Faculty of Education - Research Publications
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ItemWhat does 'significance' look like? Assessing the assessment process in competitive grants schemes(Australian Association for Research in Education, 2006)This paper focuses on the writer’s experiences from 2002-2004 as the sole Education member of the Australian Research Council committee that assesses applications across the ‘social, behavioural and economic sciences’. It is drawn from a wider analysis of how judgments about research quality are produced across different spheres of education research activity, drawing particular attention to the characteristics of those who judge, their explicit and implicit criteria, and the textual markers of ‘quality’ that they work with. The article conside rs how the explicit categories for scoring; the characteristics of those appointed to the committee; the histo ry of dominant research traditions, and a slippage between the categories ‘significance’, ‘national benefit’ and ‘national research priorities’ all influence the judgments and scores that eventuate from assessors and pro duce the final rankings.
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ItemRepresenting class in qualitative research(Australian Clearinghouse for Youth Studies, 2000)In 1993, with Julie McLeod, I began a seven-year qualitative, longitudinal study of young people in Australia. The 12 to 18 Project1 was intended as a longitudinal study to investigate (i) the development of young people’s gendered identity in Australia now, and (ii) schooling’s contribution to social inequalities: the way in which different schools interact with and produce differentiated outcomes for different types of young people. It was a project inspired by the fact that we had both spent many years studying education, gender formation, inequalities, changing cultural and policy discourse and wanting to design a new type of study to take us further with these interests. It was also a study whose design was influenced by two film series, both of them also concerned, in different ways, with representing social differences and development of individual identity and outcomes over time.
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ItemIslamic religious education and the debate on itsreform post-September 11(University of New South Wales Press, 2005)The place of Islam and Muslims in the West has been a source of much debate in the post-September 11 era, not least in the area of Islamic education – an area seen by some Western commentators as a major source of anti-Western attitudes, and a breeding ground for terrorism. Such simplistic views of Islamic religious educational systems and institutions ignore the complex history of Islamic education and the diverse forms that it has taken across different times, places and cultures. This chapter from the book Islam and the West: Reflections from Australia explores the development of Islamic religious education over time, tracing its growth and decline in the pre-modern period and moves towards reform in the modern era. This is followed by a discussion of the generally simplistic perception, held particularly among Western commentators post-September 11, 2001, that Islamic religious education is closely linked to terrorism. Saeed notes that the hijackers involved in the 2001 attacks were not graduates of traditional Islamic education, a fact overlooked by many commentators. Although many prominent Muslim academics and scholars have been working to reform Islamic education over the past century, Saeed argues that these efforts may well have been hindered rather than helped by the authoritarian and coercive forms of reform which are being called for by some commentators in the West. In fact, the war on terror may well be the biggest stumbling block to the reform of Islamic religious education.
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ItemThe need to rethink apostasy laws(Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004)Recent high-profile cases and a number of Muslim scholars affirming the death penalty for apostasy have brought the issue of the pre-modern Islamic law of apostasy (riddah) back to the fore. Once largely ignored, apostasy is today vigorously debated among Muslims. The Qur’anic concept of non-coercion in religion was interpreted narrowly by pre-modern Islamic scholars, and excluded the right to convert away from Islam. In this chapter from the book Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam, Saeed observes that this was a reasonable conclusion in the pre-modern context, when religious identity was enmeshed with political affiliation, and a person’s rights flowed from their membership of the religio-political entity. In the modern world, however, the author argues that there is ample reason to re-think these conclusions. Today, most Muslim nation-states recognize equal citizenship regardless of religion and are highly diverse. Large numbers of Muslims live as minorities in non-Muslim countries. Further, the death penalty for apostasy has weak textual support in the classical sources. The reaffirmation of pre-modern laws developed for different circumstances is unhelpful in the modern period. Pre-modern formulations of apostasy are particularly open to abuse in states which are authoritarian in nature, a feature of many Muslim states today. Moreover, the phenomenon of globalisation will mean more intensive linkages and mixes of people from different backgrounds. There is a need for an idea of religious freedom in Islam that accords with modern realities. Saeed argues that the weak textual basis of the law of apostasy and the greatly differing religio-political context of modern period are strong justifications for embarking on the task of reforming this law.
