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A Student-centred Sociology of Australian EducationAge: Australia’s Staging of Ageing via Spiral Curricula

A Student-centred Sociology of Australian Education: Age: Australia’s Staging of Ageing via... [This chapter explores the sociology of education theme ‘age’ and presents related findings. Australia’s national curriculum contains some element of age-staging, but this is highly interpretive and schools are mostly free to develop their own approach regarding what information is shared at which age. Two thirds of the Voices of Experience survey participants reported that their school progressively exposed them to age-appropriate information on ‘serious topics’ over time. This suggested a dominance of liberal constructionist and developmental visions of youth as informed or developing decision-makers best approached via staged curricula, across Australian schools. This approach was associated with decreased suicidality for students and other social benefits. Only 15.4% of participants experienced conservative protectionist approaches to age restricting ‘serious topic’ information dissemination based on notions of students as the romantic or knowing child, including 7.1% for whom serious topics were never covered and 8.3% for whom their coverage was restricted to only the senior years of schooling. Just over a tenth experienced whole-school critical campaigns on ‘serious’ topics at all ages, whilst a smaller portion experienced staff ignoring or rejecting concepts of age appropriateness. Not covering serious topics at all, or covering them without age-appropriate supports, was associated with greater social abuse of the students from teachers and higher wellbeing risks for students. Tutorial questions for this chapter ask readers to consider concrete elements of their own and others’ schooling which show the approach taken to age generally, and age-based coverage of controversial issues, and to consider the best approaches.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Student-centred Sociology of Australian EducationAge: Australia’s Staging of Ageing via Spiral Curricula

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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
ISBN
978-3-030-36862-3
Pages
63 –93
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-36863-0_5
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[This chapter explores the sociology of education theme ‘age’ and presents related findings. Australia’s national curriculum contains some element of age-staging, but this is highly interpretive and schools are mostly free to develop their own approach regarding what information is shared at which age. Two thirds of the Voices of Experience survey participants reported that their school progressively exposed them to age-appropriate information on ‘serious topics’ over time. This suggested a dominance of liberal constructionist and developmental visions of youth as informed or developing decision-makers best approached via staged curricula, across Australian schools. This approach was associated with decreased suicidality for students and other social benefits. Only 15.4% of participants experienced conservative protectionist approaches to age restricting ‘serious topic’ information dissemination based on notions of students as the romantic or knowing child, including 7.1% for whom serious topics were never covered and 8.3% for whom their coverage was restricted to only the senior years of schooling. Just over a tenth experienced whole-school critical campaigns on ‘serious’ topics at all ages, whilst a smaller portion experienced staff ignoring or rejecting concepts of age appropriateness. Not covering serious topics at all, or covering them without age-appropriate supports, was associated with greater social abuse of the students from teachers and higher wellbeing risks for students. Tutorial questions for this chapter ask readers to consider concrete elements of their own and others’ schooling which show the approach taken to age generally, and age-based coverage of controversial issues, and to consider the best approaches.]

Published: Jan 4, 2020

Keywords: Age; Spiral; Curricula; Grade; Year; Child; School; Staging

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