Search

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce a broad theoretical orientation for the themed section of History of Education Review, "Unstable concepts in the history of Australian schooling: radicalism, religion, migration". Through the conceptual frame of "contrapuntal historiography", it commends the practice of re-looking at taken-for-granted concepts and re-readings of the cultural archive of Australian schooling, with especial attention to silences, discontinuities and the movements of concepts. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on Edward Said's approach of "contrapuntal reading", this paper refers to the recent work of Bruce Pascoe as an exemplar of this practice in the field of Australian history. It then relates this approach to the study of the history of Australian schooling as demonstrated in the three papers that make up the themed section "Unstable concepts in the history of Australian schooling: radicalism, religion, migration". Findings: Following in the style of Said's contrapuntal reading and the example of Pascoe's work, this paper argues that there are inerasable traces of historical politics – that is, the records of constitutive exclusions and silences – which "haunt" taken-for-granted concepts like the migrant, the secular and the radical in the history of Australian schooling. Originality/value: Taken alongside the three papers in the themed section, this paper urges the proliferation of different theoretical and disciplinary approaches in order to think anew about silences, discontinuities and movements of concepts as a counterpoint to dominant narrative lines in the history of Australian education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Intercultural understanding' (ICU) and its core concept 'interculturality', was introduced in the new national curriculum, implemented across Australia from 2013 (Australian Curriculum, ACARA. [2013]. Australian curriculum V.60. Retrieved from ). This paper draws on a study conducted in Victoria, Australia, which asked: how history teachers conceptualise interculturality for history teaching and learning? The study used two methods to gather data: textual analysis and focus group interviews. This paper only reports on specific findings from the focus group interviews, analysed through a methodology of crystallisation and discourse analysis, framed by four modes of historical thinking; traditional, exemplary, critical and transformative. The paper argues that interculturality is a significant challenge to history education often located in discourses constructed over time which disrupt how things have always been taught. By analysing the teachers' talk through a lens whereby the construction of language reveals the educational problematic, the research looks for a way in for interculturality into history teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways that history curriculum has worked to legitimise dispossession through narratives that elide questions of Indigenous sovereignty, and which construct and consolidate white settler identity and possession. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses two case studies to compare history education documentation and materials at key moments where dominant narratives of settler legitimacy were challenged in public discourse: (1) the post-war humanitarian agenda of fostering "international understanding" and; (2) the release and educational recommendations of the 1997 Bringing them Home Report. Findings: The paper shows that in two moments where narratives of settler legitimacy were challenged in public discourse, the legitimacy of settler possession was reiterated in history curricula in various ways. Practical implications: This research suggests that the prevailing constructivist framework for history education has not sufficiently challenged criticisms of the representation of Aboriginal history and the history of settler-colonialism in the history syllabus. Originality/value: The paper introduces two case studies of history curriculum and shows how, in different but resonant ways, curricular reforms worked to bolster the liberal credentials of the settler state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Using the example of a "school paper" titled The Children's Hour, developed in South Australia in the late nineteenth century, the purpose of this paper is to show the way that the colonial margins could act as sites of innovation in curriculum and pedagogy and not just as importers of ideas from the imperial centre. Design/methodology/approach - The analysis on which the examination of The Children's Hour is based is a combination of Foucaultian discourse analysis and a genealogical approach to curriculum history which tracks different formations of techniques and programmes for shaping the human subject. Findings - The Children's Hour (1889-1963), featured the innovative use of literature and other genres, and provided new ways to shape the identities of school students and teachers. School papers were strongly implicated in the discursive construction of both a global/imperial and local/Australian identities and represent an informative case of the ways in which teaching and learning practices have been highly mobile in the field of reading. Originality/value - This research shows that the humble school reading text is an overlooked site for examining processes of the constitution of national identity and the citizen subject. It is also a reminder of the significance of communications technologies in the formation of, and struggles over, national/imperial imaginaries and that the school is an important site for studying these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The paper is a study of Clarice McNamara, née Irwin (1901–1990), an educator who advocated for reform in the interwar period in Australia. Clarice is known for her role within the New Education Fellowship in Australia, 1940s–1960s; however, the purpose of this paper is to investigate her activism in an earlier period, including contributions made to the journal Education from 1925 to 1938 to ask how she addressed conditions of schooling, curriculum reform, and a range of other educational, social, political and economic issues, and to what effect. Design/methodology/approach: Primary source material includes the previously ignored contributions to Education and a substantial unpublished autobiography. Used in conjunction, the sources allow a biographical, rhetorical and contextual study to stress a dynamic relationship between writing, attitudes, and the formation and activity of organisations. Findings: McNamara was an unconventional thinker whose writing urged the case for radical change. She kept visions of reformed education alive for educators and brought transnational progressive literature to the attention of Australian educators in an overall reactionary period. Her writing was part of a wider activism that embraced schooling, leftist ideologies, and feminist issues. Originality/value: There has been little scholarly attention to the life and work of McNamara, particularly in the 1920s–1930s. The paper indicates her relevance for histories of progressive education in Australia and its transnational networks, the Teachers Federation and feminist activism between the wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1960s in Australia was a politically turbulent time with assimilation policies being questioned by moves in various spheres, including education, to address inequality. The late 1960s also saw the emergence of activist responses to racism as well as the groundbreaking 1967 Referendum, which called for the alteration of two clauses within the Australian Constitution that discriminated against the Indigenous population. A few months