Loganholme between the wars: the lives of five female teachers: One Teacher School Museum Series: No. 4

The One Teacher School Museum committee in March 1975 secured the original Loganholme state school building when it became available for removal. The century-old building was moved to a site at the Kelvin Grove College of Advanced Education. Its opening by the Governor-General, Sir Zelman Cowan, was a fitting celebration of the centenary of the passing of the 1875 Education Act in the colony of Queensland - often referred to as the free, compulsory and secular act. The one teacher school museum project was developed through the enthusiasm, initially, of Ted O'Rourke, a lecturer at Kelvin Grove, who was the major instigator of the project and was responsible for obtaining the donation of many items in the current museum from schools and the wider community. Some years later, when Kelvin Grove CAE had been amalgamated into the Brisbane College of Advanced Education, the museum was relocated to its present position, adjacent to the rain forest reserve at the Kelvin Grove campus. Following the latest amalgamation of Brisbane CAE with the Queensland University of Technology, the work of the museum has received strong support from both the Education Faculty and QUT administration. This support has enabled the publication of a series of monographs in the One Teacher School Museum Studies series. This monograph is a revised edition of the publication A History of the Loganholme One-Teacher School Museum, produced in 1992. Subsequent research into the history of the school and its teachers has enabled this fuller account to be prepared. Other titles in the monograph series include a study of David Freeman the first headmaster at Loganholme; a study of the collection held by the one-teacher school museum at Kelvin Grove; and a biographical account of the teachers who taught at Loganholme between the world wars. The study of Loganholme school and its teachers represents a neglected part of our educational history. Increasingly it is the small and ordinary stories which are providing valuable historical insights into practices such as education. This school and its teachers, together with the community they served, are presented as case studies of the unremarkable, the unspectacular. Yet it is because of these very characteristics that we are provided with valuable insights into some of the everyday experiences of Queensland schooling of the past. This monograph, the fourth in the series, examines yet another facet of the life and character of the original Loganholme State School. Here we are introduced to the professional lives of the five women who taught in the school over a period of three decades, 1915-1944. While Loganholme was home for these teachers for varying periods at this time, ranging from four months to eleven years, the nature of their employment with the State Department of Education meant that their time at Loganholme represented but one stage in their working lives which took them to many small schools, often in isolated parts of the state. Not only were these women teachers unclassified, indicating that they had received no formal training for teaching but this lack of official standing was reflected in their meagre salaries and lowly status within the educational bureaucracy. By examining the official documentation of their professional lives including correspondence and reports as well as sharing the experiences of some of their pupils it is possible to understand something of what it meant to be a female teacher in Queensland at this time

Re-inventing or recycling?: Examples of feminist qualitative research informing the management field

Purpose To provide examples of qualitative research based on feminist epistemological assumptions. Such research re-invents rather than recycles management theory, producing alternative understandings which speak to the demands of managing post-corporate workplaces characterised by growing levels of diversity and rapid discontinuous change. Design/methodology/approach Reports on three feminist qualitative research projects. Describes research processes and outcomes which aim to reflexively attend to diverse voices and researcher and research participant subjectivities. Findings Provides tangible examples of empirical feminist qualitative research, including discussions of how the research was conducted, the nature of the findings and critical reflections on the extent to which the researchers' feminist epistemological assumptions were enacted. Research limitations/implications The three research projects discussed have all been conducted within the Australian education sector. Accordingly, future research could focus on providing practical examples of feminist qualitative research approaches in the management field, in different international and industrial/sector contexts. Practical implications Provides management researchers with three examples of feminist qualitative research covering diverse topics including leadership, mentoring and ethics. Originality/value While there is a plethora of writing concerned with feminist research generally, there is a dearth of feminist research in the management field specifically. This paper's contribution therefore lies in providing tangible examples of feminist qualitative research in the management field

Going up? Women in the public sector

Abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to document women's reflections on their careers over a ten-year period to provide quantitative baseline data on which to frame follow-up in-depth interviews. The participants work in the public service in Queensland (Australia) and had been recommended for, and participated in, women in management (WIM) courses conducted in the early 1990s. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected by means of a survey (containing closed and open items) which gathered demographic data and data related to employment history, perceptions of success and satisfaction, and the women's future career expectations. Findings – Findings revealed that the percentage of women in middle and senior management had increased over the ten-year period, although not to the extent one might have anticipated, given that the women had been targeted as high flyers by their supervisors. While not content with their classification levels (i.e. seniority), the majority of the cohort viewed their careers as being successful. Practical implications – Questions arise from this study as to why women are still “not getting to the top”. There are also policy implications for the public service concerning women's possible “reinventive contribution” and training implications associated with women only courses. Originality/value – The study is part of an Australian longitudinal study on the careers of women who attended a prestigious women-only management course in the early 1990s in Queensland. This is now becoming a study of older women

Women approaching retirement: Reflections, issues and hopes

This paper provides insight into the pre-retirement phase of women’s careers. It is based on interviews with women who indicated in an earlier study that they were anticipating retiring after long careers in the public sector in Queensland. As the workforce ages and the proportion of the workforce in the pre-retirement age group grows, it is important to understand the experiences and resultant needs of these workers. The interview invited the women to reflect on their careers and discuss their current experiences as they move towards retirement. The study, which is essentially exploratory in nature, found the women had changing patterns of worklife balance across their lives and that throughout their careers in the public service they had experienced issues relate to, organisational culture and organisational structure. Currently the women are experiencing issues related to their age and impending retirement such as worklife balance, financial considerations and planning beyond paid employment in the public service. The study draws attention to employment issues faced by women approaching retirement from the public sector and suggests that organisations could benefit by identifying ways in which they could better harness the potential contribution of older women

Identification of nnderlying assumptions is an integral part of research: An example from motor control

Research is inherently subjective. It is conducted within a theoretical and methodological framework, the validity of which depends on underlying assumptions about the nature of reality and knowledge. The interpretation of one's own data, and the evaluation of the data interpretation of others, requires assessment of these underlying philosophical assumptions. We contend that while examination of philosophical assumptions is demonstrably an integral part of research, it is one which has largely been neglected in experimental psychology because researchers have rarely explicitly identified their ontological and epistemological assumptions. A contemporary debate in experimental psychology, that between representational and non-representational approaches to understanding the control of movement, is discussed to illustrate the influence such ontological and epistemological assumptions have upon methodological choices and upon the development and evaluation of theory