Anthony Potts

Schools as dangerous places

When students set off for school each day how many of them or their caregivers consider for a moment that they will spend the day at a potentially dangerous place? On the contrary, students and caregivers probably view schools as safe havens, and official research suggests that this is the case for the majority of teachers and pupils. However, underlying this official view, schools are more and more seen as much less benign and safe. The popular press, for one thing, is certainly keen to report instances of schools as dangerous places. This article examines schools as dangerous places because of dangers from pupils to pupils, teachers to pupils, teachers to teachers, pupils to teachers and dangers from the physical and natural environment. The discussion is framed in terms of the culture of the school and the increasingly legal nature of the schooling and educational environment.

Researching the lives of Catholic teachers who were members of religious orders: historiographical considerations

Introduction When many of the parents of those currently attending Catholic schools throughout much of the English-speaking world were being educated, the Catholic teaching force was heavily influenced by the presence of the religious orders. Furthermore, this had been the situation for over a century. The turning point was the mid-1960s and the opening up of the Catholic Church (the Church) to the modern world as a result of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Amongst the related developments were large numbers leaving the orders, a major drop off in new recruits and a consequent need to employ ever-greater numbers of lay teachers. Consequently, young people being educated nowadays in Catholic schools are usually taught by lay teachers, the principals in their schools are lay men and women, and lay people predominate on their school boards. Equally, the presence of nuns, religious brothers and priests as teachers and administrators in the schools is minimal. The demise of the teachers who were members of religious orders (the teaching religious) has been accompanied by a fading of memory regarding their presence. There has been a flowering of hagiographic work on those who founded the orders and particularly on what Catholic historians in various parts of the English-speaking world have termed the ‘struggle’ for state aid. This work, however, has not been accompanied by a major corpus of serious scholarship on the social history of the lives of the ‘religious’. In other words, while religious historians have devoted considerable time to portraying the work of their members as heroic, as undertaken with saintly zeal and as a response to a divine call, secular historians have not been as active in examining the political, social and economic motivations underlying the actions of the religious teaching orders and in trying to understand how their members were socialized into opting for the religious way of life by a variety of institutions, including Catholic schools. This paper raises some historiographical issues regarding the development of the history of Catholic religious teachers, and particularly of their lives. The first part is aimed at locating the small body of research on the history of the lives of the teaching religious within the context of the more general field of the history of teachers. A brief account then follows highlighting a much neglected perspective, namely, that the growth of Catholic orders of teaching religious can be viewed as an outcome of political, social and economic action on the part of the institutional Church. The third part of the paper problematizes the

Selling university reform: the University of Melbourne and the press

Since the advent of the Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings and the Academic Rankings of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, some Australian universities have become especially concerned with being ranked among the 100 leading universities. The University of Melbourne, Australia’s second oldest university, is one such. As part of an agenda to remain one of the world’s leading universities, this university instigated major curricular reforms to align its degree structure with that espoused by the Bologna Agreement and consistent with those at North American universities. Aware that successful implementation of such a large-scale reform depended on its acceptance by internal and external communities, the University conducted an extensive press campaign promoting the reforms. This article explores the press reporting of this campaign over a two and a half year period, as the University of Melbourne sought to gain public support and acceptance of the Melbourne Model.

What Is Literacy? Thirty Years of Australian Literacy Debates (1975-2005).

Australia is a federation of six states and two territories. Each state and territory has its own legislature, which may not be of the same political persuasion as the Commonwealth (Federal) Government. Under the Australian Constitution primary control of school education is with the State and Territory Governments, with the Australian Commonwealth Government having no specific constitutional responsibility for school education. However, this is complicated by a dual‐tiered funding system, whereby the Australian Commonwealth Government has responsibility for some funding of government schools and majority funding for non‐government schools. Since 1975 there have been moves by the Commonwealth Ministers for Education to acquire a significant role in identifying national priorities for education and constructing policies and assessment tools to achieve such goals. Financial provision and national policy formation have increasingly become the means by which Australian Commonwealth Ministers for Education have “shaped” educational debates and policies. In November 2004 the then Australian Commonwealth Minister for Education, Science and Training announced the details of the Australian Government National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy. The focus of the Inquiry was examination of research into reading, preparation of schoolteachers and literacy teaching practices, especially reading. The Inquiry may be seen as the latest move by the Commonwealth Government to influence the teaching of literacy in Australia. In this paper official notions of literacy, as outlined through the various Australian Commonwealth Governments inquiries into literacy and national policy documents for the period 1975–2005, are examined using metaphor analysis. Metaphor analysis provides a means of analysing discourses about literacy in each of the reports and policies in order to interpret the underlying ideology. These official constructs of literacy are briefly considered within the competing and wider notions of literacy in Australia academic debates and the tensions that exist in defining literacy. Why did the Australian Commonwealth Government become involved in the literacy debates during this time? In particular, how has the Australian Commonwealth Government defined literacy and why did it take a more controlling role in both the definition of literacy and the shaping of education for literacy? The reasons for the Australian Commonwealth Government becoming involved in the literacy debates remain largely unresolved. In this paper it is proposed that involvement in the literacy debates constituted a way for the Commonwealth Government, in a time of economic rationalisation, to change their role in educational reform from one of financial assistance to one of leadership in curriculum. It is also proposed that a metaphor analysis of the policy documents and associated reports indicates a move from a wide definition of literacy to an increasingly narrow and utilitarian definition of literacy, reflecting the predominantly economic focus of the Australian Commonwealth Government.

