The decentralisation of curriculum decision making in Australia : developments and effects in three states

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Melbourne, 1989The decentralisation of educational decision making and the involvement of a wider range of participants in decision-making processes have been key features of the administration of education in Australia over the past two decades. Among the arguments supporting reforms to the centralised education systems in Australia was the belief that decentralisation would lead to the development of curricula more suited to the needs of students. However, the relationship between changes in the control of curriculum decision making and the nature of the curriculum has not been well researched. This study was designed to address this deficiency. The freedom of teachers to make decisions about the curriculum is constrained by many factors. These can be grouped into a number of 'frames': the system, school, community and individual. The system frame refers to the influence of educational offices and assessment authorities; the school frame is concerned with the role of different school-based personnel such as administrators and faculty coordinators; the community frame refers to the participation of parents or other community members; and the individual frame is concerned with how individual teachers' values or epistemologies might translate into curriculum practices or preferences. These frames relate to different types of decentralisation that have emerged to a lesser or greater extent in Australia: regionalisation, school-based decision making, teacher-based decision making and community participation. This study sought to address the effects on the curriculum of types of decentralisation by examining the relative influence of the four frames. Three States, which had experienced different degrees of decentralisation, were selected for historical and current comparison and within each a number of schools were selected for case study. The schools were grouped according to their administrative and curricular styles, and according to teachers' perceptions of the influence of the community. Within schools, teachers were grouped according to their epistemological views. Data were collected through the administration of questionnaires and through interviews with teachers and administrators. The analyses revealed that in the program in practice there were considerable similarities in teachers' responses. Notwithstanding this, the system, school and individual frame were important influences on the curriculum. There was little evidence that the community was directly affecting curriculum decision making, although this frame did have an indirect influence. In the ideal program, the State differences were reduced and the school differences almost completely disappeared. On the other hand, teachers' epistemological views continued to be associated with the curriculum variables measured and teachers argued that the community should have somewhat greater influence than it had in practice. Among the findings reported, it was found that teachers in the most centralised system, in more tightly coupled schools and with a 'technicist' epistemology were, compared with their counterparts in decentralised systems, in loosely coupled schools and with an 'hermeneutic' epistemology, more likely to favour what might be called traditional curriculum structures and teaching practices