Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Aims, men or money?. the establishment of secondary education for boys in South Australia and in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales - 1836 to 1860
    Noble, Gerald W ( 1980)
    Young children bring with them to school a certain amount of science knowledge gained from their everyday lives. What they "know", whether right or wrong, may be the result of interactions with family, television, computer programs, books, peers or visits to environmental locations, museums or science centres. In this study, children who have been at primary school for between two and three years are asked to describe their knowledge and their sources of information. The extent to which school factors are influencing their science knowledge is investigated. A survey was developed and protocols trialled before fifty-seven children aged eight and nine years at a provincial Victorian government primary school were surveyed to establish their home background and family interest in science, their own attitudes and feelings toward science and the efficacy of their science experiences at school. Interviews were carried out with nine students, selected to represent a broad range of attitudes to science, in order to gain more detailed information about their specific understandings of a number of topics within the primary school science curriculum and the sources of their information. The students' responses revealed that where they were knowledgeable about a subject they could indeed say from where they obtained their knowledge. Books were the most commonly cited source of information, followed by school, personal home experiences and family. Computers and the internet had little influence. Students who appeared to have "better" understandings quoted multiple sources of information. Positive correlations were found between enjoyment of school lessons and remembering science information, liking to watch science television or videos and remembering science information, and liking to read science books and remembering science information. Mothers were also linked to the use of science books at home, and the watching of nature TV shows at home. There are several implications for the teaching of science at early years level. Teachers need to be aware of powerful influences, from both within and outside of the classroom, which may impact on children, and which may be enlisted to help make learning more meaningful. The research indicates the importance of home background, parental interest and access to books, and notes the under utilisation of computers and lack of visits to museums and interactive science centres.
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    Multicultural education : an account of the construction of an object of public knowledge
    Wolf, Edward ( 1982)
    This thesis examines major statements about Multicultural Education enunciated by Federal government bodies over the past decade. In doing so, it seeks to identify the ideological aspects of the knowledge thereby constructed and to determine the manner of that construction within an historical context. In particular, it is argued that, by almost entirely ignoring the issue of social class, and concentrating on ethnicity as the major issue to be addressed, Multicultural Education has become a means of ideological control in the education system of our society. An examination of models of Multicultural Education is also carried out, informed by concepts drawn from core curriculum theory. This leads to a model, presented in curricular terms, which avoids the inconsistencies that are identified in the analysis of the major statements.
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    Social area indicators and educational achievement
    Ross, Kenneth N (1947-) ( 1982)
    This study was concerned with the development and validation of a national indicator of educational disadvantage which would be suitable for guiding resource allocation decisions associated with the Disadvantaged Schools Program in Australia. The national indicator was constructed by using a series of stepwise regression analyses in order to obtain a linear combination of census based descriptions of school neighbourhoods which would be highly correlated with school mean achievement scores. A correlational investigation of the properties of this indicator showed that it was an appropriate tool for the identification of schools in which there were high proportions of students who (1) had not mastered the basic skills of Literacy and Numeracy, (2) displayed behavioural characteristics which formed barriers to effective learning, and (3) lived in neighbourhoods having social profiles which were typical of communities suffering from deprivation and poverty. A theoretical model was developed in order to estimate the optimal level of precision with which indicators of educational disadvantage could be used to deliver resources to those students who were in most need of assistance. This model was used to demonstrate that resource allocation programs which employ schools as the units of identification and funding must take into account the nature of the variation of student characteristics between and within schools. The technique of factor analysis was employed to investigate the dimensions of residential differentiation associated with the neighbourhoods surrounding Australian schools. Three dimensions emerged from these analyses which were congruent with the postulates of the Shevky- Bell Social Area Analysis model. The interrelationships between these dimensions and school scores on the national indicator of educational disadvantage presented a picture of the 'social landscape' surrounding educationally disadvantaged schools in Australia as one in which there were: high concentrations of persons in the economically and socially vulnerable position of having low levels of educational attainment and low levels of occupational skill, low concentrations of persons living according to the popular model of Australian family life characterized by single family households, stable families, and separate dwellings, high concentrations of persons likely to have language communication problems because they were born in non-English speaking countries.
