Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Objectives Upon successful completion of this subject, students should be able to reason in epistemological, metaphysical and ethical modes to the purpose of applying these reasoning skills to the formation of argumentatively coherent frameworks of educational policy and practice; understand that, depending on the underlying a priori and/or normative assumptions, certain logical consequences follow in the construction and articulation of educational policies and practice; understand how to, and be able to, juxtapose means of initiating education change; have developed the ability to apply empirical and cognitive conceptualisations of sociological thought to a range of both theoretical and practical considerations substantially based on their potential school experiences but related to and/or coupled with policy formulation, implementation and application; be able to critically appraise the relevance of sociological understandings of structure, function and purpose together with the relativity of stratification theory, hidden (non-formal) curriculum and positivist and other ideological schema towards the modelling and definition of the purpose together with the relevant nature of schools and schooling; be able to evaluate the relevance of socially critical, classical and Marxist educational theory vis a vis both historical and current educational philosophy and curriculum development; be able to review the relevance of current debate on post-modernist understandings of societal change, positing as a consequence the need for reconstruction of educational practice and the development of appropriate national competencies in learning and skills development; have the competence to transfer the general understandings developed through the studies of sociological research into understandings appropriate and applicable in learning and application of that learning at the policy, school and individual levels.
Synopsis This subject is usually taken in the second year of the Graduate Diploma of Education (Secondary) and consists of two modules, one dealing with the philosophical principles of teaching and the other with current issues in education.
Assessment Exercise: 5% + Journal: 45% + or + Examination: 45% + Two Essays: 50%