No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Historical study of the age-grade efficiency movement which took firm root in North America and the Antipodes during the early 1900s, in particular the preoccupation of education authorities with “the retardation problem” (the number of scholars over-aged for grade in consequence of their failure to make “normal” annual progress through the course of instruction), importantly contributes to understanding the age-grade homogeneity of modern elementary schools. The following account of mid-twentieth century developments in South Australia seeks to provide comparative insights into measures adopted to reduce retardation in the interests of preserving school order, enhancing pedagogical and bureaucratic “efficiency,” improving access to secondary courses, and alleviating the costs of “laggards” to the state.
1 For an overview of North American developments that gave form and impetus to the South Australian Education Department's quest to achieve a close age-grade fit, see Otto, H.J. and Estes, D. M. “Accelerated and retarded progress“ in Encyclopaedia of Educational Research. 3rd edition, ed. Harris, C. (New York: MacMillan, 1960), 4–11; Tropea, Joseph L. “Bureaucratic order and special children: Urban schools, 1890s–1940s”, History of Education Quarterly 27:1 (Spring 1987), 29–53; Callahan, R. E. Education and the Cult of Efficiency (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); Angus, David L. Mirel, Jeffrey E. and Vinovskis, Maris A. “Historical development of age stratification in schooling,” Teachers College Record 90:2 (Winter 1988), 211–36.Google Scholar
2 Tropea, “Bureaucratic order and special children;” Angus, Mirel and Vinovskis, “Historical development of age stratification;“ Lewis, John, “So much grit in the hub of the educational machine. Society, schools and the invention of measurable intelligence“ in Mother State and Her Little Ones. Children and Youth in Australia 1860s–1930s, ed. Bessant, Bob (Melbourne, 1987), 140–66; McKenzie, D. H. Lee, H. and Lee, G. Scholars or Dollars? Selected Historical Case Studies of Opportunity Costs in New Zealand Education (Palmerston North: The Dunmore Press, 1996), ch. 7. Note that although education in Australia is constitutionally an individual State or Territory responsibility (since Federation in 1901), central authorities have traditionally looked to each others’ and overseas (especially the United States, United Kingdom, and New Zealand) policy and practice to inform their own, with common means being utilized to solve common problems. Changes in primary school grade organization, and associated reform of the curriculum and pupil classification, promotion and child accounting practices, hence vary in detail but not in substance across state and national borders. My local study, then, takes account of the distinctive features of society and education in South Australia whilst recognizing that the twentieth-century shift from attainment to age-based grade standards and the concomitant virtual elimination of retardation in this State reflects similar developments in public schooling throughout the region and further afield.Google Scholar
3 Trethewey, Lynne “Producing the over-aged child in South Australian primary schools“, Historical Studies in Education/Revue D'Histoire de l'education, 10:1&2 (Spring and Fall 1998), 159–79. My research revealed that over-ageness was much more pronounced in outback regions than in the settled parts of South Australia and was least in the Adelaide metropolitan area. Aboriginal, non-English-speaking migrant and working class children were over-represented in the ‘much above normal grade-age’ category. There were also significant gender differences in retardation rates: the percentage of boys retarded by one or more years in Grades I to VII was consistently higher than that of girls, and in ungraded Opportunity (remedial) Classes the number of male pupils was for the most part approximately double the number of females.Google Scholar
4 Note: The downward statistical trend evident in the appended graphs from 1986 resulted from the introduction of a new Early Years of School policy which defined the kindergarten (Reception) grade as a year level in lieu of the variable period of preparatory instruction that children previously received. This produced a five-month increase in the average age of pupils in each successive grade relative to the years prior to 1984. What constituted ‘normal grade-age’ thus changed in terms of official thinking but was not reflected in the annual census calculations.Google Scholar
5 For a transcript of Maiherbe's address, see Education for Complete Living. The Challenge of Today, ed. Cunningham, K. S. (Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research [hereafter ACER], 1938), 553–70.Google Scholar
6 Cited by Constance Davey in “Retardation”, Education Gazette [hereafter referred to as EG (SA)] 60:644 (15 March 1944), 87.Google Scholar
7 Ibid.Google Scholar
8 Education Inquiry Committee (Chair: E. L. Bean), Minutes of Evidence, 1943 [hereafter referred to as Bean Inquiry Minutes] – Dr C. Fenner, Book 1, 24, ORG 18/171, State Records (hereafter abbreviated to SR]. See also “Age Grade Tables”, EG (S.A.), 60:694 (15 May 1944), 114.Google Scholar
