bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Innovativeness in a Sample of Catholic Secondary Schools: Organizational Aspects Examined
Authors: McGrath Helen M. , Thomas A. Ross
Published: March 2013

This study investigated school innovativeness and a number of variables commonly found to be associated with this phenomenon in similar North American studies. Analysis of data collected from a sample of Victorian Catholic secondary schools revealed that only teacher age and extent of professional reading appeared to be significantly related to innovativeness. Subsequent factor analysis suggested the importance to school innovativeness of a ‘career consolidation’ factor and an ‘awareness’ factor. The concept of organizational inertia, developed as part of the theoretical framework of this study, also emerged as a relatively important concept.
Changing Society: Some Underlying Assumptions of the Karmel Report
Authors: Musgrave P. W.
Published: March 2013

The concept of planning social change through education has grown popular since 1945 though with varying aims. Here the assumptions underlying Schools in Australia, 1973 (the Karmel Report) are examined by isolating five models, namely, of society, of man, of change, of directions of change and, finally, of the methods for bringing about change. Two main possible weaknesses in the strategy of the Report are suggested, namely the lack of openness and the under-emphasis on the general political activity needed to bring about change, both of which direct attention to the need for a well-informed public opinion on educational matters; means towards achieving this are suggested.

“If administrators and politicians are going to play God with other peoples' lives … they ought at least to get clear what the divine intention is to be”. (Moynihan, D. P. Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding. Free Press: New York, 1968, 168.)
Do Tests Really Motivate Pupils?
Authors: Campbell Elizabeth M.
Published: March 2013

With motivation defined as choice of tasks at one's threshold level of attainment, this study provides only little support for those who ascribe a motivational effect to formal school tests. Moreover, it seems likely that this effect is limited to tasks that are novel, and for which information on one's relative standing within the classroom is lacking. In other cases, testing is likely to reinforce fear of failure (girls), or encourage impulsive risk taking (boys).
Educational Research: An Australian University Monopoly?
Authors: Rosen Bruce
Published: March 2013

In Australia, educational research and the training of educational researchers has, traditionally, been considered a university function. An analysis of educational journals, grants for research in education, and the values expressed by decision making bodies regarding the place of the colleges of advanced education in educational research suggests that despite the changing role and function of the CAEs, the university system still dominates educational research. As long as present attitudes and conditions exist, it is unlikely that the situation will change significantly.
Standardization Procedures Involving Moderator Variables—Some Theoretical Considerations
Authors: Cooney G. H.
Published: March 2013

Much of the research initiated by examining bodies in Australia has concerned the standardizing of marks and grades to achieve comparability when different methods of assessment are used to evaluate the same course objectives and between subjects whose candidatures are not homogeneous. The procedures employed raise theoretical issues, some of which (the interpretation of grades, meaning of comparability and use of moderator variables) are discussed in this paper. It is shown that although no numerical transformation can make measurements of different skills comparable, performances can be compared, in a relative sense, by reference to a standard population. Scaling, then, is seen as the process by which the grade relative to this population is estimated from the raw mark. Two procedures which employ moderator variables are examined and their characteristics noted.
The Computer as Part of the Educational Environment: A Review of Research
Authors: McDougall Anne
Published: March 2013

The development of the use of computers in education and some of the educational settings in which computers are used are described, and various types of applications are outlined.

A discussion of difficulties in the evaluation of the role of computers in education is followed by an examination of research studies on several aspects of computer use in education. These are the interaction of learner variables with achievement, effect on students' behaviour, and studies of teacher roles and behaviour.

The paper concludes that while the acceptability of computer use in education has been fairly fully examined in research work so far, the more complex problems of the broader effects of computer use in educational settings warrant considerable further study.
Paul Goodman's Critique of Formal Schooling: A Search for Incidental Learning
Authors: Lergessner James G.
Published: March 2013

This paper examines the assumptions underlying and implicit within Paul Goodman's critique of the process of formal schooling. Three dimensions of this critique, historical, pedagogical, and social-psychological, are advanced to explain the precise manner in which Goodman analyses past, present, and future arrangements (or possibilities) for educating and the ways in which they impinge(d) on man's functioning within his environment.

