Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Children in art Social aspects Australia'

Children in upper primary school who have not made progress along the Swimming and Water Safety Continuum may be at a greater risk in an aquatic environment because they have not developed the swimming competency, endurance and skills needed for survival in threatening aquatic situations. Three groups representing different socio-economic and geographical areas were selected to explore the relationships between psycho-social factors and the development of swimming ability among year seven students. Two groups from lower socio-economic areas were chosen. The first group was directly on the coast with easy access to the beach, while the second group was inland in the foothills of Perth. As higher socio-economic areas in Perth are generally not far from the coast only one group from a higher socio-economic coastal area was chosen. The participants were 540 year seven students, 282 of whom were males and 258 of whom were females. The primary variable of interest was the current swimming stage of year seven participants, and the differences between genders and/or locality groups. The primary research questions investigated differences between locality groups and/or genders for; a) perceived athletic competence and global self-worth, b) perceived swimming competency, confidence in deep water and importance placed on learning to swim well. c) perceived social support for sport and swimming activities and d) attendance at Interm, Vacswim and other swimming programs and aquatic venue experience. Relationships between swimming stage and the above variables were analysed. The secondary research questions investigated the most frequent reasons given by the students for not attending or discontinuing participation inVacswim, and whether there were differences between locality groups or genders. Findings indicated that the lower socio-economic groups had a significantly lower swimming stage and lower perceived self-worth than the higher socioeconomic group. Students from the lower socio-economic inland area had the lowest mean swimming stage as well as lower perceived social support for sport and swimming than either of the other two groups in the study. The two lower socioeconomic groups also attended less swimming instruction and placed less emphasis on the importance of learning to swim well than the higher socio-economic group. Despite these findings, the lower socio-economic groups did not view themselves as any less able in terms of athletic and swimming competence. However, as the two lower socio-economic groups have not progressed along the Swimming and Water Safety Continuum to the 'desirable standards' of the RLSSA (1999), these groups could be viewed as at-risk in an aquatic environment. At the same time, there was evidence that attendance at Interm along with attendance at another swimming program enabled participants to reach the 'desirable standards' of the RLSSA (1999). Girls generally had a higher swimming stage than boys in the lower socio-economic areas, attended year seven Interm and Vacswim more than boys, reported more social support for sport and swimming, and placed more emphasis on the importance of learning to swim well than boys. While many of these relationships between swimming stage and psycho-social factors have been intuitively accepted within the swimming teaching industry, we now have a better understanding of the strength and direction of these relationships.

The study produces a genealogy of ‘the child’ as the shifting subject constituted by the confluence of discourses that are utilized by, and surround, Western Australian precompulsory education. The analysis is approached as a genealogy of governmentality building on the work of Foucault and Rose, which enables the consideration of the research question that guides this study: How has ‘the child’ come to be constituted as a subject of regimes of practices of pre-compulsory education in Western Australia? This study does not explore how the historical discourses changed in relation to ‘the child’ as a universal subject of early education, but it examines the multiple ways ‘the child’ was constituted by these discourses as the subject at which government is to be aimed, and whose characteristics government must harness and instrumentalize. Besides addressing the research question, the study also develops a set of intertwining arguments. In these the author contends that ‘the child’ is invented through historically contingent ideas about the individual and that the way in which ‘the child’ is constituted in pre-compulsory education shifts in concert with the changing problematizations about the government of the population and individuals. Further, the study demonstrates the necessity to understand the provision of pre-compulsory education as a political practice. Looking at pre-compulsory education as a political practice de-stabilizes the takenfor-granted constitutions of ‘the child’ embedded in present theories, practices and research with children in the field of early childhood education. It also enables the de- and reconstruction of the notions of children’s ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘citizenship’. The continuous de- and reconstruction of these notions and the destabilization of the constitutions of ‘the child’ creates a framework in which improvement is possible, rather than “a utopian, wholesale and, thus revolutionary, transformation” in early education (Branson & Miller, 1991, p. 187). This study also contributes to the critiques of classroom discipline approaches by reconceptualizing them as technologies of government in order to reveal the power relations they silently wield.

