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The relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and the academic performance of children is well established in sociological research. Another important dimension is the factors that may influence educational outcomes within low SES families. This paper presents new data from a sample of over 3000 students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds to estimate the extent of socioeconomic, family, individual and contextual factors on school educational performance. Results obtained using binomial logistic regression techniques indicate that gender, unexplained absences, parental educational attainment, housing type, ethnicity and student age are all statistically significant variables and predictors of academic performance. In contrast, family structure, the main source of family income and geographical location do not significantly predict outcomes in school performance once other factors are controlled for. The findings support the notion that the 'social' and the 'economic' components of the socioeconomic status equation have distinct and separate influences on educational outcomes. While financial assistance to schools and families in need is important, policies and programmes that also assist low-income parents in providing appropriate psychological and educational support for their children should also be promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian sociologists have barely engaged with the resurgence of economic sociology in the USA and Europe. It might be argued that this lack of engagement arises from a robust local agenda, immune from metropolitan fashions This article argues that this is not the case. Rather, it arises from the enduring residualism of Australian sociology vis-a-vis economics In turn, this residualism is grounded in sociology's late beginnings in Australia, the dominant framework at the time of its institutionalization in the 1950s and 1960s, and the limited challenge presented by critical approaches from the 1970s. The article identifies four major lines of inquiry in the resurgence of economic sociology: network analysis, comparative political economy, field theory and performativity theory Notwithstanding their differences, these approaches direct attention to the social construction of markets. In turn, they challenge both mainstream economics and sociology. The papers in this Special Edition of the Journal of Sociology build upon these lines of inquiry in the Australian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unemployment policy is currently informed by notions of labour force flexibility, workfare and mutual obligation. Things have not always been this way. Over this century there have been profound shifts in the way in which unemployment and government responsibilities have been conceptualized. Using the notion of 'welfare rationalities' to guide the discussion, this paper records the nature of these changes. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which economic objectives intersect with the social and moral-behavioural components of unemployment programmes. The changing nature of these factors is traced through three distinct welfare rationalities surrounding un/employment: relief, full employment and mutual obligation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the development of a new occupational status scale, the Australian Socioeconomic Index 2006 (AUSEI06). This is the latest in the series of ANU scales, which since 1965 have provided a means for researchers to convert data coded in accordance with official occupational classifications into occupational status scores. The ANU scales have been widely used in fields such as sociology, education, economics and health. The new scale has been developed in response to the introduction of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Recent changes in the structure of the labour market are taken into account through the use of 2006 Australian Census data for scale development. In addition, the naming convention of the scale has been revised in order to better reflect its nature: the Australian (AU) Socioeconomic Index (SEI) 2006 (06) or AUSEI06. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National Competition Policy (NCP), legislated in Australia in 1995, has arguably been the single most consequential economic policy over the past decade. Yet it has largely escaped sociological analysis, This article investigates how the concept of the public interest in NCP has actually had the effect of legitimizing neo-liberal ideologies concerning private, individual, economic interests. Using critical policy analysis, this article examines how this legitimization has occurred through: (1) the policy language of the public interest, and how this discourse has shifted over time; (2) the implementation of NCP, particularly the application of the public interest test; and (3) evidence proffered by dominant institutions about the social and economic distributional outcomes of NCR. This analysis demonstrates that the policy language and public discourse of the public interest has been used to secure hegemonic control to legitimate the interests of dominant groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]