{"title":"The demise of school-developed elective courses in NSW: a case study in centralisation","authors":"Ksenia Filatov","doi":"10.1108/her-05-2024-0026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/her-05-2024-0026","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Purpose</h3>\u0000<p>In January 2021, the state government of NSW, Australia, announced that all year 9 and 10 elective courses developed by schools will be phased out. This paper offers a brief historical account of school-developed board-endorsed courses (SDBECs) in NSW and a close analysis of the policy to phase them out.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Design/methodology/approach</h3>\u0000<p>I give an historical account of the meaning and place of SDBECs within the NSW school system, before situating the policy decision to phase them out within the broader historical and political context of curriculum reform in NSW. Finally, I offer an analysis of the discourses and framing of the policy both across curriculum review reports and in the government and public rhetoric, by examining policy documents, government media releases, news and blog articles at the time of the policy change.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Findings</h3>\u0000<p>This policy change and surrounding discourses are contextualised and analysed to show how the curriculum came to be blamed for a host of educational problems, and how the government arrived at their irrational yet politically expedient policy response by distorting the meaning of one metaphor: the crowded curriculum. I conclude with a reading of the policy as indicative of centralisation and de-legitimisation of teachers’ curriculum development work.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Originality/value</h3>\u0000<p>The convergence of state and federal discourse about curriculum as a site of cleaning up, reforming or re-organising should concern educators in Australia especially as authority over education is increasingly centralised and made vulnerable to political whim. Close studies of such minor policy decisions provide a window into how larger processes of centralisation are justified and enacted at the local level.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->","PeriodicalId":43049,"journal":{"name":"History of Education Review","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142199971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“A pleasant walk on the Pakihi”: ecological orientations in mid-century nature study","authors":"Frances Jennifer Kelly","doi":"10.1108/her-03-2024-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/her-03-2024-0013","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Purpose</h3>\u0000<p>A recent United Nations (2021) report stated that education needs to be concerned with enhancing human relationships with the natural world if we are to work toward building a sustainable future. This paper proposes that educational practices underpinned by an ecological orientation in mid-century Aotearoa offer insights for educators looking to enhance human connection with nature. It also argues that ecological thinking has implications for how research in the history of education might be carried out.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Design/methodology/approach</h3>\u0000<p>The article responds to recent calls in history of education for researchers to attend to the intertwined ecologies of living and material worlds in research approaches by Maria Tamboukou (2020) and Karin Priem (2022). It conducts a close analysis of a 1952 nature diary, encountered in the national archive, written by a 9-year-old pupil on the West Coast of the South Island. The analysis attends to the human–nature interactions the diary records, and to the resonance of the text in the context of post-war curriculum changes.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Findings</h3>\u0000<p>Post-war nature study in Aotearoa New Zealand built on an aim to nurture children’s connections with nature and to place. Analysis of an entry from the 1952 nature diary highlights these connections and demonstrates the possibilities for a reframing of human–nature relationships that emerge with an ecological orientation in education. These findings speak to urgent contemporary concerns with environmental sustainability and human–nature relationships.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Originality/value</h3>\u0000<p>The paper draws on educational philosophy and theory (Fesmire, 2012; Nicol, 2014) alongside recent conversations in the history of education (Priem, 2022; Grosvenor and Priem, 2022; Tamboukou, 2020) to consider human–nature relationality at the heart of ecological thought. It outlines an approach to archival research that is ecologically oriented, generating openness and receptivity to the material world.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->","PeriodicalId":43049,"journal":{"name":"History of Education Review","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142199989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Enchanting things: the scientific communication of Julius Sumner Miller","authors":"Marcus Harmes","doi":"10.1108/her-11-2023-0027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/her-11-2023-0027","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Purpose</h3>\u0000<p>The purpose of this paper is to study the popular educational broadcasting of Julius Sumner Miller and its intersections with contemporary science policy and education.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Design/methodology/approach</h3>\u0000<p>The paper draws on archival research including resources so far unused by historians of science or of broadcasting and audio-visual resources of Sumner Miller’s broadcasts on Australian, Canadian and American television. It begins by contextualising Sumner Miller as both an academic and broadcaster. The second section interprets the core points of his educational philosophy which he articulated in his written and broadcast works. The final section uses his private papers contextualised by works on the history and philosophy of science to interpret and delineate the disparity between Sumner Miller’s influence as a populariser of science and the prevailing trends in scientific policy and teaching.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Findings</h3>\u0000<p>This paper proposes that reconstructing the themes and recurring points he asserted in his broadcasts reveals disjunction between Sumner Miller’s high-profile successes and the contemporary trends in both science policy and science education. This paper interprets the circumstance of an internationally known and influential science populariser who was coterminous with but against the grain of the notion of “big science”. He therefore sought to popularise science precisely as it was developing in ways he disparaged.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Research limitations/implications</h3>\u0000<p>This paper breaks new ground by interpreting the different sources, audio-visual and written, created by and about an influential television broadcaster.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Originality/value</h3>\u0000<p>Although he was widely and internationally known, and the range of his influence on science communication is generally noted, Sumner Miller’s broadcasting and the themes and educational philosophy espoused in it is little researched and contextualised. This paper sharpens understanding of his influence but also his points of intersection and disjunction with scientific culture. Hitherto unused archival resources contribute to this understanding.