Arts curriculum reform : social and cultural reproduction in Victorian schools

This thesis examines the implementation of the government educational policy document The Curriculum and Standards Framework. I examined the historical and political motivation behind the development of this document and how it introduced a pervasive new initiative of outcomes based education and accountability based on economic rationalism. In particular I examined the implications this new approach had for visual arts education and the subsequent changes to the arts curriculum. This has entailed the introduction of the aesthetic appreciation of the arts as an outcome of the CSF: The Arts. I applied Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction in education which draws predominantly on a Weberian view and a theory of practice. Bourdieu discusses differential educational achievement according to cultural capital stating education requires certain forms of cultural capital that are not equally distributed among the classes. This therefore impedes or enhances life chances according to social class i.e. educational qualifications become a commodity in the labour market and other social fields. I examined how aesthetic appreciation of the arts has evolved historically as a form of social distinction. This entails an abstract element of arts discourse, which demands a certain linguistic competence, and familiarisation, which Bourdieu claims, is developed in the family, as 'cultural capital' this is further perpetuated in schools. The likely outcome is that the introduction of aesthetic appreciation in arts education i.e the demand to 'write about' and 'talk about' art, will perpetuate class inequality due to social and cultural difference. The study has been to examine the practices of arts education in four schools and the extent to which aesthetic appreciation was implemented in the visual arts. Data was collected by case study methods of observation, questionnaire and interview and was interpretive in both quantitative and qualitative methods. I analysed the data based on class differentiation by socioeconomic divisions and examined the school ethos and attitude towards the Arts along with differentiation in cultural capital between student population. I also found teacher and student habitus played a vital role in the implementation of the CSF. This is because habitus can cause resistance to change due to the division between the formulation of the curriculum in the bureaucratic order and the practice of teachers in classrooms. My thesis interprets education as a form of social reproduction, perpetuating the existing social order. However, as Bourdieu asserts and I agree education is a form of symbolic power as it conceals its social function under the guise of neutrality and the technical functional premise. Therefore, this thesis aims to make transparent how the education system serves the interests of the dominant group through curriculum policy. Consequently, it becomes clear how education has far reaching social implications where the distinctions of class are perpetuated through cultural reproduction.

Using the Victorian Curriculum and Standards Framework in music education

This research examined the usefulness of the Victorian Curriculum and Standards Framework as the basis for school music education in Victoria. Interviews with experienced primary and secondary teachers sought to determine the extent to which the Curriculum and Standards Framework had impacted upon their classroom teaching practice and contributed to an understanding of learning in music education.

The theory and practice of coastal area planning: linking strategic planning to local communities

Integrated coastal management (ICM) has been slowly accepted over the last decade as a unifying approach for coastal planning and management throughout the world. Coastal planning aimed at achieving the objectives of ICM can be implemented by varying processes and faces many challenges. One major challenge for coastal planning is to adapt the well-developed theoretical principles of ICM to practical and understandable outcomes in local areas. Associated with this challenge is the need to balance coastal planning objectives for conservation and economic development of a nation or state/province with the objectives of the local community. This article describes a three-tiered approach to coastal planning in Victoria, Australia, which will be of value to other countries, particularly those with subnational coastal planning jurisdictions. This approach not only has the aim of balancing subnational (e.g., state government) and local objectives, but also of applying the theoretical concept of ICM in practice on the ground. In addition, the approach sets out to achieve a sense of ownership of the planning process by local communities by maximizing their involvement at all levels of planning and also by making the state strategy as easy to understand and follow as possible.

Sharing good teaching practice: Practical strategies to integrate ICT into the classroom

Situated in regional areas of Victoria, a group of 16 primary and secondary teachers participated in an intensive program of professional development designed to assist them in embedding lCT into their classroom practice. Most teachers made significant changes to their teaching practice becoming risk-takers and problem solvers.This paper reports on the strategic innovations introduced by the teachers including training, preparation, curriculum planning, software evaluation and selection, classroom management strategies, cooperative learning strategies and embedded assessment tasks. The paper will explore the ways these innovations responded to a variety of constraints including limited resources, time and support.

Technology and teachers in rural schools : diversity and similarity

This paper reports on a project situated in regional areas of Victoria in which 16 primary and secondary teachers participated in an intensive professional development program designed to assist them in embedding Information Communications Technology (ICT) into their classroom practice. The project provides some insight into the availability and use of current technological resources in the rural schools and examines the impact of an intensive professional development program on the implementation of ICT into the curriculum.

The results identified a large diversity of circumstances experienced by the schools in the project, not only in terms of ICT availability and use, and teacher experience, but also in more general issues of cultures of curriculum planning and integration, size, communication, and pedagogical presumptions. The successful integration of ICT into their pedagogical practice was influenced by a complex of factors including the availability of ICT resources, the teachers’ ICT skill level, the teachers’ ability and opportunity to integrate ICT in classroom, the level of support provided, both technical and pedagogical, and the curriculum requirements.

The results of the project have been positive with evidence of increased networking among the teachers, changes in teaching practice and increased teacher proficiency and awareness of ICT resources. The project has highlighted common difficulties that teachers experienced including frustrations with the unreliability of technology and a lack of time for necessary training and preparation. In response to the constraints, teachers have been resourceful and inventive in developing pedagogical strategies to aid the integration of ICT into their classroom practice.

Curriculum frameworks : who (or what) is framing whom?

Various theorists and educators over the years have produced their preferred knowledge groupings or frameworks. Most well-known ones include those produced by Hirst (1974) and Phenix (1964).

