![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
Abstract
Australia is a federation of six states and two territories. Each state and territory has its own legislature, which may not be of the same political persuasion as the Commonwealth (Federal) Government. Under the Australian Constitution primary control of school education is with the State and Territory Governments, with the Australian Commonwealth Government having no specific constitutional responsibility for school education. However, this is complicated by a dual‐tiered funding system, whereby the Australian Commonwealth Government has responsibility for some funding of government schools and majority funding for non‐government schools. Since 1975 there have been moves by the Commonwealth Ministers for Education to acquire a significant role in identifying national priorities for education and constructing policies and assessment tools to achieve such goals. Financial provision and national policy formation have increasingly become the means by which Australian Commonwealth Ministers for Education have “shaped” educational debates and policies. In November 2004 the then Australian Commonwealth Minister for Education, Science and Training announced the details of the Australian Government National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy. The focus of the Inquiry was examination of research into reading, preparation of schoolteachers and literacy teaching practices, especially reading. The Inquiry may be seen as the latest move by the Commonwealth Government to influence the teaching of literacy in Australia. In this paper official notions of literacy, as outlined through the various Australian Commonwealth Government's inquiries into literacy and national policy documents for the period 1975–2005, are examined using metaphor analysis. Metaphor analysis provides a means of analysing discourses about literacy in each of the reports and policies in order to interpret the underlying ideology. These official constructs of literacy are briefly considered within the competing and wider notions of literacy in Australia academic debates and the tensions that exist in defining literacy. Why did the Australian Commonwealth Government become involved in the literacy debates during this time? In particular, how has the Australian Commonwealth Government defined literacy and why did it take a more controlling role in both the definition of literacy and the shaping of education for literacy? The reasons for the Australian Commonwealth Government becoming involved in the literacy debates remain largely unresolved. In this paper it is proposed that involvement in the literacy debates constituted a way for the Commonwealth Government, in a time of economic rationalisation, to change their role in educational reform from one of financial assistance to one of leadership in curriculum. It is also proposed that a metaphor analysis of the policy documents and associated reports indicates a move from a wide definition of literacy to an increasingly narrow and utilitarian definition of literacy, reflecting the predominantly economic focus of the Australian Commonwealth Government.
Notes
1 Grant Harman and Don Smart, eds., Federal Intervention in Australian Education (Melbourne: Georgian House, 1982).
2 Simon Marginson,. “Education Research and Education Policy,” Review of Australian Research in Education 2 (1993): 15.
4 Id., Transcript, Literacy Inquiry, Alan Jones Programme – Radio 2UE, 2004. http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Nelson/2004/12/tran011204.asp. (accessed August 4, 2006)
3 Brendan Nelson, National Inquiry into Literacy Teaching. [Media release]. Canberra, 2004. http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Nelson/2004/11/n1016301104.asp. (accessed August 4, 2006).
5 Jim Walker, “A Focus on Policy,” Review of Australian Research in Education 2 (1993): 9.
6 Ibid., 10.
7 Ross Harrold, “Recent Higher Education Policy: A Case Study of development and Implementation,” Review of Australian Research in Education 2 (1993): 74.
8 Bill Green, John Hodgens and Allan Luke, “Debating literacy in Australia: History lessons and popular f(r)ictions,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 20, no. 1 (1997): 11.
9 Ibid., “Debating literacy in Australia,” 11.
10 Green, Hodgens and Luke, “Debating Literacy in Australia,” 12–13.
11 Ibid., 13.
12 Ibid., 18–19.
13 Mr Alan Dennis, senior master in English at Prince Alfred College, said that one of the major obstacles to the development or even maintenance of good reading habits at the Leaving level was the very considerable load of work imposed by the matriculation examination. “Another of our most serious difficulties at this stage is the product of social and environmental conditions over which we have no control.” “Our pupils have grown accustomed to radio and film, and are much less dependent on reading for entertainment and satisfaction of mental needs than were the children of earlier generations.” “‘When television is added we must expect the situation to be much worse’, Mr Dennis said.” Adelaide Advertiser, April 13, 1959, 3.
14 “The impact of theory – ranging from critical theory, where Shakespeare is on the same footing as Australian Idol, to postmodernism, feminism, Marxism and constructivism – has also been criticised as ideological and misdirected.” Dr Kevin Donnelly The Australian, May 15, 2006. “I find no problem at all in applying the same intelligence to the whole range of texts offered in the HSC, canonical or not. Of course I hope students learn to value some things more than others, but I would also want them to be able to analyse and judge everything that comes their way as skillfully as possible, including blogs and SMS, not to mention Big Brother, or even the linguistic subterfuges of our Prime Minister or of the US President.” Ninglun, New Lines from a Floating Life, 10 July 2006. [weblog]. Available from: http://ninglun.wordpress.com/. (accessed August 5, 2006)
15 Leo Bartlett, John Knight, Bob Lingard and Paige Porter, “Redefining a ‘National Agenda’ in Education: the states fight back,” Australian Educational Researcher 21, no. 2 (1994): 32–4.
