Insights into the biodiversity and social benchmarking components of the Northern Australian fire management and carbon abatement programmes

Much of northern Australia’s tropical savannas are subject to annual intense and extensive late dry season wildfires, much of this occurring on Aboriginal land. Based on the successful West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement (WALFA) model, which has resulted in significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions, fire abatement programmes are planned for other significant regions of northern Australia. This study offers an introduction to the ideas behind a proposed environmental and social benchmarking project that aims to evaluate the potential benefits of expanding the fire abatement program in northern Australia, under the leadership of NAILSMA and its partners. Gaining a better understanding of the biodiversity, social and cultural outcomes of these fire abatement activities is an important component of demonstrating multiple benefits of these programmes. We emphasize the role of both biodiversity and cultural mapping to establish benchmarks and baseline states, with the involvement of Indigenous communities being a key element to optimize social and biodiversity benefits. Consultation with Traditional Owners and ranger groups to establish an agreed set of targets, indicators and sampling protocols and methodologies are critical component of this process. Examples of preliminary work to date are provided.

The settlement and social inclusion of immigrant youth in New Zealand

The immigrant population of Aotearoa New Zealand has increased significantly over recent years. This rise in ethnic minority populations, especially from non-English speaking countries, has significant social implications for the country. Anecdotal and empirical evidence in New Zealand show that many immigrant youth are not socially included, and that this compromises their ability to settle successfully in New Zealand. This study investigates the settlement and social inclusion of immigrant youth in New Zealand. It investigates the significant/actors that act as barriers to their settlement and social inclusion. The study gathers data through face to face and telephone interviews from key informants who are service providers and experts in six cities in New Zealand. Data is analysed using an inductive approach to produce primarily qualitative data which identifies key themes and issues for different age groups, genders, migrant and refugee groups. It supplements this data with some quantitative data on frequency, duration and intensity. Findings reveal that most immigrant youth generally do not feel well settled and socially included in New Zealand, and that some may suffer psychological and social consequences due to this.

Critical environmental education research : re-engaging the debate

The field of research in environmental education has experienced several changes in orientation in its first 25 or so years. In the period of the 70s and 80s, the most visible approach to environmental education research was clearly applied science in nature. From the late 80s/early 90s there has been a period of intense debate about research in environmental education, in which the patterns of research established in the 70s and 80s came to be reflected upon in a more critical fashion, previously taken for granted assumptions questioned, and a range of new approaches to research identified and critically considered. Methodological debates were engaged, arguments for alternative approaches developed, and critiques presented. This article re-considers some of these arguments in light of recent critique and project research experience, and argues for a recognition of the practical exigencies in conducting project research in real contexts.

Doing research with teachers, parents and students : the ethics and politics of collaborative research

Truly collaborative research partnerships between universities and schools are seldom commonplace (Potter, 2001). Many schools – particularly those in disadvantaged communities – have long histories of being involved in research yet few see themselves with real investment in, ownership of and/or benefiting from the experience. In this chapter we discuss research conceived with more mutually beneficial researcher-researched relations, cognisant of the ‘importance of respecting and ultimately giving more than we take to the communities we research’ (Schultz, 2001, p. 1). The research involved teachers’, parents’ and students’ engagement with schooling in a secondary school in regional Australia. Rather than conducting the research on others, we attempted to craft our project with them. Michelle Fine (1994) argues that a decision to work with those we once might have written about or for, necessarily changes our work, making it both more ethical and more explicitly connected to struggles for social justice. This chapter draws on the voices of the teachers, parents and students we worked with and alongside during the research to explore the ethics and politics of such an approach.

Teens, cyberbullying and theatre as awareness raising : interim findings from research conducted on the audience of Phunktional Theatre Company's regional performances of 'who stole the sole?' (October 2015)

This report describes the effectiveness of Phunktional's regional theatre performance program

The temptations and failings of teacher effectiveness research: provocations of a ‘practice perspective’

This chapter provides a critical appraisal of teacher effectiveness research (TER). Like others before us, we argue that TER employs a reductive view of teaching—narrowly focused on the agency of individual teachers’ classroom-based pedagogic behaviours; overemphasising the role these behaviours have on student achievement; representing these behaviours as assayable in unproblematic ways; and, potentially having negative impacts on teachers and teaching. We suggest that the theoretical sensibilities of practice theory support more productive engagements with the complexities of teaching, and we argue that this alternative theoretical framing is more likely to engage teachers in transformational agendas than those offered by current manifestations of TER. We do this by drawing on the practice writings of Reckwitz (2002), Thrift (1996, 2007) and Schatzki (2012), who provide analyses of commonalities to be found amongst diverse practice theories. We argue that a ‘practice perspective’ provides an affirmative engagement with the complexities of teaching practice and is more likely to embolden new interpretations of what teaching is and can be.