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    Egan's stage theory : an exploratory study of its use in the analysis of science textbooks
    Valmadre, Christopher Charles ( 1985)
    Kieran Egan (1979) has challenged educationists to consider the need for a Theory of Development which is specifically Educational. Such a need is discussed and examined in the context of science teaching. Egan's Theory was applied to the selection of science text material for a group of eleven and twelve year old students. The students' responses to the materials were compared with Egan's descriptions of certain developmental stages, particularly of his Romantic Stage. The author concluded that Egan's theoretical proposition assisted in interpeting certain student behaviour and preferences. Possible classroom uses of Egan's theory are discussed, implications for text usage and design are outlined, and some areas of research are suggested.
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    The history of the development of specialist teaching training programmes for teachers of migrant children, 1947-1973
    Todd, Brian Martin ( 1983)
    Information concerning the development of specialist teacher training programmes for teachers of migrant children is fragmentary, being scattered through some 130 published and unpublished documents. The aim of this thesis has been to present, with some degree of order and continuity, that information in a single volume. The resulting compilation is largely descriptive, though some analysis and interpretation could not be avoided. To supplement and to substantiate some of the data collated from the numerous documents, the experiences of a number of teachers who have taught significant proportions of migrant children between 1947 and 1973 have been related. Some of these experiences were gathered by means of a questionnaire which was completed by teachers who had responded to advertisements placed by the writer in The Sun (August 4, 1983) and The Age (August 15, 1983). The advertisements are included as Appendix A.1, and the questionnaire as Appendix A.2. Other experiences were gathered by means of personal interviews with a number of teachers. A full list of all persons from whom information was gathered appears as Appendix A.3. The paper concentrates on the development of specialist teacher training programmes within the Federal and State education systems, with only brief mention of developments within the Catholic education system. Such concentration is not intended to reflect a view that efforts made by the Catholic Church towards the problems of migrant children are insignificant. Indeed, the Catholic schools bore a very substantial share of the influx of migrant children and faced immense educational difficulties as a result, yet they succeeded in making as good a job as possible under the circumstances. Because the history of developments within the Catholic education system is a considerable area on its own, and because much material in that area has already been documented by Carmel O'Dwyer (Responses of Government and Catholic Educational Authorities to the influx of migrants, 1950-1960, with special reference to the experience of a selected group of schools conducted by the Victorian Sisters of Mercy),1 Michael Elliot (Migrant Education in Fitzroy, 1965-1975),2 and Denis Moore (The initial response to the migrant presence in four inner suburban Christian Brothers' schools as revealed in the inspectors' reports and other available sources),3 those developments are not included in this history. The population elements to which the discussion refers to as 'migrants' are those people from 'non-English speaking' origin, excluding Aboriginals. 1. Unpublished Master of Education Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1977. 2. Unpublished Master of Education Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1977. 3. Unpublished Master of Education Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1981. The introductory chapter briefly outlines the Federal Government's immediate steps to provide some training for teachers of adult migrants, and serves to highlight the official indifference outlined by Chapters II, III and IV, to the needs of training for teachers of migrant children until the late sixties when short in-service training courses were introduced. Chapter V traces the history of these short courses. Chapter VI presents the development of in-service teacher training under the Child Migrant Education Programme, the development of some tertiary courses leading to awards, and the development of pre-service courses, all of which take place in the emerging notion of 'multiculturalism'. The initial assumption levelled at teachers of migrant children was that no special training in migrant education was necessary because no special effort was necessary to teach migrant children. If teachers were kindly and understanding, and approached the problem with good sense, migrant children in their care would be rapidly assimilated. Requests for specialist help were made as early as 1954, but a general lack of appreciation of the problem by administrators ensured that these requests were unheeded. The contents of the Haines Report and the Dovey Report in the late fifties vindicated the belief that teachers of migrants did not require special training. The Dovey Report in particular lulled disquiet about the problems of migrant school children, for the four years immediately following its release witnessed only a few ad hoc and unco-ordinated attempts to draw attention to the need for teacher training. By the mid-sixties, however, a number of changes in educational thought were responsible for some new developments in migrant education. It became a public issue, and a number of surveys highlighted its needs. The result was the introduction in Victoria in 1968 of some short in-service teacher training courses. The inadequacies of these courses were soon felt. A survey conducted in New South Wales in 1969 prompted the Commonwealth Government to assume responsibility for the development, management and financial control of child migrant education. Financial assistance was provided to cover the cost of special training courses for teachers, in the method of teaching English as a foreign language. These four-week courses were introduced in 1970. At the same time, and in the setting of a developing notion of multicultural education, the first specialized teacher training course in migrant education to be offered by an Australian tertiary institution was developed. This course led to the award of the Diploma of Migrant Teaching, and commenced at Armidale Teachers' College in 1973. By the end of 1973, some other tertiary institutions were developing graduate and pre-service courses. The history of the development of specialist teacher training programmes obviously does not end in 1973. That year was chosen as the cut-off date for this history for two reasons. Firstly it was, as stated previously, the year in which the first specialized course was offered by an Australian tertiary institution. Secondly, by 1973 the stage was set, in terms of an awareness of the urgent need for pre-service and in-service teacher training,, for the developments that were to take place from 1973 to the present time.4 4. Cf. L. Sislov, Conceptions of Bilingual Education; the contexts in which conceptions emerge and certain practical pedagogical initiations emerging therefrom in Australia and other countries. Unpublished Master of Education Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1982, Chapters 9 and 10.