Finally, the implications of Goodman's critique of formal schooling with respect to the provision of new styles and forms of learning, man's interactions within society, and the release or recovery of his “true” (or human) nature are briefly presented and assessed.
Egalitarian Ideology and the Education of Girls
Authors: Sampson S.
Published: March 2013

Drawing data principally from interviews with both parents of fifty families, this study found that while parents reported that they believed that girls should be educated equally with boys, such ideas were not put into practice in the home or in arrangements for schooling. Changes in the symmetry of parental roles were not reflected in parental practice or planning for girls and boys. In particular, girls were not encouraged to perceive a continuing work role as part of their future, nor boys to involve themselves with the home and child care roles. Traditional sex roles for the next generation were assumed.
Cognitive Development in the Primary School Child: The Relationship between Tests of Combinations and Tests of Concrete Operations
Authors: Sheppard John L.
Published: March 2013

Piaget's theory of cognitive development emphasizes the growth of specific structures in thought. The present studies examined a mathematical structure which has been proposed as a basis for conservation. It involved combinations of judgments that certain units were “equal”, “more”, or “less”, than one another. Three tests were designed and, together with tests of concrete operations, were administered to primary school children. Success on the first and third tests came at the same age as did success on the tests of concrete operations, but the second was more difficult. The second test involved use of the abstract terms “equal”, “more”, and “less” on their own, without the direct reference to a numerical basis which was used with the first and third test by presenting appropriate concrete materials. The most adequate test from a theoretical point of view was the third, which contained items developed from a transitivity paradigm. Results indicated that the concrete operational child is able to effect closed mappings, but the preoperational child has difficulty.
Language and Thought in the Speech Product—A Necessary Relationship?
Authors: Russell V. Jean
Published: March 2013

The speech products of 104 young adult Melbourne males were analysed in order to determine whether the linguistic dimensions of the speech product bear a necessary relationship to the cognitive dimensions. Factor analysis of the 67 variables derived resulted in eight cognitive factors and ten linguistic factors.

To test whether a necessary relationship exists between any single linguistic factor and any single cognitive factor, scores on each linguistic factor were cross-tabulated against scores on each cognitive factor. With one exception (the relation of the factors, Linguistic Productivity and Cognitive Productivity), no necessary relationships were found, although some factors were shown to be significantly associated.

The relationship of the two productivity factors indicates the importance of adopting a method of testing which does not constrain a subject's verbal output. The general failure to reveal necessary relationships between linguistic and cognitive dimensions raises doubts about language intervention programs which aim to augment cognitive ability through increasing a subject's linguistic skill.
The Socio-Occupational Background of Migrant Students Entering University
Authors: Mitchell Janet B.
Published: March 2013

First-year students entering Macquarie University in 1971 were sampled according to fathers' birthplace. The distribution of fathers' occupations was compared with the occupational distribution of the Australian male workforce. The upper and middle socio-occupational groups of students were over-represented and the lower socio-occupational group was under-represented for the migrants as well as the Australian-born. Within each of the three major socio-occupational groups, however, the ratio by birthplace for students' fathers did not differ significantly from the ratio by birthplace for the total Australian male workforce.
Models for Fostering Change in Educational Systems: A Comparative Perspective
Authors: Porter Paige
Published: March 2013

This paper compares strategies used in the process of planned educational change. Discussion focuses on the post-Sputnik American experience, the approaches used, the failures and the successes. These are related to the Australian experience concentrating on the Schools Commission's Innovations Program, its distinctions, problems and potential. It is argued that for any program in planned educational change to be successful, policy makers must give attention to the reality that both personal needs and organizational requirements equally affect the process and must be catered for. This means that political and structural protection for innovation must be built in advance into any program attempting change in education.
The Role of Sociology in Teacher Education
Authors: Daine Patricia , Foster Lois
Published: March 2013

This paper seeks to outline an appropriate role for sociology in teacher preparation. An attempt is made to account for the hiatus between interest in education by sociologists on the one hand and on the other, their contribution to a sociology of education of value to the teaching profession. It is argued that both normative and interpretive approaches must be presented in sociology courses for prospective teachers. Only in this way can the contradictions and dilemmas in contemporary sociology, reflecting as it does the problems of modern society, be made explicit. Teacher trainees must be educated for the lifetime task of reflection on the meaning of their work; this is seen as the most significant role of sociology in the training of teachers.
The Role of the School Counsellor in the Prevention and Management of Psycho-Educational Problems in the School Community
Authors: White Ronald G. , Mitchell Kenneth R.
Published: March 2013

In recent years, a strong case has been made by education and health theorists for an allocation of resources aimed at preventing the onset of psychological, social and educational problems among school aged children. Psychologists, counsellors, and educators working in the field have, however, tended to focus their limited resources on established problem areas and crisis intervention, rather than on preventive programs. This paper questions the long-term effectiveness of “bandaid” intervention and develops a broader conceptual framework for the delivery of psychological services to a school community. A service model is proposed that balances the traditional focus on remediation with an emphasis on the prevention of psycho-educational problems. Attention is given to the role and function of the school counsellor in the implementation of such a model.
Occupational Choices of Sydney Teenagers: Relationships with Sex, Social Class, Grade Level and Parent Expectations
Authors: Sinclair Kenneth E. , Crouch Barbara , Miller Jane
Published: March 2013