after the Referendum was held, a conference called Aborigines and Education was convened at Monash University. Education was seen to be vital in addressing what was described as "profound educational disadvantage" experienced by Indigenous people. The debates that ensued show how education was imagined to be able to solve the problems Indigenous students were encountering. In this article I confine my interest to a selection of papers and examine the features of two distinctive discourses that emerge: that of "uplifting the Aborigine" and that of "upholding" Aboriginal dignity and pride. In doing this, I demonstrate how particular "race logics" were employed and contested in these debates. I argue that the insights garnered through analysis of these discourses offer opportunities for education research and practices that are in solidarity with the emancipatory goals of marginalised communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical significance continues to be the forgotten element of history education. Without student capacity to establish what they think is important, or why they would care about certain events and people from the past, students will continue to be disinterested in the study of history. This paper draws on the results of a three-year study aimed at understanding how the Stolen Generations in Australia becomes historical significant for pre-service teachers. Rather than being disinterested in stories of the Stolen Generations, we find that these students are vitally invested in such narratives to the extent that they, on occasion, cannot bear to hear the story. While they acquire knowledge, they also resist and ignore it. Hence, we argue that neither reason or cognitive science are up to the task of resisting either the student's drive to ignore, or their assimilation of difference into the same. For history to be significant in the classroom for students, it must be understood as more than an epistemological pursuit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Australian curricula require teachers to promote reconciliation through the teaching of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and languages. Engaging with First Nations knowledges and histories in education comes with a very complex and historically layered legacy. This paper examines the role of education in the ongoing process of colonisation by critically analysing historical and contemporary documents prescribing what Victorian students should learn about First Nations peoples, histories and cultures. These documents are discussed in the context of relevant events and policies, from the Terra Nullius ideologies that dominated curricula until the 1960s, through the growing agenda of self-determination in the 1970–1980s, and into the current swinging pendulum of political agendas. It is argued that contemporary curricula and policies promote reconciliation without embracing the necessary social justice and decolonising ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Commencing with publications in the 1970s, the purpose of this paper is to review the historical writing about Australian and New Zealand teachers over the past 50 years. Design/methodology/approach: The paper incorporates men and women who led and taught in domestic spaces, per-school, primary, secondary and higher education. It is structured around publications in the ANZHES Journal and History of Education Review, and includes research published in other forums as appropriate. The literature review is selective rather than comprehensive. Findings: Since the 1980s, the history of New Zealand and Australian teachers has mostly focussed on women educators in an increasing array of contexts, and incorporated various theoretical perspectives over time. Originality/value: The paper highlights key themes and identifies potential directions for research into Australian and New Zealand teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to explore the educational journey of indigenous Australians since the time of the 1788 invasion through into the modern Australian university. This exploration is intended to clarify the way in which education delivery in this country has been used to position the nation's "first peoples" within a context of centre/periphery thinking. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper established an overview of the educational service provision for indigenous Australians through a review of archival materials, historical texts and education reports. This information was then aligned with the data gathered through face-to-face interviews and focus group meetings conducted by the author in her own PhD research, to test the complementarity of the sources in terms of the indigenous experience. Findings -- The paper provides insights into the current positioning of indigenous Australians. The process of viewing the present against the backdrop of the past identified important historical landmarks that were then examined through the diversity of lens provided through interviews/ meetings with contemporary students and staff to reveal the critical impact of centre/periphery thinking on indigenous education in this country. Originality/value -- This paper provides an historical overview of indigenous Australian education that, in clarifying some of the connections and ruptures between "centre and periphery", provides valuable insights into the full diversity of the indigenous historical experience in Australian education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In March 1969, Brisbane student and political activist Margaret Bailey was suspended from Inala High School – ostensibly for "undermining the authority" of her teacher – prompting claims of political suppression. Through a case study of the subsequent campaign for Bailey's reinstatement, the purpose of this paper is to explain the emergence of the high school activist as a new political actor in the late 1960s. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on newsletters and pamphlets produced by Brisbane activists, alongside articles from the left-wing and mainstream press, to reconstruct the key events of the campaign and trace the major arguments advanced by Bailey and her supporters. Findings: Initiated by the high school activist group, Students in Dissent (SID), the campaign in support of Bailey lasted over two months, culminating in a "chain-in" staged by Bailey at the Queensland Treasury Building on 8 May. Linking together arguments about students' rights, civil liberties and democratic government, the campaign reveals how high school activism was enabled not only by the broader climate of political dissent in the late 1960s, but by the increasing emphasis on secondary education as a right of modern citizenship in the preceding decades. Originality/value: This is the first study of the campaign for Bailey's reinstatement at Inala High School and one of the only analyses to date of the political mobilisation of high school students in Australia during the late 1960s. The case study of the Bailey campaign underlines that secondary school students were important players in the political contests of the late 1960s and, if only for brief periods, were able to command the attention of education officials, the media and leading politicians. It represents an important historical precedent for contemporary high school activism, including the global School Strike 4 Climate movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the professional biography of Ethel A. Stephens, examining her career as an artist and a teacher in Sydney between 1890 and 1920. Accounts of (both male and female) artists in this period often dismiss their teaching as just a means to pay the bills. This paper focuses attention on Stephens’ teaching and