The purpose of this study is to discover if there has been quantitative change in the gender balance of the employment profile of the ACT Department of Education from 1976 to 1991 and to explore possible reasons for such change. It should be noted that the Department has had several changes of name over the period covered by this study including the ACT Department of Education, the ACT Department of Health, Education and the Arts, and it is presently known as the ACT Department of Education and Training. For the sake of clarity it will be referred to throughout as the ACT Department of Education. The employment configuration will be studied from 1976, the earliest year of available data, to 1991 to measure relative changes in the position of men and women. This paper will examine significant events in the ACT Education system, in particular the introduction of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) legislation in 1984, to determine whether the introduction of legislation and/or other initiatives brought about moves toward Equal Employment Opportunity for women. The study will develop and consider hypotheses and examine several theoretical explanations for the changes or lack of them in the position of men and women. Recommendations will be made concerning future directions for research and action to achieve equal employment opportunity for women, the largest group of the four groups targeted in the EEO legislation. The central argument of the study is that the adoption of quantitative approaches to measure success/failure in EEO programs is of limited use. These theoretical approaches, largely informed by liberal feminism, offer inadequate understanding of the resistances to change. Other theoretical perspectives are needed if the issue is seen as "what are the resistances and what are the policies and strategies that can be developed to overcome them?". Feminist critical theory, however, enables more productive questions to be raised about how social power is constructed and maintained, about hegemonic culture, and about the language and cultural biases embedded in administrative structures in education. Insights thus gained into issues, events and resistances give individuals and groups agency, the power to act for change.

The increased demand for Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) has been linked to changes that have occurred in the family structure and work habits. OSHC programs operating on school sites under the management of a committee of parents and school representatives provide parents with one option to meet the needs for care of primary age children. This study examined the issue of OSHC from the perspectives of workers involved in the provision of services in government school sites in the ACT. Data were gathered by way of semi-structured interviews with nineteen coordinators from sixteen After School Care (ASC) centres. The data were analysed to find similarities in the experiences of workers interviewed. Extracts from the interviews are presented in the findings to illustrate the perceptions care givers have about their work and areas where changes can be made to improve the quality of ASC services. The study provides information on the factors affecting the provision of quality services and suggests possible directions for future planning and research in this area. The findings indicate that the care givers interviewed perceived their role as a positive influence in the lives of children and families. Care givers sought to provide relaxed environments for children after the school day. Many centres operated with the strong support of parents, schools and management committees. The findings suggest that ASC centres can and do operate successfully on school sites in the ACT and that care givers were generally happy with the level of service provided. However, variability in the facilities and support provided to centres was noted. The study concludes that real improvement to the quality of programs and support of workers is dependent on the introduction of nationally recognised standards in the provision of ASC.

In the western world the Protestant Christian Day School Movement is now a recognised element in education systems. It is a movement which has had phenomenal growth over the past twenty years and it continues to grow. Mostly, the parents of children who attend these schools were educated in a government school. This thesis seeks to find the reasons why parents are choosing Christian Schools and not government ones as they themselves attended. A variety of values are examined ; religious, academic and pastoral, and as the reader will discover, while it is not easy always to make a clear distinction between these values, some trends are so strong that the researcher believes that some valid conclusions may be drawn. A considerable amount of data was collected by the use of two surveys done at the Trinity Christian School at Wanniassa,and one survey conducted among parents of the O'Connor Christian School at Lyneham. The Biblical Values Survey provides an interesting over-view of the perceived achievement of a Christian School while the Choosing a School Survey clearly shows why these parents are dissatisfied with government schools and what they expect their child will gain from a Christian School experience. A computer analysis was done on one block of data which highlights the need for Christian School administrators to be aware of the various priority areas which do exist in the minds of the parents of their students.