Occupational choices were studied for a cross-section of 876 Sydney students in Years 6–12. Clear sex differences in occupational choice were observed confirming results of overseas studies. Girls chose different types of jobs from boys, and confined themselves to a more restricted range of jobs. While job decisiveness was found to increase with grade level, it was apparent that particular choice points in the course of schooling ( viz. years 10 and 12 at high school, and year 6 before entry to high school) also influence extent of decisiveness. Occupational choice was further found to be related to social class. Adolescents from lower social class backgrounds tended to choose jobs requiring less further education and of a lower status, while adolescents from higher social class backgrounds chose jobs requiring more further education and higher in status. The results were interpreted as illustrating how particular socialization processes relating to social class and sex operate to narrow what is regarded as an acceptable occupation.
Dropouts' Dissatisfaction with University
Authors: Hayes Susan C.
Published: March 2013

One hundred and twenty-nine dropouts, and a matched sample of one hundred and thirty-one persisting students completed semantic differential ratings of Self, Ideal Self, and University. Large discrepancies between the ratings of Self and University, and Ideal Self and University were found to be related to dissatisfaction with the university, and likelihood of dropping out of university. When dropouts were categorized into five “types” on the basis of their acceptance or rejection of the cultural goals associated with university attendance, and acceptance or rejection of the institutionalized means of attaining the goals, it was found that dissatisfaction with the university was not global, but that different types of dropouts experienced dissatisfaction with different aspects of the institutional environment in accordance with their motivations and aspirations. The findings of this study indicate that much valuable data may be overlooked by regarding dropouts as one homogeneous group.
The Origins of Federal Aid to Schools: The Commonwealth Science Laboratories Scheme 1963
Authors: Smart Don
Published: March 2013

The emergence of Federal aid to schools is probably the most important single development in Federal education policy since World War II. This paper seeks to explain the origins of the Federal science laboratories scheme, the controversial and crucial precedent which paved the way for the rapid acceleration of Federal aid to schools in the decade after 1963.
The Use of Rescaled Teacher Assessments in the Admission of Students to Tertiary Study
Authors: McGaw Barry
Published: March 2013

This paper summarizes the results of a number of Queensland studies of selection of students for admission to tertiary institutions. Data presented allow a comparison of external public examinations, school assessments moderated through a process of teacher consultation, and school assessments moderated by rescaling against a measure of scholastic aptitude in terms of their use as a basis for such selection. The value of each approach for students and tertiary institutions is considered and appropriate selection indices for each are described.

Evidence of the validity of the scholastic aptitude measure for the rescaling task and of the predictive validity of all the different selection indices is provided. This evidence suggests that statistically rescaled teacher assessments predict tertiary success as effectively as external examinations.
An Organizational Theory for Schools of Teacher Education and Faculties of Education
Authors: Christensen James E. , Fisher James E.
Published: March 2013

Schools of Teacher Education and Faculties of Education have long been faced with questions relating to the organizational structure of the curriculum and academic staff. Most institutions have, over a period of time, derived structures based on conventional categories of education studies and principles designed for local circumstances. In many cases the resultant structures have lacked both logical consistency in terms of the discipline of education and organizational flexibility.

In this article the authors propose an organizational structure embodying the concept of educology. Following a detailed discussion of educology, the structure is then used as a basis for analyzing three major areas of concern: naming and describing courses in an educology curriculum; grouping families of courses in an educology curriculum; and grouping and guiding academic staff.
Student Preferences for Different Sources of Scientific Information
Authors: Fraser Barry J. , Northfield Jeffrey R.
Published: March 2013

A sample of 780 seventh year students in 31 different classes in Melbourne provided information about preferences for four different sources of scientific information, namely experiments, experts, books and teachers. It was found that student attitudes were most favourable towards experiments, next most favourable towards experts, next towards books, and least favourable towards teachers. Also significant declines occurred over a school year in attitude towards books and teachers. When a curriculum materials variable and several student characteristics were controlled, significant relationships emerged between teacher sex and student changes in attitude towards books, teacher experience and student changes in attitude towards teachers, and teacher attitude to curriculum materials structure and student changes in attitude to experts.
Coordination of Learning Environments and Learners
Authors: Campbell Elizabeth M.
Published: March 2013

