The Great Tradition of Texts: How to Break the Mould? A Study of English Education in Australia & England

Abstract

In both Australia and England, English is the common subject for all students. This fact presents particular challenges to curriculum developers. For example, it is a vexed question considering how to select texts that will be of relevance and interest to students from the culturally diverse backgrounds now resident in both countries. Presently, secondary English curricula in Australia and England determine that senior students will read and interpret meanings in texts while learning about different cultural groups in society. This research explores the current challenges inherent in the selection and teaching of prescribed English texts to contemporary students.

Four areas of English education are explored; curriculum, prescribed texts, pedagogical methods and students’ responses to the selection and teaching of English texts in secondary classrooms to contemporary students from diverse cultural backgrounds. This research hypothesises that a postcolonial theoretical approach might be beneficial when selecting and teaching English texts, as it has the potential to accommodate broader interpretations and perceptions of culture in both traditional and newer texts, and to facilitate discussions of cultural issues such as ethnicity, social class and gender.

The sample includes both academically high- and lower-performing schools in England and Australia. Students’ responses to the English texts they are required to study at schools are collected and analysed to discern the extent to which they find these texts appealing or useful when making comparisons of cultural issues in texts to those in current society. To understand the processes of facilitating both curriculum and texts by educators in schools, I probe the main pedagogical issues encountered by teachers when mediating topics raised by these texts to engage students in conversations about cultural differences.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the extant lists of prescribed texts in both curricula are dated and infrequently revised, albeit not necessarily to incorporate new or culturally diverse texts. In essence, this research compares the process and rationale used by two examination boards (Board of Studies, New South Wales and the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) in matching learning aims with English texts; it maps existing patterns for repeating texts on reading lists. Show more