A Disjunction Between Personal, Professional and Societal Values in Pre-Service Teacher Education

Following the development of the Common and Agreed National Goals for Schooling (Australian Education Council, 1989) the Western Australian Curriculum Council was established and it has subsequently developed a Curriculum Framework for eight learning areas as well as for the values identified as implicit within those learning areas and within the governance of schools (Curriculum Council, 1998). These values have been called the shared core values of Australian society. Within the context of an analysis of these values, this paper presents the findings from a survey of the personal and the perceived societal values of Australia held by a sample of Bachelor of Education students in their third year of a four year professional degree. The paper also presents an analysis of that professional degree to ascertain just where, if at all, the young professionals in training are being introduced to the theory and practice of values education. Finally, the paper raises a number of questions for designers of teacher education degrees. Students come to universities with sets of personal and social values, largely unexamined, and they are expected to develop additionally, professional and societal values. How is this to be achieved? One of the criteria needed to define a profession is that professional preparation includes theoretical perspectives which should enable practitioners to explain the why and the how of their practice. To what extent have teacher education courses, now controlled by universities, measured up to this expectation? Recent history of curricular changes in Australia and Western Australia For several decades during the 1970s to the 1990s, there was an assumption among Western societies that schools were value neutral and that teachers must avoid values teaching. Teaching has always been a values-oriented enterprise (see Fraenkel, 1977, p.1). However, in order to avoid teaching of specific values, the Social Studies K-10 Syllabus, which was until recently the main syllabus document for social studies teachers in Western Australia, focused instead on a valuing process. While acknowledging that it was necessary to work with children on issues about which there was a diversity of value positions, the Syllabus advocated using the valuing process. Values were identified within each unit of study by the inclusion of values objectives and teachers were expected to use one of the following approaches and to develop particular teaching strategies in order to encourage the valuing process. The approaches were: Awareness of feelings Clarification and analysis of values Decision and justification. While many teachers continue to utilise the Syllabus as their major resource for teaching social studies/the social sciences/society and environment, there have been changes at both national and state level which have had an impact on values teaching and learning in schools. During the 1980s, as in many Western countries, the Australian federal government initiated significant changes in education in light of a perception that education was essential to strengthen national economies. Through the Australian Education Council, which involved the federal minister and all Australian Journal of Teacher Education Vol. 26, No.2. 2001 2 state ministers of education, a national collaborative curriculum project was undertaken. This led to an agreement on a set of common goals for schooling: the Hobart Declaration on Schooling in 1998. The resulting Common and Agreed National Goals for Schooling (Australian Education Council, 1989) included a number of goals to assist schools and systems to develop specific objectives and strategies. The national curriculum project was pushed ahead and national statements and profiles were developed for eight learning areas (Mathematics, English, Science, Technology, Health and Physical Education, and Studies of Society and Environment). These emphasised an outcomes-based education, in line with a demand for greater specificity on what should be valued and assessed and reflected on in schools. Most Australian states and territories supported the national statements and profiles developed for Society and Environment and the Western Australia Education Department issued the repackaged national profile document as Student Outcome Statements: Working Edition (1994), for a trial period. However, at this time a review of curriculum development processes and procedures in Western Australia was undertaken. A new body, the Curriculum Council was established by Act of Parliament in 1997 and the Council in 1998 published a Curriculum Framework which provided the legal basis for an outcomes-based curriculum framework to be introduced into all schools in the State, with implementation in government schools to be completed by 2004 and fully implemented in all schools by 2006. The Education Department in 1998 refined the Outcome Statements to be in keeping with the Framework. The Curriculum Framework sets out the learning outcomes expected of all students from kindergarten to Year 12. These outcomes are within an overarching Statement and eight Learning Area Statements, including one for Society and Environment. Teachers and schools are to design and deliver programs which meet the needs of their students so that the students make progress towards the achievement of thirteen Overarching Learning Outcomes as outlined in the Curriculum Framework. As well, the Curriculum Framework will be used to make judgements about the