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->","PeriodicalId":43049,"journal":{"name":"History of Education Review","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141574874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Endeavour scholarships program in the era of the Asian century: promise unfulfilled","authors":"Joanne Susan Barker","doi":"10.1108/her-12-2023-0033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/her-12-2023-0033","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Purpose</h3>\u0000<p>The Australian Government has long used its international scholarship programs as an instrument of soft power in international diplomacy. The paper examines an international scholarship program and its role in Australia’s soft power efforts during a period in recent history.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Design/methodology/approach</h3>\u0000<p>The Australia in the Asian Century White Paper of 2012 is used as a lens to reveal how the Australian Government viewed the role of international scholarship programs in international diplomacy at a specific point in the recent past, and compares it with research revealing what was contemporaneously happening with one key government-funded scholarship program.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Findings</h3>\u0000<p>This paper is based on a comprehensive case study of the Australian Government’s Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships program (2004–2019). Endeavour was an ambitious and expensive merit-based program with 6,600 recipients in numerous and diffuse sub-categories. The program was complex and cumbersome and lacked clear priorities, particularly in its lack of geographic focus. It missed opportunities to connect with the political zeitgeist, largely due to opaque priorities and inadequate evaluation regimes which focused entirely on outcomes for individual recipients rather than on relationships for Australia.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Originality/value</h3>\u0000<p>This research draws on the first academic study of the Endeavour program. Other scholarship programs (for example Australia Awards and the New Colombo Plan) have attracted considerable scholarly interest. The Endeavour research provides an additional counterpoint for studies of Australian scholarship programs and their contribution to international diplomacy. It is timely to consider this in 2024 when Australia is putting a new focus on its investment in international scholarships.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->","PeriodicalId":43049,"journal":{"name":"History of Education Review","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140803095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Changing policy, changing plans: responses to the end of fee-free education","authors":"Anna Kent","doi":"10.1108/her-12-2023-0032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/her-12-2023-0032","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Purpose</h3>\u0000<p>The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ending of fee-free higher education in Australia for overseas students in the 1980s, and the ways in which the government managed the diplomatic relationships that were affected by this policy shift. The introduction of fee-free higher education in Australia in 1974 was incredibly popular, and the end of the program in the late 1980s created difficulties for individuals, families and diplomatic relationships.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Design/methodology/approach</h3>\u0000<p>Using a mix of secondary sources and archival documents, this paper has a historiographical element, and an element of analysis.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Findings</h3>\u0000<p>This research finds that the ending of fee-free education created significant diplomatic issues with a number of Australia’s regional neighbours. It also created issues for individual students and families. The solution to these problems was, in large part, a scholarship scheme called the Equity and Merit Scholarship Scheme (EMSS). The EMSS was designed, in part, to address the issues created by the end of the fee-free program. However, the design of the scholarship scheme also created its own diplomatic issues with a different cohort of nation states.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->\u0000<h3>Originality/value</h3>\u0000<p>There is limited scholarly research into the history of international education policy in Australia. This research draws on the work of some scholars of international scholarships, as well as historians of universities and education more broadly. This research adds to a growing body of work in the field of Australian international education history.</p><!--/ Abstract__block -->","PeriodicalId":43049,"journal":{"name":"History of Education Review","volume":"88 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140634291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Isobelle Barrett Meyering – Feminism and the Making of a Child Rights Revolution 1969–1979","authors":"Brooke Manning","doi":"10.1108/her-12-2023-102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/her-12-2023-102","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43049,"journal":{"name":"History of Education Review","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139251025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Are we there yet?” 25 years of reform (and reform, and reform, and reform) of teacher education in Australia","authors":"Nicole Mockler","doi":"10.1108/her-06-2023-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/her-06-2023-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the reform of initial teacher education (ITE) policy in Australia over a 25-year period from 1998 to 2023. It examines policy shifts and movements over this timeframe and aims to better understand the ongoing reforms in the changing contexts of their times. Design/methodology/approach The paper engages a critical policy historiography approach, focusing on four “policy moments” each linked to a review commissioned by the Commonwealth government of the day. It draws upon the reports and government responses themselves, along with media reports, extracts from Hansard, and ministerial speeches, press releases and interviews related to each of the four policy moments, asking critical questions about the “public issues” and “private troubles” (Gale, 2001) of each moment and aiming to shed light on the complexities of these accounts of policy and the trajectory they represent. Findings The paper charts the construction of the problem of ITE in Australia over time, highlighting the discursive continuities and shifts since 1998. It traces the constitution of both policy problems and solutions to explain the current policy settlement using a historical lens. Originality/value Its value lies in offering a reading of the current policy settlement, based on a close and systematic historical analysis. Where previous research has focused either on particular moments or concepts in ITE reform, this analysis seeks to understand the current policy settlement by taking a longer, contextualised view.","PeriodicalId":43049,"journal":{"name":"History of Education Review","volume":"4 