Class in Australia interrogates the position of class as an explanatory concept and investigates the current state and future of class analysis in Australia by bringing together a range of new and original research on inequality and class. Two decades since it was claimed that class is dead, social, economic and cultural inequalities are rising. Though Australia is often described as a 'lucky country' with a strong economy, we are witness to intensifying inequality with entrenched poverty and the growth of precarious and insecure labour. The disassociation of the rusted-on Labor voter and the rise of far-right politics suggest there is an urgent need to examine the contemporary functions of class relations. Class analysis in Australia has always had a contested position. The prominence of scholarship from the UK and US has often meant class analysis in Australia has had little to say about its settler colonial history and the past and present dynamics of race and racism that are deeply embedded in social and labour relations. In the post-war turn away from Marx and subsequent embrace of Bourdieu, much sociological research on class has focused on explorations of consumption and culture. Long-standing feminist critiques of the absence of gendered labour in class analysis also pose challenges for understanding and researching class. At a time of deepening inequality, Class in Australia is a timely examination of class relations, labour exploitation, and the changing formations of work in contemporary Australian society. 'From colonial inequality to Upper Middle Bogan, this captivating volume dives deep into how class has shaped our nation. Through studies of the unemployed, warehouse workers, unions and school students, this book presents the finest analysis of class that Australian sociology has to offer. Read it to get a richer understanding of poverty, a stronger sense of social status, and a nuanced analysis of how gender, race and sexuality intersect with class.' -- Andrew Leigh MP 'This is a must-read collection for anyone interested in the topic of class in Australia. This collection digs deeps and engages with relevant and timely discussions about class using both an historical and contemporary lens. For anyone who is teaching, studying, or writing about class as theory or method, this book will open up rich and productive conversations. Class is an enduring problematic, both as a descriptor, heuristic device or theoretical framework. This collection aptly responds to this problematic, engaging with class across multiple intersections including gender, race and space. It taps into class as symbolic and ephemeral whilst also highlighting the material, tangible divisions that it produces.' -- Dr. Emma Rowe, Senior Lecturer in Education, Deakin University

Collection of essays which describe and examine the consequences of the Australian class structure. The findings and observations of the authors are based on their 1986 national survey of the Australian workforce.

This text seeks to analyse and explain inequality, challenging traditional conceptions and providing a new critical perspective. The authors provide a comprehensive historical account of inequality, and show how that account no longer adequately explains the new and different forms of inequality experienced in recent decades. As society has changed, they argue, new forms of inequality have emerged, conditioning the subject's very experience of identity, embodiment and politics. The book is at once a critical overview of contemporary inequality and a thorough-going textbook suitable for undergraduates.

This highly practical text offers complete and comprehensive coverage of class action law in Australia. Addressing the wide ranging developments since the first edition published in 2005, the authors continue to cover class action litigation fully, from commencement through choice of forum, opting-out, conduct, trial, settlement, costs and funding.

This book offers an understanding of the transient migration experience in the Asia-Pacific through the lens of communication and entertainment media. It examines the role played by digital technologies and uncovers how the combined wider field of entertainment media (films, television shows and music) are vital and helpful platforms that positively aid migrants through self and communal empowerment. This book specifically looks at the upwardly mobile middle class transient migrants studying and working in two of the Asia-Pacific’s most desirable transient migration destinations – Australia and Singapore – providing a cutting edge study of the identities transient migrants create and maintain while overseas and the strategies they use to cope with life in transience.

The Routledge International Handbook of Race, Class, and Gender chronicles the development, growth, history, impact, and future direction of race, gender, and class studies from a multidisciplinary perspective. The research in this subfield has been wide-ranging, including works in sociology, gender studies, anthropology, political science, social policy, history, and public health. As a result, the interdisciplinary nature of race, gender, and class and its ability to reach a large audience has been part of its appeal. The Handbook provides clear and informative essays by experts from a variety of disciplines, addressing the diverse and broad-based impact of race, gender, and class studies. The Handbook is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students who are looking for a basic history, overview of key themes, and future directions for the study of the intersection of race, class, and gender. Scholars new to the area will also find the Handbook’s approach useful. The areas covered and the accompanying references will provide readers with extensive opportunities to engage in future research in the area.

How Australians fund schooling has been a matter of bitter political, social and religious division for almost two hundred years. And it remains so. The 2012 Gonski Review, urging all jurisdictions to move towards consensus on a needs-based and socially just education system, has continued to encounter forms of political obstruction. By examining the principles, the motives and the means of those who, since Menzies, have fought to develop and maintain a class-based education system at the expense of a broader view of social justice, this book explains how and why Australian education policy remains mired in political controversy. Tony Taylor is Adjunct Professor at the Australian Centre for Public History, University of Technology, Sydney, and at Federation University. For half a century he has worked as an educator in schools and universities in the United Kingdom and Australia, teaching, researching and publishing in the fields of educational politics, policy and history. (Series: Monash Studies in Australian Society) [Subject: Education, Politics, Policy Studies, Cultural Studies]