The thesis is divided into two sections. Section 1 explores the psycho-social and legal constructions of family, parenting and children that have influenced judicial decision-making in parenting disputes following separation and divorce. Particular attention is paid, first, to the circumstances surrounding the shift from paternal to maternally-based presumptions about the parenting of children; and second, to the more recent and somewhat puzzling shift to a presumption of gender neutrality. The extent to which fault has continued as a less overt decision-making criterion is also considered. In Section 2, judgements in recent closely contested parenting cases in the Family Court of Australia are analysed as contemporary socio-legal narratives. A systematic, in-depth examination of a heterogeneous sample of publicly accessible cases revealed that gender-based assumptions continue to dominate judicial thinking about parenting and family structure. In particular, it was found that outcomes that favoured mothers correlated with perceived evidence of conformity to a maternal stereotype of self-sacrifice on behalf of the child(ren). Outcomes favouring fathers usually resulted from situations in which mothers were judged to fall short of these stereotyped expectations. Fathers� roles, even in cases in which their applications were successful, generally continued to be equated with breadwinning and support. Their capacities as nurturers to their children were either not mentioned or treated with scepticism. In the light of the findings, tensions between continuing gender-based roles in families, public attitudes to parenting and preferred family structure, and recent changes in our scientific knowledge base regarding gender and parenting are reviewed. Implications of the persistence of the breadwinning/nurturing dichotomy both within the Australian culture and family court judgements are discussed. Particular attention is drawn to the impact of the confused circumstances in which gender-neutral parenting principles came about in the 1970s.

Mental health reflects an array of causal influences that span biological, psychological, and social circumstances, with resultant underlying causal pathways to poor mental health outcomes in childhood that are complex. Key features of this complexity are reciprocal interactions between person and environment that take place over time. The core of this thesis seeks to attend to the complexity of development to move the field of developmental health forward toward greater explanation, and more successful prediction and prevention. The focal point of the thesis is the psychosocial determinants of childhood mental health, the resource domain of the developing child, and the interplay between characteristics of the individual child, the family, and the community. The eventual goal is to better understand why and how socioeconomic circumstances impact on developmental health. One component of this thesis focuses on the expansion of extant developmental theory. The other component focuses on the development of an analytic strategy that more appropriately reflects the intricacies of this theoretical expansion. In the process, data are analysed, principally as a heuristic strategy, to illustrate the analytical approach needed to support the theoretical framework. The specification of a bioecological conceptual framework suitable to guide research and policy in developmental health is the first principal objective of the thesis. A critical examination of the resource framework proposed by Brooks-Gunn, Brown, Duncan, and Anderson Moore (1995) reveals it to be centred on family and community resources, but otherwise silent with respect to the physical and psychological resources of the child. The quintessential point of this thesis is that theory in developmental health must be able to account for the contribution individuals make to their own development. A modified resource framework is proposed that acknowledges financial, physical, human, and social capital, within the domains of the individual child, the family, and the community. The second principal objective of the thesis, the development of analytical methods that focus on the individual child and the complexity of data generated by this theoretical approach, is then introduced. Theory and method are thus integrated when comprehensive measures of characteristics in multiple domains across developmental periods are modeled using longitudinal data from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study (Newnham, Evans, Michael, Stanley, & Landau, 1993). The mothers of 2,860 children were enrolled at 18 weeks in pregnancy and the children have been followed at birth, one, two, three, five, and eight years of age. Eighty-nine per cent (2,537 /2,860) of families were available for follow-up at eight and 74 per cent (2,126/2,860) of families responded. Extensive demographic, psychological, and developmental data were available for the children and their families and a limited amount of data were available for the communities in which they reside. A measure of mental health morbidity, the Child Behaviour Checklist (Achenbach, 1991), was available for the children at two, five, and eight years of age. In the first instance, dichotomous summary variables are derived for the demographic, psychological, and developmental variables of interest. Variables are then selected for inclusion in one of several explanatory models. To create a mathematical representation of resource characteristics, the information for each child is concatenated as a series of binary strings. Frequency tabulation is then used to aggregate the data and odds ratios are calculated to determine the degree of risk associated with each string of code, or pattern of factors relative to a nominated mental health outcome. The results provided a scaffold from which this theoretical and analytical approach is compared and contrasted with the reviewed literature. Two principal themes of investigation are pursued. The first theme to be examined is the interplay between characteristics of the child, family, and community and the contribution children make to their own development. The specific approach models the interaction between selected characteristics of the child, family and community in each of four developmentally significant time periods. The theoretical position adopted in the present study suggests that the effect of any personal or contextual factor on later development, if a relationship does truly exist, is most likely to be differential. That is, it is a combination of influences that determines developmental outcomes for children, not any single factor acting independently. The modelling process demonstrates that, for the children involved, personal and contextual factors impact mental health differentially depending on various other individual, family and/or community characteristics. The modelling process identifies patterns of factors that impact relatively small, but significant, numbers of children because the models focus on the effect for individual children rather than the effect for the group. For example, one model suggests that the effect of intra-uterine growth restriction for the group as a whole may be minimal, but the impact for some children could be critical depending on the combination of family and community influences, such as the mothers level of education, the family’s experience of significant life stress, and residence in a relatively disadvantaged community. The second theme to be examined is the possibility that the accumulation of resource deficits or risk characteristics, over time, amplifies the likelihood of mental health problems in childhood. The approach models selected characteristics of the child in each of the four periods of development collectively, and it also models selected characteristics spanning each of the four time periods discretely. The results suggest that latency, pathway, and recency effects may operate simultaneously, and that timing and accumulated burden may both be important determinants of risk. For example, with regard to children whose family experienced life stress, these three effects operated in a systematic way to increase the degree of risk of a mental health problem. In summary, the aggregation of data at the individual level is a productive approach in seeking to explain population level social phenomena. While seemingly paradoxical, the identification of the joint, interactive effects between individual, family, and community characteristics, better allows for the quantification of family and community characteristics operating through multiple causal pathways.

