School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemIn search of identity : engineering in Australia 1788-1988( 1988)This is the first historical study of the social organisation of engineering in Australia. Engineering education, professional associations, industrial relations, engineering populations and attitudes concerning occupational title, professional recognition and nature of employment are analysed as to their influence upon occupational control and identity. The shared values among engineers concerning occupational identity stem from these factors. The study is not concerned with the technological and resource management functions of engineers. In considering the first of the research questions: 'How has the occupational identity of engineers developed in Australia?', two further questions arise. The second question: 'What have been the influences of the professional associations, engineering education and industrial relations in the development of occupational identity for engineers in Australia?', gives rise to the major historical themes in the study. The analysis goes well beyond the history of engineering education and the engineering associations in addressing the third research question: 'What are the shared values of engineering concerning occupational control and professionalisation, especially in relation to occupational identity?' The study shows that Australian engineers have long been concerned about the identity of their occupation, and that they have developed mechanisms for occupational control that not only depend upon clarity of Identity, but also reinforce it. Early concern about use of 'engineer' by the non-qualified persons caused adoption of the descriptor professional engineer. Concerns about community recognition caused engineers to argue that their education and the importance of their work should attract the prestige accorded to other professions. Believing that they deserve to be ranked high among the professions, engineers sought a commensurate level of income. But engineers predominantly are not independent practitioners, they are employed in teams in organisations, and such concerns existed mainly within the context of employment, requiring the issues of corporate patronage and industrial relations to be addressed. There was little engineering in the Australian colonies until after the gold rushes of the 1850s. The study includes quantitative analyses of the growth of the Australian engineering population from 1850 to gauge of the influence of different modes of formation of engineers in the evolution of shared values. The antecedents of Australian engineering are traced to the beginnings of the occupation in Britain and North America. During the last half-century industrial relations became a major element in the occupational control and identity of Australian engineers, and this factor provides a contrast between the manner in which occupational control, is exercised in Britain and North America. The conclusions are that occupational control in Australia differs from that in Britain and North America, and that, in contrast with those countries, occupational identity has been strongly reinforced in Australia through industrial relations. However, trends indicate possible changes in the future social organisation of Australian engineering, with diminished strength in occupational control mechanisms.
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ItemThe state of modern Greek language as spoken in Victoria( 1986)This thesis reports a sociolinguistic study, carried out between 1981 and 1984, of the state of the Modern Greek (MG) language in Australia, as spoken by native-speaking first-generation Greek immigrants in Victoria. Particular emphasis is given to the analysis of those characteristics of the linguistic behaviour of these Greek Australians which can be attributed to the contact with English and to other environmental, social and linguistic influence. (For complete abstract open document)
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ItemThe light on the hill: the origins of the Australian welfare state, 1935-1945( 1983)This thesis explores the origins of a number of major welfare policy initiatives introduced between 1935 and 1945 by successive non-Labor and Labor governments. It addresses two major questions: “Are Labor governments to be understood only as unequivocally reformist and progressive governments?”; and “Are the welfare measures that established the Australian ‘welfare state’ after 1941 best characterized in terms of state-sponsored benevolence?” In order to answer these questions a further question has to be asked: “What were the pressures and the motives of key actors in this period which led to the introduction of those income support schemes which are still the foundation of the Australian ‘welfare state’?” A detailed research programme based on the Commonwealth Archives suggest that many of the long-standing and orthodox interpretations of both the Curtin Labor Government’s achievements and of the social character of the welfare state legislation, are in need of urgent revision. Far from being a novel or unique expression of Labor’s reforming mission, it is argued that the Labor Government’s construction of a “welfare state” arose out of political and fiscal considerations that had long exercised governments. It is also argued that many of the welfare measures, beginning with the National Insurance legislation of 1938, and which included Child Endowment in 1941 and the National Welfare proposals of 1943, were implicated in the strategies designed to resolve political and fiscal problems as much as they were concerned to introduce progressive social reforms. Indeed it is argued that even in the years up to 1945, there was explicit acknowledgement by key government advisors that welfare policy was necessarily subordinate to the higher demands of macro-economic and fiscal policy. The need to re-insert the Labor Government’s achievements back into their context is further indicated by the consideration given here to the character and the role of liberal ideologues. Particular stress is given to the development of liberal ideology in the inter-war years, and to the role of liberal intellectuals and social technicians, especially after 1939 when a small but influential number of Australian economists were recruited into the Australian public service. Committed to a moderate degree of social change, these men were placed after 1939 to pursue their vision of a reconstructed and refurbished Capitalism. Central to that vision was the goal of “high” or “full” employment. The subsequent codification of this goal as official Commonwealth Government policy after 1945 was to ensure that welfare policy remained secondary and subordinate to the Keynesian-inspired measure designed to secure full employment. The convergence between liberalism and the Labor Government after 1941 was a striking testament to the strength of inter-war liberalism, and its resolve to transcend the damaged years of mass unemployment. Equally, the unwillingness of the liberal reconstructionists to deal with the problem of state power in relation to the prerogatives of capital meant that the war time planners bequeathed an ambiguous legacy to the post war world. The health of Capitalism was accorded a primacy which the social values of equity and human welfare could never match.