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ItemPolicy innovation, diplomatic departures and the Uruguay round(Cambridge University Press, 2001)Australia and the World Trade System provides a comprehensive account of Australia's role in developing and maintaining the multilateral trade system from its origins in 1947 to the present day. This book, based on archival sources and oral interviews, makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Australia's trade policies, its commercial diplomacy, and its role and position in the global political economy.
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ItemA deal at any cost(University of New South Wales Press, 2005)Spells out the unanswered questions about the Australia–US FTA. What are the implications of the Howard government’s linking of trade and security? How will the trade agreement affect relations with our other major trade partners, especially those in the East Asian region? Will the Australia–US trade agreement strengthen our ties with the United States, leading to deeper economic integration and more investment and jobs in Australia, or will it diminish our capacity to provide social programs that reflect particularly Australian values?
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ItemReconciliation and politics(Routledge, 2005)Since the end of the Cold War, the concept of reconciliation has emerged as a central term of political discourse within societies divided by a history of political violence. Reconciliation has been promoted as a way of reckoning with the legacy of past wrongs while opening the way for community in the future. This book examines the issues of transitional justice in the context of contemporary debates in political theory concerning the nature of 'the political'. Bringing together research on transitional justice and political theory, the author argues that if we are to talk of reconciliation in politics we need to think about it in a fundamentally different way than is commonly presupposed; as agonistic rather than restorative.
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ItemThe discourses of democratic transition(Cambridge University Press, 2002)The study of the democratic transitions of former Communist states has been fertile ground for students of politics. This book provides a novel "ground up" perspective by examining the ways in which ordinary people have viewed and responded to democracy. Examining a number of countries at different stages of transition, they argue that democracy has been understood differently in different places and with varying levels of approval. The authors define their research within the context of each country's history and relate their analysis to future prospects for reform.
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ItemIntroduction(Duke University Press, 2006)Official corruption has become increasingly prevalent around the world since the early 1990s. The situation appears to be particularly acute in the post-communist states. Corruption — be it real or perceived — is a major problem with concrete implications, including a lowered likelihood of foreign investment. In Rotten States? Leslie Holmes analyzes corruption in post-communist countries, paying particular attention to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Russia, as well as China, which Holmes argues has produced, through its recent economic liberalization, a system similar to post-communism. As he points out, these countries offer useful comparisons: they vary in terms of size, religious orientation, ethnic homogeneity, and their approaches to and economic success with the transition from communism.Drawing on data including surveys commissioned especially for this study, Holmes examines the causes and consequences of official corruption as well as ways of combating it. He focuses particular attention on the timing of the recent increase in reports of corruption, the relationship between post-communism and corruption, and the interplay between corruption and the delegitimation and weakening of the state. Holmes argues that the global turn toward neoliberalism — with its focus on ends over means, flexibility, and a reduced role for the state — has generated much of the corruption in post-communist states. At the same time, he points out that neoliberalism is perhaps the single most powerful tool for overcoming the communist legacy, which is an even more significant cause of corruption. Among the conclusions that Holmes draws is that a strong democratic state is needed in the early stages of the transition from communism in order to prevent corruption from taking hold.
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ItemMovements and globalization(Blackwell, 2006-01)The past decade has witnessed an extraordinary rise of new global movements that throw into question the way we think about culture, power, and action in a globalizing world. This book surveys the field and explores some of the most significant of these movements, including antiglobalization and the new Islamic movements. These movements require a rethinking of the very idea of social movement, a concept that owes a great deal to the civic and industrial culture that was so critical to Western modernity, but may be less adequate when exploring forms of culture, action, and communication in a globalized world. This book explores key dimensions of these movements, the tensions they confront, and the crises to which they are subject. It will provide an essential text for students on globalization and social movements.