A Feminist Action Research methodology was used as a collaborative process with five ACT Health social workers based at the Community Health Centres and four at the Woden Valley Hospital. The primary purpose of the study was to investigate, both through critical reflection and action in their work setting, the participants' relevance or otherwise to Aboriginal people in the ACT and region. Behind this is the question of how encapsulated social work is by racism. The impetus for the study arose from my unresolved concerns regarding these issues, having been a social worker in ACT Health for 6 years, to 1990. Decisions on how to proceed involved a process of ongoing consultation between the participant social workers and myself. Exploratory meetings were held in March and April, with an ongoing program being held 2-3 weekly from June to September, followed by a review in December. Most gatherings were specific to the Woden Valley Hospital or Community Health settings. However two half-day workshops were held for all the participants. All the sessions from June were taped. Aboriginal leaders were consulted, as were several managers in ACT Health. The phenomena of institutional, cultural and personal racism were addressed by the social workers through discussion, exercises, and anti-racist initiatives in their work setting. They found that significant time restraints presented an example of institutional racism working against their good intentions. Another dimension arose from implicitly racist education in social work courses when most of the participants undertook their undergraduate courses in the 1960s and 1970s. Aspects related to professionalism such as its language and separation of a personal and professional self were indicative of cultural racism. Stories of personal racism were shared, in the context of raised awareness leading to changing those attitudes and behaviours. The fact that the study took place in 1993 - a watershed year for Aboriginal/white relations in Australia - seemed to lead to greater momentum for the project. The social workers found that participation in this study increased their knowledge of, and their confidence - both actual and potential - in interaction with Aboriginal people. However, they also understood these to be just small steps towards greater justice for the indigenous people. An outcome of the project has been involving some colleagues in similar anti-racist actions to those the social workers participated in during the time of the study. The action research project has continued on in different ways, beyond 1993, despite my withdrawal as 'the researcher' who took the initiative.

This study examines the migration experiences of non-English speaking background children. The research was conducted at the Southside Primary Introductory English Centre in the A.C.T. An ethnographic approach was employed enabling the researcher to participate in the setting in order to develop an in depth understanding of the children's experiences. The data was collected using observation and key informant interviewing. The participants were encouraged to freely reflect on their past and present experiences to enable them to make a comparative analysis of their experiences in Australia and in their country of origin. The data has been faithfully recorded to represent the children's point of view. The data was then organised into taxonomies. These were used as a basis for the analysis of the data in relation to the pertinent literature. The three major categories examined were culture, interaction and feelings. This analysis has been used to draw implications for the education of migrant children in the A.C.T.

The experiments described in this thesis were designed to assess changes in pasture dynamics (biomass and species composition of pasture) of grazing land on the Southern Tablelands of ACT and NSW, after 16 combinations of rabbit control treatments had been applied. The rabbit control performed by CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology consisted of all combinations of presence-absence of Poisoning (using sodium monofluoroacetate, 1080: POIS), Ripping (ripping warrens using a tractor fitted with ripping tynes: RIP), Fumigation (pressure fumigation using chloropicrin: FUM) and repeated follow-up fumigation (using phostoxin pellets one, six and eighteen months after completion of the initial treatment: ANN). The pasture was assessed before treatments were applied, and every six months after rabbit control treatments. Treatment combinations were assigned randomly in a 24 factorial design on a total of 32 sites. There was a significant increase of pasture biomass at the RIP+ANN treatment at post-treatment sample 5. The analysis of covariance did not detect any other significant increase or decrease of pasture biomass for any rabbit control treatment, at any posttreatment sample. A significant increase of grass species occurred for the treatments of POIS+RIP+FUM, POIS and RIP+ANN for the post-treatment samples of 1, 3 and 5 respectively. There was a significant increase of thistles at the rabbit control treatments of POIS+RIP+FUM+ANN (post-treatment sample 1), RIP, ANN, RIP+FUM, RIP+FUM+ANN and POIS+RIP+FUM+ANN (post-treatment sample 3) and RIP and FUM+ANN (post-treatment sample 5). A significant increase of weeds occurred at FUM (post-treatment sample 3) and at FUM+ANN (post-treatment sample 5). No significant changes in the amount of herbs or legumes was apparent for any rabbit control treatment or post-treatment sample. There were no significant decreases for any species group. Except for the significant results for post-treatment sample 1, all significant increases of biomass for any species group occurred during spring (post-treatment sample 3 and 5) which suggests a growth phase during spring then subsequent dieback (particularly for thistles and weeds), as any change was not detected in the following autumn sample. No strong trend is evident for any particular rabbit control treatments, or any combination of treatments. Analysis of covariance revealed that the rabbit control treatment of RIP+ANN showed significant increases in both total biomass of pasture and grass biomass during post-treatment sample 5. This treatment reduced the number of active entrances the most. Significant positive correlations were found between pasture biomass (total) with grass, herb, legume, thistle and weed species groups. Significant negative correlations between grass biomass and the number of active entrances were found when the rabbit control had been highly effective in reducing the number of active entrances. When rabbit control had not been very successful, there was a significant positive but low correlation with the number of active entrances. There was no significant relationship between the number of active entrances with the weight of rabbit dung pellets. It is reasoned that they are different measures of rabbit abundance. More rabbit dung pellets were found closer to the warren than further away from the warren, but there was no correlation between rabbit dung and pasture biomass. Rainfall was above average for most of the experiment, biomass increased accordingly, and rabbit control was highly successful. The resulting changes in the pasture were difficult to detect, although some increases in species composition groups occurred. It is reasoned that the changes observed are partly attributable to seasonal conditions, and to high rainfall. Grazing by domestic animals, sheep and cattle, had been found to be consistent throughout the experiment.

