Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe educational theory of G.H. Bantock in the context of British educational thought 1965-1975( 1990)The 1960s and early 1970s witnessed changes in many social values in Britain; the educational world was not immune to the turbulence of these years. The classifications of `traditionalist', `conservative', `progressive' and 'radical' were attributed indiscriminately to the wide spectrum of party affiliations. As a result, the characteristics of these `parties' became difficult to isolate amid the vague condemnatory generalisations and intense criticism of personalities which characterized the period. G.H. Bantock (b. 1914) was considered a prominent traditionalist of these times, and as such, attempted to swim against the tide of what he believed was an increasing, uncultured progressivism. This study attempts to present a summary of Bantock's principal concerns, and to offer a profile of the main thrusts of the arguments which he advanced in over eighty major publications. As a subsidiary theme, it considers the nomenclature of the period, particularly from the perspective of the traditionalist, and seeks to isolate the foundations of that philosophical stance. Part 1 is a summary of the main concerns which consumed Bantock's attention during his career. Part 2 considers the means by which Bantock believed the problems of contemporary education could be solved, and Part 3 presents the author's evaluation of the ideas outlined in the previous sections.
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ItemCharacteristics of reflective practice in students of a diploma in nursing program : an issue-centred curriculum evaluation( 1993)This case study was a theory-driven evaluation and an issue-centred curriculum evaluation. By methods of critical multiplism a Diploma in Nursing program was evaluated to identify how a reflective approach to clinical practice was characterised by students, and how the reflective approach to teaching and learning was implemented in the program. Sources of data were the curriculum, Schon's writings and speeches on reflective practice, students, sessional clinical teachers and lecturers. First year graduates of the program were also surveyed, giving a longitudinal aspect to the study. Conclusions were that reflection in action or 'action present' was characterised in students of the course by excellent processes and actions of thinking and attitudes relative to client care when faced with unique, conflicting or divergent situations in practice The student' characteristics included a professional appreciative system of doing the right 'thing' by clients, within the boundaries or role frame of nursing practice. Graduates of the program displayed these characteristics in more autonomous situations consistent with their post-registration status. The structural and administrative arrangements for clinical conferences/reflective seminars were the main factor in developing a reflective approach in students. Implementation of a reflective approach to teaching and learning by means of formal policies or guidelines on the topic was poor. However, although unaware of the reflective approach as a teaching/learning strategy in the formal sense, sessional clinical teachers facilitated reflection on scientific, procedural and intersubjective concepts of understanding with the students, for the purpose of nursing care delivery, as prescribed in the curriculum.
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ItemFrom the industrial to the convivial ethos : Ivan Illich on needs, commodities, education and the politics of change( 1991)The appearance of the soul-stirring views of Ivan Illich in the early seventies made for an iconoclastic campaign against current claims and definitions of objective social progress in our industrial-computer-technology age. His controversial message expressed serious concern about the consumerist ethos of modern societies and the pathogenic nature of our institutions. Today, the radical literature boom, of which Illich was part, appears to have gone quiet. Additionally, aspects of his writings have been superseded by new radical discourses. Yet still, for all that, Illich has produced an imposing and provocative critique of modern industrial society that goes a long way to demythologize our world view of "what is" of the sociocultural reality around us. In this sense, Illich has posed problems and offered positions that remain relevant to radical politics, and that are likely to concern us for a very long time. Throughout this thesis, I will attempt to contextualize and present the matrix of Illich's thought. In view of the ample critical responses to Illich's work, I do not intend to present a comprehensive critical appraisal, though I will concentrate on an assessment of his proposed strategy for the transition to a more humane society. I will begin, in chapter one, by mapping out Illich's critique of the increased importance of commodity culture within both the production and social reproduction - the ways in which advanced industrial society reproduces itself in individual thought and behaviour. Illich's investigation of the consumer society points to how institutions and a wide variety of cultural phenomena within social life are becoming forms of commodification and consumption, thus engendering deleterious and dehumanizing consequences. Chapter two takes Illich's objections to the consumerist ethos and investigates the role of compulsory public schooling within the logic of the commodification process. On the whole, Illich illustrates that the school, by packaging knowledge as a consumer commodity, distorts the meaning of education for its own vested interests. While the first two chapters attempt to contextualize Illich's writings, chapter three explores his conceptualization of the "ideal society" and his proposals for social and educational transformation. In chapter four, I will critically appraise Mich's thinking on radical social reconstruction in contradistinction to his Marxist critics and their proposed strategies. Out of this debate, the relevance of Illich's political concerns to current radical politics will be further clarified. My purpose in chapter five will be to confront the dilemma posed by Mich: should a radical policy be directed to reform or to deschool? I will attempt to present and appraise some of the prominent critical views levelled against Illich's politics for social change. In the final chapter, an attempt will be made to reveal what the deschooling analysis does not take into account. Attention will be given to how "resistance" theories, in particular the work of Paul Willis, provide an alternative view of how school reproduces the social order. New possibilities for schools acting as agents of social change are presented. The efforts of "empowerment" theorists build up these possibilities and call for "transformative" pedagogies to be developed within the schools. The major concern here will be to ascertain whether there is a role for the school, as we know it, to play in radically transforming society, and whether some middle ground can be charted with respect to Illich's project for deschooling society.
