Victorian Department of Health, School Dental Service, 1960s. Photographer unknown. Public Record Office Victoria, VPRS 14004 P12 Unit 2

Victorian Department of Health, School Dental Service, 1960s. Photographer unknown. Public Record Office Victoria, VPRS 14004 P12 Unit 2

Memory & Schooling

This project comprises a suite of oral history interviews with former teachers, students, curriculum personnel and guidance officers and school counsellors who were at school in the decades from the 1930s to the 1970s. There are more than 80 interviews, with teachers and students from all walks of life and from various parts of Australia. While most are now living in Victoria, many were educated and worked elsewhere. There is a special focus in the 1970s interviews with students and teachers involved in progressive and community schooling during that time.

The interviews were conducted as part of the Educating the Adolescent project, and are now in preparation as a digital archive and attached website; the transcripts and case notes are being made available for use by future researchers.

 

Associated publications

McKernan, Amy and McLeod, Julie (2018) ‘Commemoration, affective practice, and the difficult histories of war’, in Laurajane Smith, Margaret Wetherell and Gary Campbell (eds) Emotion, affective practices and the past in the present. Routledge, London.

McLeod, Julie, (2016) ‘Memory, affective practice and teacher narratives: researching emotion in oral histories of educational and personal change’, in M. Zembylas and P. Schutz (eds) Methodological advances on research on emotion in education. Springer, Singapore, 273–284.

Wright, Katie and McLeod, Julie (2012) ‘Public memories and private meanings: representing the “happy childhood” narrative in oral histories of adolescence and schooling in Australia, 1930s–1950s’, Oral History, Forum d’histoire orale vol.32, special issue, ‘Making Educational Oral Histories in the 21st Century’, 1–19.

Nancarrow, Kate ‘Lessons from the past inform the future’, The Age, Monday 28 July, 2014, feature article discussing Educating the Australian adolescent.