. On the other hand, the participants deal with the question of meaning at the micro level of everyday lived-experience. They encapsulate the. essence of the meaning with word pictures or motifs, expressed in narrative form, that make their perceptions of meaning more accessible to non-academic people. The macro versus micro view of volunteering is a crucial finding of this investigation. The data shows some key factors in both the role of volunteer and the distinctive features of BCS that contribute to the meaning and identity of being a volunteer with BCS. The role of volunteer with BCS is essentially one of enriching the lives of clients. Volunteers are recognised as experts and are consulted in the areas of their expertise. BCS provides a supportive, encouraging environment with a Christian ethos that recognises an added spiritual dimension to the wellbeing it seeks to promote among clients, staff and volunteers. In this environment there is an emphasis on . functional relationships - and flexible leadership styles. Whilst affirming a balance between the drivers of motivation, namely altruistic service and self-actualisation, BCS pro-actively nurtures the exploration and expression of core values, such as sharing, loving and giving, as significant for the meaning of being a volunteer.
-
ItemProfessional registration and advice in state education: a comparative study of the origins and roles of statutory bodies connected with registration and advice in the administration of education in New South Wales and Victoria( 1974)The provision of educational services is a major task of Australian state political systems. At various times, in efforts to moderate the bureaucratic tendencies of centralised administrations by bringing a wider range of opinion to bear on the administration of public education, bodies to advise the responsible minister, and Parliament in some cases, have been established. An examination of the work of the Council of Public Education in Victoria, established ostensibly for this purpose, reveals that there is a confusion over the role and influence of advise within a state political administrative structure. This inquiry postulates that there are two basic, but disparate, functions of advice: a political function where representatives of interest groups can put their views to the Minister, and an evaluative function where the policies and practices of the public sector are evaluated. The formation of the Council of Public Education was justified to the public in terms of the latter function, but other features of the Council, such as its representative membership, are more like those of a body with political functions. This disjunction between structure and function, together with a confusion over the extent and use of its powers, have rendered the Council ant: ineffectual evaluative advisory body. The attitudes of administrators and other interested parties towards. educational advisory bodies are illuminated' by an investigation of the origins of these bodies in Victoria and New South Wales. The comparison of developments in the two states indicates that the concept of an evaluative advisory body, operating free of administrative and political interference, is incompatible with the present system of centralised control of public education in these states.
-
ItemThe development of state-controlled education in New South Wales, 1900-1922: with special reference to the work of Mr. Peter Board( [1950?])On 16th April 1880 the Public Instruction Act was passed by the New South Wales Parliament. This Act, which was sponsored by Sir Henry Parkes, is still today the keystone of the structure of public education in New South Wales. Under this Act a ministry of Public Instruction was established for the first time. State financial aid was withdrawn from denominational schools, and the teachers in the public schools became civil servants. All children between the ages of six and fourteen years were to be compelled to attend school for at least seventy days each half year, and to pay fees of threepence per week. Schools were to be established wherever twenty children could be collected; "provisional" schools were to be set up for an attendance of twelve, "half-time" schools for two groups of ten, and "house-to-house" schools where there were less than ten. Superior Public Schools and High Schools for both boys and girls were to be established for the first time under State control. In the schools, secular instruction was to be given for four hours per day. Included in this "secular instruction" was "general religious teaching as distinguished from dogmatical or polemical theology, and lessons in the history of England and in the history of Australia." (1) Clergymen from all denominations were allowed to teach sectarian religion to their adherents for one hour per week. These are some of the important provisions of the Act, which has had a profound effect on the development of education in New South Wales. On the passing of the Act, sectarian jealousies and bitterness died down after a vociferous but losing battle which had been waged from the beginning of the century. (From Introduction)
-
ItemJohn Lawrence Tierney: his contribution to education in Australia( 1985)When John Lawrence Tierney retired from the service of the New South Wales Department of Education in June 1952, few outside his immediate circle knew his name. His forty-odd years of teaching had brought him none of the rewards which come to the most successful of that profession. He had, however, made a noteworthy contribution. For John Tierney was also "Brian James", whose short stories, marked by comic invention and acute observation (especially of idiosyncratic behaviour), had been widely acclaimed since first they began to appear in the Bulletin ten years earlier. In his fifties before he began to take his writing seriously, his earliest themes were of the land. Born and raised on a farm, he had always hankered after a return to the life he knew before teaching. From the very beginning his short stories were compared with those of Henry Lawson, and some eminent critics thought Tierney's surpassed them. A year before his retirement, his first novel, The Advancement of Spencer Button, was published. Two features made it remarkable: its construction (Norman Lindsay referred to it as "one of the few major novels in the country"), and its themes. It was the first Australian novel to take schoolteaching as its subject. Not only was it a full account of the growth and development of public education in New South Wales, from the Public Instruction Act of 1880 until the Second World War, but also it contained much detail on daily life in our schools. Moreover, it was unique in its presentation of the account from the teacher's point of view rather than from the student's. It explained, for the first time, the frustrations and tensions of "the system" of education that had evolved. It was a comic novel, but its purpose was serious. For Tierney, education was central to the health of society, and it was important that it should be properly examined and then made well. Most of his writing after this novel dealt with similar issues. Unfortunately, none of it ever reached its heights. His retirement did not bring him the peace and leisure he had hoped for. He found that much of the desire to write had evaporated. Other circumstances, too, had changed. Those who had advised and encouraged him earlier were less able to do so. The last ten years of his life produced little. In all, the output during his writing career had been comparatively meagre. For this and similar reasons, an accurate assessment of his contribution is not easy - and, in fact, will not be possible until history makes its final judgement on the literary merits of his writing. In the meantime, there are two aspects of his contribution which even the passing of time cannot deny: four decades of dedicated service to the youth of the nation, and a unique novel. These make him worthy of special attention.