New Education, Progressive Education and the Counter Culture

This article uses the themes of genesis, metamorphoses, continuity and change from a comparative perspective to show the links and relationships between the ideas of the New Educationists, progressive education and the counter culture of the late 1970s. The article discusses important educationists from different continents and different time periods, namely Montessori (Italy), Neil (United Kingdom), Rogers (USA) and Cock and Millikin (Australia) to examine key issues in the history of New Education progressive education and the counter culture.

Academic Migration: The Case of New Australian Universities

Currently a number of countries around the world grapple with the alleged issues of “brain drain” and “brain gain”. These twin areas are especially felt in smaller nations such as Australia. They are particularly the subject of analysis with respect to the academic profession, which seeks to recruit the next generation of academics in an increasingly global and competitive world. Academic migration itself is not a new issue being as old as the profession itself. What perhaps is novel is that in a mass system of higher education with a great diversity of institutional types migration and migration decisions are even less one-dimensional than perhaps they once, if ever, were. If ever academic migrants were motivated only by academic decisions in making their migration choices does this also apply to those who work in newer and less traditional universities. This study using life history methods examines academic migrants and their migration choices with reference to two new Australian universities. The data is related to the wider literature on recent migration studies and academic migration. Questions are posed and conclusions drawn for academic recruitment by universities facing the challenges posed by imminent large-scale retirement of academic staff.

Academic migration during the 'golden age of higher education'

Academics have been accused of studying everything but themselves and this has been seen as a notable failure among those who are concerned with assisting others to understand the modern world. This failure is especially noticeable with respect to research on those individuals who inhabit the less prestigious institutions and teach less prestigious disciplines. Too often research has focussed on individuals in a few elite institutions and disciplines. In the area of academic migration there is a surprising lack of research on most groups of academics. This article examines aspects of migration to a non-elite Australian institution by a group of individuals during the period 1965–1982. What led this group of individuals, which included persons from France, Great Britain, Canada, North America, New Guinea and India to select a career at a small provincial college of advanced education—Bendigo College of Advanced Education (BCAE)—one of Australia’s oldest and smallest colleges of advanced education. What were some of the influences operating? This article examines migration to this non-elite institution in its broader social context and investigates some of the local dynamics of migration. This is because it cannot be assumed that developments in mainstream and elite institutions are the norm due to the enormous diversity and complexity among institutions of higher education and their histories and development. Studies of such ‘peripheral institutions’ and their staff allows for an examination of ‘the local and provincial as informing elements’ and assists in determining the extent to which universities and their activities develop as part of local variations.

Patterns and persistence in academic migration: 40 years of Australian academic migration

Abstract This chapter explores the migration decisions and motives of a group of academics who were recruited to three Australian higher education institutions during the period 1965–2003. The chapter furthers our understanding of historical patterns of academic mobility and the experience of academic mobility and adds to our understanding of the academic profession. The research used a micro approach to migration history and focussed on academic migrants’ decision-making processes. The research used semi-structured interviews with three groups of academics who were interviewed in 1982 and 2003. The academic migrants in this research were not committed to any particular institution or curriculum. What was most important in their migration decision was simply obtaining any academic position. Many, if not most of them, owed their academic careers to the growth in Australian higher education caused by its transition from an elite to a mass system. They obtained their academic posts because of the global nature of academic work. The question that arises from this study is what Australian universities will need to do to attract a new generation of academics as they compete in a global market for academic personnel.

College voices: what have we lost?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine an aspect of the working lives of a group of Australian college of advanced education academic staff who worked at Bendigo College of Advanced Education, one of Australias oldest colleges, during the period 1965‐1982.Design/methodology/approach – Using extended interviews that were conducted with academic staff in 1982 this paper examines these academic staffs perspectives on the influence of their own tertiary education and previous employment on their then academic roles.Findings – The academic staff in this study reported that their previous employment was more important in carrying out their academic roles than were other factors such as their tertiary education. Interestingly, current Australian university students, according to university commissioned research, by one research intensive Australian university, also attach more importance to the prior industrial and work experiences of university lecturers as opposed to their research excellence and ...

Disciplinary cultures in an Australian college of advanced education

Recently scholars have called for more detailed historical study of the teaching lives of academics across countries, systems and institutions. This article contributes to the research on the professoriate in its widest sense. The article focuses on the disciplinary perspectives and cultures of academic staff employed in one of Australia’s oldest colleges of advanced education during the period 1965–1982. It examines official beliefs, slogans, and truisms, which formed part of these perspectives. Disciplinary perspectives include the academics’ views of the subject, the important problems for the subject, and the criteria of utility of the subject. Australia’s Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Advanced Education saw colleges of advanced education compared to universities enrolling students with different interests, stressing part‐time studies, concentrating on applied courses rather than humanities, being closely attuned to the labour market and workforce needs and being principally teaching institutions. They were to be equal but different to universities, but came to be viewed as equal but cheaper. A crucial issue is the extent to which the disciplinary perspectives of college of advanced education academics matched those that the legislators envisaged.