Faculty of Education - Research Publications
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ItemWho is “us”? students negotiating discourses of racism and national identification in Australia( 2003)This article explores the political beliefs and the forms of reasoning about racism, national identity and Other developed by young Australian women and men from different ethnic and class backgrounds. The interviews on which the discussion is based are drawn from a larger longitudinal study of Australian secondary school students which examines how young people develop their sense of self and social values over time. The present article here has two overall purposes: to add to understandings of how the cultural logic of racism functions in one national setting, and to consider political reasoning about race and ethnicity in relation to processes of young people’s identity positioning. Three main lines of argument are developed. The first concerns students’ positioning of themselves vis a vis the current ‘race debate’ in Australia, and in relation to us as researchers, including their negotiation of the protocols for speaking about ‘race’ and racism. This includes consideration of the methodological and political effects of white Anglo women asking question about racism and ethnicity to ethnic-minority students who are routinely constituted as ‘Other’: what blindnesses and silences continue to operate when posing questions about racism directly? A second and related focus is the range of emotional responses evoked by asking questions about racism and about an Australian politician [Pauline Hanson], who has been prominent in race debates. Third, we examine young people’s construction of ‘us and them’ binaries and hierarchies of Otherness and whiteness. We argue throughout that reasoning about race, national identity and Others, and the taking up of ‘political positions’, is intimately linked to identity formation and to how we imagine ourselves in the present, the past and the future.
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ItemConversations With Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Secondary School Students: A Sexual Diversity Training Kit for School Communities( 2004-04)'Conversations' is a training kit designed to raise awareness around issues of sexual and gender diversity in schools and other youth sector communities. It is made up of 10 edited interviews with young people who identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual that were conducted in the mid-late 1990's; a research report; and other materials designed to support the delivery of the training.
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ItemeGovernance practice and potential in the local government sector( 2003)This paper presents initial findings of a research project into the current extent of, demand for, and strategic inhibiters / facilitators to / for the development of electronic governance (eGovernance) in the local government sector in Australia. Undertaken by members of the sector in Victoria, in conjunction with the Centre for Public Policy of the University of Melbourne, the project is will produce a final detailed strategic report by the middle of 2004. Based on the results of survey data collected by members of the project team during 2002-3, this paper argues that the local government sector, as typified by municipalities in the state of Victoria , can be seen to have an interest in a broad range of activities that fall under the rubric of eGovernance as defined within.
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ItemCivil rights: how indigenous Australians won formal equality(University of Queensland Press, 2005)Australians know very little about how Indigenous Australians came to gain the civil rights that other Australians had long taken for granted. One of the key reasons for this is the entrenched belief that civil rights were handed to Indigenous people and not won by them.In this book John Chesterman draws on government and other archival material from around the country to make a compelling case that Indigenous people, together with non-Indigenous supporters, did effectively agitate for civil rights, and that this activism, in conjunction with international pressure, led to legal reforms. Chesterman argues that these struggles have laid important foundations for future dealings between Indigenous people and Australian governments.
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ItemThe idea of the university(Centre for Independent Studies Limited, 2004)In their book on how Melbourne University has ‘lost its way’, John Cain and John Hewitt provide a rich snapshot of an institution in transition. They document a host of dissonances afflicting Australian universities generally, and show how confusing recent changes have been for many who work there. This is the book’s main strength. Its weaknesses are that it is prone to errors of fact and interpretation; and as a critique of the present situation, it rounds up the usual concepts and targets the usual suspects. In consequence, it offers no convincing solutions.
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ItemAfter Copernicus: beyond the crisis in Australian universities(National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), 2007)There’s a received view of the troubles of academia which lays the blame on a new corporate culture of soulless managerialism. Geoff Sharrock isn’t convinced. He argues that critical scholars are often ill-placed to be able to understand their own predicament. And many of the problems of the sector lie in its incapacity to adjust to the changed world of knowledge-creation in which we live.
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ItemRethinking the Australian university: a critique of Off Course(Taylor & Francis Australia, 2004)This paper critically examines a recent book about the University of Melbourne. It uses this as a case study to explore traditional conceptions of the university in the Western tradition, and aspects of the Australian debate about government policies and institutional strategies.
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ItemInternational dimensions of the Australian academic profession(Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, 2009)This paper provides insight into the international dimensions of the Australian academic profession. Australia has one of the most internationalised higher education student populations in the world, which leads us naturally to inquire into the international characteristics of its academic staff. It is important to consider, for instance, whether the academic workforce has internationalised in the same way as the student body, and how academic staff are responding educationally to various opportunities and challenges arising from internationalisation.
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ItemDiversity in Australian higher education: an empirical analysis(National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), 2009)The concept of diversity has been part of the Australian government’s higher education agenda for several years, but empirical studies on the actual state of diversity in the sector are limited. This situation raises questions regarding the factual basis for the policy claims made. With this in mind, this paper seeks to assess the degree of diversity within the Australian higher education sector through an analysis of the perceptions, aspirations and reported activities of Australian academics in terms of their teaching, research and community service. Using data collected in the 2007 international Changing Nature of the Academic Profession survey, we are able to cautiously conclude that some diversity appears to exist, however not to the extent one might expect given the importance placed on institutional groupings in the Australian higher education debate.
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ItemAustralia's casual approach to its academic teaching workforce(Monash University, 2009)Australian academics’ response to the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) survey indicates that they are among the least satisfied academics in the world. This dissatisfaction has been expressed after two decades of rapid growth in the student body and structural changes in the academic workforce, particularly an expansion in the amount of teaching provided by casual staff. The growth in casual staff numbers is a factor which has simultaneously created a precariously employed but cheaper and more flexible workforce along with higher levels of stress among the full-time teachers responsible for managing and supervising casual teachers. The academic profession has an important role to play in creating a highly educated workforce for Australia and in generating export income by teaching international students. Careful attention needs to be paid to this situation especially in light of the need to replenish the ageing academic workforce.