Using the index for inclusion to develop inclusive school communities

This chapter provides an overview of how school communities can work together in processes or review and development to strive towards a more inclusive approach to education. The writers of this chapter have been using a resource called the Index for Inclusion (Booth & Ainscow, 2005, 2011) for a number of years in Australia and in a pilot trail in New Zealand to support education staff in processes of review, with the aim to increase the participation and learning of all students. The resource supports the development of collaborative community processes and defines inclusion as ‘putting values into action’ (Booth & Ainscow, 2011, p.18). The process of review and development for more inclusive and socially just schools supports the development of a school culture, policy and practice where people are valued and treated with respect for their varied knowledge and experiences. In our experience, this resource has been useful to challenge our thinking about education in school communities and in region/districts about inclusive school development. We suggest the Index framework is broad enough to be used in a range of settings and countries. The resource is also useful for pre-service and in-service teacher development to provoke reflection and discussion about inclusion. This chapter provides an overview of the dimensions and framework that inform the Index of Inclusion. We discuss how the Index can be used in school contexts and draw on our own experience to give real examples of how teachers, paraprofessionals, students, principals and parents have experienced the Index when used in their local school communities in Australia and New Zealand. The chapter concludes with some points for discussion to challenge the status quo in schools and to inspire teachers to work towards a more socially just society through making changes at a school level.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of a kidney and cardiovascular disease treatment program in an Australian Aboriginal population

The objective of the study was to assess, from a health service perspective, whether a systematic program to modify kidney and cardiovascular disease reduced the costs of treating end-stage kidney failure. The participants in the study were 1,800 aboriginal adults with hypertension, diabetes with microalbuminuria or overt albuminuria, and overt albuminuria, living on two islands in the Northern Territory of Australia during 1995 to 2000. Perindopril was the primary treatment agent, and other medications were also used to control blood pressure. Control of glucose and lipid levels were attempted, and health education was offered. Evaluation of program resource use and costs for follow-up periods was done at 3 and 4.7 years. On an intention-to-treat basis, the number of dialysis starts and dialysis-years avoided were estimated by comparing the fate of the treatment group with that of historical control subjects, matched for disease severity, who were followed in the before the treatment program began. For the first three years, an estimated 11.6 person-years of dialysis were avoided, and over 4.7 years, 27.7 person-years of dialysis were avoided. The net cost of the program was 1,210 dollars more per person per year than status quo care, and dialyses avoided gave net savings of 1.0 million dollars at 3 years and 3.4 million dollars at 4.6 years. The treatment program provided significant health benefit and impressive cost savings in dialysis avoided.

The legitimation and reproduction of discourse-practice gaps in work-life balance

Purpose - Critical scholarship on work-life balance (WLB) and its associated practices maintains that workplace flexibility is more than a quasi-functionalist response to contemporary problems faced by individuals, families or organisations. Beginning with Fleetwood’s contention that WLB discourses have become "detached" from their associated practices, this paper explores how workplace practices support or challenge dominant WLB discourses evident in socio-cultural, political and organisational sources. Design/methodology/approach - We analyse individual and group interview transcripts derived from 122 white-collar employees in two different organisational contexts (one public, one private) in the construction industry in Australia. Findings - Four major themes were identified in the data which illustrate discourse practice gaps. First, the demands facing this particular industry/ sector were framed as heightened and unique. Second, productivity was prioritised, dominating employees’ care-giving and lifestyle concerns. Third, employees’ caring responsibilities were communicated as personal and individual choices. Fourth, commitment and efficiency were judged on the basis of presence in the workplace. Research limitations/implications - Even in industries that have embraced WLB, workplace practices legitimate and reinforce the status quo, and maintain a gap between the promises of WLB and its potential to ameliorate conflict and assist workers to span the boundaries of paid work and other life domains. Originality/value - While the practices demonstrated in the research are focused on one industry, the study provides a critical analysis of how the contextually-influenced meaning of WLB is constructed, created and contested in these workplaces and the effects it produces.

