Entries Tagged: Vocational education

An archive of entries with keywords: "Vocational education"

Education observed by an American: Isaac Kandel

Australia and New Zealand, 1930-1940

In the wake of the World War I, but more so, the second world war, United States governments began to assume a leadership role in world politics. Closely associated philanthropic agencies such as the Carnegie Corporation supported such a development. The colonies and dominions of the declining British Empire were of interest for a number of reasons, one of which was to bolster them as potential allies as Bolshevism and fascism threatened the “free” world.… Continue Reading »

Constitution of Australia and education

Australia, 1901-2020

On 1 January 1901, the Australian federal constitution came into operation and the Australian nation was born. Among its many tasks, as in all federal constitutions, was the enumeration of powers to be divided between the national or Federal government, and the States of the Commonwealth. The Australian Constitution specified the exclusive powers of the Federal government.… Continue Reading »

Adelaide Educational Institution: A dissenting academy for boys

South Australia, 1850-1880

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England was not so glorious for those Christian groupings, puritan and dissenting (also “nonconformist”), that had developed or were developing organizational, cultural and theological traditions separate from the established Church of England. The restoration of the monarchy saw a consolidation of the privileges of the Church of England.… Continue Reading »

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

Australia, 1888-2010

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.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander schooling (2)

Australia, 1920s to 2020

Note: Photographs of Indigenous persons who may have passed away appear in this entry.

In the early twentieth century the main policies and practices organising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander schooling had been set. There was little concern by state governments (in this period South Australia had responsibility for education in the Northern Territory), if many Indigenous children were not schooled at all.… 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 »

Teaching orders in New Zealand

New Zealand, 1850-1900

Catholic schools, faith and a basic education

The purpose of Catholic schooling in nineteenth century New Zealand was to provide an education for the whole of life and to enable the correct development of a child’s whole character of mind and heart. The Church stressed the importance of the educative roles of parents, but they believed that Catholic parents lacked the education and expertise necessary to fulfill these responsibilities.… Continue Reading »

Technical secondary schools

Victoria, Australia, 1910-2015

The establishment of post-elementary technical schools in Australian states in the early twentieth century was one of several responses to the growing pressure to provide some form of universal secondary education for all adolescents. The Australian state, Victoria, constructed a long-lasting system of such schools that distinguished public education in that state from elsewhere.… Continue Reading »

Differentiated schooling

Australia and New Zealand, 1840-2000

Different schools and different courses of instruction for different groups of students have existed throughout the history of schooling. It is only in relatively recent times, mainly from the mid-nineteenth century that common schools with a common curriculum developed, usually in public school systems.

In this entry, recent approaches to ‘differentiated teaching’ are not considered to any great degree.… Continue Reading »

Kohimarama Naval Training School

Auckland, New Zealand, 1874-1882

In 1874 the Naval Training Schools Act was passed in New Zealand. When the Commissioner of Customs, William Reynolds, introduced the Naval Training Schools Bill to parliament, he stated that the prime purpose of institutions established under the legislation was vocational—to provide boys with ‘a thorough training in seamanship’ (NZPD 1874: 428).… Continue Reading »