The effects of technical and social conditions on workplace trust

This paper investigates the extent to which the technical and social contexts of organizations independently affect levels of workplace trust. We argue that, in an organizational context, trust is not just a relationship between an individual subject (the truster) and an object (the trustee) but is subject to effects from the conditions of the work relationship itself. We describe the organizational context as comprising both a technical system of production (where work gets done through the specification of tasks) and a social system of work (where problems of effort, compliance, conformity and motivation are managed). We analyse the relationship between trust and these two aspects of workplace context (technical and social systems). We also operationalize this in terms of differences between industries,  occupational composition and human resource management practices. The model is tested using data drawn from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. The results confirm that differences in industry, occupational composition and HRM practices all impact on levels of workplace trust. We review these results in terms of their implications for future research into the problem of analysing variation in trust at both the workplace and individual levels.

Competing on the higher ground : social expectations and sport

Research in sport ethics has traditionally focused on the ethical dimensions of the sport event and athletes, however the examination of the principles of ethics to the management and organisation of sport is a relatively recent phenomenon. The tension between the roles and responsibilities of sport as a business, and sport as an ethical and moral aspect of society has forced sport organisations to face an increased number of complex ethical dilemmas. As sport systems throughout the world become further professionalised and bureaucratised, the community understanding of what is ‘good’ is challenged. It is a commonly held expectation that there should be a high level of moral behaviour from those participating directly in the sport event (athletes, coaches, referees), however this expectation has extended to the sporting clubs and organisations which govern the sport itself.

Often used interchangeably, ethics and morality are complex terms concentrating on issues of right and wrong behaviour. Beauchamp and Bowie (1993) stated that the term morality suggests a social institution, composed of a set of standards which are pervasively acknowledged by the members of a culture, or alternatively a social construction. The application of ethics and moral values to the business environment applies across all sectors, including for-profit, non-profit and government, however Rubin (1990) found that the normative ethics, those which society accepts as ethical behaviour, varies from sector to sector. In the non-profit sector, to which many sport organisations belong, Rubin (1990) found that because the community expects more ‘good’, they accept less ‘bad’. As many sport organisations throughout the world remain largely non-profit, linked with the commonly held belief that sport is a foundation for moral behaviours, the idealistic expectation of ethical conduct placed upon them may be different to those of more mainstream business organisations.

Mewett (2003) noted the importance of sport as a social phenomenon which ramifies widely through society to become an intrinsic part of culture and community life. The different expectations of ethical conduct and moral value placed on sport organisations increases the public interest in the ethical dilemmas faced by these organisations. Using the concept of conflict of interest as an example, this paper will examine the tension and difference between the community and social understanding and expectations of sport, and those of the sport organisations themselves.

The odd bod, the icon and the modest woman : the differences and similarities amongst three Australian women music teachers, performers and composers

Throughout Australia's history there have been many women who have been active in music education, performance and composition, despite the traditional family commitments which women have negotiated, overcoming prevailing negative attitudes to success outside the home. The period 1900 to 1950 in Australia saw significant changes in the social structure such as universal suffrage, Federation and World War 1. These changes broadened opportunities for some women to negotiate a life-time career in music. The researcher has identified three significant women who were able to forge careers in music during this time in music teaching, composition and performance. The women were Mona McBurney, Ruby Davy and Ruth Flockart. The selected women were all unique; McBurney was an outstanding composer for her time, being the first woman in Australia to compose an opera. Also, she was the first woman in Australia to gain her Bachelor of Music. Despite these successes, she had a reputation for her overwhelming modesty and shyness. Davy was significant because of her diversified ability as a teacher, performer, composer and elocutionist, and because she was the first woman in Australia to gain her Doctorate of Music. Davy has been described by several people as unusual, strange, and an 'odd bod'. Flockart was a music teacher at Methodist Ladies' College Melbourne for almost fifty years, half of those as the Director of Music. She was a significant figure in contemporary music education, particularly as a choral conductor, where she has been described as an 'icon'. This research looks at the differences and similarities amongst these three women in terms of family life, social position, education and support systems, and their ability to negotiate a career in music teaching, performance and composition.

