Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemLiberal education in England in the 1860s( 1963)The nineteenth century controversy on the components of a liberal education resulted in a significant modification in educational thought on the subject, a subject which has had a large place in the minds and practices of educators in Europe for two millenia. Variations in emphasis, fresh statements of the content and product of a liberal education, occurred in the five or six periods into which historians divide the epoch of European civilisation from ancient Greece to the modern period. In all cases the ideal never varied appreciably, although the means were at times mistaken for the end. In England a lively interchange of opinion took place during the nineteenth century which came to a head soon after the 1850's; and the decade to be studied shows an interesting development in the challenge of an educational tradition. As it often happens after movements of reform have reached a certain intensity, there appeared a reaction, conflict and adjustment in thought and activity, particularly in the field of secondary education. The development was important, since the outcome of the controversy affected not only English education but also those systems in other parts of the globe that have been profoundly affected by British culture. (From Chapter 1)
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ItemThe sixth-form college in England and Tasmania( 1974)The sixth-form college is an experiment in the organisation of education for the sixteen to nineteen year old student. An examination of the historical context of its evolution reveals its origins in the demands for expansion of upper secondary education and in the concern for a more equitable and broader-based provision for the expanded student body. Further examination exposes the social and political factors promoting and retarding its development. What began in most cases as a practical expedient became an institution providing a wide range of courses and study options to students, the academic or vocational emphasis depending on local conditions. The separate college idea attracted some idealists who saw an opportunity of establishing in the public sector of education an institution capable of rivalling the sixth-form of the better independent school. It had at the same time a strong appeal in its apparent economy and efficiency. It could offer a centralisation and concentration of specialist teachers and resources to provide for perhaps eight hundred students. Establishment of actual colleges has been cautious, few authorities being prepared, like the Tasmanian Education Department or the Teesside Education Committee to give the scheme unqualified approval. Earlier ideas of academic exclusiveness have been modified by the emergence of the "new sixth-former", the fifteen-plus student whose staying-on in full-time secondary education is as much a matter of law as of inclination. For the most part the purely academic college enjoyed a limited period of existence before the change in political or educational philosophy ordered its modification. The colleges of 1974 may differ rather significantly from those intended by their founders. However, what was enthusiastically regarded as a panacea for the problems of upper secondary organisation must now be soberly accepted as one of a number of possible ways of organising sixth-form education.
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ItemPopulation mobility effects in the evaluation of area-based programs( 2008)Social interventions that aim to improve the material conditions, well-being and prospects of people who live in disadvantaged neighbourhoods have demonstrated little success in improving the relative disadvantage of residents. However, due to the complex nature of these programs, it is also possible that they have not been evaluated adequately. Therefore, two recent, area-based programs - New Deal for Communities in the United Kingdom, and Neighbourhood Renewal in Victoria, Australia - were used as test cases to identify . a gap in the current state-of-the-art of area-based program evaluation. This omission was the failure to account properly for population mobility through intervention sites. Findings from the two Programs and from the literature on population mobility in disadvantaged areas indicated that: a) population turnover of 50% or more within five years was not unusual for disadvantaged neighbourhoods; b) the characteristics of people who stayed in disadvantaged areas, those who moved in, and of those who moved out, tended to be consistent between Programs and countries. `Stayers' were more likely to be older, less educated, retired and in poorer health than `inmovers' and `outmovers'. Inmovers' tended to have lower incomes and be less active economically than `outmovers', who on the whole were upwardly mobile. The failure to account properly for selective residential mobility was found to have strong potential for negative impact on the assessment of outcomes for residents, because `outmovers' took measurable Program benefits away from the neighbourhoods, while `inmovers' lowered the socio-economic profiles of the communities. A new demographic measure of `mobility status', comprising the categories of `stayer', `inmover' and `outmover', was developed from this evidence. Properly applied, the measure promises to turn the previously confounding factor of population mobility into a tool of change measurement in the evaluation of areabased programs.
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ItemVocational education and apprenticeship: a study of vocational education in the 20th century in England, Australia and the United States with special reference to the role of apprenticeship training and with recommendations for the modification of that training( [1978])My thesis outlines in brief the sorts of traditions and practices on which the institution of apprenticeship has been built, both as a form of training and as a social device to provide both moral guardianship and continuing education for the trainee. Although there is considerable evidence that the system has failed on both these counts since the decay of the old system three hundred years ago, apprenticeship continues to survive as the usual method for contracting training in exchange for service in England and Australia. It even receives official sanction and subsidization. Nevertheless, even on the mundane level of job practice, apprenticeship may be an unsatisfactory arrangement for both trainees and instructors, and the fact that the system has long been exposed to the hostile influences of labour and management still further hobbles its effectiveness as a form of training and of work induction. With the development of systematized and institutionalized technical instruction in the twentieth century, especially in the vocation-conscious United States, youth has even more opportunities to achieve vocational potential outside the cramping service status of apprenticeship. There may even be some doubt whether there should any longer be a place for apprenticeship in modern industrial societies where many sorts of skill must be newly developed and where a spirit of versatility will better ensure the tradesman continuing employment in the last quarter of this century.