Evolutionary science in denominational colleges at Australian universities, 1907–2020

Barnes, J

Evolutionary science in denominational colleges at Australian universities, 1907–2020

Barnes, J

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Publisher:: Taylor and Francis Group
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Paedagogica Historica, 2024, 60, (5), pp. 886-904
Issue Date:: 2024-01-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Barnes, J https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6113-7620
dc.date.accessioned	2025-04-25T10:34:54Z
dc.date.available	2025-04-25T10:34:54Z
dc.date.issued	2024-01-01
dc.identifier.citation	Paedagogica Historica, 2024, 60, (5), pp. 886-904
dc.identifier.issn	0030-9230
dc.identifier.issn	1477-674X
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/187055
dc.description.abstract	This article examines the place of evolutionary science in protestant and Catholic residential colleges associated with Australian public universities across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Although faith-based universities are a relatively recent phenomenon in Australia, a quasi-federal model of secular teaching and accrediting universities linked to church-run non-teaching residential colleges developed with the founding of the first Australian university, the University of Sydney, in the 1850s. The model was subsequently replicated, with local variations, across the first generation of Australian public universities. This interface between mainstream secular and more selective religious spaces makes the colleges an instructive setting in which to examine science-and-religion ideas in institutional context. As principally pastoral, residential institutions the colleges did not have curricula or significant research programmes of their own, but student publications produced within them shed light on the attitudes and beliefs of students and some staff regarding evolutionary science, and science more generally, in relation to religion. The article analyses a corpus of more than 700 student publications published between 1907 and 2020 and associated with the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland, the three institutions with the most developed collegiate systems. The analysis shows the complexity of ways in which evolutionary science was understood within the denominational colleges, and the limits set to those understandings by college authors’ plural institutional contexts.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	Taylor and Francis Group
dc.relation.ispartof	Paedagogica Historica
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1080/00309230.2023.2230450
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subject	1303 Specialist Studies in Education, 2103 Historical Studies, 2202 History and Philosophy of Specific Fields
dc.subject.classification	History of Social Sciences
dc.subject.classification	3902 Education policy, sociology and philosophy
dc.subject.classification	5002 History and philosophy of specific fields
dc.title	Evolutionary science in denominational colleges at Australian universities, 1907–2020
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	60
utslib.for	1303 Specialist Studies in Education
utslib.for	2103 Historical Studies
utslib.for	2202 History and Philosophy of Specific Fields
pubs.organisational-group	University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*
pubs.consider-herdc	false
dc.rights.license	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.date.updated	2025-04-25T10:34:52Z
pubs.issue	5
pubs.publication-status	Published
pubs.volume	60
utslib.citation.issue	5

Abstract:

This article examines the place of evolutionary science in protestant and Catholic residential colleges associated with Australian public universities across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Although faith-based universities are a relatively recent phenomenon in Australia, a quasi-federal model of secular teaching and accrediting universities linked to church-run non-teaching residential colleges developed with the founding of the first Australian university, the University of Sydney, in the 1850s. The model was subsequently replicated, with local variations, across the first generation of Australian public universities. This interface between mainstream secular and more selective religious spaces makes the colleges an instructive setting in which to examine science-and-religion ideas in institutional context. As principally pastoral, residential institutions the colleges did not have curricula or significant research programmes of their own, but student publications produced within them shed light on the attitudes and beliefs of students and some staff regarding evolutionary science, and science more generally, in relation to religion. The article analyses a corpus of more than 700 student publications published between 1907 and 2020 and associated with the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland, the three institutions with the most developed collegiate systems. The analysis shows the complexity of ways in which evolutionary science was understood within the denominational colleges, and the limits set to those understandings by college authors’ plural institutional contexts.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/187055