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Living as a child: children's experiences in England c. 1400-1750. How we best nurture and socialize the next generation of Australians is currently a matter of critical debate. Yet modern Australian attitudes to childhood and practices of child-rearing were first formed in the crucible of pre-modern Europe. Our proposed history of children's experiences in England c. 1400-1750 will provide a rich understanding of the foundations of present-day theories and practices of child-rearing. It will e ....Living as a child: children's experiences in England c. 1400-1750. How we best nurture and socialize the next generation of Australians is currently a matter of critical debate. Yet modern Australian attitudes to childhood and practices of child-rearing were first formed in the crucible of pre-modern Europe. Our proposed history of children's experiences in England c. 1400-1750 will provide a rich understanding of the foundations of present-day theories and practices of child-rearing. It will enable us to distinguish universal features of child-rearing from those which change over time, and to maintain Australia's international reputation for top-class research and research training in pre-modern history and culture.Read moreRead less
Socio-economic determinants of future fertility trends in Australia and other developed countries. Future demographic trends will do much to determine Australia's future. Fertility levels will dominate in deciding population numbers, age structure, and the optimum balance between natural increase and immigration. Current ARC-supported research on the theory of demographic transition provides a paradigm for forecasting likely trends, especially when employed with an existing data bank of findings ....Socio-economic determinants of future fertility trends in Australia and other developed countries. Future demographic trends will do much to determine Australia's future. Fertility levels will dominate in deciding population numbers, age structure, and the optimum balance between natural increase and immigration. Current ARC-supported research on the theory of demographic transition provides a paradigm for forecasting likely trends, especially when employed with an existing data bank of findings on social and demographic interrelations. The research is of great national benefit because even small differences in age structure will impact significantly on the size of the labour force, health services, the support of the aged and taxation levels. Relevant policy decisions will need to be made in the near future.Read moreRead less
Interactive Demographic Transition: Analysis and Theory. The demographic transition, or decline in mortality and fertility levels to produce the modern small family and normally long-lived individuals, may well be the most important social change of our time. It has occasioned much research but theory is still in disarray. This is at least partly explained by a disregard for feed-back mechanisms in the form of organized movements supporting and opposing such demographic change. My aim is to r ....Interactive Demographic Transition: Analysis and Theory. The demographic transition, or decline in mortality and fertility levels to produce the modern small family and normally long-lived individuals, may well be the most important social change of our time. It has occasioned much research but theory is still in disarray. This is at least partly explained by a disregard for feed-back mechanisms in the form of organized movements supporting and opposing such demographic change. My aim is to reanalyze data from my own and others? work, taking such interactions into account, to produce a demographic transition theory suited both to historical explanation and the guidance of contemporary policy.Read moreRead less
Gender, power and identity in the early modern Nassau family. Our family identities shape our experiences of relationships, support structures, and interactions in broader communities around us but how do gender and power relationships affect expressions of family identities? Our project uses a case study of the early modern Nassau-Orange family, whose extensive and diverse sources include letters, art, architectural precincts, naming patterns, and even colonial endeavours. The word and colour o ....Gender, power and identity in the early modern Nassau family. Our family identities shape our experiences of relationships, support structures, and interactions in broader communities around us but how do gender and power relationships affect expressions of family identities? Our project uses a case study of the early modern Nassau-Orange family, whose extensive and diverse sources include letters, art, architectural precincts, naming patterns, and even colonial endeavours. The word and colour orange today symbolise Protestantism and the Dutch worldwide as a result of this pivotal family's self-presentation in the early modern period. We will produce monographs, PhD thesis, and research training in an international humanities team led by Australian researchers. Read moreRead less
UNDERSTANDING COLONIAL AUSTRALIA / BUILDING A NATIONAL RESOURCE. Understanding colonial Australia uses new methods with old data to penetrate the workings of the convict labour markets, the levels of wellbeing they supported, and the ways in which families distributed those resources among their members. Australia's position in the league-table of living standards is established against the four countries which contributed people to European Australia: England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The o ....UNDERSTANDING COLONIAL AUSTRALIA / BUILDING A NATIONAL RESOURCE. Understanding colonial Australia uses new methods with old data to penetrate the workings of the convict labour markets, the levels of wellbeing they supported, and the ways in which families distributed those resources among their members. Australia's position in the league-table of living standards is established against the four countries which contributed people to European Australia: England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The outcome is a history of wellbeing and inequality in colonial Australia. A spin-off from this research is the creation of a unique national resource: a computerised longitudinal data base on Australia's first white citizens, the convicts.Read moreRead less
Family, Politics and Society: The Valori Household and Florence, 1380-1650. This is a study of one family's engagement in the turbulent and dangerous world of Florentine politics over nine generations. A study of the Valori will enable us to identify the political assumptions that inspired them and other Florentines to fight against the trends towards despotism. An understanding of these assumptions and the civic values they engendered will benefit our society's efforts to strengthen family bond ....Family, Politics and Society: The Valori Household and Florence, 1380-1650. This is a study of one family's engagement in the turbulent and dangerous world of Florentine politics over nine generations. A study of the Valori will enable us to identify the political assumptions that inspired them and other Florentines to fight against the trends towards despotism. An understanding of these assumptions and the civic values they engendered will benefit our society's efforts to strengthen family bonds, instil civic responsibility and combat the political indifference which, in the opinion of our political leaders, threatens to 'disengage the young from the democratic process' (Governor-General Michael Jeffery, 26-1-2005).Read moreRead less
Voicing the Welfare State: Experiences of the Sixteenth-Century French Poor. This research enhances our historical understanding of poverty and its support mechanisms in Europe's past, through reconstruction of a comprehensive and detailed picture of the sixteenth-century French poor. New methodologies and techniques for recovery of formal and informal social networks will be developed. Historical models of such mechanisms provide context of the long history of Australia's welfare structure mode ....Voicing the Welfare State: Experiences of the Sixteenth-Century French Poor. This research enhances our historical understanding of poverty and its support mechanisms in Europe's past, through reconstruction of a comprehensive and detailed picture of the sixteenth-century French poor. New methodologies and techniques for recovery of formal and informal social networks will be developed. Historical models of such mechanisms provide context of the long history of Australia's welfare structure models, philosophy and participation strategies. The programme provides expert research training for early career researchers, in a collaborative Humanities team environment. Australian historians can thus continue to generate globally competitive and significant research.Read moreRead less