One of Australia's most challenging writers and speakers on social change and its impact on the workplace, family, schools and community life and the way government will have to operate in the global information age.
Don Edger’s latest book - The Patchwork Nation: Re-thinking government, Re-building community (Harper Collins, 2001) - has caused a major rethink about government services in partnership with corporate and community groups.
Dr. Edgar comes with a wealth of both academic and practical experience in the implementation of change programs and is a much sought-after public speaker. Don is a writer and consultant to business and government. He is the author of 15 books, ranging from Social Change in Australia (1983), to Men, Mateship, Marriage (1997), and many academic papers and reports. Two new books are in preparation - Get a (Working) Life! - on the problematic work-family balance, and 'Art for the Country', a study of the community growth and significance of the Regional Art Galleries of Australia.
Don has held Professorships at the University of Chicago, Monash and La Trobe Universities. He was Professorial Fellow at Monash University's Key Centre in Industrial Relations, and is currently an Adjunct Professor with the Centre for Workplace Culture Change, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Don was the Foundation Director (for 14 years) of the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Don works advising companies on work-life programs, better linkages with community services and the schools, and studying job skills gaps in rural regions. He has now dropped his academic affiliations and works as a consultant to business and governments Australia-wide.
Don writes regularly for The Australian, and The Age. He consults privately and is a busy public lecturer. Some of his latest consultancies include 'The New Links Workplace', getting companies to forge closer links with community services; a Discussion Paper for Deakin Human Services on 'An Ideal Model of Family Services Delivery'; and a Discussion Paper for Queensland Education Ministry on 'Social Trends and their Impact on Schools in the New Millennium'.
Dr. Edgar completed school in Warrnambool, did his first degrees at the University of Melbourne (BA, Dip Ed, B Ed, M Ed); taught in secondary schools (starting at Geelong High School) before becoming a lecturer in teacher education at the University of Melbourne; then he studied for his PhD at Stanford University in California before being appointed Professor & Research Associate at the University of Chicago.
On his return to Australia, he held senior positions in Sociology at Monash and La Trobe Universities before being appointed by the federal government to establish the AIFS.
He was a member of the Victorian Status of Women Committee, which drafted the first Equal Opportunity Legislation, chaired the Schools Commission's 'Country Education Project', was a member of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO, Secretary of the International Sociological Association's Family Research Committee, and of the General Council of the International Union of Family Organisations. He is currently a member of UNESCO's Social Science Advisory Committee; a member of the Victorian Premier's Reference Group on Community Building; and a member of Lend Lease's Advisory Group on the Victoria Harbour Development at Melbourne's Docklands
Don Edgar is married to Dr. Patricia Edgar, Director of the Australian Children's Television Foundation (and biographer of Janet Holmes a Court); is the father of two daughters, and has three grandsons and one granddaughter.
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