Social Context of Australian Education
Australian schooling – A history of social Control
The history of Australian schooling is a history of social control. From the beginning the purpose of schooling was to control the population, school was never intended to foster the development of individual children. It was during when Macquarie arrived that he intended to re-establish social order and community discipline. In 1812 he wrote that schools were intended to improve the ‘morals of the lower orders and develop religious principles in the young’ and make them ‘dutiful and obedient’.
In NSW the leading legislative figure in the push for “free, secular, compulsory” education was Henry Parkes who is revered in that state as the ‘Parent of Public Education.’ He saw schooling the lower classes as a means to prevent or check their tendency to depravity, vice and crime. It would make them “acquainted with their rights and mindful of their duties.” In 1863 Parkes argued, “How much better to teach the child than to punish the hardened youth; how much cheaper to provide schools than to build goals; how much more creditable to us as a community to have a long roll of schoolmasters....”. Schooling was clearly aimed at class structure – in private schools young ladies concentrated on refinements to prepare them for a privileged role in society while the poor children received preparation for a future that pointed towards domestic and manual work.
When the Victorian Education Department realized that the compulsory clause of the 1872 Act would result in a congregation of all classes of children, it tried to evade the social consequences of its own regulations by excluding the ‘gutter children’ from the regular schools.
Today school has become so entrenched in society that it is unquestioned by the majority of citizens. The social control is so complete that people actually believe that going to school ‘socializes’ their children. Although most teachers have honorable motives of helping children learn, their efforts are lost in the huge machine of the modern system which now has a life of its own. The original premise of social control underlies the current system and is continually perpetuated by teachers who grew up in the system and approved of it enough to make it their career. These days of course, “behavior management” has replaced “discipline”.
Social change and education
Education introduced through colonial and post-colonial modernism has had a key role in transforming indigenous people’s life style, but a lesser impact in changing their social status. The effect of education in transforming non-mainstream peoples in complex urban industrial societies varies. In most societies, formal education has contributed to empowering women; education has positively contributed too many immigrants’ adaption to the host society. The youth of today complete high school at a higher rate than previous generations, have better relationships and more open communication with others, and on the whole quiet successfully negotiate the physical, cognitive and social challenge of adolescence. The concept of ‘youth’ have been shaped historically and affected by social and technological change and resultant changes in patter of education and employment.
Education is a process of learning and transmitting culture. Education may be the agent of change, a condition of change in a changing society, and an effect of change in other institutions. Technology, economic relationships, ideology, and politics may cause a social change. The success of education for social change depends largely upon the attitude of a child or adult targeted for education within the context of culture, economics and politics. Social change, intended or unintended, refers to variations in the relatively stable relationships that comprise a pattern of social organization within culture and the associated values, beliefs, and behaviors.
The history of Australian schooling is a history of social control. From the beginning the purpose of schooling was to control the population, school was never intended to foster the development of individual children. It was during when Macquarie arrived that he intended to re-establish social order and community discipline. In 1812 he wrote that schools were intended to improve the ‘morals of the lower orders and develop religious principles in the young’ and make them ‘dutiful and obedient’.
In NSW the leading legislative figure in the push for “free, secular, compulsory” education was Henry Parkes who is revered in that state as the ‘Parent of Public Education.’ He saw schooling the lower classes as a means to prevent or check their tendency to depravity, vice and crime. It would make them “acquainted with their rights and mindful of their duties.” In 1863 Parkes argued, “How much better to teach the child than to punish the hardened youth; how much cheaper to provide schools than to build goals; how much more creditable to us as a community to have a long roll of schoolmasters....”. Schooling was clearly aimed at class structure – in private schools young ladies concentrated on refinements to prepare them for a privileged role in society while the poor children received preparation for a future that pointed towards domestic and manual work.
When the Victorian Education Department realized that the compulsory clause of the 1872 Act would result in a congregation of all classes of children, it tried to evade the social consequences of its own regulations by excluding the ‘gutter children’ from the regular schools.
Today school has become so entrenched in society that it is unquestioned by the majority of citizens. The social control is so complete that people actually believe that going to school ‘socializes’ their children. Although most teachers have honorable motives of helping children learn, their efforts are lost in the huge machine of the modern system which now has a life of its own. The original premise of social control underlies the current system and is continually perpetuated by teachers who grew up in the system and approved of it enough to make it their career. These days of course, “behavior management” has replaced “discipline”.
Social change and education
Education introduced through colonial and post-colonial modernism has had a key role in transforming indigenous people’s life style, but a lesser impact in changing their social status. The effect of education in transforming non-mainstream peoples in complex urban industrial societies varies. In most societies, formal education has contributed to empowering women; education has positively contributed too many immigrants’ adaption to the host society. The youth of today complete high school at a higher rate than previous generations, have better relationships and more open communication with others, and on the whole quiet successfully negotiate the physical, cognitive and social challenge of adolescence. The concept of ‘youth’ have been shaped historically and affected by social and technological change and resultant changes in patter of education and employment.
Education is a process of learning and transmitting culture. Education may be the agent of change, a condition of change in a changing society, and an effect of change in other institutions. Technology, economic relationships, ideology, and politics may cause a social change. The success of education for social change depends largely upon the attitude of a child or adult targeted for education within the context of culture, economics and politics. Social change, intended or unintended, refers to variations in the relatively stable relationships that comprise a pattern of social organization within culture and the associated values, beliefs, and behaviors.