Theory pertaining to human development suggests that as students advance through the secondary-school grades, the learning structures should become less obvious and less restrictive. A study of secondary-school experiences in Queensland, however, suggests that, except in the area of extracurricular activities, the structures become more obvious and more restrictive as the students move from Year 8 to Year 12. This increase in structure is accompanied by increasing disenchantment on the part of the students.
Empirical Evidence for a Model of Reading Disability Research
Authors: Elkins John
Published: March 2013

Numerical classification techniques were used to explore the conjecture that inconsistent results of many studies of disabled readers could result from samples being composed of subgroups of children with different characteristics. Some five subgroups were identified using ITPA scores from a sample of 37 poor readers. The significance of the use of numerical taxonomy in research on aptitude-treatment interaction is discussed.
Career Education in Australia: Trends and Issues
Authors: Morgan C. J. (Kim)
Published: March 2013

Over the past four years Australia has seen a dramatic change in careers work within secondary schools from traditional vocational guidance interviews and information collection to the teaching of structured career education programs. Career education associations have been formed and resource materials have been produced by teachers and by government departments. Whilst enthusiasm at the grass roots level has produced many and varied responses to career education concepts originally promulgated in the United States and Britain, the disparity in time and facilities allocated for careers work, and the differing backgrounds of the teachers and other workers in the field make it extremely difficult to give a precise or comprehensive account of what career education means in Australia.

This paper examines several programs produced in Australia for secondary schools in terms of the modifying factors of time allocation, curriculum style and theoretical bias, and points to some of the problems that may confront career educationists in the near future.
Teachers' Perceptions of the Diffusion of an Innovation within an Authority-Decision Framework: A Senior School Geography Case Study
Authors: Hill P. W. , Marsh C. J.
Published: March 2013

In this paper, the process of authority innovation-decisions within an educational context is explored through detailed reference to the introduction of a tertiary admissions geography syllabus into a State educational system. In order to obtain teachers' reactions to the new syllabus and to attempt to gauge the extent to which they have accepted, rejected or modified it, a questionnaire was administered to all (163) teachers of geography in Government high schools in Western Australia.

The results of the study suggest that high levels of adopter acceptance of authority innovation decisions are associated with (i) opportunity for adaptation and accommodation of the initial ideas by the system and by the individuals within the system, (ii) opportunity for adopter flexibility and freedom to develop an individualistic approach within a broad framework, and (iii) the degree of explicitness with which the decision-making unit communicates the innovation to the adopters.
Deciding to Teach
Authors: Carpenter P. G. , Foster W. J.
Published: March 2013

The aim of the present study has been to determine how students come to decide upon a career in teaching. To this end data were gathered from 382 student-teachers entering either primary or secondary Diploma of Teaching programs at a Queensland College of Advanced Education concerning, amongst other things, their social origins, reasons for entering teaching, the time at which the career decision was made and the degree of familiarity with other students in teacher training. Principal components analysis has revealed a number of dimensions of career choice underlying these students' motivations to enter teaching. The influence of teachers, a desire for security and recognition, an interest in the profession itself and the choice of teaching for default type reasons have all been found to be part of the underlying structure of the students' career decisions. The use of stepwise multiple regression analysis has demonstrated that these dimensions of choice have been differentially explained by the students' earlier experiences and the influences to which they have been exposed. It is suggested that these results lend support to the notion that the decision to enter professional training is a complex phenomenon resulting from the interplay of the inner dispositions of individuals and the external influences which act upon them.
Communication Apprehension and its Educational Implications: Some Initial Australian Data
Authors: Crocker William , Klopf Donald , Cambra Ronald
Published: March 2013

About 20 per cent of American college students suffer from debilitating communication apprehension (McCroskey, 1977) and, if a sampling of Australian college students typifies the larger population, Australia has a similar incidence. In America, the communication apprehensives are being classed as learning disabled or handicapped and are beginning to receive specialized instruction in order to maximize their learning potential (Hurt and Preiss, 1978). Australian college students may benefit from similar training.

The purpose of this article is to describe the nature of communication apprehension (CA) and its academic implications, to present initial data on its prevalence in Australia, and to indicate some methods used to reduce its effects.
Research on Teaching, Teaching, and Teacher Training
Authors: Hogben Donald
Published: March 2013

Research on teaching, conducted over many years largely from within the process-product paradigm, has contributed few generalizations either to guide teachers directly, or indirectly through its influence on the content of teacher education programs.

