Thank you to those who responded to my request in the last AARE NEWS by supplying information regarding recently awarded doctoral theses in education. I am still looking for more volunteers. If you are willing to pass on current details (within the last six months) from your institution please email me at t.gale@cqu.edu.au. Alternatively, you might be able to pass on this request to the person(s) at your institution who regularly handles this data.
In this issue I want to stress again, and perhaps more explicitly, my intention that this column be more than just an avenue for celebrating the completion of education doctoral theses, as important as such celebrations are. In my mind, it is also one way in which to demonstrate the shortcomings of recent policy documents that appear silent with respect to the knowledge contributions of Australian educational research. In brief, the extracts below (and, more broadly, the pages of ACER's Biography of Education Theses in Australia) illustrate that there is a lot of educational research going on and much of it is good work.
In addition, making public the research of doctoral graduates provides one way of speaking back to market rhetoric that suggests the primary benefits of postgraduate study are private and that such indulgence warrants similarly (and often substantial) private contributions. Clearly, it is important to ask who benefits from research --- we have been guilty in the past of not taking these questions seriously enough --- but it is an enormous leap of faith to suggest that the public returns on these investments are secondary to researchers' self-interests. There are also broader issues here that a marketisation of postgraduate research fails to address; in particular, issues related to social justice and investments in Australia's long-term future.
At any rate, drawing this educational research to your attention allows you to make your own judgements on these public/private matters. Below I have included nine titles and two abbreviated abstracts of doctoral theses awarded during 1999. Again, 'completeness' has not been a high priority; I am beholden to my suppliers as well as constrained by space. Congratulations to the authors. For all the reasons above, I encourage them to seek out public forums in which to make their research known.
Trevor Gale