Reproductive technology, public policy and single motherhood

In mid 2000, the Australian community engaged in a national debate over access to infertility treatment services. The debate was sparked by a Federal Court decision in late July. That decision, by Justice Sundberg in the case of McBain v State of Victoria 1 held that the provisions of the Infertility Treatment Act 1995 (Vic) which limited eligibility for infertility treatment to women who were married or in heterosexual de facto relationships, were inconsistent with section 22 of the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) which prohibits discrimination on the basis of marital status. Justice Sundberg held that, by virtue of section 109 of the Constitution, 2 the provisions of the Victorian Act were inoperative to the extent of the inconsistency between the State and Commonwealth legislation.

Hidden innovation : Policy, industry and the creative sector

The term ‘two cultures’ was coined more than 50 years ago by scientist and novelist C.P. Snow to describe the divergence in the world views and methods of scientists and the creative sector. This divergence has meant that innovation systems and policies have focused for decades on science, engineering, technology and medicine and the industries that depend on them. The humanities, arts and social sciences have been bit players at best; their contributions hidden from research agendas, policy and program initiatives, and the public mind. But structural changes to advanced economies and societies have brought services industries and the creative sector to greater prominence as key contributors to innovation. Hidden Innovation peels back the veil, tracing the way innovation occurs through new forms of screen production enabled by social media platforms as well as in public broadcasting. It shows that creative workers are contributing fresh ideas across the economy and how creative cities debates need reframing. It traces how policies globally are beginning to catch up with the changing social and economic realities. In his new book, Cunningham argues that the innovation framework offers the best opportunity in decades to reassess and refresh the case for the public role of the humanities, particularly the media, cultural and communication studies disciplines.

Effects of child care policy and environment on physical activity

Child care centers differ systematically with respect to the quality and quantity of physical activity they provide, suggesting that center-level policies and practices, as well as the center's physical environment, are important influences on children's physical activity behavior. Purpose To summarize and critically evaluate the extant peer-reviewed literature on the influence of child care policy and environment on physical activity in preschool-aged children. Methods A computer database search identified seven relevant studies that were categorized into three broad areas: cross-sectional studies investigating the impact of selected center-level policies and practices on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), studies correlating specific attributes of the outdoor play environment with the level and intensity of MVPA, and studies in which a specific center-level policy or environmental attribute was experimentally manipulated and evaluated for changes in MVPA. Results Staff education and training, as well as staff behavior on the playground, seem to be salient influences on MVPA in preschoolers. Lower playground density (less children per square meter) and the presence of vegetation and open play areas also seem to be positive influences on MVPA. However, not all studies found these attributes to be significant. The availability and quality of portable play equipment, not the amount or type of fixed play equipment, significantly influenced MVPA levels. Conclusions Emerging evidence suggests that several policy and environmental factors contribute to the marked between-center variability in physical activity and sedentary behavior. Intervention studies targeting these factors are thus warranted.

Decoupling 2 : technologies, opportunities and policy options

This report was produced by the Decoupling Working Group of the International Resource Panel. It explores technological possibilities and opportunities for both developing and developed countries to accelerate decoupling and reap the environmental and economic benefits of increased resource productivity. It also examines several policy options that have proved to be successful in helping different countries to improve resource productivity in various sectors of their economy, avoiding negative impacts on the environment. It does not seem possible for a global economy based on the current unsustainable patterns of resource use to continue into the future. The economic consequences of these patterns are already apparent in three areas: increases in resource prices, increased price volatility and disruption of environmental systems. The environment impacts of resource use are also leading to potentially irreversible changes to the world’s ecosystems, often with direct effects on people and the economy – for example through damage to health, water shortages, loss of fish stocks or increased storm damage. But there are alternatives to these scary patterns. Many decoupling technologies and techniques that deliver resource productivity increases as high as 5 to 10-fold are already available, allowing countries to pursue their development strategies while significantly reducing their resource footprint and negative impacts on the environment. This report shows that much of the policy design “know-how” needed to achieve decoupling is present in terms of legislation, incentive systems, and institutional reform. Many countries have tried these out with tangible results, encouraging others to study and where appropriate replicate and scale up such practices and successes.