Alternative paradigms which recognize as basic the complexity and ambiguity inherent in classroom environments, and the fact that students are active agents in their own learning, appear to show more promise for the future and are likely to be more meaningful and relevant to practising teachers.

Research involving practising teachers, teacher-trainees, and educational researchers working together on projects carefully articulated with professional courses is proposed as offering more promise for the future than a continuation of the search for generalizations from research on teaching conducted within the process-product paradigm.
Conflicting Perspectives on Australian Schools as Agents of Occupational Socialization
Authors: King Susan E.
Published: March 2013

This paper discusses two conflicting perspectives on Australian schools as agents of occupational socialization. The first perspective sees Australian schools as failing in their responsibility to prepare young people for occupational roles, while the second perspective sees schools as doing much in this regard. Possible reasons which might explain away the conflict between the two perspectives are discussed. However, it is considered that a more productive approach is to treat the conflict as a genuine one between perspectives each of which has some validity. Policy considerations which might stem from awareness of this conflict in perspective are then suggested.
Grade Level and Sex Differences in Attitude to Several School Subjects
Authors: Fraser Barry J.
Published: March 2013

Considerable prior research has been conducted into grade level and sex differences in students' attitudes to school, in general, and to school science, in particular. This research generally has revealed that attitudes deteriorate with increasing grade level, that girls hold more favourable general school attitudes, and that boys express more favourable attitudes to school science. As research evidence is more scarce for school subjects other than science, the present study explored grade level and sex differences in attitudes to English, mathematics, social studies and art among a sample of 1,817 Year 7–10 students. Significant declines in attitude to each school subject occurred with grade level. Girls expressed significantly more favourable attitudes towards English, social studies and art, but significantly less favourable attitudes towards mathematics. Student attitudes generally were most favourable towards English, next towards mathematics, next social studies, and least favourable towards art.
Chomsky on Education
Authors: Corson David J.
Published: March 2013

Drawing from a nine-year period of the writings of Noam Chomsky in which the linguist and philosopher expanded his published contributions into fields apparently remote from his strictly academic interests, this article seeks to extrapolate systematically and infer Chomsky's attitudes to the institution of Education. These attitudes and positions are presented as if they were Chomsky's own assembled views and interpreted by the author liberally in his own style within an objective context. The many attitudes deduced are collated and categorized under headings which are helpful for appreciating the range of Chomsky's comment and the relevance and coherency of his views. A final section considers the general consistency of Chomsky's attitudes and contrasts the two major strains of influence on his educational thought, the one revealed in his polemical writings and the other in his more formal and detailed academic publications during the period.
Students' Evaluations of Tertiary Instruction: Testing the Applicability of American Surveys in an Australian Setting
Authors: Marsh Herbert W.
Published: March 2013

Two student evaluation surveys developed in the United States were administered to a sample of Australian university students. Students were asked to evaluate one of the best and one of the worst lecturers in their university experience, to indicate inappropriate items, and to select the most important items. Each of the 63 items was seen as appropriate by most students, each item was chosen by at least a few students as being most important, and all items — except those related to Workload/Difficulty — differentiated between best and worst lecturers. Separate factor analyses of the two surveys revealed the same factors that had been identified in American settings. Furthermore there was good agreement between the factors from the two surveys that were hypothesized to measure the same components of effective teaching. The findings demonstrate the feasibility of evaluating effective teaching in Australian universities and the appropriateness of two American surveys to an Australian setting.
Philosophy and the Study of Education: A Critique of the Common Sense Consensus
Authors: Walker J. C.
Published: March 2013

That education is an interdisciplinary study, in which distinct disciplines or forms of knowledge are or should be brought together focusing on educational problems, is so widespread and apparently so intuitively plausible a view that it might be called the ‘common sense consensus’. A problem for this view is to explain how conceptually distinct elements from contributing disciplines can be brought together, or integrated. Recent discussion in the Australian Journal of Education both illuminates the problem and illustrates the misleading and unproductive features of the commonsense consensus. An alternative, pragmatist view of education as a set of competing and/or complementary theories, or ‘rationally analyzable considerations’, transcends and even discredits conventional disciplinary boundaries, especially between philosophy and empirical research, and offers a practical basis for theory and research.
National Curriculum Co-ordination: Some Lessons from the CDC's Language Development Project
Authors: Christie Frances
Published: March 2013

Efforts at national curriculum development and co-ordination in Australia date from the late 1960s and early 1970s. The first phase of national curriculum activity involved the creation of national committees. A second phase commenced with the creation of the Curriculum Development Centre, although the work of the CDC was affected significantly by the decision (1980–81) to wind the centre down. Now, with the re-emergence of the CDC in a new form, a third phase of national curriculum activity has commenced.

