Does the Australian national framework for values education stifle an education for world peace?

This paper aims to offer an evaluation of Australia's National Framework for Values Education in terms of its educative value. The criteria to be employed in this evaluation shall be drawn primarily from the works of UNESCO and John Dewey. In addition to a re-evaluation of values, consideration will also be given to how individual learners are being prepared to participate democratically in the quest for world peace. It will therefore be necessary to determine whether the Australian framework promotes the potential for democratic participation through inquiry or whether through schooling its overtly nationalistic agenda actually stifles the capacity of persons to participate in a pursuit for global understandings and world peace.

Teaching values

Teaching Values has been designed to support teachers to introduce the Nine Values for Australian Schooling (Australian Government 2005) to their students and to build on the work that they and their schools do in the name of values education. It does not set out to be the definitive text rather it contributes to the current and historical discourse in this area by providing a unique approach to this complex area of the school curriculum. Using a range of texts sourced from collections held by the National Museum of Australia the book uses textual analysis as an approach to teaching values.

Perceptions of multiculturalism in music education: what matters and why

Pre-service teacher education students from two Australian universities were interviewed about their understandings of cultural diversity in music education. These initial findings revealed varied but generally consistent enthusiasm about including music from different cultures in teaching. However comments revealed an almost haphazard exposure to other musics. These were generally informal rather than learned in their formal education. Interviewees recognised the training that they had received in their tertiary studies in other cultures (both Western and non-Western) and expressed the intention to pursue professional development in their future careers. Engaging with the music of other cultures allows teachers and students to develop understanding and empathy with others. This is in line with current governmental initiatives on values that states that values education is intended to 'inspire and educate the next generation to see their world through the eyes of others. We want children to become adults who are caring, tolerant, fair and compassionate' (Department of Education, Science and Training, n.d., p. 2). Comments from the interviewees illustrate just such attitudes and understandings. It behoves us as educators to prepare students for teaching in multicultural classrooms that reflect the wider Australian society.

UnAustralian values

The 9 Australian Values promoted in the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools have been developed with emphasis on valuing cultural and religious diversity, tolerance and inclusion. The document states:

These shared values such as respect and ‘fair go’ are part of Australia’s common democratic way of life, which includes equality, freedom and the rule of law. They reflect our commitment to a multicultural and environmentally sustainable society where all are entitled to justice (DEST, 2005:4).

It would follow that UnAustralian Values of exclusion, ignorance, disrespect and dishonesty, synonymous with a resurgence of narrow nationalism and intolerance for cultural and religious diversity, are in conflict with Australian Values. However many public figures seem to have confused UnAustralian with Australian Values and the socalled ‘Values Debate’ has largely ignored the actual content of the 9 Australian Values promoted in the National Framework for Values Education. Something is amiss in UnAustralia. This paper aims to examine this discrepancy.

Citizenship for the future - educating the adolescent in 1960s Australia

This paper explores the planning of adolescent subjectivity in Australian education during the 1960s and 70s in relation to citizenship formation. Citizenship encompasses questions about social values and subjectivity - the kind of people adolescents will become. Debates in Australian education during this time convey ambivalence towards modernity and change, with adolescents both exhorted to abide by existing social values, and to embrace the future of changed values. The paper first maps some of the dominant concerns about managing adolescents and their (desirable or lacking) capacities, set against a claimed collapse in social and personal values and the responsibility of schools to prepare adolescents for future citizenship. Second, key ideas that underpinned these debates - notably the future, role and socialization, and forms of reasoning derived from social psychology – are examined from a genealogical or Foucauldian perspective. Finally, the paper, as a part of an attempt to understand the history of the present, briefly raises some questions in relation to contemporary initiatives and concerns about citizenship and social values education.

Cross cultural perspectives of teachers : a study in three countries

In a shrinking world where globalization has blurred the boundaries across nation states and cultural divides, limitations on intercultural communication can readily give rise to glib generalizations and lack of understanding of diversity. Acknowledging the key role of teachers in shaping the views of future generations, this paper reports on the first stage of a research study on the intercultural understanding of teachers in Australia, Japan, and Thailand. Overall, the teacher participants had diverse cross-cultural experience, differing both in extent and nature of the contact. The methodology used a common survey instrument, except for its language of presentation. However, instead of using a traditional comparative approach to contrast responses of the three target groups, the study asked teachers to provide their perceptions of prevailing world views of people in their own AND the other two countries. The reciprocal nature of the observations provides a powerful methodology to explore perceived intercultural similarities and differences. The article also considers problems associated with response set in investigations of this kind. Three scales are considered — change through intervention, symbolic inner self, and independent thought and action — and the data reveal some similarities but also some striking differences in perceptions across countries. The differences signal a lack of intercultural understanding which is being explored further in a second, qualitative stage of the research. The findings indicate the need for increasing shared programs, exchanges and other opportunities for reciprocal relations that foster genuine dialogue, partnership and intercultural understanding between countries.

