Poets versus novelists in Australia, 1949-1960 : Frank Hardy and James McAuley

Contains an essay that partly deals with trials, cases and legislative processes some novelists, poets and publishing houses experienced, showing the lengths to which the establishment would use legal processes to prevent any challenge to accepted ideas. Considered is the trial of the Australian novelist Frank Hardy on a charge of obscene libel in his novel Power Without Glory, the same charge of which Robert Close in his novel Love me Sailor had been found guilty. This is accompanied with the literature review of Frank Hardy’s work and that of the Australian poet James McAuley

An international overview of assessment issues in technology education : disentangling the influences, confusion and complexities

Set in the context of wider research, this review of international literature describes some of the issues that contribute towards the prevailing confusion regarding the 'what', 'when' and 'why' of assessment. It explores the complexities embedded within assessment of, for and as learning and the difficulties arising in Technology Education. It discusses what comprises the goals and purposes, and precise nature of 'content' and how this impacts on what is considered as important to measure in terms of attainment, performance and achievement in Technology Education. The paper examines the influence of external assessment, the influence of the teacher and the influence of the various approaches and instruments of assessment on pedagogy, achievement and learner performance and motivation. The dimensions and discriminators of performance and progression in Technology Education are complex. The key issues need to be disentangled to provide some clarity and inform practice. Greater creativity is needed to help devise multi-dimension, multi-expression assessment strategies which celebrate the complexity and influence pedagogy appropriate for learning in the 21st century

A haunted land

Since the nineteenth century, Australian art and writing has had a double vision of the country; as a sunny land of opportunity, and as a place of loneliness and loss. From the diminutive figures of Glover’s Aborigines in their sylvan setting to the weird bush and lonely bushmen of Clarke, McCubbin, Kendall and Lawson, the land is melancholy. Yet Leigh Astbury has shown that this settler view of the land is the product of selective vision influenced by English and American ideas of the exotic and the picaresque. It emphasised the lonely prospector or swagman rather than the miners and unionists and their powerful, if ultimately defeated, unions. The idea of sturdy independence, of “freedom on the wallaby”, appealed to town-dwellers hoping to own their own homes at least as much as to bushwomen lining their rough huts with pictures from the Ladies Home Journal. As Brian Kiernan suggests, Lawson’s early stories found their readership among people forced off the land and into the suburbs and slums of Sydney by the defeats of the 1890s. Recent fiction by white writers has, like Lawson, shown an awareness of the strangeness of the land, but it locates this strangeness more directly in the brutality and defeats of settlement. The sufferings of both settlers and of those they violently displaced continue to haunt their successors. This paper will examine the nature of this haunting in recent novels by white Australian writers

A Forward to the Special Issue on Neoliberalism in Education The Long Road to Redemption: Critical Pedagogy and the Struggle for the Future

A Forward to the Special Issue on Neoliberalism in EducationEducatio

Scotland's improving economic performance : a long-term comparative study

There has been much comment of late to the effect that Scotland's historical growth rate has been poor, relative to both the UK and to other countries. This paper takes a contrary view. Firstly, based on figures for Gross Domestic Output (GDP) per capita, acting as a proxy for the rise in the standard of living, it argues that Scotland's long-term growth rate is very similar to that of the UK. Secondly, using the same measure, when Scotland's performance is compared internationally, it is shown to have improved over the last three decades relative to other developed economies. Thirdly, it is shown that much of the worsening seen in Scotland's performance, relative to the UK, since the mid-90's can be attributed in large part to methodological inconsistencies in the collection of data for Health and Social Work services. The paper concludes by considering some of the ways that a better understanding of the relative performance of the Scottish economy might be achieved and warns of the potential dangers of reinforcing a negative view of the Scottish economy

From security to opportunity? : precarious employment among managers and supervisors in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology at Massey University

This thesis explores the phenomenon of job security, insecurity and the ability to maintain continuity of employment. Assumptions regarding the nature of work are being altered by globalization, organizational flexibility and increased power for management in relation to labour. Furthermore, the move from welfarism to neo-liberal prescriptions of governance in New Zealand since 1984 has created challenges for individuals who are required to become self-reliant and responsible. The experiences of eight informants in management and supervisory roles are reviewed here, providing an 'insiders' point of view on change in the workplace in the ethnographic tradition. The research is guided by the governmentality theory of Nikolas Rose, and Zygmunt Bauman's analysis of contemporary insecurity. Contextual influences on the employment environment in New Zealand are outlined. Findings are discussed in relation to the following themes. It has been argued that job insecurity is endemic at all levels within organizations and can no longer be expected as part of the employment relationship. Employment continuity requires reflexivity of knowledge, as well as the constant questioning of the assumptions upon which the foundations of work are based. The central argument of the thesis is that employability requires an acknowledgement of the rigours associated with increasingly contingent work and an awareness of norms and strategies that are needed to assist all those currently involved in the hazards of working life, those excluded from it, and those who will join it. The development of a semblance of personal autonomy is required in order for 'freedom' to provide opportunities rather than insecurity, fear and exclusion

Economic growth : past trends and future prospects of advanced economies

The main purpose of this article is to consider the future prospects for economic growth in advanced economies, including the UK and Scotland, in the light of recent past trends. In general, the data used throughout this article is shown in terms of GDP per capita (in constant price terms). Both academic economists (eg. Nick Crafts1) and economic institutions (eg. OECD2) consider that changes in GDP per capita are more relevant than simple GDP growth, in terms of judging the shifts in real living standards. However, in most of the following discussion, the same general conclusions would also be valid in a GDP growth context. Part One looks at how slow any bounce-back in economic growth has been, following the latest recession, especially in comparison to other recessions. Part Two looks at changes to economic growth rates over the past four decades for advanced economies and what this might imply for future growth rates. Part Three looks at sources of economic growth and what areas of economic policy need to re-considered in order to improve future prospects. Part Four provides a brief summary

Approaches to the teaching of design : an engineering subject centre guide

This booklet seeks to provide a resource for all those with an interest in design, and the education and training of engineering students to carry out the design process. A brief description of the internal and external requirements for design in the engineering curriculum is followed by a review of different approaches to design teaching currently employed in engineering schools and universities worldwide. Suggestions for further reading about each approach and a reference section are also provided

Vincent Buckley: Shaping the Book

The basic shape of a biography is given by the facts of the life of its subject. The biographer’s task is to make sense of these facts: to provide a map that will show the significance of the facts, their relationship to each other and to their historical context. This map will show the features of the subject’s journey through life, but it is also the result of the biographer’s own journey through the subject’s life. The interactions between these two journeys give the book its shape, map its patterns. This paper will show some of the paths the author attempted and try to explain the directions the author eventually took