Victorian Schools Research Articles

What the Victorian Empire Learned: A Perspective on History, Reading and Print in Nineteenth-Century Textbooks

Abstract This essay draws upon trends in cultural historiography as well as the methodologies of book history to argue that Victorian school histories articulated and reinforced three persistent myths of modernity (all of which have been thoroughly discredited by scholarship but persist in popular historical understanding). These are the notion that literacy is necessary to progress, the idea that the advent of printing with moveable type was a harbinger of enlightenment, and the tenet of historians’ practice that written records are a necessary precondition for the discipline to function. Each of these ideologies is concerned with the practices of reading and writing, print culture, and documentation, which are intrinsic to the scholarship of book history. To identify the connections, we should read the texts of school books alongside the bibliographical and archival evidence of their materiality and mobility. The texts conveyed a lesson of European superiority indirectly by retelling the Whig narrative of English liberty. Colonial editions and other iterations were widely circulated. The article offers five examples of schoolbooks to demonstrate how they worked and how they travelled, then proposes a digital humanities solution to the historiographical and bibliographical challenges that arise. A complex relational database connecting three sets of data: about the attributes of books in their multiple versions, about the people associated with their authorship and publishing, and about the institutions that supported them.

Does Early Childhood Education in England for the 2020s Need to Rediscover Susan Isaacs: Child of the Late Victorian Age and Pioneering Educational Thinker?

Since the nineteenth century, the history of childhood has been inextricably linked to the history of schooling. Throughout the period of state-provided schooling, the approach to teaching the youngest children, originally from five but currently usually from three years old, has been contentious. This article looks at Susan Isaacs as a major figure in the shaping of views about early childhood education and thus in the history of contemporary childhood. It surveys her rather special position as someone who was herself a child in the urban late Victorian school system when schooling became compulsory for all, and who later combined radical innovation in the combination of educational theory and practice. She experienced for a period the running of a small experimental primary school on a daily basis, yet also engaged in high level academic research and writing which was founded on psychological, educational and, unusually for the time, observational principles. She thus provided evidence-based thinking for policy making at a crucial point in England’s educational history (The 1944 Education Act). Her early life, her neighbourhood as shown by the 1901 census and the educational significance of her position on the value of assessment through detailed observation are discussed within the overall context of the last one hundred and thirty years of educational change. This reveals the principles which formed during her childhood and which teachers who work with young children share now even though these are challenged by current government policy. This article focuses on educational policy in England, as the other countries of the UK have at times evolved separate structures for their school systems.

The impact of gender, socioeconomic status and locality on the development of student patterns of alcohol consumption and harm

Purpose The consequences of problematic alcohol consumption fall heavily on Australian adolescents, with this population at increased risk of death, serious injury and other harm. Research regarding whether gender, socioeconomic status (SES) or locality play a role in young people’s alcohol consumption and related harm is limited in Australia. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether Victorian students’ patterns of alcohol uptake, consumption and related harm differed between gender, SES and locality. Design/methodology/approach The study involved secondary analysis of student data from the Drug Education in Victorian Schools harm minimisation drug education programme, undertaken in 21 Victorian government schools over three years The initial cohort of 1,752 students was followed during Years 8, 9 and 10, when their average age would have, respectively, been 13, 14 and 15 years. Findings There were no gender differences in drinking uptake, consumption or harm. Students with low SES were more likely to have consumed a full drink of alcohol and also experienced more alcohol-related harm. Students living in a regional/rural area were more likely to have engaged in high alcohol consumption. Originality/value The findings of this study highlighted that different student demographics have an impact on patterns of alcohol consumption, vulnerability and harm. Students with low SES, living in a regional/rural area, are more at risk than students with higher SES living in a fringe metro/major regional or metro area. Future school harm minimisation drug education programmes should consider the needs of students with demographics that make them more susceptible to higher consumption and harm.

The role and impact of athleticism at ‘two outposts of the Vatican’ during the 1850s–1950s

ABSTRACT In J.A. Mangan’s Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School: The Emergence and Consolidation of an Educational Ideology (2000), he referred to public schools being divided into at least six groupings. From the large group of ‘Denominational Schools’ he chose the famous Jesuit institute, Stonyhurst College, to form part of his close scrutiny into the once powerful ideology of athleticism. He would, however, come to the conclusion that Stonyhurst’s involvement in sport did not represent a commitment to athletic idealism. This paper provides options to Mangan’s investigation by drawing attention to two small Catholic schools, John Henry Newman’s Oratory School (1859) and the Jesuit St Stanislaus College, better known as Beaumont College (1861). They were established as alternatives to Stonyhurst, with both aiming to become recognised as English public schools. Through using cricket as the main exemplar, an attempt is made to assess the role and impact of athleticism in the rise of the two schools. In doing so, consideration is also given to the influence that athleticism had on the ambitions and the ultimate success of both the Oratory and Beaumont in being confirmed as English public schools through acceptance as members of the Headmasters’ Conference.