considers how this, combined with her artistic practice, influenced her students. Design/methodology/approach – Using a fragmentary record of a successful female artist and teacher, this paper considers the role of art education and a career in the arts for respectable middle-class women. Findings – Stephens’ actions and experiences show the ways she negotiated between the public and private sphere. Close examination of her “at home” exhibitions demonstrates one way in which these worlds came together as sites, enabling her to identify as an artist, a teacher and as a respectable middle-class woman. Originality/value – This paper offers insight into the ways women negotiated the Sydney art scene and found opportunities for art education outside of the established modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to encourage historical research on the educational work of Catholic Sisters in Australia which includes the Sisters’ perspectives. Design/methodology/approach – Reflecting on the experiences of research projects which sought Sisters’ perspectives on their lives and work – from archival, oral and narrative sources – the authors discuss challenges, limitations and ethical considerations. The projects on which the paper is based include: a contextual history of a girls’ school; a narrative history of Sisters in remote areas; an exploration of Sisters’ social welfare work in the nineteenth century, and a history of one section of a teaching order from Ireland. Findings – After discussing difficulties and constraints in accessing convent archives, issues in working with archival documents and undertaking a narrative history through interviews the authors suggest strategies for research which includes the Sisters’ voices. Originality/value – No one has written about the processes of researching the role of Catholic Sisters in Australian education. Whilst Sisters have been significant providers of schooling since the late nineteenth century there is a paucity of research on the topic. Even rarer is research which seeks the Sisters’ voices on their work. As membership of Catholic women’s religious orders is diminishing in Australia there is an urgent need to explore and analyse their endeavours. The paper will assist researchers to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to examine an experimental neo-Herbartian and Frobelian curriculum Work in the kindergarten: An Australian programme based on the life and customs of the Australian Black published by Martha Simpson in 1909. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper uses both primary and secondary sources to understand the context of production and reception of the settler narratives advocated for use in the curriculum. Simpson's curriculum and other primary literary texts provide case study examples. Findings -- The research found that colonial and imperial literary texts provided a departure point for learning activities, enabling the positive construction of white Australian identity and the supplantation of Aboriginal people in a post-federation kindergarten setting. Originality/value -- By considering the role of imperial and colonial narratives in post-federation experimental curriculum, this paper offers insight into the role such narratives played in the formation of Australian national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- Using sex education at Shepparton South Technical School (South Tech) as a prism, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the Victorian Technical Schools Division policies and practices during the 1970-1980s. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper draws on a documented history of South Tech by using a blended methodology consisting of interviews, media-centred debates and a range of documentary sources. Findings -- The Technical Director, Edward "Ted" Jackson's 1970 policy empowered principals as educational leaders, in partnership with their community, to develop courses responding to student needs. This paper analyses a controversy concerning sex education in 1980 that brought such courses under the scrutiny of the Victorian public. Social implications -- Identifying the policies and practices of a sex education course that proved successful in the past enhances the development of contemporary courses. Originality/value -- Victoria's former secondary technical schools provide an important insight into current social and vocational problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- In Australia as elsewhere, kindergarten or pre-school teachers' work has almost escaped historians' attention. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the lives and work of approximately 60 women who graduated from the Adelaide Kindergarten Training College (KTC) between 1908 and 1917, which is during the leadership of its foundation principal, Lillian de Lissa. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper is a feminist analysis and uses conventional archival sources. Findings -- The KTC was a site of higher education that offered middle class women an intellectual as well as practical education, focusing on liberal arts, progressive pedagogies and social reform. More than half of the graduates initially worked as teachers, their destinations reflecting the fragmented field of early childhood education. Whether married or single, many remained connected with progressive education and social reform, exercising their pedagogical and administrative skills in their workplaces, homes and civic activities. In so doing, they were not only leaders of children but also makers of society. Originality/value -- The paper highlights the links between the kindergarten movement and reforms in girls' secondary and higher education, and repositions the KTC as site of intellectual education for women. In turn, KTC graduates committed to progressive education and social reform in the interwar years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to explore the interaction between a liminal rural Australian city (Lithgow) and the development of higher education options across the city's history. The paper proposes a nuanced interaction between national, social, religious, political, regional and local forces to explain why an industrial city such as Lithgow, with obvious educational strengths, would be overlooked while others (such as Wollongong and Bathurst) were not. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper takes the form of a longitudinal study of educational institutions, placed in their historical contexts, in order to demonstrate the fluctuation of educational vision with the rise and fall of socio-economic contributors to the town's fortunes. Findings -- The paper finds that the city's formation and dependence on war-related industries created boom-bust cycles which negatively impacted on its entrepreneurial, managerial and working class elites, and so on its ability to bring cultural and political influence to bear in the formation of local higher education options, across a period in which higher education becomes an increasingly federal responsibility. Practical implications -- The paper suggests policy ramifications for the support of higher education options in the city. Social implications -- The paper supports the interpretation that it is not merely that education itself promotes social mobility, but that what type of education is important, along with an eye to how education contributes to the overall well-being and cross-class profile of the city of Lithgow. Originality/value -- This paper fills a gap in historical knowledge about Lithgow's educational institutions, the study of which heretofore has tended to be located with either labor historical or heritage approaches. This paper takes a socio-cultural and longitudinal/holistic approach which brings together a variety of approaches previously not treated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A century on from the height of John Dewey’s educational writings and the reputation of the Gary Schools Plan as a model of progressive education, the paper reappraises two key matters: the relationship between John Dewey and William Wirt, the first superintendent of the Gary Schools in Gary Indiana, and the coherence between John Dewey’s progressive pedagogies and the early years of the Gary Schools Plan. Through drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources of information, the paper analyses the connections between John Dewey, William Wirt and the Gary Schools Plan in their shared quest to extend progressive education into new urban and industrial schooling contexts. The paper highlights areas where existing assumptions require review and the extent to which the relationship and connections between Dewey and Wirt’s work were mutually beneficial. The paper ends by calling for further related research based on the archival material available. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose This paper provides a critical interpretative analysis of the first secondary English syllabus for schools in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, contained within the Courses for Study for High Schools (New South Wales Department of Public Instruction, 1911). The purpose of the paper is to examine the “continuities that link English curriculum discourses and practices with previous discourses and practices” in the rhetorical curriculum. The analysis identifies those aspects of the 1911 English syllabus that have since become normative and challenges the appropriateness of certain enduring orthodoxies in a twenty-first century context.Design/methodology/approach Focussing on a landmark historical curriculum document from 1911, this paper draws on methods of historical comparative and documentary analysis. It sits within the tradition of historical curriculum research that critiques curriculum documents as a primary source for understanding continuities of discourses and practices. A social constructionist approach informs the analysis.Findings The conceptualisation of subject English evident in the structure, content and emphases of the 1911 English syllabus encodes a range of “discourses and practices” that have in some form endured or been “reconstituted and remade” (Cormack, 2008, p. 275) over the course of a century. The analysis draws attention to those aspects of the subject that have remained unproblematised and taken-for-granted, and the implications of this for universal student participation and attainment.Originality/value This paper reorients critical attention to a significant historical curriculum document that has not, to date, been explored against the backdrop twenty-first century senior secondary English curriculum. In doing so, it presents extended insights into a range of now normative structures, beliefs, ideas, assumptions and practices and questions the potential impact of these on student learning, access and achievement in senior secondary English in NSW in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine expert ideas about education for citizenship in 1930s Australia. Drawing on a larger study of adolescence and schooling during the middle decades of the twentieth century, the paper explores the role of international networks and US philanthropy in fostering the spread of new psychological and curriculum ideas that shaped citizenship education, and broader educational changes during the interwar period. A second purpose is to provide historical perspectives on contemporary concerns about the role of schooling in addressing social values and student wellbeing. Design/methodology/approach - The discussion is informed by approaches drawn from Foucauldian genealogy and historical studies of transnationalism. It examines constructions of the good and problem student and the networks of international educational expertise as forms of "travelling ideas". These transnational exchanges are explored through a close analysis of a defining moment in Australian educational history, the 1937 conference of the New Education Fellowship. Findings - The analysis reveals the ways in which psychological understandings and curriculum reforms shaped education for citizenship in the 1930s and identify in particular the emergent role of psychology in defining what it meant to be a good student and a good future citizen. The paper further finds that Australian education during the interwar years was more cosmopolitan and engaged in international discussions about citizenship and schooling than is usually remembered in the present. Elaborating this is important for building transnational histories of knowledge exchange in Australian education. Originality/value - The paper shows the value of a relational analysis of school curriculum and psychological understandings for more fully grasping the different dimensions of education for citizenship both in the interwar years and now. It offers fresh perspectives on contemporary educational debates about globalisation and youth identities, as played out in current concerns about social values and schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The first state high schools in New South Wales (NSW) were restricted to children with high academic ability. The purpose of this paper is to explore the lived experience of over 70 former students from three such schools, one coeducational, the other two single-sex, with special attention to academic and social curricula. Design/methodology/approach -- The study investigates memories of a particular moment in the history of secondary schooling in NSW before the establishment of mass secondary education. The authors utilise theoretical concepts from recent oral history studies regarding memory communities and intersectionality. Findings -- In bringing ex-students' memories of both single-sex and coeducational academically-selective high schooling together, the study reports on the homogeneity of the memories of this type of schooling despite the different sexual structures of the schools. The respondents, it is argued, constitute a "memory community" in that they recalled their selection for high school as marking them out as intellectually superior, "special". Their main differentiating feature arose from their sex and gender socialisation. Females were made more consistently conscious of their responsibilities within their schools' gender regime. Originality/value -- The approach in this paper adjusts the focus of traditional oral history research in the history of education to "history from within" (rather than "from below"); to experiences of both academic and socialcurriculum (not "formal/informal"); to a gendered approach incorporating both sexes; and to a comparative approach across academically-selective coeducational and single-sex high schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the arrival of Colombo Plan Scholars in New Zealand and consider ways in which their experience helped to bridge distances between "east and west", as well as to create connections that traversed geographical and cultural boundaries. Design/methodology/approach -- It draws on contemporary newspaper articles to ascertain how public talk about the Colombo Plan programme shaped initial engagements between New Zealand and the scholarship holders. The paper then analyses archival files from the Department of External Affairs to present an overview of the university courses undertaken by Colombo plan scholars. The final section of the paper draws on oral and archival sources to examine individual encounters between former Colombo Plan scholars and New Zealanders. Findings -- The paper argues that while the public aims of the Colombo Plan focused on the containment of communism and the development of post-colonial connections in the South East Asian region, individual encounters between Colombo Plan scholars and New Zealanders played a role in changing social attitudes in what had been a deeply mono-cultural society. Originality/value -- The paper draws on previously unpublished archival and documentary evidence and oral sources to examine a unique aspect of the history of international education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the establishment of Women's Studies programs in selected Australian universities. It highlights the resistance to Women's Studies as an academic knowledge by some feminists outside of the academy as well as non-feminists within the academy. This paper argues that connections to the Women's Liberation Movement and the difficulties encountered by feminists when introducing Women's Studies into the academy made some feminists suspicious of the value of theory for feminism, especially in relation to a political agenda. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. (Austen, Persuasion ([1818] 1946) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on two doctoral studies conducted as socio-historical analyses of the development of swimming in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Australia [Victoria] and England. Within each study the progress of swimming education was a particular focus and it is this aspect that will underpin the approach taken in this comparative analysis. The central purpose of the paper is to re-examine the historical findings from each study and to explore the similarities and differences in the rationale for swimming education, the availability and provision of swimming education in each location, and to present initial comparisons in the status and value placed on swimming during this period. This is a qualitative, historical study and data have been gathered from a variety of sources including government papers, curriculum and Board of Education documents, swimming governing body reports, newspaper articles and nineteenth-century texts and journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The Australian Radical Education Group (RED G) was created in June 1976, which in turn launched a magazine for radical(ising) teachers, the Radical Education Dossier (RED), that would be published for the next 30 years. The purpose of this paper is to characterise the emergence and first phase of RED’s publication up to its name change in 1984. Design/methodology/approach – The authors draw on interviews with key members of the magazine’s editorial collective, and a review of RED’s contents, to identify the major political ambitions as manifest in RED in historical context. The authors contextualise this radical education project in the post-1968 world context of social and political upheaval, rejecting the Cold War options of either Soviet style Communist or US-based capitalist pathways. Findings – In this context RED generated powerful critiques of dominant educational policy in multiple areas. The critique was part of a project to promote a socialist understanding of mass education, and to promote the transformation of Australian society towards socialism. The authors argue that the debates and struggles within RED in this period, seeking to define and advance a socialist educational project, reflected a broad and consistent critique of progressive educational reforms, rooted in its radical political foundations. Originality/value – This paper provides an historical review of a 30-year radical education publishing initiative in Australia, about which no accounts have been published. It connects directly with contemporary educational issues, and offers insights for interviews with those directly involved in the historical project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of Australian screen content in Australian schools and universities is undergoing rapid change due to digital and online distribution capacity on the supply side and digital and online affordance embedded in student cultures. This paper examines the ways in which Australian screen content and its distribution are beginning to adapt to educational usage. Issues facing content rights holders, distribution companies and emerging digital platforms reflect broad-based digital disruption patterns. Learning opportunities that can coincide with the growth in uptake of Australian screen content in Australia's education sector are not immune to the challenges posed by emerging digital consumption behaviours and issues of sustainability. At the same time, the growth in the use of digital and online screen content learning resources, under current copyright conditions, poses significant increases in the underlying cost structure for educational interests. This paper examines the innovations occurring in both the supply and the demand sides of Australian screen content and the expanded learning opportunities arising out of emerging digital affordances. Precedents in the UK are explored that demonstrate how stronger connections can be forged between nationally produced film and media content and a national curriculum. While addressing recent issues arising out of the Australian Law Review Commission's inquiry into copyright in the digital economy, the purpose of this discussion is not to assess policy debates about fair use versus fair dealing. What is clear, however, is that independent research is required that draws upon research-based evidence with an aim to better understanding the needs of the education sector against the transformative shifts taking place in digital-based learning materials and their modes of delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TheAustralian Curriculum: Historyhas emerged out of a neoliberal federal education policy landscape. This is a policy landscape where pragmatic and performative, rather than pedagogic concerns are clearly foregrounded, and this has implications for curriculum development and implementation. A useful way to conceptualise the features, assumptions and potentialities of theAustralian Curriculum: Historythat has been produced from these policy imperatives is through a framework provided by the descriptors, ‘thin’ and ‘thick’. A thin curriculum is one that essentially equates curriculum with a product, and where the prescribed content is central to understanding what a curriculum is. A thick curriculum, on the other hand, is one where the curriculum is understood as a verb, where the details of content are secondary to an exploration of bigger questions and concepts, and where curriculum theory is the starting point for the selection of content. The use of ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ as the ends of a continuum of curriculum provides insights into the purposes of a curriculum. Ultimately, such a dichotomy exposes assumptions about what is important knowledge and who is in control of the curriculum. This paper focuses on how theAustralian Curriculum: Historyas an example of a ‘thin’ curriculum, presents a number of challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly mediatised policy processes influence practice in schools as education becomes a site of parental anxiety and choice exacerbated by standardised national assessment and ranking of schools in the media. This paper analyses the responses to media scrutiny of six principals whose schools’ national test results were reported in the Australian press following the release of the federal Labour Government’s MySchool website in 2010. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of social fields, the concept of cross-field effects, and associated research on mediatisation, the evidence suggests that the relationships between the press, education policy and schools are highly contested, and that principals have some agency in talking back regarding their school’s reported ‘performance’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general focus of this paper is on religious teaching brothers, a very much neglected group within the body of historical scholarship on Catholic education generally. Notwithstanding the existence of an extensive body of literature of a hagiographic nature – much of it commissioned by male religious orders – as well as a small number of academic theses, brothers occupy a field wide open for research on many fronts, internationally and using a wide variety of research approaches. The paper concentrates on a particularly neglected area: the recruitment practices of the orders. It does so in relation to the situation in Australia from 1930 to 1960. First, the broad background to the work of Catholic religious teaching brothers from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century is considered. This is followed by a general overview of three of the four principal ways in which the orders sought new recruits: through the influence of the Church on the Catholic home, through the work of the Catholic school, and through the efforts of special recruiting agents. The paper then moves to the central area of concern – namely, a social semiotic analysis of the special recruitment literature produced by the religious orders and used by them in Australia from the 1930s to the early 1960s. The analysis draws on an analytic approach based on a theory of social semiotics. What the analysis reveals is the sets of practices and textual mechanisms through which the orders enticed young men to join their ranks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose -- To most minds libraries exist at the periphery of debates over education and educational reform. However, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how, in 1910, the Melbourne Public Library (now the State Library of Victoria) was central, rather than peripheral, to a conflict which focussed on the role of the library in education and how the library and its collection could best be organised to meet this purpose. It will be argued that libraries and the way they are organised act as indices of the dominant views about education and can be seen as social and educational artefacts. As artefacts they encapsulate community beliefs about how learning could best occur at a given time and what knowledge was esteemed, made available and to whom. Design/methodology/approach -- To illustrate this point of view and illuminate the broader issues, this paper will use a particular set of events and a particular group of protagonists in Australian history as a case study. Findings -- This case study illuminates conflicting ideas about the place of libraries and the organisation of their collections in early twentieth-century society and demonstrates how these ideas continued to have an impact on the place of libraries in educational reform agendas in Australia in the following decades. Social implications -- The argument reported as "the disaffection in the library" was both philosophical and practical and illuminated ongoing debates surrounding the place of the library in education. The outcome influenced the shape and place of libraries in Australia and demonstrates broader concerns at work in Federation Australia. Originality/value -- The paper casts a new light on the relationship between libraries and education and the place of libraries in the educational process. The network of influence in Federation Australia and the impact of this on the development of institutions and professions in Australia is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to explore the theme of centre and periphery in education through a study of the views and actions of the Reverend Samuel Marsden, New South Wales colonial chaplain, in relation to the education of Aboriginal people and Māori. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to trace debates between state and federal governments, and community stakeholders, leading to the establishment and abolition of the first attempt at a university for Western Sydney, established as Chifley University Interim Council. Design/methodology/approach - The historical analysis draws from published papers, oral history accounts, and original documents in archives of the University of Sydney and the University of Western Sydney. Findings - Higher education reform in the 1980s in Australia was fought out as an extension of broader issues such as "States rights", the rising political power of peri-urban regions, long-standing tensions between state and Commonwealth bureaucracies, and the vested interests of existing tertiary education and community groups. Originality/value - This is the only existing study of attempts to found Chifley University, and one of the few available studies which take a social and contextual approach to understanding the critical reforms of the 1980s leading up to the Dawkins Reforms of 1988-1990. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Up until the 1960s, Catholic schools throughout most of the English-speaking world were dominated by members of religious teaching orders, including female religious. For over a century following their establishment in 1866, one of the most prominent female religious teaching orders in Australia was that of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. The first part of this paper contextualises the emergence of this particular religious order in terms of the development of Catholic education internationally and in Australia, and the associated 'religious formation' of nuns as teachers. Part two is centered on the most significant text used to guide the 'religious formation' of members of this order both as religious and as teachers, namely, that of their 'rules and customs'. Drawing on an analytic approach based on a theory of social semiotics, it analyses both the sets of practices and the textual mechanisms through which the identity of members of the order as teachers was constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to explain why the policy history of school funding in regard to Australian Catholic Education looks and sounds the way it does today through the production of a genealogy of the subject. The questions addressed are, first, why has the funding of Catholic schools in Australia become an occluded historical site since the 1970s, despite the controversy in which popular accounts of the funding of Australian schools is mired, and when its prevalence so completely dominated the discourses of Australian education in the prior century? Second, has funding policy discourse been defined and contained and what basis is there for contesting such discourse in light of events since that period of time? Third, which or whose policy version triumphs and becomes the accepted policy process and which other policy approaches are obliterated in this process? The theoretical perspective adopted in this paper draws from both postmodern critiques and cultural theories of historical construction, as framed within Foucauldian Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lesson study has been practiced by teachers and lecturers as a form of professional development across a broad content area. However, there has not been any research that explores the implementation of lesson study within the university student workgroup context. Lesson study is based on the premise that learning and change are continuing. At a tertiary level, students are commonly assigned to do group projects, and it seems reasonable to presume that lesson study may be used by the students