Published Resources Details Thesis

Author
O'Brien, C. M.
Title
The politics of curriculum
Type of Work
MEd thesis
Imprint
University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC, 2000
Url
http://cat.lib.unimelb.edu.au/record=b2579634~S30
Subject
Victoria
Abstract

This thesis documents the development, establishment and subsequent demise of Victoria's first independent regulatory body of senior secondary curriculum and assessment, the Victorian Institute of Secondary Education. Analysis of the origins of VISE helps reveal the implicit social conflicts at work within the senior secondary curriculum. The thesis investigates the response of policy makers to the shift in senior secondary education from an 'elite' system to a ' mass' system in light of this conflict. The thesis argues that these responses in general and VISE's in particular, while significantly expanding school control over the curriculum and pedagogical autonomy, failed to moderate social patterns of success and failure by not challenging the implicit rationale behind the curriculum hierarchy - the needs of the university for selection - and by failing to base curriculum policy on a wider understanding of the origins of such patterns.