The Language Development Project (LDP) was the last of three national curriculum projects initiated in the 1970s, and the only one wholly developed by the CDC. The processes of planning and generating LDP activity were therefore different from earlier national curriculum initiatives. It is argued that the experience of the LDP offers important lessons for future national curriculum development, both in terms of models of co-ordination and management, and in terms of appropriate patterns for the involvement and development of teachers.
Revising the Agenda for a Democratic Curriculum
Authors: Ryan Brendan
Published: March 2013

This article argues that current socio-educational theorizing licenses a further restriction of opportunities for socially significant educational interventions. Recent major reports on education in South Australia identify technological change as decisive. Moreover, their emphasis upon its supposedly abstract character leads to a narrowly technocratic assessment of its ‘increasing complexities’ and ‘more pervasive influence’. This leads to a push to re-centralize curricular control, notably in those high-status areas nominated as necessary for national scientific and economic development. My analysis also reveals that this official sponsorship of tighter central (i.e. departmental) controls has a strong politico-economic basis because ‘necessary efficiencies' are emphasized at this time of increasing fiscal difficulties. Furthermore, I document the existence of a more narrowly technical emphasis in teacher education, and contend that this will increasingly foster a ‘silent’ acceptance of departmental control of the curriculum by teachers-to-be. I cite recent empirical evidence on teaching practices and attitudes in Australian schools to indicate that the re-centralization of curricular control would formalize—and, of course, extend—what is already the case. Furthermore, I demonstrate the general significance of these basic assumptions about the curriculum and its practices through an analysis of their probable impact upon typical conditions of teaching and upon ‘progressive’ policy initiatives (notably the Victorian Ministerial Papers). I examine at length the broader socio-cultural implications of centralist and technicist curricular assumptions. I conclude by outlining oppositional strategies: these are characterized by broadly based socio-educational interventions and an alternative formulation of what constitutes ‘really useful knowledge’ in ‘an advanced technological society’.
The Tidy Classroom: An Assessment of the Change from Single-sex Schooling to Coeducation in New South Wales
Authors: Jones Jennifer , Kyle Noeline , Black Jan
Published: March 2013

This article examines perceived changes occurring as a result of the move from single-sex schooling to coeducation. The work is both historical and sociological. The history of coeducational, mixed and single-sex schooling is examined, together with recent research findings. Students from five schools ( N = 113) across three years (9, 10, 11) and from four different socioeconomic regions were interviewed. While students believed that the move to coeducation had been a positive one, particularly in terms of social relationships, other findings were not so clear-cut—for example, with regard to perceived competition and allocation of teachers' time. There is also evidence that, as with other studies, class and gender relations continue to have an impact on coeducation.
School Sport, Ethnicity and Nationality: Dimensions of Male Youth Culture in an Inner-city School
Authors: Walker J. C.
Published: March 2013

This report of some aspects of a five-year ethnographic study of the relation between youth cultures, attitudes to school, and the transition from school concentrates on the significance of sport, especially rugby football, in the formation of a youth cultural hierarchy. The top, held by an Anglo-Saxon—Celtic based footballer group, was challenged by Greek boys contesting the dominant definition of Australian nationality, both groups dominating others lower in the hierarchy. To facilitate teacher—student communication and social control, some staff formed a ‘sporting coalition’ with students which, while it promoted school unity by consolidating common cause against other schools, reinforced the hierarchy and tended to compromise liberal and multicultural objectives pursued in the school.
Sex Differences and Attitudes towards Permanent Part-time Work in Education
Authors: Wood Jack M. , Cooper Joan A.
Published: March 2013

The typical stereotype of the part-time teacher is that they are: married females who are currently employed as casual teachers, without job security; married females employed on a full-time basis wishing to work on a part-time basis; or unemployed married females seeking to enter teaching who are unable to obtain full-time teaching positions. The composition of the part-time workforce is diversifying away from this stereotype in many fields. Many single and married males now express a preference to work on a permanent part-time basis. This study examined the comparative perceptions of a random sample of male and female primary teachers regarding the costs and benefits that would be associated with the introduction of permanent part-time teaching (PPTT). The most important finding was the high degree of support for PPTT among male primary teachers. These findings challenge the widely held stereotype that only females want to work on a PPTT basis. Such results also demonstrate the magnitude of social and economic change that is occurring in education labour markets.
Bilingual Education—What can We Learn from the Past?
Authors: Clyne Michael
Published: March 2013