The diversity and complexity of settings and arrangements forming the ‘experienced environments’ for doctoral candidates : some implications for doctoral education

A significant feature of contemporary doctoral education is the continuing trend for research and research education to migrate beyond discipline-based institutional teaching and research structures. The result is a more diverse array of settings and arrangements for doctoral education linked to an increasingly global research enterprise. Recognising the complexity of what is a distributed environment challenges some commonly held assumptions about doctoral education and its practice. Drawing on data gathered in an Australian study of PhD programme development in Australia carried out in 2006–2009, the article describes the fluid and complex arrangements forming the ‘experienced environments’ for doctoral candidates, an environment that can afford them varying opportunities and challenges for completing their candidacy. Some implications for doctoral education are discussed.

Economic and social opportunity: the changing lives of Aboriginal Victorians

 This study examined Aboriginal advantage in Victoria, demonstrating that relatively rapid change is occurring on a number of socio-economic indicators. This research, including interviews with Aboriginal participants, highlighted the interdependence of Aboriginal agency and responsive societal structures as significant enablers of Indigenous progress and advancement.

The decision-making journey of a family carer : information and social needs in a cultural context

While the important role of family as carer has been increasingly recognised in healthcare service provision, particularly for patients with acute or chronic illnesses, the carer's information and social needs have not been well understood and adequately supported. In order to provide continuous and home-based care for the patient, and to make informed decisions about the care, a family carer needs sufficient access to medical information in general, the patient's health information specifically, and supportive care services. Two key challenges are the carer's lack of medical knowledge and the many carers with non-English speaking and different cultural backgrounds. The informational and social needs of family carers are not yet well understood. This paper analyses the web-log of a husband-carer who provided support for his wife, who at the time of care was a lung cancer patient. It examines the decision-making journey of the carer and identifies the key issues faced in terms of informational and social practices surrounding care provision.

Intertextual turns in curriculum inquiry : fictions, diffractions and deconstructions

This thesis is based primarily on work published in academic refereed journals between 1994 and 2003. Taken as a whole, the thesis explores and enacts an evolving methodology for curriculum inquiry which foregrounds the generativity of fiction in reading, writing and representing curriculum problems and issues. This methodology is informed by the narrative and textual 'turns' in the humanities and social sciences - especially poststructuralist and deconstructive approaches to literary and cultural criticism - and is performed as a series of narrative experiments and 'intertextual turns'. Narrative theory suggests that we can think of all discourse as taking the form of a story, and poststructuralist theorising invites us to think of all discourse as taking the form of a text; this thesis argues that intertextual and deconstructive readings of the stories and texts that constitute curriculum work can produce new meanings and understandings. The thesis places particular emphasis on the uses of fiction and fictional modes of representation in curriculum inquiry and suggests that our purposes might sometimes be better served by (re)presenting the texts we produce as deliberate fictions rather than as 'factual' stories. The thesis also demonstrates that some modes and genres of fiction can help us to move our research efforts beyond 'reflection' (an optical metaphor for displacing an image) by producing texts that 'diffract' the normative storylines of curriculum inquiry (diffraction is an optical metaphor for transformation). The thesis begins with an introduction that situates (autobiographically and historically) the narrative experiments and intertextual turns performed in the thesis as both advancements in, and transgressions of, deliberative and critical reconceptualist curriculum theorising. Several of the chapters that follow examine textual continuities and discontinuities between the various objects and methods of curriculum inquiry and particular fictional genres (such as crime stories and science fiction) and/or particular fictional works (including Bram Stoker's Dracula, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, and Ursula Le Guin's The Telling). Other chapters demonstrate how intertextual and deconstructive reading strategies can inform inquiries focused on specific subject matters (with particular reference to environmental education) and illuminate contemporary issues and debates in curriculum (especially the internationalisation and globalisation of curriculum work). The thesis concludes with suggestions for further refinement of methodologies that privilege narrative and fiction in curriculum inquiry.

Financial cooperatives and the development of social capital.

 Financial Cooperatives and the Development of Social Capital thesis examines the generation of social capital within locally owned and managed financial cooperatives and their communities in Cambodia, Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands and contrasts factors which affect the development of social capital and the associated impacts on the institution.