Australia's neoliberal education agenda drives a competitive market climate where schools compete for potential clientele. In this climate, school impression management and self-promotion has become an important factor in maintaining a financially viable school. Schools produce image management texts including school prospectuses, newspapers…

This study developed and tested a new model of the cognitive processes associated with occupational/career indecision for gifted adolescents. A survey instrument with rigorous psychometric properties, developed from a number of existing instruments, was administered to a sample of 687 adolescents attending three academically selective high schools…

Big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) research has demonstrated that academic self-concept is negatively affected by attending high-ability schools. This article examines data from large, representative samples of 15-year-olds from each Australian state, based on the three Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) databases that focus on…

School choice is most commonly considered in the context of private/public schooling and access to university. University entry remains a key element in family decision-making about which school they would like their children to attend. Debates about school choice are most commonly framed in relation to marketisation and the relative popularity of…

Debate in the Catholic community in Australia often centres on how the Catholic school best expresses its Catholic identity. Is it in closing its doors to all but Catholic families or does Catholic identity require an openness to all Christians, those of other religions and those of no religion? This paper argues that if the school is to be truly…

New evidence is provided about the degree of social segregation in England's secondary schools, employing a cross-national perspective. Analysis is based on data for 27 industrialised countries from the 2000 and 2003 rounds of the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA). We allow for sampling variation in the estimates. England is…

In a global society and economy, education and training is essential to a nation's competitiveness and to the standard of living of its people. The need to open the doors of higher or further education beyond the relatively limited enrollments in elite and selective universities has spawned a movement to develop or expand institutions that are…

In 2002 the Faculty of Information Technology at the University of Technology Sydney began a major initiative to improve the participation of Indigenous Australians in the Information Technology (IT) sector. This followed an initial study which showed that very few Indigenous students undertook studies in IT at university and therefore few found…

Attending academically selective schools is intended to have positive effects, but a growing body of theoretical and empirical research demonstrates that the effects are negative for academic self-concept. The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE), based on social comparison theory, posits that equally able students will have lower academic…

The article uses graphs and narrative analysis to review twentieth century trends in admissions standards and examinations required for admission to the University of Queensland (Australia). The relatively low numbers of school leavers admitted is noted, as is public dissatisfaction with the current Tertiary Entrance system. (DB)

There are few historical studies about the sex education of Australian youth. Drawing on a range of sources, including the oral histories of 40 women and men who attended two single-sex, selective high schools in a provincial Australian city (Newcastle, New South Wales) in the 1930s-1950s, this paper explores the adolescent experience of sex…

This paper provides an account of individual and collective academic values under the pressure of government policy for social equity in selective admissions at one Australian university. A survey of faculty (N=93) from Law, Social Work, Science, and Architecture identified their goals related to the goals of the university and fairness in…

A sequential screening procedure has been proposed in Queensland, based on what is known in decision theory as a 'lexicographic ordering.' The concept is explained, and some of the associated assumptions, implications and shortcomings are examined. (Author/MLW)

This study concerns the selection of mathematically talented students at the beginning of secondary school in Australia, using a version of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Age and sex differences were found. Younger and older students responded to SAT items in qualitatively different ways. (MNS)

Discusses the selection process carried on in tertiary institutions. Argues that it is pointless to consider actual selection in isolation from the gathering of data and the way that data are treated. (PK)