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    Difficulties in maintenance of ethnic language and culture in a multicultural society: with particular reference to Italian families in Melbourne
    Kynoch, Hope ( 1981)
    The growing political awareness and acknowledgment of Australia's multicultural society produced in the seventies an increasing number of reports on the needs of the ethnic communities. The Government acknowledges that it is now essential to encourage the development of a multicultural attitude in Australian society to foster the maintenance of cultural heritage and promote intercultural understanding. The long-awaited signs of widespread implementation of stated policies and recommendations have been disappointingly slow in emerging. This is attributed to the slowness of a change in attitude throughout the community. Because the Australian school system is not in tune with the multicultural society of today, children of ethnic parents are not receiving equal education opportunities with their Australian peers. Through lack of recognition of their ethnic language and culture by schools, children of ethnic parents are rejecting their mother tongue. In a series of case studies of Italian families in Melbourne, the mother's attitude was seen as the most important factor in language maintenance at the present time. Attitudes were seen to differ, not according to social class, educational level or region of origin, but according to individual values and beliefs. The importance of maintenance of ethnic language and culture for the traditional cohesiveness of the Italian family ethos is stressed, but is seen as resting on a tenuous thread.
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    The development of new Christian schools in Australia 1975-1981
    Jones, David Charles ( 1983)
    For a long time the established denominational schools and the state system of education provided the two main alternatives in education in Australia. Since 1975 there has been a proliferation of alternative schools. The growth of these new, small, non-government schools under the sponsorship and control of parents, churches, teachers and minority groups are currently adding a new dimension to public education. Not all these schools are Christian, though a significant number are. This thesis will aim to investigate the newly established Christian schools. The following categories are used to classify these schools. 1. Schools using Accelerated Christian Education materials. 2. Schools associated with the National Union of Associations for Christian Parent-Controlled Schools. 3. Schools associated with Christian Community Schools Limited. 4. Christian Community Colleges. 5. 'Other' Christian Schools. This thesis will provide an overview of the historical development, guiding philosophy, management structure and curriculum of schools in each category in order to ascertain both common and distinctive features. The reasons behind the establishment of these new Christian schools will also be explored. (From Introduction)
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    Social ideologies in two sets of multicultural curricular materials
    Hampel, Bill ( 1980)
    The large increase in the non-British proportion of Australia's population since 1945 has created a demand for greater recognition in schools of cultural difference and a re-affirmation of the goal of equality of educational opportunity. Marxist theories of ideology, hegemony and the State are employed to examine whether 'multicultural' curricular materials which are ostensibly advocating a critical appraisal of the society and subscription to these pluralist goals, are not soliciting support for dominant ideologies. The thesis questions whether they are not acting to reproduce the social order to the detriment of the ethnic minorities they are purporting to serve. The first of the two sets of curricular materials examined, Ethnic Australia, develops a Eurocentric view of exploration and inter-ethnic relations favourable to the needs of .capitalist economic growth. Its criticism of prejudice is unrelenting, but it does not extend it to an adequate analysis of the social conditions which might have generated discrimination and conflict. In its presentation of Italian and Greek cultures, it highlights and reinforces those attitudes and behaviours which are most conducive to an acceptance of competitive individualism under capitalism. The materials entitled Australia : A Multicultural Society, show the benefit of widespread consultation with educators and ethnic groups. They offer a view of culture and a picture of the material circumstances of Greeks and other migrants in Australia which accords with the most recent and carefully conducted research. In delivering a sustained attack on the inadequate provision for migrants in this country, they expose children' to a variety of ideological perspectives gleaned from the media, ethnic communities and the peer culture. Reservations are expressed about the capacity of materials with a liberal reformist ideology to develop in school students a critical awareness of the more intractable social structural barriers to the achievement of social equality and acceptance of cultural difference. Finally, there is brief discussion of the problems of construction and dissemination of critical curricular materials in a publicly funded educational system.
