The current study is the first of its kind in Australia. It is breaking new ground therefore and is exploratory in nature. Attention is focused on the variables influencing the vocational decision-making of highly-able adolescent girls in Victoria, Australia. / This is a complex study and the design incorporates both quantitative and qualitative data collection spanning a six year period. The importance of this study lies in the of research strategy of identifying and examining different educational settings and application of the findings from the first two studies (n=112) to a very specific educational setting in Study Three (n=14). / The external socializers of family, friends and the media as well as the internal dimensions of self-esteem, aspirations and interest have been investigated systematically through three interrelated but independent studies. A combination of methodologies has been employed to identify those variables that might, over time, influence the vocational decisions of these young women. / It is an accumulation of the young women’s perceptions and self-report using questionnaires, formal inventories and interviews. The data collection was progressive and the information gathering procedures included inventories of self-esteem and vocational preference, questionnaires completed by the subjects, interviews as well as anecdotal comments made by the students. Overall the analysis in this study depended on an interpretation of aggregated data employing simple frequency counts, cross tabulations and t-tests which described observations, explored relationships and identified differences between the two groups, high-ability and control, on the variables selected. A matrix enabled a triangulation of the data, both quantitative and qualitative. The data were coded to determine constant themes and to identify important influences and trends across a time frame. Different cases were compared and patterns which emerged were then analysed. / In Study One the high-ability cohort differentiated from the controls in three major areas. These were in their aspirations, self-esteem and the relative influences of parents, especially father. Although the high-ability girls in Study Two had made vocational choices commensurate with their interests identified in the VPI these choices were by no means stable over the six-year period. Both the home and school environment were found to have impacted on these collective factors as they modified and developed vocational interest. In Study Three the findings of the earlier studies were applied to a very specific cohort with important differences identified in the areas of self-esteem and subject choice. The environmental contexts of home and school again proved to be salient. The dissimilar contextual experiences of the high-ability cohort were found to impact on their vocational choices and their subsequent career trajectories in a different way to that of the non-gifted schoolgirl. / Based on this study, a model of vocational choice informed by the findings has been proposed.

This study focuses on the experiences of working-class women spanning the years from 1888 to 1914 - a period of significant economic growth and socio-political change in Victoria. The drift of population into the urban centres after the goldrush marked the beginning of a rapid and continual urban expansion in Melbourne as the city’s industrial and commercial sectors grew and diversified. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, the increasing population provided a larger workforce which also represented a growing consumer market. The rise of the Victorian manufacturing industries in this period also saw the introduction of the modern factory system. With the increasing demand for unskilled labour in factories, it was not only men who entered this new factory workforce. Young women and older children were, for the first time, drawn in appreciable numbers into the industrial workforce as employers keenly sought their services as unskilled and cheap workers. Women were concentrated in specific areas of the labour market, such as the clothing, boot, food and drink industries, which became strictly areas of “women’s work”. In the early twentieth century, the rigid sexual demarcation of work was represented by gender-differentiated wages and employment provisions within industrial awards.

Although this work was commissioned for the purpose of celebrating Alfred Hospital’s first one hundred years, I have made no effort to cover all of those years. I have set out: 1. To isolate the historical precedents for current hospital procedures and in particular to explore the relationship between Alfred Hospital and the State Government. This task was burdened by the scarcity of early hospital records and of research in related fields of charitable and social welfare - which emphasizes the value of rescuing the hospital’s fast vanishing past from oblivion. 2. By attention to human relationships (that constantly inconsistent element in all institutional affairs) to evoke those unique qualities which distinguish Alfred Hospital from other similar hospitals. 3. To convey what the Alfred meant to the greatest number of people associated with it. 4. To provide a useful source of reference.

Understandings of the longer-term experiences of recovery from road trauma are limited. Many studies to date have examined the psychological and psychiatric consequences of road accidents in the short term, but few have moved to a focus on the psychosocial and subjective aspects of recovery, and the longer-term challenges of this process. (For complete abstract open document)

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)