Literacy assessment that counts : mediating, interpreting and contesting translocal policy in a primary school

In Australia, as in many western education systems over the last two decades, discourses of accountability and performativity have reshaped education policy that has in turn reorganised the work of school leaders and teachers. One of the effects of this reorganisation is increased attention to the production, analysis and display of student achievement data. In this paper we examine in detail a sequence of the production and reading of literacy assessment data in a small Catholic school. Our analysis uses institutional ethnography’s concept of the ‘active text’, the text as occurring in a specific place and time even as it is articulated to social relations beyond its immediate context. Through this process we learn from those involved how their everyday work brings into being formalised, textually authorised processes in a local site that ensure the school meets accountability requirements while enabling teachers to resist standardisation of literacy teaching and assessment.

Identifying the key sociocultural influences on drinking behavior in high and moderate binge-drinking countries and the public policy implications

Despite considerable state investment and initiatives, binge drinking is still a major behavioral problem for policy makers and communities in many parts of the world. Furthermore, the practice of bingeing on alcohol seems to be spreading to young people in countries traditionally considered to have moderate drinking behaviors. Using a sociocultural lens and a framework of sociocultural themes from previous literature to develop propositions from their empirical study, the authors examine binge-drinking attitudes and behaviors among young people from high and moderate binge-drinking countries. The authors then make proposals regarding how policy makers can use social marketing more effectively to contribute to behavior change. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 91 respondents from 22 countries who were studying in two high binge-drinking countries at the time. The results show support for three contrasting sociocultural propositions that identify influences on binge drinking across these countries.

The activation, appropriation and practices of student-equity policy in Australian higher education

Current national reforms in Australian higher education have prioritised efforts to reduce educational disadvantage within a vernacular expression of neoliberal education policy. Student-equity policy in universities is enmeshed in a set of competitive student recruitment relations. This raises practice-based tensions as universities strive to meet specific institutional targets for low-socio-economic status (SES) and Indigenous student participation, whilst broadening participation more generally within the sector. This paper seeks empirically to trace the activation and appropriation of federal policy through two sites of higher education policy practices: a state government-sponsored equity practitioner body and two differently positioned universities, Dawson and McIllwraith, as they engage with low-SES schools. Working together Dorothy Smith’s insights into the textually mediated activation of local practices, Levinson and colleagues’ concept of the local appropriation of authorised policy, and Bourdieu’s notion of the contested field, we demonstrate that the generation of state level and institutionally specific policies for student-equity practices not only articulates to federal policy, but also appropriates the ruling relations of mandated policy. Further, the scope of these creative local appropriations is organised within a hierarchical academic field through which particular institutional imperatives, as well as the needs of low-SES students, are negotiated. The analysis demonstrates the vernacularisation of policy in the national rearticulation of global discourses, in appropriation at the level of the state body and in the practices of equity workers.

Tensions between policy and practice : reconciliation agendas in the Australian curriculum English

In various parts of the world, Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are actively working towards Reconciliation. In Australia, the context in which we each undertake our work as educationalists and researchers, the Reconciliation agenda has been pushed into schools and English teachers have been called on to share responsibility for facilitating the move towards a new national order. The recently introduced Australian Curriculum mandates that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures be embedded with “a strong” but “varying presence” into each learning area (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2013). In this paper we consider the tensions between policy and practice, when discourses external to education are recontextualised into the discipline of English. We do so by applying an analytical framework based on Bernstein’s (1990, 1996,2000) sociological theories about the structure of instructional and regulative discourses. Our findings suggest that the space to exert Reconciliatory agendas in the Australian Curriculum English is ambiguous and thus holds the potential to not only marginalise Indigenous knowledges but also to create tensions between policy and practice for non-Indigenous teachers of English.

Before and after the creative city : the politics of urban cultural policy in Austin, Texas

This article examines the politics and practice of urban cultural policy in Austin, Texas. I demonstrate how aspects of the local context frame how local government and cultural sector interests strive to initiate the direction of policy. While larger trends—such as Richard Florida's creative city thesis—influence cultural policy and planning, specific contextual factors including prior economic development and growth management policy, departmental organization, the forum for interaction between municipal actors and non-governmental coalitions, and the character of the city's cultural economy mediate such trends to produce policy outcomes. As this case shows, contemporary urban cultural policy is not simply due to the rise of the creative city discourse, but is an evolving product of past policy structures and shaped by local institutions and actors.