My study is of the provision of career education, health education, personal development and student development programmes for students from Years 7 to 10 in ACT high schools. My purpose was to identify why these programmes are not available to all students and what can be done to make them available. The methods I used were an examination of a longitudinal case study of "Bellbird" High School in parallel with a survey of the current system perspective. Although the study focuses on the ACT in Australia, reference is made to the international literature, as well as local, regarding the attitudes of students, parents and teachers to career education, health education, personal development and student development programmes; data collection and interpretation; and the implementation of change. I have used data from three different survey instruments administered at "Bellbird" High School, at five year intervals, in 1978/79, 1984 and 1989. I have used another instrument at system level twice, in two consecutive years, in 1988 and 1989. Each of the instruments was developed for a specific purpose and not for gathering data for this study. All three surveys at "Bellbird" High School were designed to determine the attitudes of students, parents and teachers to aspects of the curriculum. They provided both quantitative and qualitative data. Basically, I have compared the 1979 and 1989 numerical data, and used the 1984 material for confirmation of significant issues. In addition to using qualitative data from these three instruments, I have also used comments from curriculum committee and School Board documents and evaluation reports from the Living Skills Programme. At system level, a questionnaire was designed to gather data about the provision of career education and health education in high schools in the ACT. This instrument, included questions about barriers to these programmes and strategies for overcoming the barriers. The findings were distributed to the schools. The procedure was based on the 'Research, Development and Diffusion' model. People associated with the successful implementation of the programmes under investigation were interviewed to find out what barriers they had faced, how they overcame them and what suggestions they had for overcoming other baniers to these programmes. Using the data CO-jointly with the literature and my own knowledge of cumculum implementation, I have proposed an action plan for "Bellbird" High School to extend the provision of its student development programme to all students. In conclusion, the suitability of the proposed action plan for use in other ACT high schools is appraised and general principles for the system are drawn out.

This study details the background to the establishment of Parish School Boards in the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, and reports and analyses the perceptions of all ACT Catholic, systemic, primary school Principals who operated with a Parish School Board in 1993. The movement towards Parish School Boards finds its genesis in the Second Vatican Council where the Church was invited to collaborate in decision-making based on the belief that all the faithful have gifts, knowledge and a share of the wisdom to bring to the building of the Church. The nature and structure of Catholic education was seen as a suitable vehicle for encouraging communities to engage in shared decision-making and in participatory democracy under the Church model of subsidiarity, collegiality and collaboration. The introduction of Parish School Boards into the Archdiocese can be seen as the implementation of a radical change to the educational mission of the Church and the educational leadership of the faith community. Reflecting 'new management theory' in both the secular and Church worlds, a key stakeholder is the school Principal whose role and relationships change as he or she learns to work within a team, sharing leadership. This study examines the responses of nineteen Principals who were interviewed by the researcher in order to determine how they work with a Parish School Board and what effects the board has on their work. Research studies in the area of School-Based Management and Shared Decision-Making have informed the review, and the Principals' responses from this study have been analysed in the light of secular and Church literature on leadership, devolution and change. The respondents of this study, the school Principals, report the benefits of collegiality and collaboration but their unresolved tensions relate to work overload, lack of clarity of the roles and responsibilities of the various local level decision-making groups, increased administrative complexity, community demand for ever widening consultation and the challenge of consensus decision-making. All Principals report an urgent need for professional development for themselves and for the system to provide a more explicit focus on parish and community formation with the commitment of the necessary resources to sustain this radical change.