effectiveness of the teaching and learning. This is the first time that a common Curriculum Framework has applied to all Western Australian schools from K-12. The earlier approach to values education had been criticised as encouraging students to choose their own values and, albeit unintentionally, through its values neutrality, undermining traditional values (see, for example, Harmin, 1988). By the early 1990s, in Australia as in other Western countries, communities were perceiving that there was a lack of civic values among the young and they were beginning to demand that certain values be taught in schools. Teachers also acknowledged that it was impossible not to teach values in schools and many felt that these should be made visible rather than being part of a hidden agenda. For example, Marsh states (2001, p.133): ‘In terms of teaching studies of society and environment it is impossible for teachers to avoid imparting values in one way or another. The basic question with regard to values is not whether they should be taught but how best to carry out the teaching’. Values education is particularly important in the Society and Environment learning area because of 'its focus on individuals and groups of people and on the decisions that affect the quality of human life and environments' (Marsh, 2001, p.136). At the national level, the Society and Environment Learning Area Statement Learning Outcomes comprise the five strands of Place and Space, Resources, Culture, Time, Continuity and Change, and Natural and Social Systems, plus the process strand, Investigation, Communication and Participation. At the Western Australian level, the Curriculum Council proposed the inclusion of an additional strand, Active Australian Journal of Teacher Education 3 Vol. 26, No.2. 2001 Citizenship (Curriculum Framework, 1998, p.252). The Active Citizenship outcome highlights the responsibility of all Society and Environment teachers to address values. Teachers are to monitor the behaviour and practices that students display as active citizens as a reflection of their commitment to the values and principles associated with the democratic process, social justice and ecological sustainability (Curriculum Council, 1998, pp.261-2). As part of the materials developed in conjunction with the Society and Environment learning area Student Outcome Statements, the Education Department of Western Australia has provided a monitoring framework or diagnostic tool to assist teachers to make judgements about their students’ progress on the Active Citizenship outcome. The focus is on observable behaviours and actions rather than on what students say. It is hoped that through the exploration of such values students will be able to exercise judgement on moral and ethical issues and to develop a commitment to the core values shared by most Australians. It is further anticipated that if such exploration can result in students becoming better thinkers and better decision makers, it will enable them to take action in a socially responsible manner thus contributing to the achievement of more desirable futures for all (Curriculum Council, 1998, p. 261). The importance of teaching active citizenship was being promoted by the Commonwealth Government as part of a policy to improve the teaching of civics and citizenship education in schools. The interest in Citizenship Education arose initially in 1989 after concerns were raised by the findings of an inquiry conducted by a Senate Committee, Education for active citizenship, which indicated that young people lacked knowledge of and were cynical about political and bureaucratic systems and had inadequate knowledge of their rights and responsibilities (Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Education, and Training, 1989). In 1991 the same Senate Standing Committee published Active citizenship revisited which recognised the need to motivate individuals to engage in active citizenship. It also came about as Australia was about to celebrate the centenary of its Federation and was contemplating its place in the postmodern world and issues such as the Republic, Reconciliation, multiculturalism, alienation of youth, environmental and ecological sustainability and globalism. A 'Civics Expert Group' established by a former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, called for more systematic Civics Education, linking this to the 'National Statements and Profiles' as part of the Studies of Society and Environment learning area. The Group highlighted the 'Hobart Declaration' and, in particular, National Goal Seven, which called for the development of 'knowledge, skills, attitudes and values which will enable students to participate as active and informed citizens in our democratic Australian society within an international context' (Australian Education Council, 1989). The following Commonwealth Government allocated funding to establish Civics Education programs in educational institutions and in the community. The inclusion of Active citizenship in the Western Australian Curriculum Framework was in line with this direction. As well as emphasising Active Citizenship in Society and Environment, the Curriculum Council recognised the importance of certain values underpinning the whole curriculum. Decisions about the values to be included involved input from a range of communities and schools and followed agreement that there had to be consensus among the groups. The non-government schools developed a Theistic Values Framework to be pursued in denominational schools then, in conjunction with the government system, developed a set of minimum values. After much discussion, research and trialling, schools were issued with a list of thirty two specific 'shared values'. These Core Shared Values have been grouped as: Australian Journal of Teacher Education Vol. 26, No.2. 