Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemSpiritual health: its nature and place in the school curriculum( 1998-04)As spirituality first appeared in Australian curriculum documents in 1994, it was important to establish how educators thought it related to student well- being. In this research a description and four accounts of spirituality - spiritual rationalism, monism, dualism, and multidimensional unity - were developed from available literature. The literature also revealed four sets of relationships important to spiritual well-being. These were the relationships of a person with themself, others, environment, and Transcendent Other. The model of spiritual health proposed here claims that these four sets of relationships can be developed in corresponding Personal, Communal, Environmental and Global domains of human existence, each of which has two aspects - knowledge and inspiration. Progressive synergism describes the inter-relationship between the four domains. The quality of relationships in the four domains constitutes , spiritual well-being in each domain. Spiritual health is indicated by the combined effect of spiritual well-being in each of the domains embraced by a person. The principles of grounded theory qualitative research methodology were used to investigate the views of 98 teachers from a variety of schools near Melbourne. Feedback from 23 Australian experts, on the researcher’s definitions, is discussed. To encompass all the teachers’ views of spiritual health, to the initial categories of Personalist, Communalist, Environmentalist and Globalist, a fifth category was added for the small group Rationalists, who embraced the knowledge, but not the inspiration/transcendent aspects, of the first three domains of spiritual well-being. All the teachers believed spiritual health should be included in the school curriculum, most rating it of high importance, two-thirds believing it should be integral to the curriculum. The teachers’ major curriculum concerns focussed on Self, Others, the Transcendent, or Wholeness. Investigation of those teacher characteristics seen as important for promoting spiritual health, with associated hindrances and ideals, showed variation by gender, personal view of spiritual health, major curriculum concern, teacher and school type. Greatest variation was noticed when comparing school type. State school teachers emphasised care for the individual student from a humanistic perspective. Catholic school teachers were concerned for the individual, with religious activities being implemented by dedicated teachers. Other Christian school teachers focussed on corporate, not individualistic, activities, and emphasised relationship with God. Other non-government school teachers emphasised tradition, with attendant moral values. Implications of these variations on school choice are discussed. Principals’ behaviour, speech and attitude were considered by the teachers to be vital in providing opportunities for spiritual development in schools. A 30-item Spiritual Health Measure (of Humanistic and Religious Aspects of Spiritual Health) was developed using the researcher’s model of spiritual health and data from 300 UK teachers. The SHM should be useful as a diagnostic for individuals or groups to provide base data from which to plan enhancement of their spiritual health. This thesis contains an analysis of how well the Victorian Curriculum & Standards Framework provides guidelines for promoting spiritual health. A position of responsibility, called Spiritual Facilitator, is proposed to help ensure that the rhetoric about spiritual well-being is put into practice in schools.
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ItemBackground, religiosity and expectations of the parents and senior students in a Christian school( 1993)This study inspected the Senior School in a multicultural, multi-denominational school founded on a Christian base, servicing the Western suburbs of Melbourne. A quantitative religiosity measure and an instrument for determining nine expectation factors of schools were developed. Just under half of the school families had all members with high religious commitment, whereas a quarter had little. The mothers were more religious than either the students or the fathers, each of whose levels of religiosity correlated better with each other's, than the students' did with their mothers'. Overall, the parents had higher expectations of the school than did the students. In contrast to parents from higher socio-economic backgrounds, parents from lower backgrounds had higher expectations relating to prestige and job preparation for their children. The expectations of the school studied appeared similar to typical church schools, differing from previously studied Christian Community Schools (in NSW) in that the factor of Religious nature was of lower priority, and Academic standards higher. Higher expectations of the Christian nature of the school were held by non-locals and parents with non-English speaking background, compared with their counterparts. The highly religious students and parents scored higher on the factors relating to the school's Religious nature, Teacher quality, Moral standards, and Friends, but lower on Preparing students for employment, compared with the less religious. Three enrolment options were raised to help contemplate the future of the school in light of the diversity of expectations existent within the student and parent body.