“Rotten Effeminate Stuff”: Patriarchy, Domesticity, and Home in Victorian and Edwardian English Public Schools

AbstractDuring the nineteenth century, British public schools became increasingly important, turning out thousands of elite young men. Historians have long recognized the centrality of these institutions to modern British history and to understandings of masculinity in this era. While studies of universities and clubs have revealed how fundamental the rituals and everyday life of institutions were to the creation of masculinity, public schools have not been subjected to the same scrutiny. Approaches to date have emphasized the schools’ roles in distancing boys from the world of the home, domesticity, femininity, and women. Focusing on three case-study schools, Winchester College, Charterhouse, and Lancing College, this article offers a reassessment of the relationship between home and school in the Victorian and Edwardian period and contributes to the growing literature on forms of masculine domesticity in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the reformed public schools, the ideal of the patriarchal household was often essential, and in producing it, the presence of significant women—the wives of headmasters and housemasters—could be vital. The schools also worked to create a specifically masculine form of domesticity through boys’ performance of mundane domestic tasks in the “fagging” system, which was often imagined in terms of the chivalric service ideal. Letters from the period show how the everyday worlds of school and home remained enmeshed, revealing the distinctive nature of family relationships forged by the routine of presence and absence that public schools created.

Gifted Educational Provisions for Gifted and Highly Able Students in Victorian Schools, Australia

This article summarizes the main educational provisions developed and implemented for gifted and highly able students in Victoria, Australia. It emphasizes the strong influence that different governments have had on policies and guidelines providing for the education of these students. Among the options offered it is possible to differentiate those based on acceleration and high ability grouping. Accelerated learning options include early entry, grade skipping, subject acceleration, Higher Educational Studies program, and International Baccalaureate. High ability grouping includes Select Entry Accelerated Learning programs, select entry high schools, specialized high schools. The identification of students’ advanced intellectual and academic needs and the implementation of effective provisions for these students are strongly related to the level of knowledge and attitude that teachers have towards gifted and highly able students. The implications of the current educational provisions are discussed to reflect and promote better guidelines and more research in the field.

“This Schoolroom is a Nation”: Subverting the Catechistic Method in Dickens

The catechistic method was a popular form of the rote memorization pedagogy which dominated Victorian schools, and sought to keep at-risk learners content with their marginalized social positions. In fact, this educational praxis became so popular that its tactics were embraced by many figures desiring social power beyond the schoolroom, a point upon which Dickens dwells at considerable length throughout his texts. This essay surveys a few varieties of catechistic primers that were designed for these disciplinary functions, and examines some of the more infamous ways catechism was utilized in early nineteenth-century British literature. Subsequently, the essay scrutinizes the almost overwhelming number of instances of the catechistic method in Dickens's novels to demonstrate both his critique of this question and answer power dynamic, and the ways in which his characters deploy, evade, co-opt, and subvert the ideological directives of catechism, as they strive for their own liberation and agency. By recognizing the evolution of Dickens's critique of catechistic method, both in and beyond the arena of the Victorian classroom, we can much better appreciate the extent of his cautionary tales about the ways in which education functioned as a normalizing force of social control.

The “special experiment” in languages

PurposeThe Victorian School of Languages began on the margins of the Victorian education system in 1935 as a “special experiment” supported by the Chief Inspector of Secondary Schools, J.A Seitz. The purpose of this paper is to present a historical analysis of the first 15 years of the “special experiment” and it reports on the school’s fragile beginnings.Design/methodology/approachThe historical analysis draws on archival materials, oral sources and other primary documents from the first 15 years of the Saturday language classes, to explore its fragile role and status within the Victorian education system.FindingsThe Saturday language classes were experimental in nature and were initially intended to pilot niche subjects in the languages curriculum. Despite support from influential stakeholders, widespread interest and a promising response from teachers and students, the student enrolments dwindled, especially in the war years. As fate would have it, the two languages initially established (Japanese and Italian) faced a hostile war environment and only just survived. Questions about the continuing viability of the classes were raised, but they were championed by Seitz.Originality/valueTo date, this is one of few scholarly explorations of the origins of the Victorian School of Languages, a school which became a model for Australia’s other State Specialist Language Schools. This paper contributes to the literature about the VSL, a school that existed on the margins but played a pioneering role in the expansion of the language curriculum in Victoria.

