Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemWomen in Collingwood in the depression of the 1930s( 2001)This thesis is about the lives of women in Collingwood during the Depression of the 1930s. They fought tirelessly to have their families fed and clothed, often sharing the little they had. Homes were primitive, bathrooms were uncommon and most houses had no water in the home. Shopping was done on a daily basis as there were no refrigerators. With constant childcare under these conditions, women were almost literally chained to the home. Even in the 1930s it was not accepted that women work outside the home. In some instances women would go without food to ensure that their children were fed, some women suffering from malnutrition. The Women's Hospital was where Collingwood women went for treatment. As there was no Medicare, doctors were unavailable to the working class. Marriage called for perseverance as divorce was uncommon. With the working-class wife heading the family, men, especially unemployed men, regarded this as a blow to their pride. A common occurrence for families unable to meet their rent payments was eviction. Eventually the Government gave a subsidy towards the rent for those who received an eviction order. Many people relied on charity, indicating just how desperate they were. Over 11,000 women out of 16,000 women in Collingwood were either unemployed or dependent on husbands' uncertain incomes. For many, charity was the only answer. Many of the remaining 5,000 women were domestic servants, barmaids, factory workers or shop assistants. Barmaids had a lowly reputation as their work was not regarded as respectable 'women's work'. Professional women, teachers and kindergartners came from the more affluent areas to work in Collingwood. Some women resorted to crime, shoplifting and even violence as a matter of survival. Others turned to abortion and prostitution, both outlawed at this time. Men were not neglected in this thesis. They suffered humiliation and degradation as they formed endless queues, and more often than not returned home only to report no job.
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ItemThe things that remain : reflections on science education at Scots School Albury( 2008)This science curriculum study is sited on Scots School Albury and its predecessor, Albury Grammar School. This study began as a reprise to a curriculum study written by the author in 1948 and a survey in 2005-6 of Scots Alumni memories of their junior general science over fifty years. The survey analysed their perceptions of its purpose and impact relative to other subjects and to the overall education provided by the School. Because early in its history the school insistently saw itself as heir to the English Public School tradition the origins of the Scots tradition of science teaching were sought in 19'11 century English education when 'the Tradition' developed. This wider quest led to an enquiry about the place of science in 19th century English education which found points in common between the classical, liberal teaching of Thomas Arnold and the science-oriented teaching of headmasters at two notable schools, Queenwood College in the middle of the century and Oundle School at the end of the 19th century. The enquiry found that an early hunger for science knowledge manifested in the almost spontaneous rise of mechanics' institutes was later met by municipal technical institutes, and the adventure of the new subject of science in schools, despite a few brilliant exceptions, settled into the pre-professional training that has come to characterise school science. Early in the 20'h century in England, and later in Australia, a General Science movement emerged in protest at uninspired teaching and irrelevant programs for general education. In Australia, from the early writings of George Browne and Roy Stanhope, researchers and educators have pointed ways to get that early sense of adventure back into science teaching. The early science educators such as George Edmondson and Frederick Sanderson stressed methods of practice and application taking precedence before theory to maintain that sense of personal engagement. The things that remain are what reformers urged: strongly felt images that are of powerful but not remote abstractions. At the same time there is an impression of repeated waves of attempted reforms beating against but failing to breach the barriers of academic gloss.
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ItemThe Melbourne Anglican Retreat House 1947-1997( 2000)The purpose of the study was to document a history of the Melbourne Anglican Retreat House and to investigate briefly the place of reflection and reflective practice in Retreat House programs. As an historical investigation, the study used both primary and secondary sources including fifteen oral interviews. An analysis of the use of oral history as a research methodology has been included. In 1885 a Church of England Diocesan Mission to the Streets and Lanes was established to provide Christian outreach to the inner areas of the city of Melbourne. The Mission was staffed by volunteers, including a small band of women under the direction of Sister Esther, the founder of the religious order, the Community of the Holy Name. This community later provided staff for the House of Mercy in Cheltenham which was a home for women and girls from 1892 - 1946. The study focused on the period from 1947 following the conversion of the House of Mercy to the Retreat House, until the withdrawal of the Sisters in 1997. In an Epilogue attention has been drawn to the possibility of eventual sale of the property and a relocation of the current team ministry. The brief investigation into reflection and reflective practice concludes with a recommendation for further, more detailed research.