The purpose of this study was to describe the sense of self for a group of urban Western Australian Aboriginal children through analysing their perspectives and experiences in school sport and physical education. A symbolic interaction inquiry paradigm complemented with qualitative data collection methods was utilised. Informal conversational interviews and nonparticipant observations were employed. Interviews were conducted with participants and those whom they reported as their significant others. Participants were also observed in the school sport setting during physical education classes and intra and inter school sport competitions. Eight Western Australian Aboriginal children who resided in an urban suburb of Perth, Western Australia and attended a coeducational state school were the participants. Upper primary students, aged 11 to 12 years were included with an equal representation of both males and females. Data were analysed in accordance with Colaizzi’s (1978) procedure. Significant participant responses were extracted and meanings were identified in order to group the meanings into various themes. It was found that Aboriginal students mostly experienced positive interactions with others in the school sport setting. They demonstrated above average sport skills and were consistently rewarded with praise from their fellow peers and teachers. Aboriginal students did not enjoy physical education since it limited their participation, social interaction with others and their enjoyment. Team sports were preferred, but females reported that they disliked coeducational sport competition. Aboriginal students reported that participating in sport (particularly team sports) made them feel happy about themselves since it provided an opportunity for them to feel proud of identifying as an Aboriginal. Opportunities for equality and acceptance from others were more accessible in the school sport domain, since feedback for performances was constant and contained positive information. Feedback was often supplied immediately after a performance and was directed to the student concerned. For some though, sport participation could also result in students experiencing shame. This occurred when a mistake was performed or when significant "others" were present and observed their participation. In all, school sport provided the opportunities for Aboriginal students to develop positive and favourable self-perceptions, particularly with regard to their Aboriginal identity.

This thesis occupies an uneasy space: not within or even at the leading edge of any one tradition, but in the anomalous and almost unoccupied space in which three traditions fail to connect. In keeping with this standpoint, it employs a range of approaches from a cross-paradigm perspective. It draws the main hypothesis that it tests from the cognitive developmental paradigm and develops its main methodological tools from methods of discourse analysis, supplemented by a variety of other instruments, quantitative as well as qualitative. This thesis makes five main claims: (1). Modality judgements, issues and perceptions in relation to television programme content are significant elements in a complex, active and creative process of learning for children in the contemporary world. (2). Children's modality judgements and processes of understanding are significantly different from those of adults in important respects. (3). A further significant developmentally-related phenomenon that emerges from the data is the importance of moments of rupture in developing modality schema and strategies. (4). Children's programme preferences, as refracted through modality structures and strategies typical of different ages, reflect a coherent learning context in which children tackle modality experiences, problems and dilemmas that are well suited to their needs at that point in their development. (5). Children's talk about issues of modality is also a species of social action, in and through which children position and reposition themselves in a variety of social contexts, constructing not only maps and versions of the world, but versions of their selves and tactics to maintain their specific interests. Many of the generalisations in this thesis are still tentative, in need of further development. Some of them, however, are more solidly grounded and would be able to contribute to current debates in education and public life on the role and functions of television in the lives of children.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