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136229271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Transformation of the architect's role: a reading of architectural education in Turkey through the <i>Mimarlık</i> journal (1963–2000)","authors":"Gi̇zem Özer Özgür, Aslıhan Şenel","doi":"10.1108/her-03-2023-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/her-03-2023-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose This study investigates the transformation of the architect's role as portrayed in written texts by analyzing discursive practices concerning architectural education in Turkey between 1963 and 2000. Design/methodology/approach The research employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine selected texts published in the Mimarlık journal, representing the Chamber of Architects of Turkey. By embracing M. Bakhtin's “dialogism” approach, it aspires to foster new discussions on architectural education and establishes a “dialogical landscape” showcasing various voices and arguments. The research supplements its methodology by mapping the dialogical landscape, illustrating the relationality of discursive practices. Findings The paper contends that alterations in the missions, goals, and priorities of the architectural discipline significantly impact architectural education. Rather than focusing on individual perspectives, the creation of new dialogical platforms, emphasizing the interplay of diverse and conflicting viewpoints, offers more comprehensive pathways to guide the future of architectural education. Originality/value Debates and conflicts regarding the architect's role are central to architectural education. This article offers a novel perspective on the history of architectural education in Turkey by analyzing shifts in the definition and role of the architect as expressed in the Mimarlık journal. By integrating the principles of dialogism into the study of educational discourses and revealing the relationality between material-discursive practices, it aims to enrich the discourse and contribute value to critical studies on architectural education.","PeriodicalId":43049,"journal":{"name":"History of Education Review","volume":"62 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135092103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The ABC of history education: a comparison of Australian, British and Canadian approaches to teaching national and First Nations histories","authors":"Alison Bedford","doi":"10.1108/her-06-2022-0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/her-06-2022-0024","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose This essay engages with scholarship on history as a discipline, curriculum documents and academic and public commentary on the teaching of history in Australian, British and Canadian secondary contexts to better understand the influence of the tension between political pressure and disciplinary practice that drives the history wars in settler-colonial nations, how this plays out in secondary history classrooms and the ramifications this may have on students' democratic dispositions. Design/methodology/approach This article aims to compare secondary history curricula and pedagogies in Australia, Britain and Canada to better articulate and conceptualise the influence of the “history wars” over the teaching of national histories upon the intended and enacted curriculum and how this contributes to the formation of democratic dispositions within students. A conceptual model, drawing on the curriculum assessment of Porter (2006) and Gross and Terra's definition of “difficult pasts” has been developed and used as the basis for this comparison. This model highlights the competing influences of political pressure upon curriculum creation and disciplinary change shaping pedagogy, and the impact these forces may have upon students' experience. Findings The debate around what content students learn, and why, is fraught because it is a conversation about what each nation values and how they construct their own national identity(ies). This is particularly timely when the democratic self-identification of many nations is being challenged. The seditious conspiracy to storm the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, Orban's “illiberal democracy” in Hungary and the neo-Nazis in Melbourne, Australia are examples of the rise of anti-democratic sentiment globally. Thus, new consideration of how we teach national histories and the impact this has on the formation of democratic dispositions and skills is pressing. Originality/value The new articulation of a conceptual model for the impact of the history wars on education is an innovative synthesis of wide-ranging research on: the impacts of neoliberalism and cultural restorationism upon the development of intended curriculum; discipline-informed inquiry pedagogies used to enact the curriculum; and the teaching of national narratives as a political act. This comprehensive comparison of the ways in which history education in settler-colonial nations has developed over time provides new insight into the common elements of national history education, and the role this education can play in developing democratic dispositions.","PeriodicalId":43049,"journal":{"name":"History of Education Review","volume":"128 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135217861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond zero-sum thinking in teacher education: cognitive science, educational neuroscience, and the history of education","authors":"Remy Low","doi":"10.1108/her-04-2023-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/her-04-2023-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose I take as a starting point the disparaging comments about the place of history and philosophy of education in initial teacher education (ITE) made by the chair of the Teacher Education Expert Panel established by the Australian Government in 2023, which I take to be the most recent attempt at resurrecting the tired debate over “the art versus science of teaching”. I draw on an example from my own ITE classroom to tease possibilities for how historical research and research in the sciences of learning can be in dialogue and collaborate to deepen educational scholarship. Design/methodology/approach The purpose of this essay is to reflect on the scholarly discussions and debates in the sciences of learning that historical researchers of education have largely been absent or excluded from. I argue that historical researchers have an important role to play as “critical friends” to the burgeoning fields of cognitive science and educational neuroscience. Findings From my cursory and singular account, I highlight two key areas of education where historical research and the sciences of learning can be fruitfully in dialogue and collaboration: Firstly, on the cultural dimension that prefigures learners' approach to learning; and secondly, on the factors that enable or disable effective learning. Originality/value This essay sets an agenda for historical researchers in education to exercise “critical friendship” with the cognitive and brain sciences of learning, specifically by adding temporal considerations to the way biology, psychology, and sociality interact to produce different educational outcomes. This will be of “practical” service to ITE – and to students in schools.","PeriodicalId":43049,"journal":{"name":"History of Education Review","volume":"106 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135220804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}