Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe confused Frenchman : some considerations of 'freedom' in Rousseau's writings and its educational implications( 1987)The focus in this thesis is the concept of 'freedom' and, more specifically, how this concept is used by Rousseau. An attempt will first be made to clarify the meaning of 'freedom' and then Rousseau's discussions about it will be examined. Particular emphasis will be placed on an analysis of educational freedom and what Rousseau writes about it, especially in Emile. It will also be argued that the ideal political freedom that Rousseau proposes in The Social Contract is an extension of the freedom he talks about in Emile. Some critics have levelled the charge that Rousseau is not consistent in his definitions of what constitutes freedom and Max Rafferty has even referred to him as 'the confused Frenchman'. In this thesis it will be argued that this confusion is only apparent and not real. In this respect, the critical literature about Rousseau's theories on freedom will be analysed in an attempt to show that there is indeed an internal consistency of definition in Rousseau's works and that his view is of positive, rather than negative, freedom.
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ItemYoga and education( 1982)This expository thesis looks at the relationship between the principles of Classical Yoga and the Prospectus of the School of Total Education conducted by the Helen Vale Foundation in Melbourne. A brief overview of the nature of. Classical Yoga is given. This is followed by an examination of the two basic tenets of the school, viz.,the concept of total education and the need for the school students to be given a philosophy of life. The examination presents these two factors in the light of their origins in Yoga philosophy. This is followed by an investigation of the major aims and objectives of the school and their relationship to the principles of Yoga. In particular, moral education, the control of the ego and the emotions, detachment, spirituality, the physical and psychosomatic practices and the role, function and methods of the teacher are discussed. The conclusion attempts to suggest the possible relevance of the yogic and educational aims, methods and practices of the School of Toil Education for education generally.
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ItemA philosophical analysis of the concept of education( 1989)The thesis critically examines some of the concepts involved In the elucidation of the concept of education developed by R.S. Peters who says that education Is a family of processes whose purposes are the development of desirable states of mind. In particular, it critically examines the concept of mind built into Peters' conception of education and argues that Peters is correct to imply that the mind cannot be reduced to brain states. Education, I .claim is a telological concept primarily concerned with the transmission of cultural values. The thesis begins by briefly looking at behaviourist views of mind, and introduces the Identity Theory as an attempt to provide a better explication of the nature of mind. Feigl's views on the nature of mind are examined, in particular, his attempted reduction of the mental to the physical. His rejection of the concept of emergence is challenged and what is meant by the reduction of one theory to another is elucidated. It is concluded that the mental cannot be reduced to the physical. The features of scientific explanation in general are explored. It Is found that scientific explanation is applicable largely in physical science contexts, and so is of limited use in explaining the concept of mind, and so the concept of education. Teleological explanations are examined, since it is apparent that education is a teleological explanation. The question of whether teleological explanations can be reduced to non-teleological explanations is considered. It is found that there are at least three forms of teleological explanation, (i) functional explanation, (ii) goal-directed explanation and (iii) purposive explanation. It is clear from an examination of these that education is explained in terms of purpose. An examination of the concept of intention and its relationship to action forms a major portion of the thesis. The problem of whether there can be several descriptions of one action is considered, as well as whether Intentions are entailed by desires. The relationship between actions and events is considered, discussing in particular the concept of cause. Five uses of the term "cause" are outlined. It is postulated that the causal power In agent causation is the "act of will", which forms part of the intention to act. The concept of a process, and some of the ways in which it may be defined, is examined. The concept of development is briefly considered in the light of the analysis of the concept of a process. It is concluded that education may be termed a super-process. As a process, education can never be completed, but continues throughout an Individual's life. The purposes of education and what might be meant by desirable states of mind are discussed. The primary purpose of education, it is asserted, is the imparting of values. The question of who decides what states of mind might be termed desirable is considered and it is concluded that it is society, or the community who decide what values are to be imparted.