Within the child protection system, children are separated from their parents in different ways and for different reasons. Family reunification following these separations, similarly occurs in a variety of ways and is experienced differently by those involved. / Through a qualitative design, this study gathered together a range of perspectives regarding the experiences, emotions and beliefs of those involved in family reunification. By interviewing parents, protective workers, caregivers, family support workers, family preservation workers, health workers and others, the researcher hoped to capture their wisdom and insight. Overall, 38 people were interviewed in relation to five examples of reunification. / Key concepts and categories were derived from the interviews in conjunction with descriptions of the cases. The researcher then developed a pathways tool which documented the journeys travelled through the process of reunification. / Although all the children in these examples of reunification returned to their parents’ care and were still there up to two years later, there were different opinions as to whether or not the reunification was successful, and what barriers hindered and what strategies led to success. The different definitions of success appeared to be greatly influenced by the participants’ assumptions and perspectives regarding the role of state intervention in the lives of families. / The findings in this research included a broader understanding of the emotional reactions of parents, caregivers and workers. The enormous sense of loss and other strong emotions felt by parents were often experienced prior to the children being removed, as well as during the separation itself. This therefore challenged the concept of filial deprivation being limited to physical separation of children from their parents and subsequently raised a number of practice issues. Many of the workers and caregivers also described feelings of powerlessness, lack of control and being confronted with limited options. Some of the workers, however, spoke of reunification as a more positive and fulfilling experience than other aspects of their work, even though it involved significant risk and difficult decisions. / The principles under lying reunification practice, as outlined in the literature, were evident in aspects of the cases to a varying extent. Opportunities for parents to be actively involved in their children’s placements ranged from no contact with the carer, to visiting almost every day and being actively involved in all decisions. There were some principles which were absent in all of the case examples, such as none of the children experienced continuity of care due to being in multiple placements. / There were descriptions of several service models involved at different times and stages along the families’ pathway through reunification, including different reunification programs. There did not appear to be any clarity regarding when a family would be referred to one type of service compared to another. There was also discussion regarding the influence of universal services, such as schools, on the family members’ experience of being included or isolated in each other’s lives. / Dilemmas and challenges which arose through reunification included those which were common to many fields in social work, such as clashes of values and beliefs and needing to make decisions between limited and inadequate options. Some of the complex issues particularly relating to reunification were the impact of the separation on children and parents, and the experience of being a ‘parentless child’ or a ‘childless parent’. This was an example of the meaning of an issue being subjective and as important as the factual information. / Some of the practice issues which arose through this study included: discussion regarding operationalising permanency planning principles rather than focussing on a parents’ rights or children’s rights dichotomy; developing a partnership perspective with parents, caregivers and workers; the importance of planning and preparation before reunification; whether to celebrate the day of home return or plan it to be as uneventful as possible; and the support and services required following the children’s return home. / There were also a number of recommendations made for future research which could further inform practice in working with children and their families through the process of reunification.

The central event in this thesis is the Little Desert dispute, a 1969 controversy about whether land in western Victoria should be developed for agriculture or retained as natural bushland. The Little Desert dispute has lived on in the minds of protagonists and later environmentalists as a cultural icon and a ‘win’ for conservation. This pivotal event provides a framework within which the politics of nature conservation, ecology and land management can be examined. The thesis explores the role of ‘public science’ – science in government, bureaucracy and the community – in this context, as well as tracing the history of the science of ecology in post-war Australia. / The second focus of this thesis is ‘the rise of ecological consciousness’ – the rise of the political relevance of the natural world and emerging concerns about the place of people in nature. This is a multifaceted concept, and includes ‘ecological’ in both its scientific and philosophical guises. ‘Consciousness’ is studied I the individual, collective and political senses. / The Little Desert dispute occurred just as ecological consciousness was beginning to rise in Australia and throughout the western world. The resolution of the dispute through the establishment of the Conservation Council of Victoria and the Land Conservation Council, in 1969 and 1970 respectively, was played out against a backdrop of changing environmental values and systems. The dispute had antecedents in diverse utilitarian, scientific, aesthetic and romantic conservation traditions. It was these values that motivated the leading protagonists, who were conservationists but not environmentalists. However, many environmentalists today look back on the Little Desert dispute as the beginning of the new ‘ecologically conscious’ era. The contribution of earlier conservationists to the environmental movement is often overlooked in environmentalist literature. Through examining closely the role of science and scientists in land management, this thesis explores some of the continuities as well as the discontinuities of the ‘environmental revolution’ in Australia.

Introduction: In the Archives of the University of Melbourne there are two black notebooks containing the handwritten reminiscences of William Tyson Kendall, the “founder of the veterinary profession in Australia”. In fact, Kendall makes very little reference to the veterinary college that he founded, his teaching or the trials that he was to confront, but out of that chance encounter with his notebooks I became interested in the early years of the profession in Victoria; the profession to which Kendall devoted so much of his incredible energy and enthusiasm. Further inquiry only served to enhance this interest, but revealed that there was a paucity not only of primary source material, but also of recorded history. During the course of conversations with both retired and active practitioners, I have frequently been told, and can verify, that veterinarians are great talkers, and many of them are keen to preserve their historical heritage, but are the worst procrastinators when it comes to the written word. (For complete introduction open document).

This thesis examines seven Victorian high schools between 1905 and 1945 to see it the educational experiences provided there had an impact on the paid and unpaid working lives of the girls who attended. It outlines some of the theoretical problems associated with both the history of work and the education of girls and places these within the context of increased state involvement in society during this period.

This thesis deals principally with the period following Pinschof’s arrival from Vienna in 1879, to just after the First World War. It considers the Pinschofs’; generous and timely support of the arts within the context of the amount of private and institutional patronage and the British, German and other cultural influences on Melbourne society at the time.