Ladies’ Greek: Victorian Translations of Tragedy

Ladies’ Greek: Victorian Translations of Tragedy

‘We’re not very good at soccer’: gender, space and competence in a Victorian primary school

ABSTRACTThis paper draws on findings from a pilot project conducted at an inner city primary school in Melbourne, Australia. Inviting grade six girls and boys (aged eleven and twelve) to focus on spaces of their schoolground, we learned about the ways in which gender, age, ethnicity, language ability and sporting competence influenced active play and belonging. Informed by the understanding that schoolgrounds, gender and active play are socially constructed, and children are active agents in these constructions, the paper examines how girls and boys consider and negotiate spatial politics. The methods of participant-led photography, focus groups and thematic analysis, reveal how children understand gendered spatialities. A strong story emerged of girls’ experience of exclusion from active play spaces in particular, providing a perspective on the spatial and social performance of gender. The findings highlight the value of integrating a spatial analysis of schoolgrounds – and the gendered dynamics therein – for health, education and equity programmes.

Chronic tic disorders in children with ADHD

ObjectiveTo examine in a community-based cohort: (1) the prevalence of chronic tic disorder (CTD) in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared with non-ADHD controls at ages 7 and 10; and...

Pedagogy of the Rural as a lens for understanding beginning teachers’ identity and positionings in rural schools

Pedagogy of the Rural is an approach to capture the complexities of rural space and place by challenging simple understandings of what it means to be a teacher in rural settings. Using Harré’s positioning theory, Baudrillard’s concepts of simulation and simulacra, and Lefebvre’s space and economic geographies to form a composite theory through which we analyse longitudinal data from interviews with three graduates and their principals in two rural Victorian schools in Australia. We identify the intricacies of beginning teachers’ understandings of, and positionings in, rural space and place. We highlight how size matters in the way these teachers value their rural educational experiences within the liminal space of identity formation. It is in this liminal time and space that concerns around retention and attrition of beginning teachers in rural schools are compounded by factors such as access to professional learning and resources, and isolation and visibility within communities.

Aligning pedagogy with physical learning spaces

AbstractThe quality of education suffers when pedagogies are not aligned with physical learning spaces. For example, the architecture of the triple‐decker Victorian schools across England fits the information transmission model that was dominant in the industrial age, but makes it more difficult to implement student‐centred pedagogies that better fit a modern knowledge society. Yet, very little is known about how to reach powerful alignment of pedagogies and physical learning spaces. This article aims to fill this gap by describing a participatory design process to help to realise physical spaces and school buildings that optimally support specific visions of learning and pedagogy. Three phases are distinguished in this design process: (1) specifying the pedagogy, (2) aligning the pedagogy with seating arrangements and physical learning spaces, and (3) realising the school building. Particular attention is given to the core tasks relating to pedagogy (phases one and two), and especially the second phase, in which school management, teachers and students on the one hand, and architects and interior designers on the other must collaborate in a participatory design process. Illustrations are given from two schools, UCL Academy in London, UK, and De Werkplaats Kindergemeenschap in Bilthoven, The Netherlands.

Religious education and social literacy: the ‘white elephant’ of Australian public education

As a result of globalisation, the boundaries that once limited the trade of ideas and culture have largely dissolved. In Australia, the fruits of intercultural exchange have largely been enjoyed, yet this expansion of Australian interaction with diverse Others has posed a perceived threat to some. This parallel expansion and contraction of cultural engagement demonstrates the need for Australia to represent diversity more adequately as a part of our society. A central point of tension in this discussion is religion. This paper reports on a study that explored the question: Why is it so hard to talk about religion in public classrooms? This narrative inquiry attempts to unpack some of the challenges facing Australian educators at present. This study brings out the conflicting priorities and pressures of the secular system against student needs and puts forward an argument for the development of social literacy education that addresses education about religion in Victorian public schools.

Alcohol prevention for school students: Results from a 1-year follow up of a cluster-randomised controlled trial of harm minimisation school drug education

Aims: The Drug Education in Victorian Schools (DEVS) programme taught about licit and illicit drugs over two years (2010–2011), with follow up in the third year (2012). It focussed on minimising harm and employed participatory, critical-thinking and skill-focussed pedagogy. This study evaluated the programme’s residual effectiveness at follow up in reducing alcohol-related risk and harm. Methods: A cluster-randomised, controlled trial was conducted with a student cohort during years eight (13–14 years old), nine (14–15 years old) and 10 (15–16 years old). Schools were randomly allocated to the DEVS programme (14 schools, n = 1163), or their usual drug education (7 schools, n = 589). Multi-level models were fitted to the data, which were analysed on an intent-to-treat basis. Statistically significant findings: Over the 3 years, there was a greater increase in intervention students’ knowledge about drugs, including alcohol. Their alcohol consumption did not increase as much as controls. Their alcohol-related harms decreased, while increasing for controls. There were fewer intervention group risky drinkers, and they reduced their consumption compared to controls. Similarly, harms decreased for intervention group risky drinkers, while increasing for controls. Conclusions: Skill-focussed, harm minimisation drug education can remain effective, subsequent to programme completion, in reducing students’ alcohol consumption and harm, even with risky drinkers.