Doctoral research training : encouraging timely completion – case study reflections of one university on how it supports a vibrant research training culture

This is a case study of a young university striving to generate and sustain a vibrant Research Training culture. The university’s research training framework is informed by a belief in a project management approach to achieving successful research candidature. This has led to the definition and reporting of key milestones during candidature. In turn, these milestones have generated a range of training programs to support Higher Degree Research (HDR) students to meet these milestones in a timely fashion. Each milestone focuses on a specific set of skills blended with supporting the development of different parts of the doctoral thesis. Data on student progress and completion has provided evidence in highlighting the role that the milestones and training are playing in supporting timely completion. A university-wide reporting cycle generated data on the range of workshops and training provided to Higher Degree Research students and supervisors. The report provided details of thesis topic and format, as well as participation in research training events and participant evaluation of those events. Analysis of the data led to recommendations and comments on the strengths and weaknesses of the current research training program. Discussion considered strategies and drivers for enhancements into the future. In particular, the paper reflects on the significant potential role of centrally curated knowledge systems to support HDR student and supervisor access, and engagement and success. The research training program was developed using blended learning as a model. It covered face-to-face workshops as well as online modules. These were supplemented by web portals that offered a range of services to inform and educate students and supervisors and included opportunities for students to interact with each other. Topics ranged from the research life cycle, writing and publication, ethics, managing research data, managing copyright, and project management to use of software and the University’s Code of Conduct for Research. The challenges discussed included: How to reach off campus students and those studying in external modes? How best to promote events to potential participants? How long and what format is best for face-to-face sessions? What online resources best supplement face-to-face offerings? Is there a place for peer-based learning and what form should this take? These questions are raised by a relatively young university seeking to build and sustain a vibrant research culture. The rapid growth in enrolments in recent years has challenged previous one-to-one models of support. This review of research training is timely in seeking strategies to address changing research training support capacity and student needs. Part of the discussion will focus on supervisory training, noting that good supervision is the one remaining place where one-to-one support is provided. Ensuring that supervisors are appropriately equipped to address student expectations is considered in the context of the research training provisions. The paper concludes with reflection on the challenges faced, and recommended ways forward as the number of research students grows into the future.

The Politics of Urban Cultural Policy : Global Perspectives

The Politics of Urban Cultural Policy brings together a range of international experts to critically analyze the ways that governmental actors and non-governmental entities attempt to influence the production and implementation of urban policies directed at the arts, culture, and creative activity. Presenting a global set of case studies that span five continents and 22 cities, the essays in this book advance our understanding of how the dynamic interplay between economic and political context, institutional arrangements, and social networks affect urban cultural policy-making and the ways that these policies impact urban development and influence urban governance. The volume comparatively studies urban cultural policy-making in a diverse set of contexts, analyzes the positive and negative outcomes of policy for different constituencies, and identifies the most effective policy directions, emerging political challenges, and most promising opportunities for building effective cultural policy coalitions. The volume provides a comprehensive and in-depth engagement with the political process of urban cultural policy and urban development studies around the world. It will be of interest to students and researchers interested in urban planning, urban studies and cultural studies.

The 1989 Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) and refugee policy in Southeast Asia : twenty years forward what has changed?

In 2012, the only South East Asian countries that have ratified the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (hereafter referred to as the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol) is Philippines (signed 1954), Cambodia (signed 1995) and Timor Leste (signed 2001). Countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have annual asylum seeking populations from Myanmar, South Asia and Middle East, that are estimated to be at 15 000-20 000 per country (UNHCR 2012). The lack of a permanent and formal asylum processing process in these countries means that that asylum-seeking populations in the region are reliant on the local offices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees based in the region to process their claims. These offices rely upon the good will of these governments to have a presence near detection camps and in capital cities to process claims of those who manage to reach the UNHCR representative office. The only burden sharing mechanism within the region primarily exists under the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime (the Bali Process), introduced in 2002. The Bali Process refers to an informal cooperative agreement amongst the states from the Asia-Pacific region, with Australia and Indonesia as the co-chairs, which discusses its namesake: primarily anti-people smuggling activities and migration protocols. There is no provision within this process to discuss the development of national asylum seeking legislation, processes for domestic processing of asylum claims or burden sharing in contrast to other regions such as Africa and South America (i.e. 2009 African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of the Internally Displaced, 1969 African Union Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa and 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees [Americas]) (PEF 2010: 19).

Supporting quality timely doctoral completions : online tools that deliver research outcomes

This case study applied Weick's (1979) notion of sensemaking to support timely quality doctoral completion. Taking a socio-cultural perspective the paper explored how drivers can be applied to inform better fit (Durham, 1991). Global research themes, including growth in student numbers, timely completion and generation and distribution of research outcomes, are considered. It is argued that accessible and interactive web interfaces should be informed by quality assurance measures and key performance indicators. The contribution made is a better understanding of how phenomena and contexts can be applied to generate quality management of research training environments and research outcomes in universities.