Today the students, tomorrow the workers! : radical student politics and the Australian labour movement 1960-1972
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 1999
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This thesis provides a national overview of Australian student politics
between 1960 and 1972. It explores firstly the ways in which student
movements have been understood theoretically, especially the idea of
student protest as an early "new social movement". To establish context, I
discuss structural and cultural changes in the tertiary education system
during the 19508 and 1960s and some relevant aspects of the politics of the
postwar boom. Several chapters are then devoted to an analytical narrative
chronicling the rise of student protest from 1960 onwards. They explore the
rise of student protest in opposition to racism in the early 1960s and the
politics of the groups involved; then the particular role of students in the
development of the anti-Vietnam war movement and other social
movements which arose in this period. The growth of student radicalism
over particular on-eampus issues is also canvassed. The second part of the
thesis focuses particularly on the relationship between the student
movement and the labour movement. The course and nature of the
interaction between radical students and the Labor Party and Communist
Party is analysed. The politics of radical students is then discussed, in
relation especially to Maoism, Trotskyism, Humanism, Self-Management
and the New Left, with particular emphasis on ideas about the relationship
between students and the working class. Some key episodes of
student/worker cooperation are then examined, and the final chapter
outlines the rise of a new, more militant trade union movement over the
course of this period. The conclusion discusses the implications of this
thesis for social movement theory and how the "sixties" is remembered
today.
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