During their early years, young children are exposed to a range of learning settings, both formal and informal. This study focused on young children's engagement and reflection in an informal museum context. Using qualitative research methodology, a three-week community art project, The Art of Eric Carle, was examined. This setting combined an interactive art exhibition and an art studio workshop, to resemble the informal learning context characteristic of popular, contemporary, interactive museum venues of all kinds. Through a descriptive interpretative analysis, the study aimed to document the experiences and abilities of young children (aged birth to eight years) as artists and art appreciators within this environment. A broader aim of the study was to identify a range of conditions that support high quality experiences for young children in informal learning settings in general. A detailed set of ideal criteria, encompassing the physical, programming and social components of the learning setting was developed and applied to The Art of Eric Carle project. The findings of the study clearly demonstrated that certain conditions enhance young children's engagement and reflection in informal learning settings. While physical, programming and social factors all play a role in forming young visitors' experiences, it is the social component of the learning environment, specifically children's interactions with adults, that determines the quality of their encounters. Social exchanges assist children to interpret the museum environment and its exhibits and to successfully take part in the learning experiences offered. A synergistic relationship exists between physical, programming and social factors, and with equal attention given to each of these aspects of the informal learning setting, high quality experiences can be provided for young children.

Although language variation is widespread and natural,it is subject to judgement. Where a standard language has developed, other varieties tend to be judged against its "standards". While a number of overseas studies have found that this type of linguistic bias occurs in education and negatively impacts on dialect speakers, there has been little research in Australia. The research reported in this thesis investigates how teachers perceive the speech of school-aged students and whether the socio-economic status or level of schooling of the students influence these perceptions. Further, it examines the relationships between the teachers' background, the way they define Standard Australian English, their attitude to language variation and the way they perceive student speech. The research was undertaken as three separate but related studies. Thirty six teachers from twelve different schools were involved - three teachers from four different schools (n=l2) participating in each of the three studies. In Study One, the teachers kept observational notes on the problems they identified in their students' speech for a period of a week. In Study Two, the teachers participated in school-based focus groups to discuss those features they deemed to be problematic in their students' speech. In Study Three, the teachers ranked tape-recorded samples of speech from students who were not known to them. All the teachers provided background information, wrote their own definition of Standard Australian English and completed a questionnaire about their attitude to language variation in general and to the use of particular variants of English. The teachers in the three studies identified aspects of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and language use as problematic in student speech. The teachers' judgement of what was problematic and their perception of what caused these problems differed according to the socio-economic status of the students. Many of the features teachers identified as problematic were variants of Australian English. The teachers of low SES students tended to see this variation as evidence of their students' language deficiency and to be the result of their "restricted" backgrounds. The teachers of high SES students identified fewer problems in their students' speech and tended to view variation as developmental, inappropriately informal use of language or the result of deterioration in "standards". The teachers' perceptions of speech also varied according to the year level they were teaching. These perceptions reflected the teachers' own backgrounds, their personal definitions of Standard Australian English, their own "idealised" speech and their view of the relative status of Australian accents. The written form of the language also greatly influenced the teachers' perceptions of student speech. The results of this research have important implications for pedagogy, particularly in relation to equity and social justice. In an education system which increasingly relies on teacher judgements to assess the progress of students, the often negative influence of factors related to a student's background should be of serious concern. A failure to recognise the impact of non-standard features in speech on the educational opportunities and achievements of students would compromise their basic rights and limit the social and economic contributions they would otherwise be able to make.

