The public construction of values in education: A synthesis of case studies

This paper explores the approaches taken by a selection of schools in the South-East region of Queensland to values education as explicated in public texts freely available on schools’ websites. Documents such as Behaviour Management Policies and the School Prospectus are used as data to explore how schools construct values education for the public and to investigate what approach(es) to values education are being advocated within these publicly available texts. A suite of four case studies are presented that employ qualitative methodologies in the exploration of how value-laden texts and curricula offerings are deployed by schools to endorse preferred identities. A synthesis of the findings of the case studies presented provides evidence that schools employ the repertoires of language/practice used in public texts to develop cultural identities suitable for marketing themselves as being values rich in competitive times. Possible refinements to the methodologies used in the case studies are discussed in order to identify opportunities to develop a qualitative methodology for exploring school approaches to values education across a larger corpus of publicly available data. Introduction Values education is a current topic of debate in Australian schools. Government schools in Australia have been characterised by influential politicians as being ‘too politically correct and too value-neutral’ and as hastening the exodus by parents to private education (Colman & Colman, 2004). In the context of this public debate, the Department of Education, Science and Training commissioned the Values of Education Study (Department of Education Science and Training, 2003). This study resulted in the development of the National Framework for Values Education (Department of Education Science and Training, 2005) that has since been distributed to all Australian Schools. This framework provides schools with a set of values and principles intended as discussion starters to assist schools in the development and revision of policies and programs related to values education and to provide practical guidance in implementing values education (Department of Education Science and Training, 2003). So as to make a contribution to this discussion, this paper aims to explore how schools construct values education to the public. Schools operate in a ‘cultural/ethical’, as well as physical, environment (Haydon, 2004). The climate of ideas surrounding ‘how to live’ influences the approaches to values education developed by schools. In times of intense change such as have been occurring in Australia since 2001, public relations become important and strategic tools for effecting change in institutions such as schools, and in bringing about change in society. Schools are being positioned in the current economy to compete for market