Post: 9/11: hidden pedagogy: the positional forces of pedagogy in Victoria, Australia

This qualitative study charts the lived narratives of twelve participants, six teachers and six students from urban and rural Victoria, Australia. The study examines in detail the question ‘How do teachers teach, post 9/11?’. 9/11 has become accepted shorthand for September 11th 2001, in which terrorist attacks took place in the United States of America. The attacks heralded a ‘post- 9/11 world, [in which] threats are defined more by the fault lines within societies than by the territorial boundaries between them’ (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 2011, p. 361). The study is embedded in the values that have come to the fore in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the ideological shifts that have occurred globally. These values and ideologies are reflected via issues of culture and consumption. In education this is particularly visible through pedagogy. The research employs a multimethodological (Esteban-Guitart, 2012) form of inquiry through the use of bricolage (Kincheloe & Berry, 2004) which is comprised at the intersectional points of critical pedagogy (Kincheloe, 2008b), public pedagogy (Sandlin, Schultz, & Burdick, 2010b) and cultural studies (Hall, Hobson, Lowe, & Willis, 1992). This study adopts a critical ontological perspective, and is grounded in qualitative research approaches (Lather & St. Pierre, 2013). The methods of photo elicitation, artefact analysis, video observation and semi-structured interviews are used to critically examine the ways in which teacher and student identities are shaped by the pedagogies of contemporary schooling, and how they form common sense understandings of the world and themselves, charting possibilities between accepted common sense beliefs and 21st century neoliberal capitalism. The research is presented through a prototypical form of literary journalism and intertextuality which examines the interrelationship between teaching and social worlds exposing the hidden influence of enculturation and addressing the question ‘How do teachers teach, post 9/11?’

A values approach to business education in Hong Kong

This paper investigates the learning behaviour, learning environment and learning outcomes of Hong Kong Chinese students enrolled on an Australian university's Bachelor of Business degree course taught by visiting Australian lecturers in Hong Kong. The Chinese students are task-focused and passive learners. They do not demonstrate creative thinking, critical analysis or risk taking in problem solving, and appear to focus on surface-level rote learning. Semi-structured interviews with students and lecturers identified the changes experienced in learning behaviour and teaching strategies. By applying a teaching and learning value chain developed by Radbourne in 2001 and using Biggs's 3P culturally modified model of teaching and learning, new teaching strategies were developed to ensure that the Chinese Hong Kong students graduated with the capabilities required to be effective in the global workplace. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

Approaches to the development and maintenance of professional values, ethics and attitudes in accounting education programs

IES 4, Professional Values, Ethics and Attitudes prescribes the professional values, ethics and attitudes professional accountants should acquire during the education program leading to membership of an IFAC member body.
The purpose of this paper is to support the development of IEPS 4.1, Approaches to Developing and Maintaining Professional Values, Ethics and Attitudes. This will assist and support IFAC member bodies to discharge effectively their responsibilities to ensure that candidates for membership of an IFAC member body are equipped with the appropriate professional values, ethics and attitudes to function as professional accountants.
The IAESB believes that this paper, and the findings of the independent research team, will be of interest and benefit to IFAC member bodies, accounting educators, and others seeking to implement ethics education programs for professional accountants.

How values in education affect children's environmental knowledge

In this study we analysed the familiarity and understanding of 10 environmental concepts amongst Mexican and English school children (aged 7 to 9). The investigation considered the impact of the educational system and the school ethos on the formation of environmental concepts. Results reveal that in general, children of this age have a low to moderate level of environmental literacy. The educational system and pedagogical approach affect the way children learn environmental concepts. Schools with a strong orientation towards the environment seem more capable of helping children with their understanding of environmental concepts. School and television were the major sources of environmental information, but this varied with school ethos. The development of effective environmental policies in schools needs to be considered in order to promote environmental knowledge in the school population.

Can education add value to values? A study of law students

In the global market place the value of education takes on many meanings. In transnational education forums it relates to the market’s assessment (in dollar terms) of a qualification. But can we measure the value-addedness of tertiary education in existential terms? Can we measure the value that tertiary education provides to the enhancement of societies as a whole?

This study attempts to investigate what values are characteristic of Australian lawyers in their last year of law school. It is part of a larger longitudinal study, which aims to determine how values develop or degrade over time and what effect, if any, tertiary education can have in building and perpetuating ‘appropriate’ professional values? Results show that differing values sets do significantly predict behavioural choices on ethical questions presented to participants. The implications of results are discussed in the contexts of ethics education in a tertiary context, and applications for the professions.

Values in science, environmental education and teacher education

The aim of this chapter is to establish values as a key component of science and environmental education, consistent with the troika framework, and to explore the implications of this for teacher education. In the chapter, we review research that has increasingly placed values at the centre of the process of learning science, and central also in framing students' responses to school science. We then present findings from three projects that explore the relationship of values to teaching and learning science: first, an exploration of the pedagogies of effective teachers of science; second,an environmental education project in which students explore science and sustainability ideas in the context of a community exchange program in Mexico and Alaska; and, third, a teachcr education initiative focused on place-based education. In the chapter, we argue that learning science and engaging with the environment entails pedagogies that link conceptual learning, values and community.