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ItemConstructing a map of Australian occupations: Gottfredson's hypotheses and relationships within the world of work( 1994)This dissertation evaluates L. S. Gottfredson's concept and graphical depiction of the Cognitive Map of Occupations and the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations. The evaluation is guided by a revised version of Popper's argument that there are three types of existence. These he names 'World 1' (the world of material objects and processes) 'World 2' (the world of subjective experience) and 'World 3'. It is argued that Popper misconstrues World 3 by describing it as consisting of the products of the human mind. By adapting the arguments of Bhaskar, it is shown that World 3 can be interpreted as social existence. This theoretical framework shows that the Cognitive Map of Occupations is appropriately conceptualised by Gottfredson. It indicates that the graphical depiction that she presents of the Cognitive Map of Occupations should be regarded only as a heuristic device. When the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations is so regarded, it is argued that Gottfredson erroneously infers its existence because she uses concepts which refer to World 2 processes to extrapolate into World 3. Her graphical depiction of the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations is, consequently, also flawed. When the critique of the Cognitive Map of Occupations and the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations is completed, new data are described and a theoretical context is developed to interpret these data. This theory starts from the critique of Gottfredson's ideas. A map of Australian occupations is then constructed. This map and related data are explored using Exploratory Data Analysis showing that the World of Work may consist of subcultures related to the nature of the work environment. These sub cultures are found to be internally divided along various dimensions. Despite these divisions, they have strong enough boundaries to retain their field type identity. These findings help to show that the Map of Australian Occupations provides a coherent view of the world of work.
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ItemTeacher narrative: illuminating the commonsense reality of teaching( 1993)This study began as research on the pedagogical content knowledge of three teachers working with the researcher in a Catholic girls' school. It developed as a discourse framing each teacher's knowledge within a moral imperative which took into account the purpose of the teacher, the culture of teaching, the teacher as a person, and the relationships that teachers have with their colleagues. Each of the resulting narratives illuminated their teaching as creative, knowledgeable and compassionate. The reciprocal interaction between the observer and the observed resulted in a shared epistemology of practice. This illumination of the common sense reality of teaching led to significant professional development for all the teachers involved in the study. Research of this type may facilitate a closer partnership between schools and universities that would sponsor collaboration between teachers to articulate their professional knowledge and in so doing, improve the quality of teaching.
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ItemActive participation in the emergence of musical phenomena: a commentary and guide( 1994)It is intended that this work be used by students of music, and specifically, by students of conducting. For that reason, it is both epistemological commentary and developmental guide. Part A of the study identifies a perceived deficiency of artistic feeling in contemporary musical life. It argues that human consciousness is a continuum which, as it evolves, develops modes of thinking which it believes to be appropriate for human existence in the world at this time, and further, that the history of humankind is, at the same time, a contraction of consciousness rather than, as is commonly thought to be the case, an expansion. The commentary argues, correlatively, that in seeking freedom from dependence, consciousness has not only developed thinking which it believes to be applicable to all human endeavour, but has unwittingly accommodated modes of thinking which are singularly inappropriate for the creation of artistic as distinct from acoustic phenomena. The discussion centres around the cognitive confusion in formal education and in musical life generally, a situation which, it is contended, has grown out of failure firstly, to recognise the abovementioned cognitive distinction, and secondly, to formulate epistemological questions in a manner which might lead to the explication of musical knowing, or that which enables us to be musical prior to any speculation about what music is. Part B of the study, which grew out of a period of phenomenological research, takes the form of a corrective to the hidden presupposition that musical artistry is an expression of self dependent on unconscious inspiration rather than a liberation of potentially perfect, and therefore, objective tone-forms, whose actualization in sound is reliant on conscious acts of imagination leading to intuition. For musical purposes, the retrieval of this lost but essential mode of thinking is possible only through the acknowledgment of a more capacious, qualitative concept of knowing, and in the systematic education of previously neglected inner faculties. As a method, Part B of the study is an experiential response to the questions, 'How does a musician know a musical tone?' and, 'Can this knowledge be drawn on to enhance performance?'
