BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Educational investment in Australian schooling: Serving public pur
 poses - Professor Emeritus Bill Mulford\, University of Tasmania\, Austral
 ia
DTSTART:20100513T150000Z
DTEND:20100513T163000Z
UID:TALK24030@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lyndsay
DESCRIPTION:Behind every new educational policy or strategy is an assumpti
 on about the contribution that it will make to the purposes of schooling. 
  And yet these purposes are rarely the subject of extended public or profe
 ssional debate.  For example\, we live in a globalising world where the ro
 le of the nation-state is changing and societies are becoming increasingly
  culturally diverse\, technologically advanced\, demographically diverse\,
  and environmentally sensitive.  In this context schools are needed more t
 han ever for the important public purpose of forming active citizens for d
 emocratic publics - people with the will and commitment to shape\, and par
 ticipate in\, an inclusive and democratic civil society and polity that ar
 e responsive to the new environment. \n\nOur ongoing research seeks to exa
 mine these crucial public purposes of schools in Australia – how the pub
 lic purposes are currently understood\, the importance given to them and h
 ow they can be successfully enacted. \n\nAmong our findings are that:\n\n
 • Despite the policy documents and policy maker pronouncements of what i
 s important\, those evaluated\, and therefore valued\, areas continue to h
 eavily favour the private purposes of education. \n\n• School principals
  rate both the importance and enactment of public purposes most highly and
  private purposes most lowly.  Yet principals see factors external to the 
 school acting as the major barriers to the enactment of public purposes - 
  inadequate resourcing and support and unsympathetic politicians and burea
 ucracies\, such as their insistence on one size fits all approaches\, incl
 uding for curriculum and assessment through testing.\n \n• The forces se
 en by policy makers that hinder the public purposes of education and their
  enactment include an unsympathetic media\, a conservative community\, a n
 umber of competitive and cynical principals with poor networking skills\, 
 and a teachers’ union that is industrial rather than professional.\n\n
 • A way to conceptualise successful enactment of the public purposes of 
 education is to start with seeing\, supporting and making schools accounta
 ble as communities of professional and backward map to the most appropriat
 e model for the centre. \n
LOCATION:Faculty of Education\, 184 Hills Road\, Cambridge\, CB2 8PQ
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR