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Four Avenues : a School Without Walls

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Four Avenues : a School Without Walls FOUR AVENUES: A SCHOOL WITHOUT WALLS? A Social History of Four Avenues Alternative School in Christchurch, New Zealand A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology By Paul Whiting University of Canterbury 2004 ABSTRACT This thesis provides a social history of Four Avenues Alternative School in Christchurch, New Zealand, beginning with the school’s establishment in the mid-1970s and ending with its closure in 1993. This thesis addresses the question of how Four Avenues maintained its place in the state education system for 18 years and how that place was threatened over time. Using microhistorical analysis, it discusses the school’s history through the intensive study of three events in that history: 1) the opening of Four Avenues in May 1975; 2) the Department of Education’s decision to close Four Avenues early in 1983; and 3) the Education Review Office (1993) audit that recommended Four Avenues’ closure in 1993. These events are selected because they were points in Four Avenues’ history where its survival was an open issue. This thesis argues three features of Four Avenues’ history were important in helping it to remain open: the school’s relationship to wider political events and circumstances, its relationship to Hagley High School/Hagley Community College, and the commitment of many within the school to the pedagogy they saw it as embodying. These three features helped Four Avenues to remain a part of the state education system; yet they also threatened its survival as a state school over time and eventually contributed to its closure. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to my supervisors Arnold Parr and Lyndon Fraser for their help and encouragement throughout the writing of this thesis. In the University of Canterbury Department of Anthropology and Sociology Department, I would like to thank Hazel Ashton, Brigid Thompson, Simon Campbell, Anton Jenner, Craig Tomlinson, Alison Loveridge, Camila Obel and Ann Scott for the help provided me at different points in the last two years. From the University of Canterbury Department of Education, thanks also to Jean McPhail for the help she provided me. To former staff members at Four Avenues involved in the production of this thesis, a big thank you! Particularly to all the people who gave me interviews, including the Hagley Community College Deputy Principal. A special acknowledgement goes to Shirley Croll and Graeme Penny for lending their personal papers on Four Avenues. The papers of Shirley Croll have in particular enriched my research and made the final written product a better thesis. Thanks to Robin Bowden and John Maher from the Ministry of Education for allowing me access to Archives New Zealand materials and Ministry of Education Operations files on Four Avenues. Thanks also to Natalie Baird in the Cabinet Office and Sir Geoffrey Palmer for allowing me to read some Cabinet correspondence of his relating to Four Avenues in the 1980s. In the University of Canterbury Macmillan Brown Library, I would like to thank Jeff Palmer for the help he provided me with that library's collection of archives and Patricia Jordon of the University of Canterbury Central Library for helping me with Hansard. Thanks also to the staff at the Canterbury Public Library's New Zealand Collection, the Christchurch Office of Archives New Zealand and the Canterbury Museum Archives Section. On a personal note, thanks to Gina Fadollone for her love and support over the last two years. Thanks also to my family and my friends for their support and encouragement over the last couple of years. 3 A NOTE ON REFERENCING When secondary and primary sources are referred to throughout this thesis an in-text referencing system is used, except where a primary source like a newspaper article with no date or page number is cited only once, then it is footnoted with information about the archival collection that it came from. A condition of my use of the Archives New Zealand and Ministry of Education records on Four Avenues was that I could only refer to the author/s and recipients of documents and correspondence by their institutional title. If a recipient or author did not have a title then I have referred to her or him with a generic title like ‘Parent at Four Avenues’, ‘Coordinator at Four Avenues’ and so on so as to protect privacy. Furthermore, one of the conditions of my use of Archives New Zealand and Ministry of Education archival material was that information about the author(s) and/or recipient(s) of documents could not be inferred from other sources cited—for example, newspaper articles at the time and interviews. Thus, to provide the personal name of the Director of Four Avenues in 1993 by quoting from an interview transcript and then to quote a letter from her using her institutional title would contravene the conditions of my use of these archives. It is for this reason that I have made an exception in this thesis in referring to interview participants by their personal name when it comes to the Hagley Deputy Principal. In referring to his interview transcript, his institutional title 'Hagley Deputy Principal' is used rather than his personal name. This is done so his personal name cannot be connected with documents that were authored by him in his role as Hagley Deputy Principal in 1993. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................2 A NOTE ON REFERENCING...................................................................................................4 TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................................................5 TABLE OF FIGURES................................................................................................................ 8 CHAPTER I................................................................................................................................ 9 Introduction.................................................................................................................................9 Topical Focus........................................................................................................................11 Development of Interest........................................................................................................12 Approach Used......................................................................................................................14 Criticisms of Approach..................................................................................................... 16 Literature on Four Avenues...................................................................................................17 Chapter Outline.....................................................................................................................20 Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 24 CHAPTER II.............................................................................................................................25 Methodology............................................................................................................................. 25 Introduction...........................................................................................................................25 The Press...............................................................................................................................26 Accessing Coverage of Four Avenues.............................................................................. 26 Reporting Bias...................................................................................................................26 Reporting Bias and Four Avenues.................................................................................... 29 Use of the Press.................................................................................................................31 Interviewing.......................................................................................................................... 32 Selection, Access, Involving Participants......................................................................... 32 Issues in Interviewing........................................................................................................34 Ethical Issues in Interviewing........................................................................................... 37 Use of Questions............................................................................................................... 38 Documents............................................................................................................................ 40 Records and Access...........................................................................................................40 Analysing the Documents................................................................................................. 42 From Turning Points to Connected Narrative/s.................................................................... 44 Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 46 CHAPTER III............................................................................................................................48 Beginnings.................................................................................................................................48
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