9 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Martin, W. T. Book 1,75.Google Scholar
10 Ibid, 75–76.Google Scholar
11 Ibid, 75.Google Scholar
12 Ibid, 76.Google Scholar
13 Davey, , “Retardation“, 87.Google Scholar
14 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Whitford, A. E. Book 4, 813–17, GRG 18/172.Google Scholar
15 Education Inquiry Committee, Final Report [hereafter referred to as Final Bean Report], South Australian Parliamentary Papers [herafter referred to as SAPP], no. 15, 1949, 4.Google Scholar
16 Ibid, 5–7.Google Scholar
17 Ibid. See also 9.Google Scholar
18 “Editorial – Retardation. A comment on the Articles in the July and August Gazettes by Westgarth, Mr. W. T.“, SA Teachers’ Journal, 30:8 (15 September 1944), 1.Google Scholar
19 Ibid.Google Scholar
20 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Miss F. Blake (Inspector of Infant Schools), Book 2, 255.Google Scholar
21 “Editorial – Retardation”, 10.Google Scholar
22 Hitchcox, A. C., “Children in Grades I and II at infant departments and at other schools“, 12 September 1949, GRS 809/001/P – E.D. 179/1949 enclosed in 1/4/5 [hereafter referred to as E.D. 179/49], SR.Google Scholar
23 ACER, Information Bulletin No. 17. Examination of Retardation by means of Age-Grade Tables (Melbourne: ACER, 1949).Google Scholar
24 Cited by Hitchcox in his report “Children in Grades I and II”, 10.Google Scholar
25 Hitchcox, “Children in Grades I and II”. For the statistics on the relationship between pupils’ commencing ages and retardation in junior grades according to school type, to which the Research Officer was referring, see “School Commencing Age“, EG (SA), 60:700 (15 November 1944), 213–17.Google Scholar
26 Piddington, L. S., “Comment on report concerning children in Grades I and II at infant departments and at other schools“, 26 September 1949, E.D. 179/49.Google Scholar
27 Final Bean Report, 7.Google Scholar
28 Hitchcox, A. C. “Some aspects of the retardation problem – I“, EG (SA), 60:696 (15 July 1944), 141.Google Scholar
29 Miller, Tavla, Long Division. State Schooling in South Australian Society (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1986), 214–221.Google Scholar
30 See Grundy, Denis “From Bean to Keeves“ in The Illusion of Progress. The Keeves Report and the Future of Education ed. Power, C. (Flinders University of South Australia, 1982); idem, “Compulsory schooling, age-grading and the problem of standards, in respect to post-secondary education” (unpublished paper, Flinders University School of Education seminar series, 1983).Google Scholar
31 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Blake, Miss F. Book 2, 256.Google Scholar
32 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Dent, R. T. S. Book 2, 322.Google Scholar
33 Ibid.Google Scholar
34 Ibid.Google Scholar
35 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Leach, W. V. Book 1, 98.Google Scholar
36 See “Age-grade table: 1943 compared with 1945 and 1947”, Final Bean Report, 23.Google Scholar
37 For details of this change to the Grade VII qualification for entry to secondary schools, see “Education Circular No.24 (revised). Completion of Primary Education – Progress Certificate”, EG (SA), 59:689 (1 December 1943), 223–24.Google Scholar
38 “The Progress Certificate and its responsibilities”, EG (SA), 61:707 (15 June 1945), 130.Google Scholar
39 Ibid, 129.Google Scholar
40 Jones, A. W. Inspector of Schools, “Transfer from primary to secondary schools”, EG (SA), 68:774 (15 February 1951), 66–7.Google Scholar
41 This principle was much vaunted in special and ordinary editions of the New Education Fellowship [NEF] journal, New Era, a decade earlier. Local educationalists were informed of the relevant articles through the ACER's Monthly News and Notes, which also raised key questions regarding the problem of classifying and promoting pupils and reviewed Australian reports on related issues. See the information reproduced in SA Teachers’ Journal, 10:6 (June 1934), 20; EG (SA), 50:581 (1 December 1934), 274.Google Scholar
42 “Letter from ‘Standard Bearer’ to the Editor”, SA Teachers’ Journal, 12:3 (April 1962), 14.Google Scholar
43 Department of Education, Tasmania, Report of Committee on Educational Extension, 26, GRG 18/2/1988/1943 – Proceedings of the Australian Education Council Conference, Adelaide, 1944, SR.Google Scholar
44 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Dent, R. T. S. 322.Google Scholar
45 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Wauchope, Mavis L. Book 2, 272.Google Scholar
46 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Whitford, A. E. Book 4, 815.Google Scholar
47 Final Bean Report, 6. See also Hitchcox, A. C. “Some aspects of the retardation problem – II“, EG (SA), 60:697 (15 August 1944), 157; Malherbe, “Retardation: Its Causes and Prevention” in Education for Complete Living, 558; 560.Google Scholar
48 Final Bean Report, 4; 5.Google Scholar
