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    ‘Profitable for the country’. An Australian historical perspective of the contested purpose of public universities

    78209.pdf (309.5Kb)
    Access Status
    Open access
    Authors
    Pitman, Tim
    Date
    2020
    Type
    Journal Article
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citation
    Pitman, T. 2020. ‘Profitable for the country’. An Australian historical perspective of the contested purpose of public universities. Higher Education Research and Development. 39 (1): pp. 13-25.
    Source Title
    Higher Education Research and Development
    DOI
    10.1080/07294360.2019.1665627
    ISSN
    0729-4360
    Faculty
    Faculty of Humanities
    School
    Humanities Research and Graduate Studies
    Remarks

    This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Higher Education Research & Development on 29/10/2018 available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/07294360.2019.1665627

    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/78067
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    This article analyses the social contract formulated between state and university, in the period 1850–1930. Using contemporary records–for example, legislation, parliamentary debates, university acts, newspaper articles, senate and professorial board minutes, and similar–this article examines how Australia’s early scholarly community contested and negotiated what it believed to be the purpose of higher education, with a sometimes-conflicting view held by the state. The analysis indicates that, from the outset, certain paradoxes have inscribed into these foundational negotiations. Conflicting narratives of opportunity and privilege positioned universities, simultaneously, as agents for social inclusion and maintainers of social privilege. The purpose of knowledge as either/both pure and practical has been another point of contestation. Consequently, universities vacillate between acts of social conservatism and progressivism. These tensions remain apparent in the modern purpose of higher education institutions.

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