Curriculum frameworks were advocated by many educators in the 1990s as an important springboard and focus for teachers in terms of curriculum planning. It was argued that they would be a stimulus for evoking creative ideas and activities. Yet, they are also a major tool for control and direction.

The use of curriculum frameworks were very evident in Australia in April 1991 when eight learning areas were created by the Australian Education Council (AEC) and planned for use in all states and territories. These eight learning areas, or key learning areas (KLA's) have largely endured in all states and territories even though the ambitious plans for national statements and profiles did not survive.

This paper provides a stock-take on the current uses, benefits and problems in using KLA's as curriculum frameworks in Australia. There are many different contextual factors operating, which affect their use and effectiveness. Disjunctions can occur between major players at federal and state levels which provide different and often conflicting points of leverage. It is timely to analyse their impact on curriculum planning and implementation in Australia.

Intertextual turns in curriculum inquiry : fictions, diffractions and deconstructions

This thesis is based primarily on work published in academic refereed journals between 1994 and 2003. Taken as a whole, the thesis explores and enacts an evolving methodology for curriculum inquiry which foregrounds the generativity of fiction in reading, writing and representing curriculum problems and issues. This methodology is informed by the narrative and textual 'turns' in the humanities and social sciences - especially poststructuralist and deconstructive approaches to literary and cultural criticism - and is performed as a series of narrative experiments and 'intertextual turns'. Narrative theory suggests that we can think of all discourse as taking the form of a story, and poststructuralist theorising invites us to think of all discourse as taking the form of a text; this thesis argues that intertextual and deconstructive readings of the stories and texts that constitute curriculum work can produce new meanings and understandings. The thesis places particular emphasis on the uses of fiction and fictional modes of representation in curriculum inquiry and suggests that our purposes might sometimes be better served by (re)presenting the texts we produce as deliberate fictions rather than as 'factual' stories. The thesis also demonstrates that some modes and genres of fiction can help us to move our research efforts beyond 'reflection' (an optical metaphor for displacing an image) by producing texts that 'diffract' the normative storylines of curriculum inquiry (diffraction is an optical metaphor for transformation). The thesis begins with an introduction that situates (autobiographically and historically) the narrative experiments and intertextual turns performed in the thesis as both advancements in, and transgressions of, deliberative and critical reconceptualist curriculum theorising. Several of the chapters that follow examine textual continuities and discontinuities between the various objects and methods of curriculum inquiry and particular fictional genres (such as crime stories and science fiction) and/or particular fictional works (including Bram Stoker's Dracula, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, and Ursula Le Guin's The Telling). Other chapters demonstrate how intertextual and deconstructive reading strategies can inform inquiries focused on specific subject matters (with particular reference to environmental education) and illuminate contemporary issues and debates in curriculum (especially the internationalisation and globalisation of curriculum work). The thesis concludes with suggestions for further refinement of methodologies that privilege narrative and fiction in curriculum inquiry.

Negotiating curriculum work in ESL

Conducting applied research in workplace settings on and/or with colleagues raises a host of ethical and procedural issues about research. Empiricist, interpretive, and critical approaches all have a place in understanding, describing and changing curriculum perceptions. As one moves from one paradigm to the other the voices of the agents in the curriculum process become increasingly prominent. With reference to some of my own workplace research under the three paradigms mentioned above, I describe ways in which educational research in workplace settings represents curriculum reality and can act as an engine of change.

Event that never happened : the history and politics of decentralisation in Victoria and New South Wales 1885-1985

The thesis is an account of movements and policies for decentralisation of population and economic activity away from metropolitan to non-metropolitan areas in Victoria and N.S.W. in the period 1885-1985. It examines the pull from the country and the push from the capitals for decentralisation. Ballarat (Victoria) and Bathurst (N.S.W.) are used as case studies. Introductory chapters describe the historic pattern of population distribution in the two Colonies/States and discuss theories about the spatial distribution of population and industry. Chapters recounting and discussing the history and politics of decentralisation in Victoria and N.S.W. are organised in three periods: 1885-1940; 1940-1965; 1965-1985. A more decentralised distribution of population in Victoria and N.S.W. was almost always widely accepted as being in the public interest. Decentralisation rose and fell recurrently on the issue attention cycle. The pull from the country was fragmented and locally self-interested. The push from the capitals occurred only when life or its quality was perceived as threatened because of factors related to city size. Governments in both States introduced micro policies ostensibly to counter formidable centralising forces. In the 1970s there was an abortive attempt to implement a selective decentralisation policy in N.S.W. The thesis argues that decentralisation did not happen because: (1) there was not a consistent set of values and goals underlying the pull and push; (2) there was never a sustained, unified constituency for decentralisation, even in the country; (3) the power to influence, subvert or obstruct decentralisation policies was too widely diffused; (4) insufficient account was taken in decentralisation policymaking of the underlying economic, social and political dynamics.

Picturing Currere towards c u r a : rhizo-imaginary for curriculum

This critical inquiry in curriculum studies uses poststructuralist and Deleuzian rhizomatic approaches alongside an original 'picturing' methodology. The author genealogically maps historical and contemporary curriculum theorising to deconstruct curriculum 'development' and foreground currere (curriculum reconceptualising). In performing Deleuzian philosophy, his proposed c u r a reimagines curriculum via currere to envision generatively living-learning

Transition of understandings in science and SOSE : a case study

The newly developed Curriculum Standards Framework lacked supporting school documentation to implement an effective program in Science and SOSE. The task was to create it, together with the knowledge and understandings that were required to apply it. The thesis demonstrates the difficulties faced in actively pursuing curriculum change in a primary school.