St. Mary's College and the Friends School, compared from their students' perspectives, 1940-1993

My general line of inquiry started with the fact that I am interested in the effects of school life on individuals lives and values, and also how/why perceptions of school vary within groups and between groups, also between different schools. I chose St. Mary's College and The Friends School because I am interested in their educational and religious philosophies and practices and also because I am an ex-student of St. Mary's College and currently teach there. An important part of my research would be how students, as adults, perceived their school and what effect its values have had on their lives. A related aim of this thesis, was to discover in what ways the schools have maintained their particular philosophies in the twentieth century in the eyes of the men and women who were students from 1924 - 1993. I chose as my main research method an approach to past students of both schools via a questionnaire and interviews for two reasons: a) My intention to evaluate students' own perceptions of their school rather than make an 'external' evaluation via primary and secondary written sources. b) A second factor was the lack of archival material for St. Mary's College. Very few documents detailing school administration, enrolments and academic results have survived. On the other hand, The Friends- School's history is very well documented. In order to allow a reasonable comparison between the schools, I had to start from the same 'base' in each school in terms of sources. This approach suited my aims in both respects - it provided direct evidence of students' perceptions of their schools and allowed a 'level playing field' in terms of research material.