Hegemony of printed books in Australian tertiary education a concept under challenge

This paper is about challenges to the hegemony of printed books in Australian tertiary education and the potential demise of that hegemony. Not because the book in its traditional form is considered by some to be outdated and not because ofcompeting products that might put the use of the traditional book under threat - our Australian 'book-industry' might well rise to such challenges given that competitiveness is a driving feature of business. This paper is about challenges to the hegemony of printed books in tertiary education because of forces entirely outside the 'book-industry's' control.

The function of traditional printed books within tertiary education is changing. Education is a user-pays product, and competitive pressures ensure students are given greater voice in the types of learning resources provided, with the evolution of electronic and communication technologies allowing student learning resources to be made available in a myriad of ways. Thus a traditional printed book may be an inflexible tool in a dynamic environment.

The all for Australia league in New South Wales : a study in political entrepreneurship and hegemony

In 1931, the All for Australia League and other 'citizens movements' mounted a major challenge to the established conservative parties. Traditional views of the League saw it as a reflection of economic group interests, whether of the business establishment or dissident capitalists such as manufactures. More recent scholarship has stressed middle-class concerns with 'sound finance' as the inspiration of the League. This paper instead situates the League in the historical context of centre party projects in New South Wales, and of progressivism, in particular industrial psychology. The economic crisis and the rightward shift of the nationalists enabled a group of political entrepreneurs to transform the League from a front group for business into a populist movement. However, the shift of mainstream conservatism back to the political centre fatally undercut the League's support base.

Ideological hegemony and professional organisation of public accountants in China

This thesis examines the development of the Chinese public accounting profession during the post-Mao era of the 1980s and 1990s. The success of the public accountants in accomplishing professional status within society is found to be closely linked to the ideological influence and the political agenda of the state leaders.

Disrobing the emperor : mainstream CSR research and corporate hegemony

Purpose – This paper aims to utilise a typological matrix as the basis to categorise various corporate-society interventions. It aims to argue that an instrumental version of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is hegemonic in both the theoretical and normative domains of mainstream research, and that this hegemony underpins an intellectual blockage that prevents the field from achieving critical reflexivity and ultimately, a justifiable raison d'e^tre.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper reflects on the extant CSR literature in the context of globalisation; presents a two-dimensional typological matrix to be used in positioning corporate-society interventions; provides examples of particular activities relevant to each quadrant of the matrix; and considers the wider political economy of CSR research.

Findings – The logical implications of the corporation as an institution behaving in increasing accordance with the normative expectations of mainstream CSR scholarship will likely lead in the direction of increasing corporate hegemony.

Practical implications – The paper proposes the adoption of the more theoretically coherent and empirically precise terms enlightened self-interest and corporate social irresponsibility in CSR and related research streams, as well as the institutional relocation of much future CSR research to disciplinary areas outside of the business school.

Originality/value – The typological matrix presented in this paper offers a new way of locating corporate-society interventions. The partial abandonment of the term “CSR” by researchers, as well as the institutional relocations of much CSR research, are original notions.

Mediated hegemony : interference in the post-Saddam Iraqi media sector

The toppling of Saddam in 2003 brought with it the re-emergence of the free press in Iraq. This has seen Iraq shift from only a handful of state media outlets that served as propaganda machines, to a vast array of Iraqi-owned newspapers, radio stations and television channels which are being fervently produced and avidly consumed across the nation. As is to be expected, there are several problems that have accompanied such a divergent, ad-hoc and highly volatile media landscape. Leaving aside important issues such as the dangers faced by Iraqi journalists and the lack of appropriate press laws, this paper focuses instead on the influence of both foreign and domestic political bodies on the post-Saddam Iraqi media sector. Among the foreign influences are Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, all of which fund, control and manipulate various Iraqi media outlets. Not surprisingly, the United States has been the most active, using both overt and clandestine propaganda methods as well as forced closure to control the Iraqi media sector. Unfortunately, such measures are not limited to those governments which exist outside Iraq’s borders, with both the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional authority having used similar means to control and even silence Iraq’s nascent public sphere. This paper concludes by noting the irony of limiting press freedoms in Iraq during this crucial phase in its transition from despotism to democracy.

Accepting the unacceptable : patriarchal hegemony and child support arrangements

This research explored how low-income single mothers' child support decisions were based on the 'best interests of the child'. While mothers desired joint financial responsibility for children, poor payment outcomes made mothers financially dependent on the state and resulted in single mothers' coerced acceptance of unacceptable child support arrangements.

Negotiating masculine hegemony : female physical educators in an all-boys’ school

School physical education (PE) and sport are commonly regarded as sites where dominant or hegemonic masculinities cultivate, often at the expense of individuals who embody different gendered identities. In all-boys' PE settings, curriculum content frequently orientates around competitive and traditionally masculine team sports wherein teaching pedagogies draw heavily on ‘masculine’ practices that serve to legitimate and/or reproduce hierarchical and heteronormative masculinities. Embedded in the broader tenets of gender equity, this article draws on Foucault's technologies of the self to examine the experiences of two female physical educators in an all-boys' school as they negotiate their daily work in an environment where embodied masculinities are intensified. In doing so, it looks beyond the PE department to the wider school context (discourse and practice) as integral to the contestation and struggles for the professional identities available and taken up by female PE teachers in all-boy settings. Our findings reveal strategies that these teachers employed to negotiate and reconcile the tensions associated with being ‘positioned’ outside the gendered hegemony of the school.

The role of hegemony in secessionist movements : the case study of the Moldovan Republic of Transnistria

The aim of the article is to analyse the secessionist phenomenon by applying the concept of hegemony. Based on critical realist interpretations of the concept, it is argued that hegemonic practice incorporates both inter-subjective and structural aspects. The inter-subjective aspect of hegemony places emphasis on the relations between social groups and the way hegemonic practice leads social agents towards political projects that secure consensus in favour of the interest of particular elites. The structural character of hegemonic practice is evident in the reproduction of social conditions and values that underlie the relations between social agents both globally and domestically. Accordingly, the inter-subjective character of secession as hegemonic practice is evident in the organization of social agents towards a political option (territorial separatism) to the extent that it serves the goals of certain elites. The sturctural aspect of secessionist practice is hegeminic because it reproduces international structures that tend to associate political organization with ethnicity at the state level. The analysis then turns to the case study of Transnistria in Moldova as an empirical illustration of the two tendencies of hegemonic practice in secessionist politics leading ot useful conclusions both for the case study in particular and the study of secession in general. 

Turning collegial governance on its head : symbolic violence, hegemony and the academic board

This article draws on Bourdieu’s theorisation of domination and Gramsci’s notions of hegemony within the context of a larger empirical study of Australian university academic governance, and of academic boards (also known as academic senates or faculty senates) in particular. Reporting data that suggest a continued but radically altered form of collegial governance in which hegemony is exercised by management rather than by the professor, it theorises the domination of academic boards within western democratic universities. However, traditional collegial governance is also dependent upon a community of scholars, a role historically played by the academic board. In view of the suggested transition in collegial governance and the resultant convergence of academic work and management, the article concludes with questions about whether academic boards can continue to serve as communities of scholars in future.