Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/11819
Title: Framing the Framework: Discourses in Australia's National Values Education Policy
Contributor(s): Jones, Tiffany  (author)
Publication Date: 2007
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/11819
Abstract: There is much dispute over what, exactly, schools should be teaching students about morality, and whether it is indeed their place to do so (Curriculum Corporation, 2003; Hill, 1991; Purpel, 1997; Snook, 2000). In the past, many Australian state schools avoided teaching about values explicitly. However, the Australian Government released Australia's first official values education policy in 2005: the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools (NFVEAS). This framework represents a local manifestation of the international values education movement, which has seen an increase in such policy this decade. It introduces the first official construction of 'Australian Values' for inculcation in students. Australian schools must implement this framework, and are receiving materials, instructions and over $29.7 million in funding to do so. This study contributes to an exploration of what, and whom, the Government's construction of 'Australian values education' privileges. It uncovered the dominant discourses inherent in the Australian values education framework through a Critical Discourse Analysis of the NFVEAS document and its implementation. The study 'frames' this framework; positioning it in relation to the 16 key values education approaches identified in the literature. The data revealed the document's strong privileging of conservative values education discourses which aim to maintain the status quo; particularly Civics and Citizenship Education, Values Inculcation and Character Education. In practice, some Australian schools have been disrupting this move to conservatism by taking more critical and post-modern approaches. I argue for such alternative practices (which are more inclusive and sophisticated), and for policy changes to encourage them.
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Source of Publication: Educational Research: who needs it? Proceedings from the inaugural, 2006 Research Higher Degree Conference held at the School of Education and Professional Studies, Gold Coast Campus of Griffith University, Queensland, p. 47-69
Publisher: Post Pressed
Place of Publication: Teneriffe, Australia
ISBN: 9781921214271
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 130399 Specialist Studies in Education not elsewhere classified
160809 Sociology of Education
139999 Education not elsewhere classified
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 930302 Syllabus and Curriculum Development
930403 School/Institution Policies and Development
930104 Moral and Social Development (incl. Affect)
HERDC Category Description: B1 Chapter in a Scholarly Book
Publisher/associated links: http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/7875596
Editor: Editor(s): Raymond Brown, Glenn Finger, Carole Rushton
Appears in Collections:Book Chapter
School of Education

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