In this thesis, I will examine pattern making in art practice from two cultural perceptions, Slavic and Australian. Existing differences between the two cultural backgrounds will be used to debate how pattern is understood by the viewer or practiced by an artist in a particular chosen environment. The central argument focuses on pattern as a decorator and/or a narrator. I will examine the outcomes and changes in narrative pattern according to cultural context and exchange. By introducing Slavic pattern into contemporary (Australian) art practice, I examine how traditional cultural values and functions change. In discussing the processes of changes that occur in intercultural exchange, I will draw my opinions and observations from writers, critics and artists such as William Morris, Lucien Henry, Stuart Hall, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Grace Cohrane, Nicolas Pevsner, Faith Ringgold, Joan Snyder, Miriam Schapiro and Cynthia Carlson. My final conclusion will be drawn from my personal visual practice that uses pattern

Socioeconomic status (SES) influences many aspects of a person's life, and stereotypes concerning level of SES and the domain of creativity exist. It was hypothesized that children classified as low SES would perform more creatively in the visual arts and language arts domains of creativity than in the mathematic and scientific domains.

Burns are one of the most painful and traumatising injuries an individual can sustain and constitute a serious global health threat to children. Despite the magnitude of this public health problem, little research has examined the psychological burden of these injuries. This study used a mixed-methods approach to investigate the effect of paediatric medical trauma on children who have sustained a burn, their parents and the healthcare professionals caring for these patients. The paediatric medical traumatic stress model provided a theoretical framework for this study. Firstly, this study aimed to gain an understanding of the lived experience of children who sustain a burn. Using phenomenology as a methodology, the first paper in this thesis provided an in-depth understanding of children’s perceptions, thoughts and feelings about the lived experience of sustaining a burn. The findings identified two phases of trauma that are central to the burn experience. The paper found that children experience ongoing trauma in addition to the initial trauma of sustaining the burn, resulting in a cumulative trauma experience. Six themes were identified in the data describing the child’s experience: ongoing recurrent trauma; return to normal activities; behavioural changes; scarring-the permanent reminder; family functioning and adaptation. The methodology of this research provided a voice for the child’s perspective of the burn experience and the findings can be used to inform clinical care at all stages of the burn journey. The second paper, a cross-sectional study, aimed to investigate the impact of exposure to paediatric trauma on parents of children with a burn and to identify risk factors and relationships between psychological distress and resilience. The results indicated that parents experienced significantly more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder than a comparative population. Factors including having a daughter, witnessing the event, feeling helpless or having past traumatic experiences significantly influenced symptoms of psychological distress and resilience. Findings from this study highlight that health professionals should screen parents to identify those at greatest risk and provide effective evidence-based interventions aimed at improving resilience and reducing stress, as part of standard, routine care. The aim of the third paper was to gain an understanding of the lived experience of parents of a child with a burn injury. Using a phenomenological, qualitative methodology allowed aspects of the parents’ experience not collected in standardised outcome measures to be identified, enabling triangulation with the quantitative results found in the second study. The findings demonstrated that the experience of parents reflected a journey that was represented by three phases: the event, the inpatient phase and the return to the community. Within the three phases, themes of external stressors, emotional and behavioural responses and coping strategies were identified. These findings can be used for the development of protocols to underpin a comprehensive information and social support management plan for families. This would complement the surgical and medical treatment plan, providing direction for comprehensive service delivery. Children, parents and health professionals are interconnected in a professional relationship. The aim of the fourth paper was to investigate the effect of exposure to paediatric medical trauma on multidisciplinary teams and the relationships between psychological distress, resilience and coping skills. Health professionals experienced significantly more symptoms of psychological distress and less resilience than comparative groups. Non-productive coping was associated with adverse psychological outcomes and younger health professionals were more vulnerable to psychological distress than those aged 25 years and above. Findings from this study may assist in developing organisational systems to facilitate optimal mental health and coping strategies in health professionals, with the aim of the maintenance of a healthy workforce. Overall findings from this research provide evidence for health professionals to optimise a holistic clinical service at all stages of the burn journey. These findings provide previously unknown knowledge about the impact of paediatric medical trauma on children, parents and health professionals within a paediatric hospital.