Just another day in the life of Hopalong Cassidy

Abstract The American actor William Boyd (1895–1972) was world famous for his portrayal of Clarence E. Mulford’s fictional cowboy Hopalong Cassidy via comics, films, radio and television. In November 1954, Boyd travelled to Australia (Darwin, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Sydney) for sixteen hectic days to raise money for disabled children. ‘Just another day in the life of Hopalong Cassidy’ focuses on Friday, 12 November 1954, one of the four days that Boyd spent in Melbourne. Somewhat in the manner of French writer Georges Perec (Perec [1978] 2009), it documents Boyd’s activities on that very busy day – including his visits to the Royal Children’s Hospital, Yooralla, the Victorian School for Deaf Children, and Wirth’s Circus – from the points of view of Boyd himself and several people who either saw or met their cowboy hero on the 12th. In the process of re-telling their stories, a unique picture of everyday life in Melbourne in 1954 emerges.

Games of character: team sports, games, and character development in Victorian public schools, 1850–1900

This article examines the ascendance of team sports as tools of “character building” in British Victorian public schools in the second half of the nineteenth century. The focus of this enquiry is the commonly overlooked pedagogical innovation underlying this process – the utilisation of organised games as educational tools. Relying on Roger Caillois' delineation of the unique qualities of game playing, I explore how team sports’ game qualities shaped their educational function and perception in Victorian public schools. Broadly stated, these game qualities enabled team sports to function as an ideal site for shaping on-court behaviour, while limiting their long-term effect on student conduct. Two central limitations of the Victorian application of game playing are pointed out. First, offering an organised model of play, team sports increased adult control over students’ play patterns, yet they concurrently undermined student agency within play, and the relevance of these activities to external contexts. Moreover, Victorian educators assumed that lessons learned on the court would readily carry over to other areas of students’ lives and failed to meaningfully incorporate team sports into the broader educational curriculum. These lessons concerning the educational function of games are particularly timely in light of the growing pervasiveness of games, physical and virtual, in educational contexts and in children’s lives in general.

We're not doctors and nurses: the teacher's role in the management of anaphylaxis in primary school settings

Worldwide the prevalence of severe and life threatening allergies is rising. In 2007 35% of Victorian schools had students at-risk for anaphylaxis (Office of the Premier), and three children have allegedly died from anaphylaxis in Australian school and early childhood education settings during the last six years alone. Teaching personnel are increasingly responsible for the safety of severely allergic children, yet there is a dearth of research examining anaphylaxis management in Australian educational and child-care facilities. This study examines the teacher's role in anaphylaxis management through in depth interviews with 12 Victorian primary school teachers. The resulting data indicate that teachers' roles in anaphylaxis management were complex, multifaceted, and emotionally demanding. Stress and anxiety were strongly associated with the onus to prevent a reaction, and to provide medical care in the event of an emergency. Participants considered such responsibilities beyond the reasonable parameters of teacher duties yet an increasingly common expectation in a teaching climate characterised by work intensification. Stress and coping was impacted primarily by a number of local sociocultural factors such as the attitude of parents and colleagues. Factors identified in previous literature were also significant, namely, clear policy and procedures; and practical considerations such as teacher education and safety measures.International Research in Early Childhood Education, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 34-49

What Can We Learn from Student Attitudes for International Achievement Tests?

This study looks at whether differences in student attitudes towards mathematics and science between Victorian students and those in selected other countries can explain differences in student achievement between them. We find that they cannot. In general, in the 2011 Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data used here, Victorian school students have more positive attitudes towards mathematics and science than students in high achievement countries. These results also hold where we remove any language effects from the way people respond to attitudinal questions, or any cultural or social-desirability induced elements of the responses. Further, the most reliable estimates of the relationship between attitudes and achievement point to quite small effects, suggesting any increase in achievement associated with improved student attitudes could only be small.

Meet the phallic teacher: designing curriculum and identity in a neoliberal imaginary

This paper introduces the concept of the phallic teacher, a spectral figure negotiated in teachers’ everyday work and in school-based disciplinary communities of practice. Reporting the findings of a 3-year Australian doctoral study completed in 2014, the paper looks closely at how English teachers design both curriculum and identity in an environment where feminist and poststructuralist work of the late 20th century seems to have lost traction. These observations made here are based on empirical research in a Victorian school, combined with autoethnographic writing and other materials connecting teachers’ and researchers’ lives to the broader cultural postfeminist debate. The paper makes room for an absent subject, the teacher, marginalised in neoliberal discourses of curriculum and critiques the masculinist hegemony of outcomes and standards-based education. This provides us with new ways to challenge increasingly dominant current paradigms and to conceptualise a different future in which the standpoints of teachers are privileged in curriculum theory and curricular innovation.