Jesus in Schools
The Education (Religious Instruction) Act 1950
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.22394Keywords:
religious, education, Jesus, Protestant, state schoolsAbstract
The 1872 Education Act stated that education in the state of Victoria would be ‘free, compulsory and secular’. In the years following World War II there was a broadly endorsed imperative to maintain British cultural identity as an essential component of the national character of Australia as a Commonwealth nation. Associated Protestant moral values were believed to be a crucial underpinning of good citizenship and democracy. In 1946 the Council for Christian Education in Schools (CCES) published an Agreed Syllabus for religious instruction in government state schools. In 1950 compulsory religious instruction was introduced into these schools. The representation in associated teaching material reflected a particular understanding of Jesus. A close contextualised reading of CCES curriculum documents from the 1950s reveals distinctive ways in which a ‘British’ Jesus was represented in Victorian classrooms and the extent to which this representation aligned with the interests of the state.
References
Australian Constitution Centre 2012 High Court Case Study: The Rule of Law. Williams vs. Commonwealth of Australia. Australian Constitution Centre. Online: http://www.australianconstitutioncentre.org.au/the-rule-of-law---the-high-court-limits-federal-government-spending-powers.html (accessed 28 November 2021).
Australian Law Reform Commission 2016 Protections from Statutory Encroachment. Australian Law Reform Commission. Online: https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/traditional-rights-and-freedoms-encroachments-by-commonwealth-laws-alrc-report-129/5-freedom-of-religion/protections-from-statutory-encroachment-24/ (accessed 2 January 2020).
Burritt, Amanda 2020 Visualising Britain’s Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
CCES (Council for Christian Education in Schools) n.d.a. Journey into Faith, Vol. I, Forms 1 & 2. Council for Christian Education in Schools, Melbourne. MS12019Y, Box 23, State Library of Victoria.
CCES (Council for Christian Education in Schools) n.d.b. Journey into Faith, Vol. II, Forms 3 & 4. Council for Christian Education in Schools, Melbourne. MS12019Y, Box 23, State Library of Victoria.
CCES (Council for Christian Education in Schools) n.d.c. Plan for Living, Vol. I. Council for Christian Education in Schools, Melbourne. MS12019Y, Box 23, State Library of Victoria.
CCES (Council for Christian Education in Schools) n.d.d. Plan for Living, Vol. II. Council for Christian Education in Schools, Melbourne. MS12019Y, Box 23, State Library of Victoria.
CCES (Council for Christian Education in Schools) 1951 Message to Instructors. Council for Christian Education in Schools, Melbourne. MS12019Y, Box 98, State Library of Victoria.
CCES (Council for Christian Education in Schools) 1952 Agreed Syllabus for 1952, Grade 7 or Form 1. Council for Christian Education in Schools, Melbourne. MS12019Y, Box 23, State Library of Victoria.
CCES (Council for Christian Education in Schools) 1957/58 Suggested Syllabus for Use by Chaplains in Technical Schools. Council for Christian Education in Schools, Melbourne. MS12019Y, Box 105, State Library of Victoria.
CCES (Council for Christian Education in Schools) 1960 Annual Report 1960. Council for Christian Education in Schools, Melbourne. MS12019Y, Box 8, State Library of Victoria.
Chavura, Stephen A., John Gascoigne and Ian Tregenza 2019 Reason, Religion and the Australian Polity: A Secular State? Routledge, London.
Garden, Don 1982 The Melbourne Teacher Training Colleges. Heinemann, Richmond, Vic.
Gregory, J. S. 1973 Church and State. Cassell, North Melbourne, Vic.
Handasyde, Kerrie 2022 Art and the Power to Save: William Ricketts and Mary Packer Harris in the Atomic Age. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 35(1): 39–58.
Hilliard, David 1991 God in the Suburbs: The Religious Culture of Australian Cities in the 1950s. Australian Historical Studies 24(97): 399–419. https://doi.org/10.1080/10314619108595856
Hilliard, David 1997 Church, Family and Sexuality in Australia in the 1950s. Australian Historical Studies 27(109): 133–46.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10314619708596048
Hughes, Kent 1948 Letter to Trenaman, Director of Council for Christian Education in Schools. MS1201Y, Box 100, State Library of Victoria.
Jackson, Stephen 2014 ‘In Accord with British Traditions’: The Rise of Compulsory Religious Education in Ontario, Canada, and Victoria, Australia, 1945–50. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 42(4): 693–709. https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2014.924723
Jackson, Stephen 2020 Religious Education and the Anglo-World. Brill, Leiden.
Lake, Meredith 2018 The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History. NewSouth Publishing, Sydney.
Massam, Katharine 2022 ‘All Our Time’: Catechetics, Cardijn and the Jesus of Everyday Discipleship. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 35(1): 74–93.
Miller, Pavla, and Ian Davey 2005 Family Formation, Schooling and the Patriarchal State. In The Routledge Falmer Reader in History of Education, edited by Gary McCulloch, 83–99. Routledge, London.
Parliament of Australia 1901 The Australian Constitution. Parliament of Australia. Online: https://www.aph.gov.au/constitution (accessed 2 January 2020).
Piggin, Stuart 2012 Spirit, Word and World Evangelical Christianity in Australia. Acorn Press, Brookvale, NSW.
Rasmussen, Mary Lou, Andrew Singleton, Anna Halafoff and Gary Bouma 2021 Freedoms, Faiths and Futures: Teenage Australians on Religion, Sexuality and Diversity. Bloomsbury, Sydney.
Tavan, Gwenda 1997 ‘Good Neighbours’: Community Organisations, Migrant Assimilation and Australian Society and Culture, 1950–1961. Australian Historical Studies 27(109): 77–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/10314619708596044
Trenaman, Hubert 1950 Plan for Living: A Teachers’ Guide. Council for Christian Education in Schools, Melbourne. MS12019Y, Box 23, State Library of Victoria.
VCAA (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority) 2016a Victorian Curriculum F–10: World Views and Religions. Online: https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/curriculum/foundation-10/crosscurriculumresources/Pages/WorldViewsandReligions.aspx (accessed 28 November 2021).
VCAA (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority) 2016b Victorian Curriculum F–10: The Humanities. Online: https://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/the-humanities/introduction/about-the-humanities (accessed 28 November 2021).
Willett, Graham 1997 The Darkest Decade: Homophobia in 1950s. Australian Historical Studies 27(109): 120–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/10314619708596047
Published
Issue
Section
License
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