In January, 1974, the Interim ACT Schools Authority assumed responsibility for pre, primary and secondary schools in the Australian Capital Territory. It took steps to provide a basis for the restructuring of secondary education. The traditional six-year comprehensive high school was to be replaced in 1976 by a four-year high school and a two-year secondary college. The Interim Authority decided that each school should be responsible for its own curriculum which should not be constrained by an external examination. A system of course development and teacher assessment, to replace the New South Wales Higher School Certificate syllabuses and examination, was developed during 1974. The Interim Authority sought the advice of the Australian Council for Educational Research, and a report prepared by it was used to stimulate public debate. After considering a wide cross section of points of view the Interim Authority decided that accredited courses would replace syllabuses, teacher assessments, the examination and profile reports the Certificate. The ACT Schools Accrediting Agency, a committee of the Interim Authority, was formed in 1975 to administer accrediting assessment and reporting. The Accrediting Agency negotiated the basis for tertiary entrance for ACT students. It determined that a single aggregate score, the Tertiary Entrance Score, should be calculated, using aggregated scaled teacher assessments. Scores from three major and one minor accredited-TES courses scaled by the Australian Scholastic Aptitude Test total score would be aggregated. A system-wide order of merit would be created. The maximum aggregate score would be 360. The basis for the aggregate was very different from that which it was replacing. In New South Wales, five subject scores with a possible maximum of 900 was used. An examination of a number of comparison and correlation studies presented in Part B indicates that ASAT scaling of teacher estimates improves the correlation of teacher estimates with the Higher School Certificate examination aggregate scores. Some correlations between ASAT-scaled criteria and HSC aggregates are in the order of 0.9. As is expected some movement away from what was acceptable in 1975 occurred. When examined in the light of the philosophy of school responsibility for curriculum and assessment the procedures adopted certainly facilitate this, while at the same time produce students' results which can be used as confidently as external examination results have been.

Australia is a suburban nation. Today, with increasing concern regarding the sustainability of cities, an appreciation of the complexities of Australian suburbia is critical to the debate about urban futures. As a built environment and a cultural phenomenon, the Australian suburbs have inspired considerable scholarly literature. Yet to date, such scholarly work has largely overlooked the changing environmental values and visions of those shaping and residing within suburban landscapes, and the practices through which such values and visions are materialised in the processes of suburban development. Focusing on the post-war suburban landscapes of Canberra and Perth, this thesis centralises the environmental, political and economic forces that have shaped human action to construct suburban spaces, paying particular attention to the extent to which individual understandings and visions of 'environment' have determined the shape and nature of suburban development. Specifically, it examines how those operating within Australia’s suburbs, including planners, developers, builders, landscape designers and residents have imagined the 'environment', and how such imaginaries have shifted in response to varying spatial, temporal and ideological contexts. Tracing the shifting nature of environmental concern throughout the mid-to-late twentieth century, it argues that despite the somewhat unsustainable nature of Australia's suburban landscapes, the planning and development of such landscapes has long been influenced by and has responded to differing understandings of 'environment', which themselves are the product of changing social, political and economic concerns. In doing so, this thesis challenges a number of perceptions concerning Australian suburbs, environmental awareness and sustainability. In particular, it contests the assumption that environmental concern for Australia's suburban development emerged with the urban consolidation debates of the 1980s and 1990s, and analyses a range of environmental sensibilities not often acknowledged in current histories of Australian environmentalism. By examining, for example, how the deterministic and economic concerns of differing planning bodies, along with the aesthetic and ecological concerns of various planners, are intertwined with the housing and domestic lifestyle preferences of suburban homeowners, this history brings to the fore the often conflicting environmental ideas and practices that arise in the course of suburban development, and provides a more nuanced history of the diversity of environmental sensibilities. In sum, this thesis enhances our understandings of the changing nature of environmental concern and illuminates the complex, still largely misunderstood, environmental ideas and practices that arise in the processes of suburban development.