The Martin Presence

Jean Martin was a pioneer of sociology, inventing a version of the discipline that was uniquely suited to Australia in the post-war period.

Jean Isobel Martin (192379) made herself a sociologist before the discipline was established in Australia. Regarded as a founder of Australian sociology, her writing, teaching and policy helped shape Australia in the period of economic growth and social development that followed World War II. The Martin Presence is a biography that examines her life and her work across the concerns of the time the needs of country towns, the factory work floor, families and urban structure, poverty and inequality, education and immigration and explores her far-reaching influence on the social sciences in Australia.