This research focussed on families in which at least one parent was a long-term cannabis user; I explored family members’ perceptions of the benefits and harms of cannabis use and the strategies parents used to minimise cannabis-related harm to themselves and their children. In depth, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 43 individuals from 13 families, producing a series of family case studies that enabled examination of multiple perspectives within each family. In Study 1, I used an interpretive framework guided by Miles and Huberman’s (1994) thematic content analysis technique to analyse interview data, while study 2 yielded detailed descriptive vignettes that examined how the use of cannabis played out in particular families. Cannabis users have been portrayed as stereotypically lazy, unhealthy, deviant, and criminal. However, this was not the case with the current sample, whose lifestyles revolved around employment and family life. Parents claimed to use cannabis in a responsible way that minimised harm to self and family. Few reported personal experiences of harm and most did not believe that their children had been adversely affected by their use of cannabis. Nonetheless, children’s awareness of parental cannabis use, and access to the parent’s cannabis supply, occurred at a younger age than parents suspected. Parents reported harm reduction strategies that targeted five broad areas: (1) Dosage control; (2) Dependency; (3) Acute risk; (4) Long-term harm; and (5) Harm to children. The current study points to common-sense ways of reducing harm, such as being discreet about cannabis use; using less potent strains; prioritising family and work responsibilities; being careful about where cannabis was obtained; not mixing cannabis with tobacco; and limiting any financial outlay. The harm reduction strategies identified in this research might be helpful in the forensic evaluation, safety planning, and treatment of parental cannabis use. The validity of the current findings was enhanced by having independent data on the same topic from each family member’s point of view, including non-using partners and children, and by including both convergent and divergent data.

My contention within this thesis is that there is an absence of literature on working class girls within both the gender and education and social class and education literature. I draw on issues related to girls and education and on more recent issues on boys and education, to deternnine what has been said about working class girls. It became apparent that there was very little written on working class girls within the body of literature. Then I chose to explore social class and education to find out if working class girls are discussed. It was also found that not much had been written on working class girls in social class and education literature. In my final chapter I suggest ways to address the absence of working class girls by recommending some questions that can be addressed In future research, so that a real understanding of what is happening with working class girls within the education system can be achieved.

The artist Hans Heysen is closely associated with the South Australian regional environment, which featured as the subject matter of his most celebrated works. At the same time, however, he also rapidly established a national reputation, achieving critical and commercial success in the interstate art worlds of Melbourne and Sydney. This dissertation investigates the significant role of Heysen’s art world networks in establishing, shaping and maintaining his career and reputation. Most of the existing scholarship on Heysen has either been biographical or concerned with analysing the style and subject matter of his paintings. While previous authors have alluded to the importance of his networks, these have not been their central focus of study. Similarly, Heysen’s ties to the urban Australian art worlds where his works were exhibited, reviewed and sold have been little researched. Heysen’s networks encompassed fellow artists, art critics, publishers, dealers, collectors and museum trustees and directors. Due to his geographical isolation written correspondence played an essential role in his long-distance career management, with the letters he exchanged providing valuable insights into the importance of his networks. Consequently, this dissertation has involved intensive archival research, cross-referencing the archives of Heysen and his correspondents, together with studying historic exhibition catalogues, art magazines and published reviews. The interpretation of this material has been informed by two complementary conceptual frameworks. The first is Howard Becker’s conceptualisation of art (and art world success) as the product of collaborative activity. This has been utilised when analysing the specific operations of Heysen’s networks. The second is Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of a ‘Field of Cultural Production,’ a metaphorical, changing space in which cultural agents compete for symbolic capital. These ideas have been employed to examine the structure of the Australian art world and the construction of reputation. This research demonstrates the essential role of Heysen’s art world networks in representing and advancing his interests. The support of key associates enabled Heysen to withstand the threats to his career presented by anti-German sentiments during the First World War, the impact of the Depression on the art market and the ascendency of modernism. While he generally benefited from his networks, the entrenched conservatism or overt commercial concerns of some of Heysen’s associates proved detrimental to his reputation. This dissertation shows that while Heysen’s traditionalist style and subject matter did not change dramatically over the course of his lengthy career, there were considerable shifts in the way in which he displayed, promoted and sold his works which reflected broader changes in the Australian art world. Similarly, perceptions of Heysen progressed from regarding him as an innovator in the Edwardian period, to an establishment figure during the interwar decades and finally as the last representative of a past generation. Heysen is shown to have been a strategically-minded professional who closely monitored both his own critical fortunes and those of other Australian artists.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2019