This paper shows that bilingual education has a long tradition in Australia. In the 19th century, primary and secondary schools operating German-English, French-English or Gaelic-English programs, or ones with a Hebrew component, existed in different parts of Australia. The most common bilingual schools were Lutheran rural day schools but there were also many private schools. They believed in the universal value of bilingualism, and some attracted children from English-speaking backgrounds. Bilingual education was for language maintenance, ethno-religious continuity or second language acquisition. The languages were usually divided according to subject and time of day or teacher. The programs were strongest in Melbourne, Adelaide and rural South Australia and Victoria. In Queensland, attitudes and settlement patterns led to the earlier demise of bilingual education. The education acts led to a decline in bilingual education except in elitist girls or rural primary schools and an increase in part-time language programs. Bilingual education was stopped by wartime legislation. It is intended that bilingualism can flourish unless monolingualism is given special preference.
Subject-Specific Literacy and School Learning: A Focus on Writing
Authors: Green Bill
Published: March 2013

This paper aims to contribute to educators' understanding of the contextualist nature of literacy, specifically in its relation to school learning. A particular view of literacy is proposed, as comprising three intermeshing dimensions: the operational, the cultural, and the critical. A notion of subject-specific literacy is presented which acknowledges the significance of the school subjects as specific contexts for learning and meaning and, via concepts drawn from recent linguistic-semiotic work, seeks to provide greater purchase on the nature of subject-area learning. A case is made for a strategic emphasis on writing in school learning, and also for the importance of notions of register and genre for writing pedagogy generally. The paper is to be seen in relation to considerable work, in Australia and overseas, in the area of language and learning theory, and has a whole-curriculum orientation.
Reforming the Assessment of Student Achievement in the Senior Secondary School
Authors: Masters Geofferey N. , Hill Peter W.
Published: March 2013

The challenge that confronts agencies responsible for assessment and reporting in the senior secondary school is to extend systematic assessment procedures to a broader range of learning outcomes than those currently assessed by public examinations, to develop methods of reporting which are more descriptive of individual achievement and which provide a better basis for describing and maintaining standards, and to provide results which are sufficiently comparable across schools to enable fair comparisons of applicants for tertiary study. Some recent developments in assessment and reporting practice are considered with a view to identifying methods and approaches capable of satisfying this diverse set of demands. An approach which is particularly appealing because of its potential to provide simultaneously more descriptive reports of student achievement and adequate levels of comparability is the use of a set of common assessment tasks attempted by all students enrolled in each Year 12 course of study.
Using the EM Algorithm to Predict First Year University Performance
Authors: Smyth G. K. , Knuiman M. W. , Thornett M. L. , Kiiveri H.
Published: March 2013

The problem of predicting first year university performance on the basis of high school results alone is considered. The method investigated uses the EM algorithm to estimate the mean mark for each subject and the covariance for each pair of subjects that would have arisen, had it been possible for all the students to take all the subjects both at high school and at university. A conditional distribution can then be obtained for any set of proposed university units given the high school marks of the any particular student. This method (NEM) is contrasted with several more traditional methods—linear and logistic regressions—designed specifically for particular subjects and courses. The NEM method is shown to perform nearly as well as the special purpose regressions even in the circumstances most favourable to the latter, and has the advantage of being applicable to virtually all the students.
II Education and the Media: Schooling the Adolescent Audience
Authors: Roe Keith
Published: March 2013

Fears that the mass media are detrimental to the work ofthe school are as old as the media themselves. This concern was greatly amplified by the advent of television, giving rise to a lively if intermittent research tradition. The rapid diffusion and integration of satellite, cable, video and computer technology have added fresh impetus to the issue. At the same time, the explanatory power ofthe dominant theoretical perspective, with its simple negative effects model, has increasingly been rejected as inadequate. In this review, alternative perspectives and models are presented. In particular, the need to examine the ways in which the school structures the adolescent audience for the media is stressed.
Rethinking Literacy and Numeracy
Authors: Chapman Anne , Lee Alison
Published: March 2013

Traditionally literacy and numeracy have been represented as distinct and unrelated skills, reproduced in the practices of subject English and subject mathematics. The (re)current basics debate has popularised a dominant mechanistic view of both literacy and numeracy as predetermined discrete sets of basic skills. This paper argues that this bifurcation is false and misleading and, in so doing, challenges the structure of the school curriculum. A re-examination of the ‘technologies’ needed for learning, focusing in particular on the pervasiveness of mathematical ideas and representations in verbal texts, calls for a reconstruction of literacy, necessarily involving a plurality of competencies which encompass numeracy.
The Effects of Rational Emotive Education on Locus of Control, Rationality and Anxiety in Primary School Children
Authors: Rosenbaum Tova , McMurray Nancy E. , Campbell Ian M.
Published: March 2013