16 Australian Senate Standing Committee on Education and the Arts, Report on a National Language Policy (Canberra, 1984), 25.
17 Commonwealth of Australia, Australia's Language, The Australian Language and Literacy Policy (Canberra, 1991), III.
18 Helen Moore, “Language Policies as virtual realities: two Australian examples,” In Ideology, Politics and Language Policies: Focus on English, Studies in Language and Society 6, ed. Thomas Ricento (Amsterdam, 2000), 30–3.
19 Joseph Lo Bianco, “From policy to anti‐policy: How fear of language rights took policy‐making out of community hands,” in Australian Policy Activism in Language and Literacy, ed. Joseph Lo Bianco and Rosie Wickert (Australia: Language Australia, 2001).
20 Paul Brock, “Australia's language,” in Australian Policy Activism, ed. Lo Bianco and Wickert, 54–5.
21 Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Literacy for All: the Challenge for Australian Schools, Commonwealth Literacy Policies for Australian Schools (Canberra, 1998), 1.
22 Ibid., 6.
23 Ibid., 3.
24 Ibid., 14.
25 Ibid., 6.
26 Dani Cooper, “Phonics at the core of new literacy war,” The Australian, 21 April, 2004, 21.
27 Completed in December 2005.
28 Geraldine Castleton, “Literacy, Metaphor and Words at Work: Maintaining particular constructions of literacy,” Literacy and Numeracy Studies 8, no. 2 (1998): 25–6; Joan Gallini, Michael Seaman and Suzanne Terry, “Metaphors and learning new text,” Journal of Reading Behaviour 27, no. 2 (1995): 187; Andrew Goatly, The Language of Metaphors (London: Routledge, 1997), ch. 1; George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), chs 1–11.
29 Yeshayahu Shen, “Metaphors and categories,” Poetics Today 13, no. 4 (1992): 771–94.
30 Goatly, The Language of Metaphors, ch. 2.
31 Paul Ilsley and Norman Stahl, “Reconceptualizing the language of adult literacy,” Journal of Reading 37, no. 1 (1993): 20–1.
32 Goatly. The Language of Metaphors, ch. 1.
33 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 3.
34 Castleton, “Literacy, Metaphor and Words at Work,” 28; see also James Gee, Glynda Hull and Colin Lankshear, The New Work Order (Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1996).
35 Peter Freebody, Research in Literacy Education: The Changing Face of Research, Policy and Practice, An Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Griffith University Brisbane, referred to in Geraldine Castleton, “Literacy, Metaphor and Words at Work,” 28.
36 Peter Freebody and Anthony Welch, Knowledge, Culture and Power: International Perspectives on Literacy as Policy and Practice (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), 6–8.
37 Green, Hodgens and Luke, “Debating literacy in Australia,” 19–20.
38 Joseph Lo Bianco, National Policy on Languages (Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Education, 1987), 81.
39 Australian Education Council, The Hobart Declaration on School (Canberra, 1989), 2.
40 Department of Employment, Education, Literacy for All, 11.
41 Lo Bianco, National Policy on Languages, 44.
42 Lo Bianco, “From policy to anti‐policy,” 16–17.
43 Commonwealth of Australia, Australia's Language, 5.
44 Ibid., 5.
45 Department of Employment, Education, Literacy for All, 9.
46 Ibid., 2–3.
47 Ibid., 3–4.
48 Ibid., 19–20.
49 Department of Employment Science and Training, Teaching Reading: Literature Review (Canberra, 2005), 4.
50 Ibid., 25.
51 Department of Employment, Education, Literacy for All, 2. Ibid., 2–3.
52 Ibid., 45–6.
53 Ibid., 13.
54 Ibid., 7.
55 Department of Employment Science and Training. Teaching Reading, 8.
56 Ilsley and Stahl. “Reconceptualizing the language of adult literacy,” 23–4.
57 Loc. cit.
58 Commonwealth of Australia, Australia's Language, 4.
59 Ibid., 4.
60 Ibid., 5.
61 Loc. cit.
62 Brock, “Australia's language,” 61–2.
63 Department of Employment, Education, Literacy for All, 3–4.
64 Ibid., 4.
65 Ibid., 11.
66 Ibid., 17.
67 Ibid., 9.
68 Nelson, National Inquiry into Literacy Teaching (2004).
69 Department of Employment Science and Training, Teaching Reading, 4.
70 Ibid., 41–2.
71 Ibid., 9.