Catholic Schools In Australia Research Articles

Student Ministry: An Exploration of One Approach to Ministry for Young People and Their Peers in Catholic Schools in Australia

Student Ministry: An Exploration of One Approach to Ministry for Young People and Their Peers in Catholic Schools in Australia

Research note: how Muslims are perceived in Catholic schools in contemporary Australia: a national survey

This paper presents results from a large-scale national survey of attitudes of students in Catholic schools in Australia towards Muslims and Islam. Over 2232 students completed questionnaires which were obtained from students in 42 Catholic schools throughout Australia. These schools were drawn from both rural and urban areas in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and South Western Australia. The findings include evidence of goodwill on several indicators, with a variation in response between boys and girls, religious identifiers and ‘others’, and stereotyping of one’s own mainstream/Catholic community vs. Muslims. Positive, neutral and other stereotypical attitudes were included in the analysis. A number of negative attitudes suggest that relative recent migration to Australia contributed in large measure to a poorly informed response, while the long-standing multicultural posture of educational policy suggests otherwise.

The teacher as moral educator: comparative study of secondary teachers in Catholic schools in Australia and Ireland

This paper considers the role of the teacher in relation to moral education in Catholic schools in Australia and Ireland. Literature pertaining to faith-based schooling, the moral role of the teacher and moral education across the curriculum in both countries is outlined. The paper draws on a small-scale study involving a survey with 154 respondents and individual interviews with nine teachers. Some interesting country differences emerged that are indicative of cultural settings. These include pedagogical practices, the nature of teacher–student relationships and levels of awareness of schools' founding charisms. Some implications for moral education in faith-based schools are identified.

Historical construction and Australian Catholic education: accounting for school funding policy from the cultural politics of Australian education

This paper seeks to explain why the policy history of school funding in regard to Australian Catholic Education looks and sounds the way it does today through the production of a genealogy of the subject. The questions addressed are, first, why has the funding of Catholic schools in Australia become an occluded historical site since the 1970s, despite the controversy in which popular accounts of the funding of Australian schools is mired, and when its prevalence so completely dominated the discourses of Australian education in the prior century? Second, has funding policy discourse been defined and contained and what basis is there for contesting such discourse in light of events since that period of time? Third, which or whose policy version triumphs and becomes the accepted policy process and which other policy approaches are obliterated in this process? The theoretical perspective adopted in this paper draws from both postmodern critiques and cultural theories of historical construction, as framed within Foucauldian Studies.

The Religious Dimension of Lay Leadership in Catholic Schools: Preserving Catholic Culture in an Era of Change

This article is a qualitative study of the practice of leadership in Catholic schools in Australia. Within an interpretivist framework, a multiple case study of six lay principals was employed. Findings suggest that successful leadership in Catholic schools is highly infl uenced by the cultural and spiritual capital that a principal brings to a school, signifying a fundamental importance of appointing principals who are not only professionally competent, but who are spiritually competent as well. The relationship between the lay Catholic principal in the parish and the parish priest emerged as a challenging issue in many contexts. Indeed, it was highly problematic for some principals.

A Dynamic of Hope: Institutes of Women Religious in Australia (review)