The present study examined the impact of rational emotive education (REE) on locus of control, rationality and anxiety in order to evaluate REE's potential in promoting the psychological adjustment and growth of Year 4 primary school children. Individual differences in the external-internal dimension of locus of control were considered a possible predictor of intervention outcome. The sample consisted of two regular Year 4 classes in a private girls school in metropolitan Melbourne which were randomly assigned to either REE or attention control condition. Results indicated that REE was effective in increasing children's perception of internal control and rationality and that program effectiveness in increasing children's rationality was not associated with their pre-intervention locus of control orientation. No evidence was found for REE's efficacy in producing significant changes in trait anxiety.
Beyond Guaranteed Outcomes: Creating a Discourse for Educational Praxis
Authors: Grundy Shirley
Published: March 2013

Connell talks about ‘praxis traps’ as being ‘where people do things for good reasons and skilfully, in situations that turn out to make their original purpose impossible to achieve’. This idea of praxis traps reminds us of the elusive nature of human action. However, according to the ideology of managerialism, educational practice is a technical process the outcome of which can be foreknown and guaranteed. In this paper, it is argued that current discourses, such as the New South Wales Scott report, which represent educational practice as technical behaviour, the outcomes of which can be guaranteed, must be challenged. Critique of the discourse alone, however, will not be enough to quell the demands for outcome guarantees. What is needed is the development of a new discourse; one which takes account of uncertainty and unpredictability in educational practice. The paper points to some of the key terms in such a discourse.
Reviewing for Research Excellence: Expectations, Procedures and Outcomes
Authors: Poole Millicent E.
Published: March 2013

This paper describes the process by which the Humanities and Social Sciences Panel of the Australian Research Council (ARC) gives effect to the principle of funding ‘research excellence’. A member of this Panel for four years, the author provides an account of the ARC Research Allocation Policy, what criteria assessors are asked to use in judging each research grant application, and the quality controls operating within the system. Peer review is identified as the central element in assessing the excellence of the research proposal, the possibility of a significant conceptual advance and the quality of the researcher(s).

Particular comment is made about the success of educational researchers in obtaining ARC funds for research and implications for the future.
Teacher Induction Revisited
Authors: Martinez Kay
Published: March 2013

Four beginning teachers' experiences of induction programs in Queensland secondary schools are described. Interviews with principals and other senior teachers indicated keen and sympathetic awareness of the complexities of entry into teaching. The beginning teachers of the study complained that induction programs offered were inadequate, inappropriate, or both. These research findings are discussed in terms of the research literature and current official policy on induction in Queensland. It is argued that current induction programs are based for the most part on a deficit model of beginning teachers. Recommendations are made for further research in two main areas: critical examination of teacher induction, the term itself, its purpose and underlying theoretical assumptions; and context-specific studies of programs of support for new teachers.
Pathways in Post-Compulsory Education—From Metaphor to Practice
Authors: Dwyer Peter
Published: March 2013

Recent official reports have advocated that schools reformulate their curricula in terms of the future pathways of their graduates, and redefine their assessment criteria in terms of the competencies demanded by the restructuring of the Australian economy. ‘Pathways’ is interpreted by some as a ‘human capital’ metaphor for measuring educational outcomes in terms of economic purpose. The metaphor also seems to assume that genuine pathways already exist or can be readily constructed. This article reports on extensive consultation with five schools in three states to test the implementation of pathways goals within school programs. These schools initiated changes for 1993 to provide structures that link in-school and post-school pathways for their students. They apply a pathways focus to curriculum and school organisation, which provides a model for future school practice.
Markets in Education: A Theoretical Note
Authors: Marginson Simon
Published: March 2013

The development of market relations is a striking feature of education in Australia and comparable countries. Education continues to produce non-market outputs (‘use values’) as well as market outputs, but participation in schooling is being reworked as market consumption; schools, TAFE institutions and universities are now required to sell themselves, and a range of services is provided on full cost basis. This article re-theorises markets in education, drawing on political economy and social theory (including the literature on post-modernism). It defines educational markets and describe four types of commodity produced: positional goods, self goods, training goods and knowledge goods. Post-compulsory education's long-standing role, as a vast competition for scarce social position, constitutes a form of market (one ordered by both government and private interests), and is the platform on which more orthodox economic markets in training and knowledge goods are being erected.