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ItemOn democratic schooling: an analysis of developments in Victoria( 1990)This is a thesis in philosophy of education. There are many points of contact between philosophy and, education, and there are bodies of intellectual enquiry in the English-speaking analytic tradition of philosophy which are centrally concerned with issues clustering around teaching and learning, the formal provision of these in schooling and society in general, and more generally, the nature of knowledge, truth, justice, identity and reality insofar as these are part of educative processes and outcomes. Traditions of philosophical enquiry which have engaged with these issues in influential ways have become philosophies of education in their own right, and have contributed to, and informed, continuing debates over the provision and practice of schooling in western societies which are themselves democratic in political outlook, and capitalist in economic activity. Indeed, it can be shown that these two aspects of western societies have symbiotically influenced philosophical enquiry in general and deliberations on education in particular. Relatively discrete philosophies of education, it would seem, can then be fairly regarded as products, as much as ingredients, of the intellectual and material life of a society. Bearing all this in mind, then, any substantial philosophical enterprise centering on education and related issues must take into account the contextuality of that enterprise itself, as much as it recognises and deals with the contextuality of other philosophical contributions to the issues under consideration. This thesis has schooling provision, policy and practice in the Australian state of Victoria as its material context. The intellectual context is provided by a consideration of the central concepts, "democracy" "education" and "schooling", as these have evolved since the seventeenth century, in English-speaking capitalist democracies. Chapter One is concerned with this, and ends with a plan for the rest of the thesis. In brief, Chapters Two, Three and Four argue for an emergent theory and practice of democratic schooling. This is taken to be an extension of liberal education, which is itself in some tension with the closely related notion of the provision of schooling in a liberal democracy. A more effective democracy, it is argued, will result if at least the type of schooling it provides and encourages breaks with excessively individualistic and inequitable "marketplace" models of curriculum, achievement and resourcing. Democratic schooling, by contrast, will seek co-operative participation, more inclusive teaching and learning strategies, and, most important, a recognition and fostering of the diversity present in the members of a western society in the late twentieth century. Accordingly, all three are present in each of "cultural formation", "educational' autonomy" and "social justice", which are argued for in detail as the cornerstones of democratic schooling. In Chapter Five, these, and the considerations of Chapter One, are drawn together, and suggestions are made about the future: there is much to be learned from current feminist thinking on democracy and education.
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ItemIntrinsic value and education( 1994)The object of this enquiry was, firstly, to investigate the nature of intrinsic value, and, secondly, to discover what relationship, if any, it has with education. While intrinsic value remained difficult to actually define, several broad senses of the term were identified. That is, value of something as part of its intrinsic nature, value of something for its own sake as distinct from value due to something else of value to which it leads, and the prima facie sense of value attaching in the first instance to certain basic kinds of experience instinctively judged to be good or bad. Two broad approaches as to how value, and intrinsic value in particular, is conceived were identified, these being the objective and subjective approaches respectively; and much of Part I was occupied with examination and comparison of the different problems encountered by each. While the objective approach was held to be relatively untenable, due to its lack of assimilation of the inalienable element of human cognition in the meaning of value, the subjective approach was considered not to offer an acceptable alternative in the relativistic form in which it is generally known. An alternative version of the subjective approach was suggested, which provides a more stable and enduring foundation than can relativism, while incorporating the agent-basing element of value. Under this alternative approach, intrinsic value can be identified in the latter two senses in which the term is used. The views of three educationalists were considered, of whom two (Plato and Rousseau) have specifically accorded instrumental value to their respective conceptions of education, while the third (R. S. Peters) has related intrinsic value to his. It was found that this relationship is one of conceptual necessity, which offers little further enlightenment as to the nature of intrinsic value, yet indicates that such a relationship is nevertheless possible.