Secondary schools in Australia routinely develop organisational constructs to
fulfil their dual obligations of academic teaching and the pastoral care of students.
Although these obligations are closely interrelated, school organisational structures
are frequently dichotomous, differentiating between the academic roles of teachers
and their pastoral responsibilities and can result in a functional divide between the
two sides of the school. Teachers find themselves wearing two hats; a subject
teacher and a pastoral carer and thus are required to work in two separate domains,
the academic and the pastoral, each with distinct and different tasks, expectations and
line management. The limited amounts of research available suggest that such an
organisational divide can hinder the work of teachers and lead to some organisational
confusion within the school. This research took the form of a qualitative case study,
based in an independent secondary school in Western Australia. It investigated the
impacts and implications of the notional division between the pastoral and academic
dimensions of the school. The thesis begins with a review of the understanding and
development of pastoral care in schools. The construct of an enabling bureaucracy is
then explored and adopted as a theoretical lens with which to examine the pastoral
care system from the perspective of teachers, students and senior managers.
Narratives are used to present the data. The research findings indicate that alignment
of the pastoral and academic structures, both functionally and culturally, can be
achieved if an enabling approach is employed. Such alignment allows the pastoral
care system to support the primary function of a school which is learning, whilst
retaining its fundamental duty of student care. The study concludes with a
consideration of how an enabling school culture may improve the provision of
pastoral care in schools.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217892 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | kclark@bcgs.wa.edu.au, Katherine Clark |
| Publisher | Murdoch University |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.murdoch.edu.au/goto/CopyrightNotice, Copyright Katherine Clark |
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