User:Rosieami/sandbox

Alison Gay Mackinnon is an emeritus professor of history and gender studies with the University of South Australia. She is a historian who has specialised in Australian history and, in particular, women's history. Areas of study and research have included the history of education, women's social history, the history and politics of population change, population ageing and the changing culture of work and responsibility in globalising societies.

Appointed professor of history and gender studies at the University of South Australia in 1997, she was also a Foundation Director of the Hawke Research Institute - Australia's largest social sciences and humanities institute - between 1997 and 2005.

In 2009, she was awarded in AM for service to education, particularly in the fields of social research and development, as an academic and author, and to the community through her roles with history organisations.

Early life and education
Mackinnon (neé Madin), was born in Shepparton, Victoria, the first of eight children. Her father, Keith George Madin, was a parson and her mother, Vera Stockdale Madin, had trained as a pharmacist. Her father had been a pacifist but changed his position when Japan joined the Second World War and threatened the Pacific region. He was served in an anti-tank regiment in Malaya before being interned as a POW in Borneo. While he was away for those war years, Alison and her mother lived with Alison's grandmother. As a high school student, she attended the Church of England Girls' Grammar School, the Hermitage, in Geelong, Victoria. Both her parents supported tertiary education for their children and Alison was offered a Commonwealth scholarship to study at the University of Melbourne. She turned it down, however, in favour of an Education Department Studentship, which paid a living allowance that meant she could afford to complete a BA and Diploma of Education.

In December 1964, she married Alistair (Malcolm) Mackinnon, a medical academic and researcher who went on to become Professor of Telemedicine at Flinders University. They have three sons. Influenced by the '70s women's movement and a new awareness of women's history and education, Mackinnon went back to university and completed a Masters of Education in 1981, submitting a thesis on the history of women's education, focusing on the Advanced School for Girls, 1879-1908. At the same time, she was working a a tutor and juggling the demands of a young family, experiencing firsthand the challenges facing working women. She completed a PhD at the University of Adelaide in 1989, with a thesis entitled Awakening women: women, higher education and family formation in South Australia c1880-1920. It earned Mackinnon an outstanding thesis award in 1990 from the  Australian Association of Education.

Career highlights
Mackinnon was a Research Fellow at the Research School for Social Sciences, ANU, Canberra, 1993-1994. Back at the University of South Australia, she was made Director of the Institute for Social Research (1994-1999); Director, University Research Development (1996-1998); Professor of History and Gender Studies in 1997 and Foundation Director of the Hawke Research Institute at the University of South Australia (1997 to December 2005). In November 2000 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Umeå, Sweden. Following her retirement from the University of South Australia, Mackinnon was appointed Emeritus Professor. She was awarded an AM in 2009.

Publications
Publications include:


 * Women, Love and Learning: The Double Bind (2010)
 * Hope: The Everyday and Imaginary Life of Young People on the Margins, with Simon Robb, Patrick O'Leary and Peter Bishop (2010)
 * Love and Freedom (1997) (awarded a New South Wales Premier's Literary Award)
 * The New Women: Adelaide's Early Women Graduates (1986).

Co-editor of:


 * The Hawke Legacy: Towards a Sustainable Society, with Gerry Bloustien and Barbara Comber (2009)


 * Fresh Water: New Perspectives on Water in Australia, with Stephen McKenzie and Jennifer McKay (2007)
 * Gender and the Restructured University, with Ann Brooks (2001)
 * Gender and Institutions: Welfare, Work and Citizenship, Moira Gatens (1998)
 * Education into the 21st Century, with Alison MacKinnon, Inga Elgqvist-Saltzman and Alison Prentice (1998).