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ItemD.H. Lawrence, fulfilment and education : a presentation, interpretation and evaluation of his educational views, with specific reference to his core ideas of individual and social fulfilment( 1981)Lawrence despaired of civilisation, which he considered to have left the rails and become profoundly dehumanising. It was all the more demoralising because he harboured what to him must have appeared a viable vision of 'fullness', of human fulfilment, which, he thought, it would be possible to articulate and realize through education. Man he saw as potentially spontaneous, integrated, vital, creative, authentic, flexible, possessed of every strength and virtue, once he would have fully recovered his birthright in a world permeated creatively by the Life-Force he assumed was active in the universe. He envisioned reconstructed Society as a projection, not as in contemporary Society, of distorting national ambitions or economic imperialism, or yet of purposes unconnected with human fulfilment, but of the regenerated individual's hopes, needs and achievements. The schools of his own day, however, Lawrence saw as conniving in the decay and drift of civilisation and in the dehumanisation of man. They failed to challenge the ambient decay and inertia, and instead sought to indoctrinate, to intellectualise all experience and to promote unreal hopes of social mobility. They imprisoned and frustrated; they stifled human energy and destroyed human integrity. They were instruments of 'nullity'. However, this scathing view of schools is counter-balanced by their potential instrumentality in human regeneration. In this context, Lawrence emphasised responsible leadership, flexible institutions, fulfilment-centred methods and programmes, a closer relationship between school and life, the fostering of intrinsic values, the need for strong ethical and spiritual purpose and for educating the whole individual. Cumulatively, he hoped, these emphases would enable individuals, and thereby, society, to attain to 'fullness', to be fulfilled. It is my contention, though, that Lawrence, while having a perfectly coherent if incomplete educational blueprint for human renewal, mistook, to some extent, formal and substantive requirements; that he had serious temperamental and philosophical limitations which hamstrung his social and educational views; and that, even if his package was successful enough to improve appreciably the climate of schools and the capacity of individuals for self-realization in many ways, it was unlikely to lead society as a whole to change positively to the degree he envisioned. For one thing, his view of individual fulfilment left out women and the handicapped, and his attempt at liberating individuals politically must be seen as potentially enslaving; for another, while having a most generous and formally liberal view of education, he overestimated its power to bring about radical cultural change. While concentrating,like Freud, on the psychic and psychological bases of the reality of individual and social life, he ignored its other dimensions, especially the material and the economic, and underestimated the will and the power of entrenched social forces to resist change. It is fair to say that despite the marginal gains his efforts at securing the millenium may have ensured, the latter remains as elusive as ever.
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ItemJohn Holt : radical romantic : a study of his educational writings( 1988)It is the purpose of this study to examine the contributions of John Holt to American theories of 'child-centred' education. In particular, this study explores the extent to which Holt's notions on education can be termed both radical and romantic. Asserting that children were 'naturally' motivated and capable of making a responsible use of freedom of choice, Holt aimed in his writings to present what he felt were the optimum conditions under which that choice could be exercised. His work is significant in that while retaining the familiar educational theories present in Rousseau, Froebel, A.S. Neill and other key figures in the progressive tradition, it still embodies the profound changes that have taken place in American thought on education over the last three decades. In all, Holt's writings on education can be seen to fall into three main phases: the reformist, the deschooling and the homeschooling phases, each of which is examined in the light of the social and political movements that helped to inspire it. In the sixties, Holt was largely concerned with investigating new ways of thinking about how children learn and the role of the teacher within the context of the classroom. In the seventies, he increasingly rejected what he saw as the authoritarian role of institutional schooling, and identified with the radical ideology of the deschoolers. By the eighties, Holt had become the leading American spokesman for the homeschooling movement, which remains the most radical and romantic of his alternatives for 'child-centred' education. Throughout these various phases, there is a prevailing sense of mission, a persistent belief that he had found the solution for the so called 'crisis' in the schools. His main concern was always with the welfare of the child, whose interests he saw as ultimately being best served in the homeschooling situation. In the mid-eighties, he considered that even conventional schools could benefit from co-operation with the homeschoolers. It is the argument of this thesis that John Holt's own brand of radical romanticism was ultimately to lead him away from the social and political realities that impinged upon his writings. By largely opting out of the very pressures that beset public schooling in the United States, Holt's homeschooling movement seems destined to remain on the fringe. However, for all the romantic limitations and idiosyncrasies of his thought, it is argued that Holt has offered a valuable contribution to Dewey's fundamental question of 'what education is'.