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ItemMagic and science: aspects of Australian business management, advertising and retailing, 1918-40( 1989)This thesis is concerned with four dominant themes: - the rise of a new managerial formation and associated ideology during the inter-war period, which provided an important base for the spread of managerial skill and power in later decades. - the reconstruction by managers of workers as consumers during the inter-war period. Structural and ideological changes in industrial managements, especially in the fields of advertising, media and retailing were important in promoting a particular ethic of consumption. - the role of empirical social sciences, especially economics and legitimating managerial psychology, aspirations in and technology and in fuelling the reconstruction of social and cultural life. - the influence of ideas and developed in America on businessmen, their practice thoughts. values first Australian and their thoughts.
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ItemThe role and significance of bullocks and horses in the development of Eastern Australia 1788 to 1900( 1986)The central theme of this thesis is to demonstrate the vital importance of working bullocks and horses in the economic development of eastern Australia. It is argued that the roles and functions of bullocks and horses have been largely neglected in historical accounts of Australia and that in particular historians must revise the view that draught powered transport was always expensive, unreliable and limited. The development of the colonial economies depended heavily upon the successful application of draught power to a range of haulage and transport tasks in exploration, pastoralism, the exploitation of minerals, the development of large scale cereal production, farming, and the development of towns and cities. (From introduction in chapter 1)
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ItemDefending the bad against the worse: the peace movement in Australia in the 1930s: its origins, structure and development.( 1984)This study of the origins, structure and development of the peace movement in Australia in the 1930s begins with an examination of opposition to war and militarism from the Boer War to 1918 and an overview of Australian external relations between the wars. The formative influences of the experience and changing perceptions of world war one and the economic collapse at the end of the 1920s are examined in detail in order to provide insight into the elements of continuity and difference which are discernible in the peace movement in the 19308. The study then concentrates on the development and progress of the world-wide attempt to prevent the outbreak of a second world war known as the Popular Front, the aim of which was to unite all opponents of war, whatever the philosophical origin of their opposition, in a mass movement of sufficient strength to force governments to adhere to the principles of negotiation, open diplomacy and collective security as embodied in the League of Nations Covenants. The development of the Popular Front in Australia was partly derivative of European influences and partly parallel as Australians, inhabiting an outpost of European culture)were subject to much the same significant experiences of war and depression as their counterparts elsewhere. The peace movement in Australia, therefore, is placed in the context of a continuing tradition of opposition. to war and militarism and the principal focus of this study is on the liberal-humanist strand in the peace movement and its uneasy relationship with both strict pacifism and international socialism as it sought to reconcile the rejection of war as a legitimate instrument of international relations and escalating horror in the face of the aggressive expansionism of the fascist nations. The major part of this study is concerned with a detailed examination of the response of Australian peace advocates to the organisational and philosophical issues thrown up by the nature of international relations in the 1930s as they manifested themselves in the International Peace Campaign and through a consideration of the ideas and activities of a number of peace activists in the 1930s.