to produce quality plans and reflect on their approaches to learning. This paper uses a case study approach to provide the best means of exploring this issue. The objects of this study included three Australian postgraduate accounting student workgroups that were each assigned to develop an original case in the area of strategic management accounting. A list of specific tasks, which acted as a basis for developing and refining the research lesson, was assigned to each group, and their progress was monitored from time to time. Periodic feedback was provided and discussions among the group members were facilitated. The main findings suggest that lesson study implementation in some way has a positive impact on students' deep learning approach in a workgroup situation, and the commitment of each group member and their consensus regarding the research lesson contribute highly to the success of the lesson study implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the challenging formative years of a new librarian’s career and presents some typical career trajectories, particularly in Australian libraries. Its focus primarily relates to common misconceptions and struggles that new librarians might encounter, as they may not realise that these experiences are commonplace. Key topics include library qualifications, entering the workforce, job application processes and common work experience pitfalls. This paper suggests that challenging experiences are better shared, considered and expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This opinion piece reflects on some critical questions being asked today about Australian library and information science (LIS). It explores some of the foundations of such questions to provide an historical perspective on contemporary Australian LIS practice. This paper contends that lack of historical perspectives amongst recent graduates contributes to a sense of professional isolation, and there is a need to place contemporary concerns within a broader and deeper professional landscape if the profession is to successfully address contemporary concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of universities in the twentieth century is, at least from the perspective of growth, a massive success. Australian higher education is no exception. Prior to the Second World War, Australia had six universities and approximately 10,500 students. Now there are in excess of one million students attending 39 institutions. In each phase of student expansion, governments have sought to make universities accessible to new segments of the community, a pattern that informs contemporary social inclusion initiatives. This paper focuses on two successive periods – the 1940s/1950s and the 1960s/1970s – during which university participation expanded. Comparing two universities which were at that time very different from one another – the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales – I consider the ways both universities approached admissions to understand what each institution hoped to achieve in attracting students beyond the traditional elite. This helps move beyond government strategy and rhetoric to consider what universities believed was at stake as they enabled new students to enter their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, I analyse the history of teacher education in Australia from 1974 to the current policy moment in which questions are increasingly being asked about the quality of teaching and teacher education. Teacher education is, and has been, a highly scrutinised domain in Australia. Since the 1970s, we have seen more than 100 reviews of teacher education in Australia, with another one recently announced in 2014. I focus on three phases in the growth and development of teacher education in the past 40 years by considering the ways in which teacher education (and teaching) has been thought about at various points in time and analysing the related policies for funding governance and regulation. I finish by focusing on the current policy moment in Australia which is positioning teacher education as a ‘policy problem’ requiring a national solution and consider the role of research in, on and for, teacher education into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides an overview of the contribution of Professor Geoffrey Sherington to the study of the history of Australian education and immigration. His academic and leadership roles are summarised and the main themes of his work are briefly discussed. These themes comprise: Australia as an immigrant nation, British colonial values and meritocracy, public, private, and corporate schooling, and the interconnectedness of educational institutions. These themes recur in the discussion below and are aimed at providing a context for the analyses and assessments of his major scholarly projects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The year 2012 marked 40 years since the introduction of the Child Care Act 1972 and the federal government introduced financial support for the provision of childcare services in Australia. Significant changes have occurred in social, political and theoretical contexts of early childhood education and care (ECEC) during this time. Bringing these to life, this paper investigates archival data of key changes in ECEC in association with oral histories of staff, parents and children associated with The Gowrie Qld during the years 1972-2012. With narrative analysis considered alongside historical information, two dominant issues emerge as integral to ECEC in the past, now and the future. These are: 1) what constitutes effective teaching and learning in the educational program; and 2) professional expectations in ECEC. Building an historical picture, this paper provides for critical reflection on the past to inform current and future practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- Guthrie Wilson (1914-1984) was one example of the trend of migration of teachers from New Zealand public schools to Australian private schools. The purpose of this paper is to explore this particular case with a view to revealing some of the dynamics involved and challenges facing certain types of Australasian schools in the 1950s and 1960s. Design/methodology/approach -- This article is essentially founded on empirical historical research and on analysis of data from published and archival sources and from interviews with participants and observers. It is placed in the context of the literature on both educational change in Australasia and trans-Tasman migration at the time. Findings -- Although Guthrie Wilson craved recognition as a novelist, he excelled as a school Principal, partly because he seemed to fit certain notions of education, leadership and manhood which suited the Council of The Scots College Sydney. In the 1960s, the Council wanted to maintain traditions which appeared to have been weakened by Wilson's progressive predecessor and challenged by social change. Though he fulfilled the Council's expectations, Wilson also proved to be a mediator between traditional and progressive education. Thus, Wilson could be both an honourable representative of the "Old School" and modestly progressive. Originality/value -- Biographical studies can reveal unsuspected patterns as well as challenge casual generalizations. Images of schools and of their leadership, held by both contemporaries and later observers, can prove to be subtly misleading on closer inspection. In particular, the article confronts a number of school myths which affect not only the schools involved but all schools, mutatis mutandis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing in 1927, five leading scholars and administrators of the Australian schooling systems published a book entitled Education in