This thesis uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) developed by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993) to analyse the politics of educational disadvantage in Australia. The historical influence of two competing coalitions at Commonwealth and at State level in New South Wales and Victoria is traced. For most of the 20th century there has been a dominant conservative coalition and a minority coalition that has favoured reforms to assist socially disadvantaged groups in each of the three jurisdictions. However, the composition of these contending coalitions and their relative strengths have varied substantially from State to State. The theoretical model provided by the ACF was supplemented by explorations of Halligan and Power’s (1992) ‘regime dynamics’ framework which helps explain these differences in terms of the differing politico-administrative cultures of Victoria and New South Wales.

This research was undertaken to explore professional development in Western Australia secondary schools from the perspective of the classroom teacher. A study that bridged quantitative and qualitative methodology, it drew upon teachers' perspectives and reports of professional development activities in which they had been involved over an eighteen month period.The major focuses of the study were in exploring teachers' perceptions of their professional development activities across the following dimensions: choice, the influence of career stage, rationale for choice, equity in relation to access, levels of participation, gender factors, perceptions of effectiveness, influence of school/educational culture.The conceptual framework in this study (refer to Figure 2.1) acknowledges the teacher as the central point of reference due to his/her importance in the classroom as the architect of the learning experiences for students (Fogarty, 1999. Four aspects were identified as influences on teachers. These were professional development; factors affecting teachers' capacity to develop professionally; technological change in education; and the education system in which teachers work. Literature related to these four aspects was explored.The findings of this study, based upon in-depth interviews with teachers, indicated that the respondents were expending significant amounts of time engaged in professional development. Results demonstrated that half of the reported hours (150 hours/person/year) involved personally selected professional development. Teachers' rationale for choosing professional development was in order to become a more effective practitioner resulting in increased learning opportunities for their students. Effectiveness of professional development was predominantly related to the relevancy to teaching, level of interaction within the session, opportunities to ++ / obtain and discuss teaching materials, and the opportunities for reflection on their practices with colleagues.Career stage did indeed appear to influence teachers' choice of professional development, perceptions of effectiveness and quality, personal teaching philosophies, and perceptions of the school and educational culture. Less experienced teachers and those in the final career stage were more focused on increasing their repertoire of teaching strategies. Experienced teachers in the middle career stages were largely concerned with increasing subject knowledge, and expertise required to assist them in their additional duties other than teaching.Equity in accessing professional development was a distinct issue for rural teachers information technology teachers in this study. Information technology teachers reported experiencing frustration with the expense involved, and difficulties in accessing targeted professional development that catered to their specific requirements. Teachers situated in rural areas expressed concern with the lack of choice available to them in the rural situation. This was largely due to extensive travel time to the metropolitan area to attend specific programs, expense involved in accessing professional development and the lack of support by administration in their schools related to professional development.The teachers in this study displayed gender differences in relation to their perceptions and choices of professional development. Female teachers were generally more focused on professional development that directly related to their teaching whereas their male counterparts were overtly seeking professional development that would advance their career aspirations. Family commitments were more frequently cited by male respondents as the reason for non-attendance at out-of-hours professional development.School culture was acknowledged by ++ / teachers in this study as having an impact on professional development. Teachers resoundingly indicated they desired more self-determination in decision-making related to professional development. They expressed the perspective that the employer was demonstrating a lack of trust in teachers' professionalism and was not providing professional development to meet their teaching needs. It appeared that the professional development being provided was ad hoc and a more systematic approach was needed.As a result of this research a model of systematic professional development has been proposed that encompasses the expressed needs of teachers in this study, the literature on effective professional development to improve student learning, and the quality assurance and accountability mechanisms required by the employer.

The provision of vocational education and training is largely provided by the Technical and Further Education (TAFE) colleges and institutes, which have been established throughout Australia. All of these colleges and institutes are the responsibility of the respective State governments and are generally considered by those governments as strategic instruments of government particularly in regard to the preparation of people for employment and addressing deficiencies within the workforce. As more emphasis has been placed upon government entities to be more entrepreneurial and corporate in their outlook, pressures for reform of the TAFE sector have also increased. These pressures have included changes to funding arrangements, increased compliance regimes and a freeing of the training delivery to encourage the establishment of private providers. This thesis explores how Chief Executive Officers and Middle Level Managers within the TAFE environment are responding to those challenges. Forty-seven senior TAFE managers are interviewed to ascertain their perspectives on the community and government expectations of TAFE and how they believe TAFE is reacting to these challenges. Resulting from the research has been the emergence of entrepreneurship in TAFE. The notion of entrepreneurship in TAFE seems to capture a sense of change, a sense of emerging vibrance, and is often used to describe innovation and risk taking within the TAFE environment. The word entrepreneurial, entrepreneurialism, entrepreneurship and other derivations of the word are loosely employed by TAFE personnel to describe particular phenomenon within TAFE. Within this thesis the treatment of entrepreneurship as a definitive concept is recognised as problematic and it is therefore treated in a way that aligns to the TAFE environment and not necessarily as defined by traditional entrepreneurial theory. / The resulting research has found that TAFE leaders are working in an environment that has a multiplicity of expectations and demands that challenge the leadership of TAFE. The research finds that many of the TAFE leaders strive to act entrepreneurially whilst attempting to manage an environment that is constrained by its policy frameworks, industrial relations requirements, funding arrangements and national and state compliance frameworks. The research questions whether governments should provide TAFE with greater capacity to act entrepreneurially; governments might, as a result be rewarded through greater achievements from the TAFE sector. While the research points to a number of highly successful leaders and leadership practices in TAFE it has also found that many leaders seem to rely upon intuitiveness and past experience to lead within their environments. Finally the research posits a framework for leadership within TAFE where the leadership styles of emotional intelligence, path-goal and leader-member exchange (LMX) are merged and integrated to provide a comprehensive quality leadership framework that will achieve positive outcomes: A framework that seeks to provide a practical guide to future leadership training and development in TAFE. In addition to the leadership framework the research has identified a number of intrinsic transformational drivers and extrinsic transformational drivers, which contribute to the success of leadership in TAFE and similarly a number of impediments, which restrict TAFE leaders.