The translation of traditional Western Desert iconography, narrative conventions and ceremonial aesthetics into the medium of acrylic painting, and onto the emergent plane of 'Aboriginal Art', has been among the great artistic achievements of the modern era. Despite the wealth of scholarship dedicated to this phenomenon, key aspects of it remain obscured in anthropological and art historical analysis. Based on fieldwork in the Australian Western Desert community of Balgo, this thesis develops an ethnographic account of how 'Country' is created through abstraction, kin-based processes of transmission, and the economics of art. Combining methodologies from anthropology and art history, this research seeks to develop an appreciation of Western Desert abstraction as a socio-cultural process. Abstraction is treated not merely as a particular kind of distilled formalism that resonates visually with 20th Century Western art historical and critical notions, but as a conceptual and creative process linked to a deconstruction of form and reconfiguration of meaning. In Balgo art these processes have resulted in the iconographic forms of the desert graphic system being superseded by other aesthetic features of that same system, particularly the practice of 'dotting'. This thesis analyses the development of dotting and other technical innovations into 'styles', and explores how these styles have in turn become an object of exchange and contestation within Balgo. The thesis also grapples with another significant, and related, gap in the anthropological literature: that of the economic contexts around acrylic painting. While Aboriginal art is widely acknowledged as part of an economic system, the forms on canvas or bark are rarely analysed as themselves implicated in, responsive to and expressive of fields of economic influence and motivation. In order to move beyond the dominant ritual-oriented interpretations of desert painting, this research frames painting as a form of Aboriginal labour. I treat art as work. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of the work of art, the thesis affords new interpretations around the novel forms on canvas as crystallizations of human action, as objectifications of value and the social processes that create it. In uniting the aesthetic and economic aspects of my analysis, I build a portrait of the way style develops between people who share camps and other resources. I show how the innovations and abstractions pioneered by individuals become sedimented in culture as tradition through processes of intergenerational transmission. In this context, as objectifications of practices of sharing and co-residence, the forms of acrylic Country in Balgo art can be understood not as representational, but as Country itself. Country in the form of acrylic dots, styles, entire paintings, or the relationship between paintings, is an embodiment or objectification of Aboriginal value that can be exchanged both within Balgo (between kin) and without (through the market) in the creation of other kinds of value. Through localised kin-based transmission of painting style and redistribution of artistic income, Balgo artists have recalibrated acrylic 'Country' as the customary basis of their economic autonomy.

This thesis examines the role of children's picture books in constructing cultural ideologies. It aims to analyse the dominant cultural ideologies inscribed in Thai and Australian children's picture books, with specific emphasis on how such identities are constructed through verbal and visual language. The analysis focuses on the changes, if any, in the construction of cultural ideologies in Thai and Australian children's picture books that won national awards from 1987 to 2006, and how the changes correspond to the impact of social change. The corpus chosen for analysis consists of 60 children's books, comprising 30 from Thailand and 30 from Australia. The picture books have either won the Thai National Book Development Committee Award or the Picture Book of the Year Award given by Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA). The thesis is structured around three themes based on the ideological construction of power in the books, including the construction of age relations, gender relations and community relations. Despite the fact that Thai society has undergone enormous change over the last two decades, the analysis shows that award-winning Thai children's books have been written mainly from a conservative point of view. They work by providing the foundations for social harmony and respect of order in a patriarchal and hierarchical society where all members are expected to know their proper place and live their lives in ways that contribute to the benefit of the whole community. Some slight changes can be detected in the way perspectives on those cultural ideologies have shifted at certain periods. These include the way of giving more emphasis to a child's self discovery over adult authority, the attempt to create non sexist picture books, and changes in the meaning and implication of unity and cohesion. Yet the analysis reveals that an ethos of conservative discourse still informs the books. It highlights the use of representation to control the overall appearance of idealised discourse in Thai society. In contrast, there is much variety and range in the way cultural ideologies have been constructed in award winning Australian children's books. While an ethos of conservative discourse can still be detected in the corpus, a number of books show that such ways of seeing the world can be challenged, questioned and even proved to be inadequate. Unlike the Thai books, the representation of patriarchal and hierarchical society can be overturned by giving more prominence to children's sense of agency and imagination and by portraying male and female characters in a more symmetrical way. In contrast to the depiction of the smooth and harmonious relationship between people of the same cultural and community groups in the Thai books, some recent Australian picture books emphasise the conflicts and disputes between different social groups. These changes are analysed in the context of the impact of social change. Social and political topics, such as the emancipation of women through the feminist movement and issues relating to contemporary politics including refugees, border control and cultural difference are taken into account.