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    The Irish Christian Brothers' first mission to Sydney, 1843-1847
    Greening, William Albert ( 1981)
    Three Christian Brothers came to Sydney from Ireland in 1843 at the behest of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome. For more than ten years prior to their arrival the missionary priests in Australia had been making overtures to the Founder of the Christian Brothers, Br Edmund Ignatius Rice, to send brothers to educate the sons of poor Catholic people in Sydney, most of whom were Irish convicts or ex-convicts. Rice refused on the grounds that he did not have enough brothers in his young Religious Congregation which had commenced in 1802, had received approval from Rome in 1821 to formulate Religious Rules, and had finalised its Rule Book in 1832. An Irish Priest, John McEncroe, had made the first approach to the Christian Brothers because he had first-hand knowledge of their work among the poor in Ireland and in England. The Benedictines, William B. Ullathorne and John B. Poldings approached the Superior-General of the Congregation in writing and by personal visits to Ireland, but Michael Paul Riordan Who had replaced Br Rice as the leader of the Congregation was forced. to refuse them, on the grounds that he too was short of men and that the isolation of Australia could be a problem for a Religious Congregation in the early stage of its development. There was an added problem of money - not only from an expense point of view, but because the Rule required that the brothers teach the poor gratuitously; and there had been mention made by the Benedictines of government money being offered for the Sydney project. This matter had an added sensitivity for Riordan as he was a firm advocate of gratuitous instruction. He had been successful in withdrawing the schools of the Brothers from the Irish National System because state aid violated the Brothers' Vow of Gratuitous Instruction. News of Governor Bourke's intention to introduce Lord Stanley's Irish National System in New South Wales in the eighteen thirties and of Bishop Polding's compliance in the matter had reached Riordan and the Christian Brothers at an inauspicious time. There seemed little likelihood that the Benedictines would entice the Congregation to Australian shores under the prevailing circumstances. The conditions remained unaltered, but Polding changed his strategy of appeal. In 1842, at the time he was delivering his first report to Rome as Vicar-Apostolic of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land, he took the opportunity of pointing out to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith that the faith and morals of the children in the former convict colony were at stake unless the Irish Christian Brothers came to the rescue. His knowledge of Church politics won the day. Rome spoke at a time Riordan needed Papal help to settle a crisis within the Congregation. Almost as a 'quid pro quo', the Superior-General despatched three young Religious Brothers (all under the age of thirty) on the same boat to Sydney as the now-elated Polding and his other recruits in 1843. To the delight of the Irish Catholics of Sydney each brother was given charge of a school close to the centre of the city. Poor boys flocked to the schools in large numbers and the brothers instructed them daily in religious and secular knowledge, using the monitorial methods in which they had been trained and the text books (mainly Readers) which the Irish Christian Brothers had published. The schools were non-fee-paying, and the brothers' Vow of. Gratuitous Instruction was kept intact, as they received only their upkeep from the diocese. The arrival of the Christian Brothers coincided with the first elections for the partly elected Legislative Council set up by the 1842 Constitution Act and with the setting up of an Inquiry into the state of education in New South Wales. In the former the brothers got their first taste of colonial sectarianism and of Irish hooliganism. In the latter they were able to make a positive contribution to proceedings, particularly as one of their number was called as an expert witness. The whole venture gave the appearance of being a most successful missionary project, fulfilling the aims both of the young Religious Congregations of the Brothers of the Christian Schools of Ireland and of the ancient Benedictine Order of Priests. It fitted perfectly the Denominational System of schooling which had been put on a firm basis by Bourke' 1836 Church Act. The monitorial method whereby one brother instructed up to two hundred boys was ideal for the much-needed education of the Irish masses. The brothers themselves, being Irishmen, were compatible with the Irish Catholic colonists. Then, almost without warning, in 1847, four years after the commencement of their apparently successful work, the three young Irish Christian Brothers closed their schools and returned to Ireland. The present thesis has as its central theme the story of the Christian Brothers' first Australian Mission, attempting an analysis of the forces which caused them to undertake the