Australian students terminating their secondary education with completion of Form Four provided the major stimulus during the last decade for new curriculum developments in an organized study of man. To provide these fifteen-year old pupils with the necessary exposure to life for social adjustment underscored the debate between many social scientists and history teachers on the ability of their respective subject's focus.
Where in the middle of the last decade Australia found herself in the middle of a communication revolution, many students, ending their educations during mid-adolescence, did not finish the normal sequence of history courses. History's dominance in the study of man was soon challenged.
As a teacher and student in the Australian state of Victoria, it became soon apparent that many educational policies from abroad encountered a flexible if determined resistance. Arising from a different environment, many teachers and educators maintained that a few reforms or "enrichment" of history courses would more closely parallel contemporary needs than the more radical developments of the social sciences.
A period of experimentation and uncertainty has persisted for at least the past ten years. A period which has not ended although many of the exponents of the extremes have retreated. History, a course which in 1965 was accepted by tradition, today is recognized and valuable for its own synoptic character.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-3289 |
| Date | 13 February 1975 |
| Creators | Blaine, Richard Townley |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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