Entries Tagged: Girls’ schooling

An archive of entries with keywords: "Girls’ schooling"

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Merri Creek School for Indigenous children

Victoria, 1846-1851

By Carole Hooper, BA BEd PhD. Posted .

In late 1845, the minister and two deacons from the Collins Street Baptist Church in Melbourne sent a memorial to the superintendent of the Port Phillip District, Charles La Trobe, seeking permission to establish a day school for Indigenous children in the vicinity of the town. They proposed that the school be held in a four-roomed building, formerly occupied by Dr Macarthur, which stood on crown land situated at the confluence of the Yarra River and Merri Creek.… Continue Reading »

Physical education and training

Australia, 1880-1989

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd. Posted .

Anxiety concerning the fitness of youth for coming adulthood and its responsibilities has had a long history. Towards the end of the nineteenth century in Australia such anxiety rose to the level of a moral panic. Larrikinism was a problem for the respectable middle classes. The behaviour of too many unruly working class youths, larrikins, tended towards criminality, immorality, disorder and violence of various kinds.… Continue Reading »

Accomplishments, private schools for ladies and the education of girls

Australia, 1830-1920

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd. Posted .

The film Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) based on Joan Lindsay’s novel of the same name (1967) portrayed life in a rural Australian ladies’ academy of the late nineteenth century. It was largely responsible for popularly imagined representations of such schools. The private ladies’ academies and colleges provided for the education of girls and young women through the accomplishments curriculum.… Continue Reading »

Home Economics incl. Domestic Science, Domestic Arts and Home Science

Australia, 1888-2010

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd.. Posted .

Home economics is a curriculum domain that has been highly responsive to social pressures concerning gender, especially the expected roles that girls and women should occupy in families, the labour market and society more broadly. It is a curriculum domain that came into being towards the end of the nineteenth century as an educational response to several interdependent crises and social movements that included the following:

Fig 1: Slums of Melbourne, 1930s.

… Continue Reading »

Blackburn, Jean, and social justice through education

Australia, 1919-2001

By Craig Campbell, Ph.D., Dip.Ed., University of Sydney. Posted .

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

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd, University of Sydney. Posted .

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 »