Paris 1947 : The woman of fashion

Paris 1947 is the site of one of twentieth century fashion’s fictive highpoints. The New Look combined drama and poetics through an abiding rhetoric of elegance. In doing so it employed traditional modes of femininity, casting the woman of fashion in the guise of an ambiguous ‘new’ figure: half fairytale princess, half evil witch. This fashionable ideal was widely disseminated through key photographic representations, Willy Maywald’s 1947 image of the Bar Suit being a case in point. It was precisely such mythic formulations of ‘woman’ which Simone de Beauvoir was to take to task just two years later with the publication of The Second Sex. Driven by frustration with the status quo of real women, de Beauvoir recognised the role of fictive representations, both textual and visual in defining women. This paper reads key sections of The Second Sex through a comparative analysis of two iconic images of French women from 1947; Cartier-Bresson’s classic portrait of de Beauvoir and Willy Mayhold’s spectacular evocation of Christian Dior’s New Look. Cued by a compelling range of similarities between these images this paper explores links between fashion, feminism and fiction in mid-century French culture.

Review : "Ghosts...of the Civil Dead" -- John Hillcoat

Synopsis and review of the Australian prison film Ghosts...of the Civil Dead (John Hillcoat, 1988). Drawing heavily from the book In the Belly of the Beast by American author and long-term prisoner Jack Henry Abbott, as well as from the historical and philosophical work of Michel Foucault (the credits include ‘Foucault Authority – Simon During’), Ghosts… Of the Civil Dead is a searing critique of the so-called ‘new generation’ prison system developed in the United States and recently introduced in Australia. Director John Hillcoat and producer Evan English conducted extensive research for the film, including spending time at the National Institute of Corrections, a think tank in Colorado, and visiting numerous institutions like the ‘new Alcatraz’ at Marion Illinois and other maximum security prisons across the United States. Using a mix of professionals and non-actors, including former prisoners and prison guards, the ‘story’ was workshopped during a lengthy rehearsal period with many actual events and experiences of participants incorporated into the film. The end result deliberately blurs the line between American and Australian prison experience to make the political point that what had happened in the US – from where many events and characters, and much of the architecture and design of the prison are drawn – was beginning to happen in Australia. The film emphasises the vicious cycle of institutionalisation, and highlights the role state authorities play in manufacturing, provoking and manipulating violence and fear both in prisons and in wider society as a means to augment policing and surveillance of the population, to oppress the working classes, and to maintain the political status quo...

Quality assessment of service bundles for governmental one-stop portals : a literature review

Service bundles, in the context of e-government, are used to group services together that relate to a certain citizen need. These bundles can then be presented on a governmental one-stop portal to structure the available service offerings according to citizen expectations. In order to ensure that citizens utilise the one-stop portal and comprised service bundles for future transactions, the quality of these service bundles needs to be managed and maximised accordingly. Consequently, models and tools that focus on assessing service bundle quality play an important role, when it comes to increasing or retaining usage behaviour of citizens. This study focuses on providing a rigorous and structured literature review of e-government outlets with regards to their coverage of service bundle quality and e-service quality themes. The study contributes to academia and practice by providing a framework that allows structuring and classifying existing studies relevant for the assessment of quality for government portals. Furthermore, this study provides insights into the status quo of quality models that can be used by governments to assess the quality of their service bundles. Directions for future research and limitations of the present study are provided as well.

Virtual worlds in Australian and New Zealand higher education : remembering the past, understanding the present and imagining the future

3D virtual reality, including the current generation of multi-user virtual worlds, has had a long history of use in education and training, and it experienced a surge of renewed interest with the advent of Second Life in 2003. What followed shortly after were several years marked by considerable hype around the use of virtual worlds for teaching, learning and research in higher education. For the moment, uptake of the technology seems to have plateaued, with academics either maintaining the status quo and continuing to use virtual worlds as they have previously done or choosing to opt out altogether. This paper presents a brief review of the use of virtual worlds in the Australian and New Zealand higher education sector in the past and reports on its use in the sector at the present time, based on input from members of the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Worlds Working Group. It then adopts a forward-looking perspective amid the current climate of uncertainty, musing on future directions and offering suggestions for potential new applications in light of recent technological developments and innovations in the area.

Academia Accommodating Plagiarism? Surely Not!

In April 2010, Senior lecturer A discovered a new article on strategic entrepreneurship that contained her own words and paragraphs, published under the name of two complete strangers. Over the next eight months, in search of a just outcome, A contacted various people and institutions involved: the journal editor and publisher, and more than 20 academics and academic managers at five universities located in four different countries, including vice chancellors, rectors, and university professors. While nobody disputed the plagiarism (which involved at least three documents and more than 50 pages of text, tables, and figures), most were reluctant to act. Disillusioned by institutional responses, A had to decide whether to continue pursuing a just outcome at the risk of damaging professional relationships (and her future career), or whether to accept the status quo. She wondered what it would take to change the system to genuinely reject plagiarism.