Reviewed by: A Dynamic of Hope: Institutes of Women Religious in Australia Jill Blee A Dynamic of Hope: Institutes of Women Religious in Australia. By Mary Rosa MacGinley. Second edition. (Darlinghurst, New South Wales: Crossing Press for the Australian Catholic University National Research Centre for the Study of Women's History, Theology and Spirituality. 2002. Pp. viii, 439. Paperback.) The arrival of the Sisters of Charity in Sydney in 1838 at the invitation of the bishop of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land, the Benedictine John Bede Polding, began what would become a major influence on the development of a strong Catholic culture in Australia. Dr. Rosa MacGinley does not, however, begin A Dynamic of Hope: Institutes of Women Religious in Australia with this arrival. Instead she provides a brief, but excellent, account of the evolution of institutes of religious women from early monastic times through to the formation of congregations established to meet the changes overtaking [End Page 1011] Christianity in post-Reformation times. She pays specific attention to those which extended the boundaries imposed by the Council of Trent so they could educate young women in the Faith and provide for the needs of the poor and dispossessed in a rapidly changing Europe. As the majority of the religious institutes who came to Australia were either Irish foundations or continental institutes with substantial interests in Ireland, it is not surprising that Dr. MacGinley devotes considerable space to institutes and their founders like Nano Nagle, who established the Sisters of the Presentation in Cork, and had to overcome many hurdles in order to carry out the work to which they had committed themselves. They paved the way for others like the Sisters of Charity founded by Mary Aikenhead and Catherine Macauley's Sisters of Mercy, who were able to go out among the poor of Dublin and bring them comfort and education. Their experiences there made them ideally suited to the work they would do in Australia. Most of Dr. MacGinley's book is devoted to the religious women who nursed the sick, took care of the poor, and taught in Catholic schools in Australia particularly following the passing of the 1872 Education Act in Victoria, which saw the introduction of a free, compulsory, and secular state system of education from which Catholic children were excluded by the hierarchy of the Church in Australia. As similar systems of education were introduced into to each of the colonies, the provision of Catholic education weighed heavily on the dioceses which had to find funds to build schools and pay teachers. Convents were built to accommodate any members of religious institutes who could be invited to take charge of teaching Catholic children, and novitiates sprang up to accommodate locally born girls who wished to follow the religious life. While the story Dr. MacGinley tells is one of dedication and achievement, she does not shirk from the negativities. In an age when women had a very subservient role in the community, clashes between these strong- willed and determined religious women and the bishops and priests who sought to dictate to them were frequent. Bitter struggles such as that endured by the Sisters of Mercy led by Ursula Frayne in Western Australia, and Mary McKillop, the Australian founder of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, are all told. An enormous amount of research has gone into the writing of A Dynamic of Hope: Institutes of Women Religious in Australia. It is well documented and contains a number of tables listing the institutes and the communities they established around Australia. A detailed map is also provided. Dr. MacGinley is to be congratulated for this second edition of her work. Jill Blee Ballarat Mechanics Institute Copyright © 2007 The Catholic University of America Press

God's antipodean teaching force: An historical exposition on Catholic teaching religious in Australia

From the 1850s to the 1970s the teaching force in Catholic schools in Australia was dominated by priests, female religious and brothers. This paper details the scope of existing research on these teachers, the demands of their religious vocation, their own education, the atmosphere which they established in the schools, leadership opportunities, and the ‘darker side’ of their way of life. Such expositions can promote reflection on the possibility that teaching can be influenced by discourses of ‘vocation’ and ‘the giving of service’, every bit as much as it can be by ‘industrial’ and ‘labour’ perspectives.

Career Aspirations of Potential Applicants for Principals of Catholic Schools: An Australian Perspective

Recent surveys of leadership succession planning in Catholic schools in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory of Australia have confirmed the growing shortage of persons applying for positions of principal in Catholic schools in those states and territory and examined reasons for the decline in numbers. This paper focuses on a particular aspect of that research in which the career aspirations of those being surveyed, in the pool of potential applicants for principal positions, are analyzed and reported. Implications for the future of Catholic schools in Australia as well as for the future leadership of schools in general are examined.

Upholding the faith. The process of education in Catholic schools in Australia, 1922–1965. By Thomas A. O'Donoghue. (History of Schools and Schooling, 24.) Pp. ix+171. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. 0 8204 5653 5

Upholding the faith. The process of education in Catholic schools in Australia, 1922–1965. By Thomas A. O'Donoghue. (History of Schools and Schooling, 24.) Pp. ix+171. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. 0 8204 5653 5 - Volume 54 Issue 3

Thomas A. O'Donoghue. Upholding the Faith: The Process of Education in Catholic Schools in Australia 1922–1965. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2001. 170pp. Paper $29.95.

Thomas A. O'Donoghue. Upholding the Faith: The Process of Education in Catholic Schools in Australia 1922–1965. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2001. 170pp. Paper $29.95.

Do Catholic Schools Make a Difference? Evidence from Australia

This paper examines whether the substantial benefits reported for attending Catholic schools in the United States also exist for students of Catholic schools in Australia. We find that despite its relatively low cost, attendance at Australian Catholic schools increases the probability of completing high school by 17 percentage points. The evidence also suggests that attendance at Australian Catholic schools increases the probability of obtaining higher education and is associated with a superior performance in the labor market.

Diversity in Curriculum in Religious Education in Catholic Schools in Australia

Summary The 1970s has been a period of significant change in the types and styles of religious education in Australian schools, both government and independent. 1 The current diversity in approach is not known widely nor is it widely recognized for its educational significance. This article sets out to consider the variety of approaches to religious education for senior classes in Catholic schools in Australia. Perspectives on the developments in this context could also have some relevance for interpreting the theory and practice of religious education in other settings. 1Following a series of Ministerial Inquiries into the place of religion in education in the government schools in each state during the 1970s, some state Departments of Education have initiated curriculum development projects in religious education – Tasmania, 1972 (terminated 1974); South Australia, 1974; Queensland, 1975; Western Australia, 1978. In addition, in both Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, Higher School Certifica...