Australia: a comparative study of the educational systems of the six Australian states. These authors wrote of Australian education in a time of great optimism, and one of the key areas of reform they addressed was the introduction of forms of post-primary schooling for a ‘problem’ population of 12–15-year-olds who were not attracted to, or staying with, the high school curriculum which led towards university study. Through the lens of Education in Australia, this paper undertakes a genealogical exploration of the way the adolescent emerged as an object of school reforms in the early twentieth century and shows that these reforms were articulated with discourses of race, social efficiency, science and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The late nineteenth-century expansion of public schooling in Australia from an initial focus on the elementary phase to post-primary provision, and then to a more systematic secondary education over the early to mid-twentieth century, went hand in hand with the emergence of new populations of children and young people – a new constituency. In turn, these developments called into being a New Teacher, and a new system of teacher education, formed in accordance with what was widely understood as the New Education. Moreover, this was conceived as clearly in the service of nation-building. This paper traces aspects of the history of teacher education in Australia in the first half of the twentieth century, proposing that this is best understood with reference to the cultural and ideological significance of English teaching and the English language, nation and empire. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Australian universities were first established in the 1850s, well before the introduction of compulsory schooling. From the middle of the twentieth century, the introduction of mass secondary school education and the expansion of the number of universities widened student access to universities. Subjects offered in higher education increased in scope and labour market discrimination diminished. These factors, together with supply-side changes, meant that women were more easily able to shift into investing in skills. By 1987, Australian women were more likely than men to be enrolled at a university. These aggregate figures, however, disguise considerable heterogeneity across fields of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a study of the education of children living at the Lock 7 and 9 construction camps between 1923 and 1935. While completing a Masters Project through the University of New England in 2010, I discovered the unusual situation whereby the children of men employed on a South Australian construction project were enrolled in Victorian schools for a period of time. The archival record of correspondence between the teachers and the Victorian Education Department at Lock 7 and 9 made fascinating reading as they tussled to obtain the necessary supplies and to administer a school with a finite life. School 4156, which began at Lock 9 near Kulnine Station in Victoria closed in 1926 and reopened six years later at a new location near the Rufus River in 1930. It finally closed at the completion of the works in 1934. Who were the teachers and what struggles did they have teaching the children of the great wandering class? This paper tells their story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the history of relations between colonialism, schooling and social change in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Ireland, countries that were once part of the British Empire. It indicates that responses to schooling ranged from acceptance and tolerance, to modification and rejection, depending on the country, the issue, and the historical period. There were also differences in the historical connections in schooling between Britain itself and each country: regarding Australia, the relationship was predominantly unidirectional, from the centre to the Antipodes; in PNG British educational ideas which arrived were filtered through the Australian administration; while in Ireland, British initiatives in schooling contributed not only to social change there, but also helped produce loyal personnel to work in Britain and the colonies. Attention is also given to areas of interdependence and interconnectedness, and to illustrating how conducting such case studies is important in order to help counter alternative interpretations promoted by powerful sectors in society in the interest of reproducing their social privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The PhD viva – regardless of its format – has the potential to be a significant rite of passage for the student. It is an experience that can resonate for months or years afterwards. Part of the challenge is that for everyone involved – student, supervisory team and examiners – a degree of end-point uncertainty exists. These ambiguities and tensions are perhaps an inherent part of any examination but are particularly characteristic of the examination of the individual and unique body of work that constitutes the doctoral thesis. In recent years, increased attention has been placed on the processes that surround the examination, aiming to increase transparency, consistency and fairness. However, the process of examining a student and their thesis remains challenging and is surrounded by different agendas, ideologies and practices. This paper examines some of the issues surrounding the PhD viva, primarily focusing on the British viva whilst weaving in commentary about the Australian system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reported in this volume aims to investigate the state of the Information Systems academic discipline in Australia from a historical and current perspective, collecting evidence across a range of dimensions. To maximise the strategic potential of the study, the results need to be capable of integration, so that the relationships within and across the dimensions and geographical units are understood. A meaningful theoretical framework will help relate the results of the different dimensions of the study to characterise the discipline in the region, and assist in empowering the Australian IS research community. This paper reviewed literature on the development of disciplines, before deriving a theoretical framework for the broader study reported in this volume. The framework considered the current and past state of IS in Australian universities from the perspective of the development of a discipline. The components of the framework were derived and validated through a thematic analysis of both the IS and non-IS literature. This paper also presents brief vignettes of the development of two other related disciplines. The framework developed in this paper, which has been partly guided by Whitley's Theory of Scientific Change, has been used to analyse data collated from the Australian states and the Australian Capital Territory. The degree of variation in Australian IS as an indication of its "professionalizations", the nature of its body of knowledge and its mechanisms of control, will be used to frame the analysis. Research reported in several of the papers that follow in this volume has drawn upon the theoretical framework presented below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the history of Australian school architecture, with a particular focus on Australian state schools in the 20th century. The author examines the relationship between school architecture and educational aims and ideals. It is suggested that changes in school architecture illustrated changing attitudes towards students' roles and the social and civic purposes of education. The relationship between school, domestic, and industrial architecture is discussed.