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ItemThe Lives of female teachers in one teacher schools in Victoria in the 1930s and 1940s( 2002)This thesis is an oral history study of the lives of six women who taught in oneteacher schools in Victoria in the 1930s and 1940s. Much has been written about women teachers in the nineteenth century, but there seems to be a dearth of literature on twentieth century women. In much of the literature examined, female teachers who taught in one-teacher schools at the turn of the century were depicted as disadvantaged in many ways. They experienced difficulties with accommodation, loneliness and low salaries. They were often inadequately educated themselves and those who wanted to make a career out of teaching suffered because of their isolation from professional development and opportunities to further their own education. The women interviewed for this study taught in schools in different parts of Victoria during the 1930s and 1940s. Their names were obtained from friends and colleagues. They are a small group, but their experiences are important and can help us to understand the history of the teaching profession more generally. These women are aged between seventy-eight and ninety-one. Their memories are fragmentary but they are very clear on some aspects of their teaching lives. They exhibit the reticence of earlier generations of women teachers who believed it was bad manners to `rain on the parade'. These women, in general, gave positive accounts of their time teaching in one-teacher schools. They enjoyed the authority that came with being in charge. They talked about being a respected member of the community; some married locals and settled into the community. Their accommodation was more convivial than that of their sisters in the nineteenth century and most women talked about becoming life-long friends with the families who boarded them. These women felt there was a lack of choice of career - they could either be teachers or nurses - and their careers were cut short by the marriage bar. All these women had to resign on marriage, and those who returned to teaching were re-employed and exploited as temporary teachers on a lower rate of pay. Nevertheless, equal pay was not an issue for these women and they accepted four-fifths the male salary as `how it was'. Overall, these women retold positive aspects of their lives in one-teacher schools and the meaning of teaching in their lives. They were proud of their careers although it was accepted that most women would become wives and mothers. These are stories of women who received great personal satisfaction from teaching and who took enormous pride in their work. Those who returned to teaching some time after their marriage, spoke of the fulfilment gained from resuming their chosen career.
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ItemVictorian by name, Victorian by nature: a preliminary investigation into the decline of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria with suggestions on how this decline may be arrested( 2000)The aim of this thesis is to make a preliminary investigation into the present state of the Presbyterian Church in Victoria. My hypothesis is that, since this denomination has shrunk in size from over 9,000 members in 1988 to a little over 6,500 members in 1999, it is a church in crisis. This thesis researches the place of the Presbyterian Church within an ever-changing society. My goal is to provide insights into how a theologically conservative denomination may positively interact with the various communities around it. I recognise that church structures and practices which are meaningful to the Presbyterians of Victoria may have less relevance to non-Presbyterians. Recent statistics show that 83% of people now attending Presbyterian Churches across Victoria were nurtured in it as children. A further 14% have joined the denomination from other denominations. While this has its own encouragements, it also means that the denomination has not been very successful in reaching the genuinely non-churched. Only 3% of the attenders at Presbyterian Churches have joined because of effective evangelism within their community. New forms of church life attuned to the needs of post World War II, post-Christian generations and less formal styles of church are required to develop and maintain a connectedness to the communities in which the church finds itself. The research indicates that it is the congregations within the Presbyterian Church of Victoria that have adopted new styles of worship and high levels of evangelical community involvement that are growing. Further, the "Church Growth Movement" offers a number of well researched steps that, if adopted, may assist Presbyterian congregations to adapt to the new situation in which they find themselves.