Faculty of Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 4 of 4
-
Item
-
ItemSocial competence and the core curriculum : a critical/empirical approach to the role of social education in the core curriculum( 1981)Through the reanalysis, reassessment, and reinterpretation of the data from the Essential Learning About Society study (Piper, 1977) from the point of view of current concerns about the core curriculum, this study develops an empirically-derived framework for a core curriculum in social education which takes into account the views of a substantial section of the Australian community. The study argues that social education is a necessary component of a core curriculum designed to meet the needs of both the individual student and the society as a whole; that the concept of social competence provides a valid basis for defining a core curriculum in social education; and that, in the absence of a definitive analysis of Australian society, community perceptions provide a practical alternative to the problems of defining an education for social competence. The developed framework provides a practical resource for incorporating community perceptions into core curriculum decision-making, and as such has potentially useful applications to educational policy and practice and to further research, as well as providing a body of empirical evidence in an area where such evidence is largely lacking.
-
ItemInitiative and control : in the Disadvantaged Schools Program in Victorian government schools, 1973-80( 1985)The Disadvantaged Schools Program seemed a fertile field for the study of the relationship between initiative and control. While the need for organisational controls, in the interests of conformity, cohesion, security, co-ordination and effectiveness can hardly be disputed, neither can the urge of individuals to be themselves, and to act as they think best. While any group, organisation or society needs some pattern of regulation, both for its own sake and for the sake of its members, harmony is a heavenly rather than an earthly state. The intrinsic nature of man, the gap between prescribed and actual organisational goals, the effect of continual change in people, structures and external conditions, all serve to ensure that the interaction between people and organisations can never be smooth for long. The key problem awaiting solutions is the finding of the parameters of the optimal relation between the individual member of an organisation and it overall structure, between individual aims and organisational goals, between necessary mechanisms of delegation and control and individual needs and expectations.
-
ItemThe history of St. John's College Braybrook, 1958-1978: an illustration of the tensions between local initiative and centralization in the field of Catholic education( 1985)In 1958 a group of local priests from within the Sunshine/Braybrook region saw the need for the establishment of a school to cater for post-primary catholic boys and showed much initiative in their attempts to bring such a venture to fruition. Their initiative is demonstrated by their efforts not only to assure the central authorities that the project was feasible from the financial angle, but also by their extensive attempts to gain the services of a religious order to conduct the college. Having no success with the local orders, the priests turned to overseas for assistance. In 1964 the Brothers of the Sacred Heart arrived in Australia to open their first college. With the opening of the school at the commencement of 1965, the priests' venture had become a reality. As the sixties progressed changes to catholic secondary education within the archdiocese were taking place. The role of the laity within the Church became a more active one. This was translated into the life of the college by means of increased participation in decision-making processes by the laity. Further, the re-introduction of "state-aid" enabled the college, like many others, to survive financially. It did at the same time enable catholic central authorities to play a more dominant role in the operation of the college. The college continued to expand throughout the seventies. Co-education was introduced at the senior levels in 1972. This led to the establishment in 1975 of an Archbishop's Committee to investigate the possibility of establishing a separate senior college. Unlike the planning which took place in the fifties by the priests, this venture was undertaken by the central Catholic Education Office. Local initiative had to a great extent been replaced by centralization.