Livable Housing Design : Who will take responsibility?

Current housing design and construction practices do not meet the needs of many people with disability and older people, and limits their inclusion and participation in community and family life. In spite of a decade of advocacy for regulation of access within residential environments, the Australian government has opted for a voluntary approach where the housing industry takes responsibility. Housing industry leaders have indicated that they are willing to transform their established practice, if it makes good business to do so, and if there is a demand from home buyers. To date, there has been minimal demand. In 2010, housing industry and community leaders formalised this commitment in an agreement, called Livable Housing Design, to transform housing design and construction practices, with a target of all new housing providing minimal access by 2020. This paper reports on a study which examined the assumption behind Livable Housing Design agreement; that is, individuals in the housing industry will respond voluntarily and take responsibility for the provision of inclusive housing. From interviews with developers, designers and builders in Brisbane, Queensland, the study found a complex picture of competing demands and responsibilities. Instead of changing their design and construction practices voluntarily to meet the future needs of users over the life of housing, they are more likely to focus on their immediate contractual obligations and to maintain the status quo. Contrary to the view of the government and industry leaders, participants identified that an external regulatory framework would be required if Livable Housing Design’s 2020 goal was to be met.

The importance of agency in facilitating the transition to a multifunctional countryside

We appreciate Holmes' body of work relating to transitions within the Australian landscape, and welcome the opportunity to engage in a discussion on this topic. The paper to which Holmes refers (Bjørkhaug and Richards, 2008) examined the application of agricultural (rather than landscape) multifunctionality in both Norway and Australia. Of specific focus was how non-tradeable concerns, such as environmental sustainability, faired under these divergent systems. We argued that Norway's multifunctionality was strong, due to it being embraced at both the policy and actor level, whereas Australia's could be described as weak. This ‘weak multifunctionality’ that we observed in Australia was due to an emerging bi-lateral (state and federal) policy framework that advocated the importance of environmental values which was rarely embraced by landholders who found themselves trapped on the ‘agricultural treadmill’. The nature of the treadmill is that alternative forms of land use are unthinkable when on-farm investments have been made that support the status quo – to get bigger and/or more efficient. For many of the Australian landholders interviewed in relation to this study, efficiency in production was at odds with the values necessary to effect a transition toward multifunctionality. For instance, graziers in Central Queensland were unconvinced of the value of conserving native flora and fauna when economic viability can be better assured through clear felling native forests to increase the productive capacity of the land.

Media innovations, user innovations, societal innovations

As the Journal of Media Innovations comes into existence, this article reflects on the first and most obvious question: just what do we mean by “media innovations”? Drawing on the examples of a range of recent innovations in media technologies and practices, initiated by a variety of media audiences, users, professionals, and providers, it explores the interplay between the different drivers of innovation and the effects of such innovation on the complex frameworks of contemporary society and the media ecology which supports it. In doing so, this article makes a number of key observations: first, it notes that media innovation is an innovation in media practices at least as much as in media technologies, and that changes to the practices of media both reflect and promote societal changes as well – media innovations are never just media technology innovations. Second, it shows that the continuing mediatisation of society, and the shift towards a more widespread participation of ordinary users as active content creators and media innovators, make it all the more important to investigate in detail these interlinked, incremental, everyday processes of media and societal change – media innovations are almost always also user innovations. Finally, it suggests that a full understanding of these processes as they unfold across diverse interleaved media spaces and complex societal structures necessarily requires a holistic perspective on media innovations, which considers the contemporary media ecology as a crucial constitutive element of societal structures and seeks to trace the repercussions of innovations across both media and society – media innovations are inextricably interlinked with societal innovations (even if, at times, they may not be considered to be improvements to the status quo).