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ItemR.S. Peters, education and value( 1984)R. S. Peters is recognized as the founder of the recent and more respectable approach to philosophizing about education known as "the philosophy of education". Following his appointment to the Chair of Philosophy of Education at the University of London Institute of Education in 1962, the influence of his work and his approach to the philosophical treatment of educational problems grew enormously. Since the mid 1960's he has been pro�eminent as the champion of the study, with no rival who has threatened seriously to eclipse his importance or displace his fundamental approach with a more effective one. Philosophizing about education is still done largely in conscious appreciation of the relation it bears to Peters' work, whether it be "pro", "anti" or connected by some other tangent to Peters. Even those who have decided more recently to "start afresh" without him and his approach, and conduct their philosophical business elsewhere, are arguably part of a post�Peters phenomenon. There may be some sound reasons at the moment for seeking new philosophical pastures, or asking very seriously "Where do we go from here ?", but those who choose to forsake rather than to refute continue to testify to the imposing dominance of Peters' work. There is a sense in which Peters' very pre�eminence tends to attract anyone who wishes to make their own mark in philosophizing about education: whether it is merely to make it clear where they stand in relation to him, or to add to or subtract from aspects of his position and work. That is one motive for engaging with what he has written. The present thesis was conceived from the viewpoint of having been initially very impressed with Peters' singular and distinctive contribution to educational philosophy, but of having come over a period of time � through teaching it and working through its implications � to believe that, while it encompasses much that is important and worthwhile, it lacks something fundamental in the area of values and value connections. As is often the case, convictions like these are formed before one is able to specify what, if anything, is wrong. So, the work on the thesis itself provided the means of testing the conviction, by investigating seriously and at some length the relation between 'education' and 'value' in Peters' work. The work of examining the adequacy of Peters' value claims in relation to education � which occupies the larger portion of the thesis� may seem initially to be more negative than positive in import, but is an indication of the depth to which it was necessary to go to unravel the complex and often elusive threads of his value assumptions. A large number of criticisms of Peters, including many made or implied initially by other writers, are noted and incorporated into a sustained treatment, which is independently structured and given as much coherence as it seemed possible to achieve with Peters' work in this area. On the positive side, a case is made during the course of the critical review in the first three chapters for a single non valuative necessary condition for "education". An original suggestion about how value is related to education is proposed towards the end of the fourth chapter, where an alternative way of understanding the higher valuation Peters calls "intrinsic" is recommended to overcome the various problems that beset his case. The fifth chapter is devoted to explaining this new notion � that value is intrinsic to educated individuals rather than to education itself � and there is an assessment of its significance in the conclusion. It provides a viable alternative to Peters' account of value, and is the major positive contribution of the thesis.
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ItemArtistic knowledge, meaning, and truth in educational theory( 1983)On both sides of the Atlantic, there has emerged a number of influential defences since the early 'sixties of liberal or general education. Several of these may be characterised by the way in which those activities said to be educational are ultimately tied to the concept of knowledge. For all the variations in their conception of knowledge, both philosophers of education and curriculum theorists alike have constantly acknowledged this connexion, as respectively exemplified by R.K. Elliott ...my chief concern is with the justification of education as the pursuit of knowledge and understanding1 and R.A. Pring in educating we are concerned with the development, indeed enrichment, of mental life, and...central to such development is the growth of knowledge.2 Furthermore, when analysing the concept of knowledge, such philosophers and theorists have investigated possible ways of dividing or categorising it in order to rationalise or justify the place of such disciplines as the various arts and sciences within the curriculum of liberal or general education. Within this trend, two figures, notable for stressing knowledge and mind, meaning and truth as the crucial determinants in curriculum planning, have proved amongst the most influential. They are P.H. Hirst and P.H. Phenix whose views are popularly associated with the epistemological frames of reference respectively known as "forms of knowledge" and "realms of meaning" (originally entitled "generic classes of knowledge"). (From Introduction)
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ItemUtopia, community and education: Robert Owen and the co-operative movement, Britain 1800-1845( 1986)Mankind seems to entertain a perennial dissatisfaction with the present. The ideal of a better, even perfected, future is also perennial and equally likely to occur in the individual consciousness as the collective one. In times of turmoil and hardship, the more visionary individuals have articulated schemes for a better future, and these have become known as 'utopias'. This thesis represents an exploration of one episode of utopian thought. Robert Owen's vision for a better world was formed against the background of the industrialization of Britain early in the nineteenth century. In the following analysis of Owen's thinking, three contentions are posited: 1. Owen and the followers of his doctrines saw an inextricable link between education and the community. 2. Owenism can profitably be interpreted within the context of the tradition of utopian thought. 3. The concept of community provides a wholeness and unity in Owen's thinking. The first chapter examines the nature of utopian thought, something which appears necessary to understand Owen's concept of the community. Subsequent chapters deal with Owen's design for the ideal community, the mode of education he felt should attend this, and the links between the two. The conclusion summarizes and draws together the above contentions, considers the possibilities for further research, and argues for the relevance of Owen as a possible theoretical precursor to current educational thinking which emphasizes the role of the community.