task, of the factors which contributed to the success of their education of Irish poor boys in colonial Sydney, and of the circumstances surrounding their decision to abandon the project. The work encompasses a study of colonial life in the period leading up to the arrival of the Christian Brothers, and during their stay in Sydney, with particular emphasis on the part played by the Irish and by the Catholic Church in Australian life in the eighteen forties. An attempt is also made in the present work to examine the state of the major Christian Churches of the period, looking at the roles of religious leaders in Church and State, and at the part played by the laity in Church life. As the Christian Brothers' Australian Mission consisted of educating the masses, the thesis has as its second major theme the involvement of Church and State in the various attempts to establish a viable education system in New South Wales. Finally there is an analysis and interpretation of the work of Bishop Polding and his Benedictines in the Australian Catholic Church, simply because it was Polding who brought the Christian Brothers to Sydney and it was an altercation with the Benedictines which caused the Brothers to return to Ireland. Polding was originally offered the See of Madras but chose instead the challenge of the "peculiar" convict See of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land. He brought with him to the Antipodes religious zeal, boundless energy and English Benedictine ideals. Zeal and energy were essential to the gargantuan task of carrying the Catholic faith to the distant shores of a vast, unexplored continent, peopled by savages, outcasts and policemen. With a handful of equally zealous priests Polding went about his mission, bringing solace and the sacraments to exiled Irishmen. His English origins made him officially acceptable to the Home Office which would have cared little about his Benedictine origins. Polding, however, saw his Benedictinism as the source of all that was good in him as a missionary and as a man. With the singleness of purpose that drove him into the outback on horseback, in search of souls, Polding pursued his high-minded aim of making the Australian Church one large Benedictine Mission. His own Benedictines who should have shared his vision failed him - in England by not sending him co-workers, and in Australia by not living up to Benedictine ideals. Polding was forced to seek help from Catholic Ireland; missionaries, including members of a young teaching Religious Congregation called Christian Brothers, joined Polding in his zealous apostolate, but failed to share his Benedictine dream.
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    The historiography of Australian education: the production and reception of four major texts, 1951-1978
    Bannister, Helen ( 1985)
    This study is an inquiry into how historical knowledge is produced, socially defined and legitimated. The inquiry is conducted through the medium of four major history of Australian education texts initially produced at Melbourne University and used as texts in the first History of Australian Education course in the Faculty of Education at Melbourne University. The texts are J.S. Gregory 'Church and State and Education in Victoria to 1872', R. Fogarty 'Catholic Education in Australia 1806-1950', A.G. Austin 'Australian Education 1788-1900' and G.M. Dow George 'Higinbotham: Church and State'. The thesis is divided into two parts: Part I is a critical reading of each of the four texts uncovering the organizing theoretical pre-suppositions which these historical works share in common, namely theories of the liberal state. In demonstrating how theory organizes these historical works some of the processes of the production of history are revealed; in particular the selection and interpretation of sources. Part II is a history of the reception of each of the texts and reveals the processes by which the texts are made available for consumption and are socially defined and legitimated. The processes of production and reception are not separate and distinct; however, it is more convenient to consider the two processes more or less separately and hence the division of the thesis into two parts. Part I is a formal/theoretical analysis of the texts which draws selectively on the structuralist criticism of Althusser and the early Macherey to develop a mode of critical reading appropriate to understanding the processes of production of historical texts. Part II, the historical analysis of the texts' reception during the period 1951 to 1978, demonstrates how the various contexts in which the texts have been inscribed activate definitions of the texts' value, truth and significance and place them in a hierarchy of other historical works. Bourdieu's notion of an intellectual field provides a framework for understanding these processes by which a field of the history of Australian education is constructed and seeks legitimacy as 'good' history. However, the methodology for such an analysis is drawn from the work of the later Macherey, Renee Balibar and their English counterpart, Tony Bennett. (From Chapter 1)