The Australian Nonprofit Sector Legal and Accounting Almanac 2013

INTRODUCTION CASES For a number of years, Professor Myles McGregor-Lowndes, Frances Hannah and Anne Overell have compiled one to two page summaries of cases involving nonprofit organisations and published them on The Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Developing Your Organisation (DYO) website.1 You can be alerted of new case summaries as they are posted to the DYO website by subscribing to the ACPNS RSS feed or the ACPNS twitter service.2 There were some very significant cases during 2013, such as Commissioner of Taxation v Cancer & Bowel Research Association (see case notes 2.8.2 and 2.8.11), The Hunger Project case which is under appeal, but could change the face of PBI jurisprudence (see case note 2.8.7) while Home Health Pty Ltd retained the PBI status quo but might have been different if appealed (see case note 2.8.8). For sheer interest there is nothing better in my 30 odd years of reading tax and charity judgements than case involving The Study and Prevention of Psychological Diseases Foundation Incorporated (see case note 2.1.1). It even rivals some of the more bizarre cases from the US jurisdiction of which St Joseph Abbey v Castille (case note 2.10.9) is certainly ‘dead centre’. A set of cases which stand out for attention are those involving New Zealand’s Christchurch Cathedral which anyone with responsibility for heritage-listed buildings should study carefully, for implications in relation to their own circumstances. A number of cases summarised in this Almanac are working their way through the appeals process and care should be taken with their application. In addition, some of the cases are from jurisdictions outside Australia, and readers should exercise caution when considering the implications of these cases for Australian law. LEGISLATION The Almanac includes a review of major statutory amendments during 2013, which are relevant to the nonprofit sector in all Australian jurisdictions. Special thanks must go to Nathan MacDonald and the JusticeConnect team for providing legislative updates for Victoria. SPECIAL ISSUES DURING 2013 A number of legal practitioners have contributed articles on significant legal issues facing nonprofit organisations: charitable trusts giving to government entities (Alice Macdougall); workplace bullying (Tim Longwill); and privacy (James Tan and Nina Brewer). WORLD ROUND-UP Major developments from the UK and Ireland (Kerry O’Halloran), Canada (Peter Broder), New Zealand (Michael Gousmett and Susan Barker) and Jamaica (Frances Hannah) are all summarised in a review of a significant part of the common law charity jurisdictions. WHAT DOES 2014 HOLD The final section moves from looking in the rear view mirror to peering out the front windscreen to discern the reform agenda. The view from the windscreen in 2013 was of considerable reform traffic at the Commonwealth level jostling for a place in the parliamentary agenda. This year is quite different with a smaller number of vehicles ahead, but the potential for significant impact.

An economic case for providing free access to antiretroviral therapy for HIV-positive people in South Australia

Background As financial constraints can be a barrier to accessing HIV antiretroviral therapy (ART), we argue for the removal of copayment requirements from HIV medications in South Australia. Methods Using a simple mathematical model informed by available behavioural and biological data and reflecting the HIV epidemiology in South Australia, we calculated the expected number of new HIV transmissions caused by persons who are not currently on ART compared with transmissions for people on ART. The extra financial investment required to cover the copayments to prevent an HIV infection was compared with the treatment costs saved due to averting HIV infections. Results It was estimated that one HIV infection is prevented per year for every 31.4 persons (median, 24.0–42.7 interquartile range (IQR)) who receive treatment. By considering the incremental change in costs and outcomes of a change in program from the current status quo, it would cost the health sector $17 860 per infection averted (median, $13 651–24 287 IQR) if ART is provided as a three-dose, three-drug combination without requirements for user-pay copayments. Conclusions The costs of removing copayment fees for ART are less than the costs of treating extra HIV infections that would result under current conditions. Removing the copayment requirement for HIV medication would be cost-effective from a governmental perspective.

Socio-economic determinants for industry development : the case of Australia’s Sydney rock oyster industry

Socio-economic characteristics such as age, gender, educational attainment, employment status, and income contain vital information about how an industry may respond to changing circumstances, and hence are of importance to decision makers. While some socio-economic studies exist, relatively little attention has been given to fishery and aquaculture industries in regards to their socio-economic profiles and their role in the development prospects of these industries. In this study, by way of example, we focus on Australia’s Sydney rock oyster (Saccostrea glomerata) (SRO) industry. The aim of this study was identify the socio-economic profile of the SRO industry and to illustrate the value of such information for an industry management assessment. The SRO industry has experienced a major decrease in production volume since the late 1970 and continues to be affected by prevailing diseases and increasing market competition from Australia’s Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) industry. It is likely that socio-economic aspects have influenced this development within the SRO industry. The socio-economic profile was developed using data from a SRO industry farm survey which was undertaken in 2012. Findings suggested that this industry is characterised by a mature aged oyster farmer population and a part-time oyster farming approach. These characteristics may affect the farmers’ ability to drive innovation and growth. The results also suggested that there may be potential industry entry barriers present in the SRO industry which may prevent younger people taking up oyster farming. Given the results, the study concluded that the current socio-economic profile of the industry has likely contributed to the present economic status quo of the industry.