Entries Tagged: Gender relations

An archive of entries with keywords: "Gender relations"

Teacher employment: Families and/or individual careers

Australia, 1840-1900

It was mainly from the 1850s, and especially from the 1870s, that a new kind of teacher in the elementary schools emerged. They were increasingly likely to have had some training, certainly to a greater degree as apprentices, that is pupil and then junior teachers, but also with some time in normal or model schools and eventually teachers colleges.… Continue Reading »

Tennant, Haysell: Employment of same-sex attracted teachers in schools

Australia, 1975-2020

Schools do not exist for the sole purpose of educating young people in the knowledge and skills that are mainly agreed as essential for employment, citizenship and social life in general. They are also about inculcating belief systems that may be more or less explicit, closed or open to critical challenge.… Continue Reading »

Adelaide High School: Inventing a state high school

South Australia, 1875-1920

The Education Act of 1875 in South Australia provided for the foundation of a system of public, mainly elementary schools. It also allowed “infant schools, evening schools, schools for the teaching of any branch of science or art, and advanced schools for continuing the education of scholars who shall have obtained prizes at public schools, or otherwise proved themselves qualified for admission: Provided that the course of training in all such schools shall be secular” (clause 12).… Continue Reading »

Blackburn, Jean, and social justice through education

Australia, 1919-2001

Jean Muir was born on 14 July 1919, to a family that was rising from the working class. After overcoming the difficulty of a father who opposed any more than elementary education for girls, Jean Muir was able to progress beyond Lloyd Street Higher Elementary School in Melbourne. She spent four years at the academically selective University High School (1933-1936).… Continue Reading »

Girls, School and Society

Australia, 1975

Women’s Liberation badge, 1970s

The revivified feminist and broader women’s movement from the late 1960s were always going to have a major impact on education policy and schools. The disparities and inequalities between males and females were deeply embedded. Commonly girls and boys had different curricula, women teachers were usually confined to less well-paid positions, fewer girls completed high school and graduated from universities and colleges in the tertiary sector, fewer girls than boys were accepted into apprenticeships.… Continue Reading »

Adolescence and the school

Australia, 1880-2014

The words, adolescent and adolescence came into scientific and popular use at the beginning of the twentieth century. They were assisted by the publication in 1904 of G. Stanley Hall’s remarkable study, Adolescence: Its psychology and its relations to physiology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion and education. This book, though American, was noticed in Australia.… Continue Reading »

Arnoldian school culture

Australia, 1860-2010

During the second half of the nineteenth century in England, the cultures of the great public schools were reformed. Even though Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby from 1828 to 1841 gave his name to the reforms, he was only one of a number of school headmasters who influenced the process.

In general the reforms meant schools were more likely to attract wealthier middle class families.… Continue Reading »

Young, Gay and Proud (1978)

Australia, 1970s

Whilst realising the difficulties of setting up a human relationships programme in many schools, we feel that an unequivocal affirmation of the validity of homosexual relationships is the only responsible course open to educators. Gay students need support and they need it now. … Effective change in the situation for gay students will not be achieved by decree or by mere good intentions.Continue Reading »

Making the Difference (1982)

Australia, 1970-2010

This book was co-written by R. W. Connell (Bob/Robert/Raewyn), D. J. Ashenden (Dean), S. Kessler (Sandra) and G. W. Dowsett (Gary). It was almost certainly the most influential social study of schooling that was written in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century. It had an impact on educational policy, the sociology of education, teacher education, teacher union policy and teachers.… Continue Reading »

Public and private in Australian schooling

Australia, 1788-2010

The words public and private have been used in attempts to describe the ownership, governance and purposes of Australian schools and education from close to the beginnings of British colonisation in 1788. They are concepts that had little meaning for Indigenous society before, and for some time after initial colonisation.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The meanings of these words shift over time.… Continue Reading »