2001 4 a pursuit of knowledge and commitment to achievement of potential; self acceptance and respect of self; respect and concern for others and their rights; social and civic responsibility; and, environmental responsibility. While acknowledging the need to teach the above values, the package to schools emphasises that there is still an aversion to indoctrination, noting: 'that the nominated fundamental core values are not Absolutist hence there is to be no movement in the direction of indoctrination. In fact if values education is to avoid becoming indoctrination. the minimum requirement is that one aim be to equip students to critically interrogate the values acculturation both they and others have undergone, so that they may arrive at the position where they to make an informed choice concerning the values by which they themselves will live' (Values in Education: Classroom Curriculum Package, National Professional Development Program, 1996, p.14). The overall emphasis and method of treating values was said to rest with the particular school and the individual teacher who is to interpret as he or she sees fit but all should arrive at a common procedure for settling value conflicts. The Curriculum Framework therefore places a new emphasis on values teaching, specifically identifying values that need to be integrated into the school curriculum. The rationale for the Society and Environment section of the Curriculum Framework states that 'students are to explore the values of democratic process, social justice and ecological sustainability which will enable them to exercise judgement on moral and ethical issues, and to develop a commitment to the core values shared by most Australians' (1998, p.251). It states further that its basic aim is 'to give individual students the ability to make reasoned and informed decisions as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world'. It states that it hopefully achieves this 'by developing students' sense of their social world and their place in it: their respect for their own cultural heritage and that of others; their respect for the rights of other people; their commitment to uphold critically and compassionately the three major values listed earlier; and their capacity to contribute to the quality of life on earth now and in the future' (1998, p.251). Analysis of values of teacher education students In 2001 a survey was undertaken to obtain information about the values held by students currently enrolled in teacher education. The survey targetted teacher education students at one Western Australian university in the third year of Early Childhood and Primary Teacher Education (Bachelor) and in the Graduate Diploma (Secondary). The questionnaire comprised several items about students' backgrounds (their sex, age, course of study, birthplace and parents' birthplaces, countries visited and regions of the state visited) and four open-ended items asking them to list the five most important values they hope to achieve in their personal life, their three greatest fears, what they perceive to be the five most important values held by most Australians and the three greatest fears they perceive most Australians to have. The questionnaire introduced the concept of 'value' by stating that: ‘A value is a belief or idea on which you build or act out your priorities in life and day-to-day living. These may cover all aspects of living: social relationships, creativity, expression, economic, political and religious realms, They constitute what you consider to be the good things in life’. A total of 222 students responded to the survey (all students present on the day). These comprised early childhood education (ECE) (88 respondents or 40 percent of the total), primary (78 or 35 percent) and secondary (56 or 25 percent). All ECE and primary students were third-year Australian Journal of Teacher Education 5 Vol. 26, No.2. 2001 undergraduates and all secondary were enrolled in the Graduate Diploma. Most students were female (89 percent)and most were under 25 years of age (70 percent). Eighty one percent of students were born in Australia while 59 and 58 percent respectively had mothers and fathers born in Australia. Of those with parents born overseas, the great majority were from English-speaking countries. These percentages, with the predominance of females and Australian-born, are typical of teacher education students in recent years. Thirty percent of respondents had never visited another country and 17 percent had not visited regions of Western Australia away from Perth and the South West. Table 1 lists the responses to the two items on values and Table 2 to the items about fears. Items are ranked according to the percentage of respondents nominating them. The items have been grouped into seventeen categories. The survey did not ask for values in order of priority so each item nominated by a student was given an equal weighting. As can be seen in the tables, there was some consistency between the students' own personal values and fears and their perception of Australian values and fears although Item 12, 'money/wealth' and Item 13, 'religion', were ranked quite differently in terms of whether they referred to the students themselves or were perceived as Australian beliefs. Table 1: Personal Values and Australian Values