This study provides a critique of institutional discourses that are informed by race, culture and identity, learning constraints and particular constructions of English and offers ways of thinking that encourage multiplicity and complexity. Its principal aim is to probe issues relating to the identity formation of international TESOL students in the context of the globalisation of international education. To achieve this aim, the study poses questions about the commodification of the TESOL machinery through marketing programmes and its impact on international TESOL students. In addressing these questions the study considers Australian universities’ marketing practices, the discursive representation of international students by these universities and the government, as well as wider matters of educational policy. The research draws on poststructuralist and postcolonial theories, particularly on selected aspects of the works of Foucault and Said and in so doing demonstrates the usefulness of such theories for exploring issues associated with international TESOL students. Taking from these theorists the concepts of power/knowledge, subjectivity, identity and agency, it also incorporates the work of cultural theorists such as Althusser and Hall. The participants were drawn from a wide range of cultural, linguistic and professional backgrounds, enrolled in Masters of TESOL at Australian universities. Through dialogic sessions with them and documentary analysis the discursive practices of the university sites were examined. So too were the subjectivities of students, as they became involved in the various activities of the institution in which they were enrolled, before, during and after their studies. Overall, the analysis reveals how the subjectivities of international TESOL students are constructed both by the university and the students themselves. The students’ accounts of their experiences broadly conflicted with the sweeping claims made by certain institutes, as well as by the dominant knowledges of marketing, international education and globalisation. The analysis shows how the subjectivities of international TESOL students are constructed by both the university and by the students themselves. It also shows how economics has become firmly entrenched in a market discourse and overall how international students are inscribed within policy shifts. The academic welfare, teaching and learning processes of the university indicated little awareness of the fluidity of culture and language or hybridity of its international students. A consequence of this myopic vision of the university is that students are subjected to constricting, divisive and exclusionary discursive practices that fail to properly acknowledge their complex histories, subjectivities and professional aspirations. An identity has been created for them that is not only superficial but also inaccurate. The findings point to the benefits of examining through a Foucauldian analytic such discursive practices of the institution alongside the subjectivities of students. The approach adopted in the research points to the possibility of moving beyond the current reductionist dualisms and binaries to the adoption of educational and institutional practices that recognise students’ hybridity and syncretic subjectivity. In such a space, the meaning of ‘international students’ and the institutional and educational policies and practices designed for them might be renegotiated. The study concludes that if the goal of genuine internationalisation is to be achieved, there is a need for significant institutional change.

Addendum fixed inside back end-paper. Bibliography: leaves 216-219. Reports a study to investigate the influence of a study skills program on a group of adult students at Thebarton Senior College, Adelaide. The researcher planned and prepared the program of work for these students and was the teacher of the subject, and the observer of the influence the course had on the students, compared with a similar control group. Analysis showed there was an observable positive effect on the students, however, it was the conclusion of the researcher that the positive result was achieved more because support had been offered to the students than through the teaching of the subject matter of the study skills course.

Bibliography: leaves 118-122. Presents the history of this boys' school chronologically, using the periods of tenure of the various principals as a basis for organizing the material. -- abstract.

Typescript (photocopy) / viii, 360 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Dept. of Education, University of Adelaide, 1980

Bibliography: leaves 220-237. / viii, 237 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Examines the development of special education services in South Australia from 1915-1975. Explores factors which positioned the intellectually disabled child, previously excluded or marginalised from schooling, within the modern school system. Also seeks to understand the part played by medicine, psychology and sociology in the production of the intellectually disabled child as a viable figure of knowledge and administration. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 2000

This project looks at the ways in which masculine identities are constructed and perceived in secondary schools. It identifies some of the links between broader gender politics and the more specific area of masculinities as they apply to the lives of gay-identified and non-identified secondary school students. Through focussed discussion with groups of students the research describes types of behaviours that are characterised by students as desirable or undesirable and the perceived relationship of such behaviours with particular sexualities. In this thesis I interrogate the treatment (including bullying, harassment and lack of acknowledgment of the gay experience), in schools, of boys who express gender unorthodoxy/non-hegemonic masculinities. In order to understand this behaviour I look at the means of control of such expressions as exercised by other students and teachers and explore the motivation behind this control. Through listening to the stories of students I identify the need to evaluate school policy and pedagogical practices with a view to making the educational experience more inclusive of a broad range of masculinities and sexualities and therefore a more relevant, positive and productive one.

There is considerable qualitative and quantitative data to suggest that chemistry in Australia is in a state of decline. This trend has been in evidence for the last fifteen years and is most evident from a progressive decline in demand for tertiary chemistry courses over this period despite an overall increase in demand for science courses in Australian universities. There is quantitative evidence to suggest that Australia is experiencing a ‘skills shortage’ of ‘trained chemists’ to support the development and sustainability of the chemical industry and, perhaps more significantly, the proportion of chemistry graduates entering the teaching profession is also decreasing. / This thesis examines the reasons for this decline in the status of Australian chemistry by conducting a series of interviews with Heads of Departments of Chemistry in Australian universities to find out their concerns on this issue and, more specifically, to ascertain the actions that they are enacting to address the decline in demand for tertiary chemistry courses and the difficulty in retaining students in the chemistry major. This process also revealed numerous constraints, most significantly, financial constraints, that impede ‘change’ in the tertiary chemistry sector. (For complete abstract open document)