Abstract not available

The creative component of a Doctor of Creative Arts thesis submitted under the general title The shelter of honour. / Doctor of Creative Arts

This thesis examines the impact of changes in higher education policy in Australia on equity for students and efficiency in resource allocation. This involves measuring the impact of the 2005 budgetary changes in the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) on the Private Rate of Return (PRR) and Social Rate of Return (SRR) to higher education for both males and females across different occupations and for different qualifications. This thesis examines the proposition that the movement of Australia‘s higher education system towards a user pays model with price flexibility will deliver greater efficiency. It also considers the argument that students should pay a greater proportion of the cost of higher education as they are the direct beneficiaries. This thesis shows that the increase in HECS fees has coincided with a fall in the quality of university graduates and the demand for a university education by higher achieving and low income students. In addition, this study also found that not only is the SRR positive but is greater than both the real rate of return on Commonwealth Government bonds and Government Trading Enterprises. These findings suggest that there is an inefficient allocation of resources and a need for the Government to allocate relatively more funding to the discipline areas with high Social Rates of Return and graduate skills shortages. This thesis suggests ways to improve the equity and efficiency of Australia‘s higher education system. These policy recommendations aim to increase the quality of and opportunity for higher education in Australia.

This dissertation is structured around five Australian mystical poets: Ada Cambridge, John Shaw Neilson, Francis Webb, Judith Wright and Kevin Hart. It examines the varieties of Western Christian mysticism upon which these poets draw, or with which they exhibit affinities. A short prelude section to each chapter considers the thematic parallels of their contemporaries, while the final chapter critically investigates constructions of Indigeneity in Australian mystical poetry and the renegotiated mystical poetics of Indigenous poets and theologians. The central argument of this dissertation is that an understanding of Western Christian mysticism is essential to the study of Australian poetry. There are three sub-arguments: firstly, that Australian literary criticism regarding the mystical largely avoids the concept of mysticism as a shifting notion both historically and in the present; secondly, that what passes for mysticism is recurringly subject to poorly defined constructions of mysticism as well as individual poets’ use of the mystical for personal, creative or ideological purposes; thirdly, that in avoiding the concept of a shifting notion critics have ignored the increasing contribution of Australian poets to national and international discourses of mysticism.

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In this study of the relationship between children's literature and Australian culture I make a close textual analysis of the works of Ivan Southall, Eleanor Spence, Colin Thiele and Patricia Wrightson. This analysis is based on a framework of areas of culture as defined in anthropological terms, and includes such categories as the Environment, Social Organization, the Life Cycle, the Family and World View. Each author's work is analysed according to this framework. In a final section on each author I draw together the themes and developments in each author's writing and discuss the cultural insights they provide. In these textual analyses the emphasis is on identifying the culture which these authors reflect in the twenty to twenty-five year period in which they have been writing. I am also interested in identifying those cultural values which the authors promote or attempt to transmit to their readers. In the final chapter I undertake a comparative analysis. First I identify the areas of overlap or of greatest concern on which the four authors focus. These I identify as the Environment, the Family, Adolescence, Consumerism, the 'Other' Australians and Religion. I then compare these areas of focus and the attitudes and cultural values which the four authors reflect and transmit in these areas, with generalizations revealed in other interpretative analyses of Australian culture, including those of Craig McGregor and Ronald Conway. The result of this comparative analysis is striking in terms of the significant aspects of Australian culture which all the authors reflect. At the same time they bring their own personal perspectives to bear on the cultural values which they seek to transmit.

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Thesis.

A revision of the author's thesis, Australian National University. / DatabaseACLS Humanities E-Book. With a new introduction by John Hirst. Includes bibliography (p. 262-275) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.