Education's role in economic development and in assisting the poor

Much faith has been put in the increased supply of education as a means to promote national economic development and as a way to assist the poor and the disadvantaged. However, the benefits that nations can obtain by increasing the level of education of their workforce depends on the availability of other forms of capital to complement the use of its educated workforce in production. Generally, less developed nations are lacking in complementary capital compared to more developed ones and it is appropriate for less developed countries to spend relatively less on education. The contribution of education to economic growth depends on a nation’s stage of economic development. It is only when a nation becomes relatively developed that education becomes a major contributor to economic growth. It is possible for less developed nations to retard their economic growth by favouring investment in educational capital rather than other forms of capital. Easy access to education is often portrayed as a powerful force for assisting the poor and the disadvantaged. Several reasons are given here as to why it may not be so effective in assisting the poor and in promoting greater income equality even though the aim is a worthy one. Also, an economic argument is presented in favour of special education for the physically and mentally handicapped. This paper is not intended to belittle the contribution of education to economic development nor to devalue the ideal of making basic education available to all. Instead, it is intended as an antidote to inflated claims about the ability of greater investment in education to promote economic growth and about the ability of more widespread access to education to reduce poverty and decrease income inequality.

Anxious futures: Magpie2 and 'new generationalism' in Australian youth-specific theatre

The field of contemporary youth-specific theatre in Australia is one of change and, in some cases, anxiety. While Drama Studies continue to grow in popularity in schools, previously conventional developmental paradigms have become less mandatory for theatre, for, by, and about young people outside the school context. Instead, 'new generation' approaches in youth-specific performance are placing greater value on young people's own preferences in cultural activity. Yet this development is being tempered and further complicated by a cultural 'generationalism', particularly in larger arts organization as the youth sector becomes a more integral part of marketing strategies for the future. The resulting ambiguity in the representation, value, and positioning of young people and youth-specific arts in Australia's theatre industry is considered by focusing on Magpie2, a former youth-specific company attached to the State Theatre Company of South Australia. Magpie2 ceased operation in 1998 after experimenting with a 'new generation' approach to theatre for young people in the State Theatre realm. Both the artistic policy of Magpie2 Director, Benedict Andrews, and the critical reception of his two productions in 1997, Future Tense and Features of Blown Youth, demonstrate how competing systems of cultural value characterize the field of youth-specific theatre in Australia.

Black and white and re(a)d all over again: Indigenous minstrelsy in contemporary Canadian and Australian theatre

This essay considers processes by which community identities are challenged by discussing the use of whiteface as an activist strategy in recent indigenous theatre in Canada and Australia. To understand whiteface, I employ Susan Gubar's notion of racechange, processes that test and even transgress racial borders. I also situate whiteface in relation to the history of blackface minstrelsy. Noting the ways these racial performances affirm the hierarchies of color and how power becomes invested in such color codings, the essay highlights indigenous employment of whiteface as a potential form of critical historiography. I then analyze how whiteface functions in two productions, Daniel David Moses's Almighty Voice and His Wife (1991) in Canada and the Queensland Theatre Company's 2000 revival of George Landen Dann's Fountains Beyond in Australia. My analysis posits that such indigenous performances of whiteface can affirm the identity of the marginalized other even as they destabilize the fixity of race and its meanings.

Issues in boys' education: A question of teacher threshold knowledges?

This paper explores the effects of specific teacher threshold knowledges about boys and gender on the implementation of a so-called 'boy friendly' curriculum at one junior secondary high school in Australia. Through semi-structured inter-views with selected staff at the school, it examines the normalizing assumptions and 'truth claims' about boys, as gendered subjects, which drive the pedagogical impetus for such a curriculum initiative. This research raises crucial questions about the need for the formulation of both school and governmental policy grounded in sound research-based knowledge about the social construction of gender and its impact on the lives of both boys and girls and their experiences of schooling. This is crucial, we argue, in light of the recent parliamentary report on boys' education in Australia which rejects gender theorizing and given the failure of key staff in the research school to interrogate the binary ways in which masculinity and femininity are socially constructed and institutionalized in schools through a particular 'gender regime'. While some good things are happening in the research school, the failure to acknowledge the social construction of gender means that ultimately the school's programs cannot be successful.

A Complementary Economy? National Markets and International Product in Early Australian Theatre Managements

The international circulation of commercial theatre in the early twentieth century was driven not only from the centres of Great Britain and the USA, but by the specific enterprise and habitus of managers in ‘complementary’ production sites such as Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. The activity of this period suggests a de-centred competitive trade in theatrical commodities – whether performers, scripts, or productions – wherein the perceived entertainment preferences and geographies of non-metropolitan centres were formative of international enterprise. The major producers were linked in complex bonds of partnerships, family, or common experience which crossed the globe. The fractures and commonalities displayed in the partnerships of James Cassius Williamson and George Musgrove, which came to dominate and shape the fortunes of the Australian industry for much of the century, indicate the contradictory commercial and artistic pressures bearing upon entrepreneurs seeking to provide high-quality entertainment and form advantageous combinations in competition with other local and international managements. Clarke, Meynell and Gunn mounted just such spirited competition from 1906 to 1911, and their story demonstrates both the opportunities and the centralizing logic bearing upon local managements shopping and dealing in a global market. The author, Veronica Kelly, works at the University of Queensland. She is presently undertaking a study of commercial stars and managements in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Australia, with a focus on the star performer as model of history, gender, and nation.

Factors affecting student attitudes toward flexible online learning in management education

In response to recent technological advances and the trend toward flexible learning in education, the authors examined the factors affecting student satisfaction with flexible online learning. The authors identified 2 key student attributes of student satisfaction: (a) positive perceptions of technology in terms of ease of access and use of online flexible learning material and (b) autonomous and innovative learning styles. The authors derived measures of perceptions of technology from research on the Technology Acceptance Model and used locus of control and innovative attitude as indicators of an autonomous and innovative learning mode. First-year students undertaking an introductory management course completed surveys at the beginning (n = 248) and at the end (n = 256) of course work. The authors analyzed the data by using structural equation modeling. Results suggest that student satisfaction is influenced by positive perceptions toward technology and an autonomous learning mode.

Governmentality and 'fearless speech': framing the education of asylum seeker and refugee children in Australia

This paper considers the educational provision for, and general treatment of, refugee and asylum seeker children in Australia, using a framework of governmentality. The paper describes the regimes of practices which govern refugees and asylum seekers in Australia, including mandatory detention and a complex set of visa categorisations, and considers their consequences for the educational provision for children. It addresses three questions: How is it possible that the rights of children have been rendered invisible in and by a democratic state? How are repressive and even violent practices normalised in a liberal state, so that ordinary citizens show so little concern about them? And what should our response be as educators and intellectuals? In conclusion, it explores Foucault's notions of ethics and fearless speech (parrhesia) as a basis for an ethics of engagement in education.