49 For a report of these carefully monitored ‘freedom’ experiments, see Bean Inquiry Minutes – Martin, W. T. Book 1, 71–72. In his address to the Advisory Council on Education which was published in The Advertiser (16 June 1937), Superintendent Martin summarized: “The freedom experiments which have been conducted in this State, commencing some four or five years ago, are mainly in the direction of freedom from strict grade divisions of the curriculum; from the limitations imposed by a strict timetable; and from what might be termed accepted methods of teaching.” For the newspaper clipping, other reports of experiments and a summary of proposals to extend freedom in primary schools, see GRG 18/2/928/1933. SR.Google Scholar
50 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Dent, R. T. S. 322.Google Scholar
51 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Whitford, A. E. Book 4, 833.Google Scholar
52 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Miss Heinig, C. M. Book 1, 220–21.Google Scholar
53 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Wauchope, M. L. Book 2, 281.Google Scholar
54 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Cunningham, Dr K. S. Book 3, 611.Google Scholar
55 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Leach, W. V. Book 1, 98. For details of the alternative grouping methods to which Leach referred in his evidence, see Wyndham, Harold S., Ability Grouping. Recent developments in methods of class grouping in the elementary schools of the United States, ACER Educational Research Series No. 31 (Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 1934); Board of Education (England), Report of the Consultative Committee on the Education of the Adolescent (London: HMSO, 1926), ch. 5.Google Scholar
56 Final Bean Report, 23. For an outline of the principles underlying the syllabus devised by the newly-established Primary Advisory Curriculum Board during 1943–44, see “The School Curriculum”, EG (SA), 60:692 (15 March 1944), 79–80.Google Scholar
57 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Fenner, Dr C. Book 1, 1–2; 23.Google Scholar
58 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Davey, Constance M. Book 4, 952.Google Scholar
59 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Whitford, A. E. Book 4, 816.Google Scholar
60 Hitchcox, , “Some aspects of the retardation problem – II“, 157.Google Scholar
61 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Whitford, A. E. Book 4, 827A.Google Scholar
62 Hitchcox, “Some aspects of the retardation problem – I“, 141. For a brief but useful review of the ACER's testing program and its influence on educational thinking and practice in Australia, see de Lemos, Marion, “Test development at the ACER: a historical perspective“, ACER Newsletter No. 48 (July 1983), 2.Google Scholar
63 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Leach, W. V. Book 1, 98.Google Scholar
64 Bean Inquiry Minutes – Whitford, A. E. 827A; 832; Davey, C. M. 953.Google Scholar
65 “The measuring of minds. From a correspondent”, SA Teachers’ Journal, 7:2 (30 August 1921), 29.Google Scholar
66 “The unadjusted child (M.E.H.)”, SA Teachers’ Journal, 14:1 (28 January 1938), 13–14.Google Scholar
67 For a critical review of developments in mental testing and its uses in the South Australian school context, see Miller, , Long Division, ch. 9.Google Scholar
68 Hitchcox, A. C. to the Superintendent of Primary Schools, 21 May 1957, “Length of time spent in infant departments”, 9, E.D. 1/4/5, SA Education Department Registry. See also Westgarth, W. T. to the Director of Education, 29 October 1956 – letter requesting that the Research Officer conduct such an investigation on the same lines as in 1949.Google Scholar
69 Mead, M. to the Superintendent of Primary Schools, 16 September 1957, “Comment on report by the Research Officer on time spent in infant departments”, E.D. 1/4/5. For a statistical summary of the spectacular growth in primary school enrolments during the decade 1943–1953, see Report of the Minister of Education for 1953, SAPP, no. 54, 1954, 4.Google Scholar
70 Mincham, Hans “To the Editor“, SA Teachers’ Journal, 8:1 (February 1958), 13.Google Scholar
71 Bean Inquiry Minutes – A. Rendell (Headmaster, Goodwood Primary School), Book 2, 384.Google Scholar
72 Piddington, L. S. to the Director of Education, 28 May 1959, “re promotion in Infant Departments”, E.D. 16/2/1, SA Education Department Registry.Google Scholar
73 “Migrant teacher's view of S.A. schools”, SA Teachers’ Journal, 6:9 (October 1956), 10; “Echoes of N.E.F.”, ibid, 8:1 (February 1958), 12–13.Google Scholar
74 Lasscock, E. D. (Senior Guidance Officer), “Changes in the ranges of ability and attainment of students entering departmental secondary schools”, EG (SA), 81:945 (1 October 1965), 326.Google Scholar
75 Pope, Michele cited in “School study's radical options”, The Advertiser (8 October 1992), 19. See also National Board of Employment, Education and Training Schools Council, A Stitch in Time. Strengthening the first years of school, Compulsory Years of Schooling Project Paper No. 2, Commissioned Report No. 16 (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, May 1992) and Developing Flexible Strategies in the Early Years of Schooling: purposes and possibilities, Compulsory Years of Schooling Project Paper No. 5 (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, August 1992).Google Scholar