Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Select Entry Accelerated Learning programs: Three case studies in regional Victorian secondary schools of low socio-economic status
    McLellan, Megan Elizabeth ( 2021)
    This study investigates Select Entry Accelerated Learning (SEAL) programs in Victorian Government secondary schools. This study’s warrant lies in the relative absence of sociological analysis of SEAL programs in the academic literature. Through a case study methodology, three regional secondary schools of socioeconomic disadvantage are examined. The perspectives of the schools’ principals are foregrounded. It also provides an overview of the grey literature on the history of SEAL programs. The work of Nancy Fraser is employed to analyse SEAL programs, and principals’ views, from a social justice perspective. My analysis makes the following arguments. First, that SEAL programs function differently in each school. Second, SEAL programs in regional schools tend to have a student-centric view of justice. Third, SEAL programs certainly attend to disadvantages, but, in some ways, can also reproduce them. Fourth, the principals’ perceptions of SEAL were context specific. Finally, principals adopt those elements of social entrepreneurialism that are specific to their educational context. They employ strategies to resource their disadvantaged schools in regional settings. I call this this socio-educational entrepreneurialism. The duality of Frasers three-tiered theory –redistribution/maldistribution, recognition/misrecognition, and representation/misrepresentation — helps to reveal the tensions the SEAL programs create within their respective schools and broader community. Overall, this investigation elucidates the complexities that SEAL programs present in schools and community settings and the ways they can pluralistically offset and contribute to injustice.