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Historically, males from low socio-economic backgrounds have been a difficult demographic for educators to reach and engage. Despite efforts to widen participation in Australia, males who would be considered 'first-in-family', remain severely underrepresented in higher education. For those who do attend, they often encounter significant barriers and are at a higher risk of attrition. Experiences with employment can be a determiner of their success at university both in terms of informing or reaffirming their prospects for future employment. While recent policies in Australia have sought to integrate working-integrated learning (WIL) into university studies, these are not available to all students thus opportunities to develop skills and attributes through WIL remains a fragmented picture. As a result, we are witnessing many young people who are concerned about their future employability seeking out non-formal WIL opportunities to bolster their CVs. This paper explores the motivations of first-in-family males to pursue non-formal WIL opportunities and the effects these endeavours had upon their aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the evolution of generation technology-mix in Australia, with specific emphasis on understanding how such evolution has been shaped by wider political and socio-economic influences. This assessment is predicated on the argument that the contemporary, quintessentially techno-economic, policy discourse on renewable energy is deficient, as it ignores climacteric political and socio-economic influences on generation technology-mix. The methodological framework employed in this paper is informed by the core tenets of technological change theory. The assessment suggests that generation technology-mix in Australia has historically been overwhelmingly influenced by the underlying technological paradigm of the electricity industry; and that this technological paradigm essentially draws its imprimatur from the wider political and socio-economic contexts. By implication, it suggests that a rapid uptake of renewables will have widespread ramifications, extending into political, socio-economic and cultural realms of a society. Clearly, existing policy discourse – that tends to focus on technical potentials, cost competitiveness, externalities and risks of various renewable technologies – is deficient. A much broader discourse is needed. This paper also made an attempt to develop a basis for such a discourse by reviewing broader aspects of the Australian society that would be affected by a rapid uptake of renewables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working at a satellite campus of an Australian regional university, where many students are the first in their family to attend university, fear of failure can present a strong disincentive to creative experimentation. Consequently, the authors have developed a number of tacit strategies with which to gently engender students with critical and creative skills at the expense of short-term vocational expectations. This de-emphasis of vocational specificity is particularly radical in a social context in which unemployment is high, cultural diversity is low (despite a higher than average Indigenous population) and education levels remain low. This paper seeks to explore the challenge of fostering a climate of critically engaged creative experimentation in a relatively conservative and socially disadvantaged regional context. The authors consider whether there is pedagogical value in facilitating the creation of liminal spaces between community and classroom in a social environment more attuned to vocational aspiration and economic sustenance than critical self -reflexive agency. The paper also addresses the role of student centred learning and the idea of the undergraduate student as researcher as critical to facilitating a holistic educational experience. This case study proposes a pedagogical climate that might performatively emphasise the importance of students re-imagining their own ethical, philosophical, spiritual and political futures. The authors find that the potential for failure is incontrovertibly linked to each of these aims. In a world in which previously unimagined contexts are routinely traversed the author's assert that the transformative potential of failure can unlock a transposable ability for students to critically navigate the complexity of contemporary cultural landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflecting on neo-liberal and Deleuzian theory, this paper examines how new modes of governance are shaping Australian regions and what kind of resistance is emerging in response to them, in particular to government encouragement of business and commercial appropriation. The first part of the paper discusses recent literature on regional policy-making in the context of neo-liberalism. It is argued that Deleuzian metaphors such as 'reterritorialisation', 'deterritorialisation', 'machinic assemblages', 'folding' and 'lines of flight' provide a rich conceptual vocabulary that can be used to enhance an understanding of contemporary regional policy-making. To demonstrate the efficacy of this claim, the paper draws upon the example of policy-making in the Australian State of Tasmania and the conflicts these policies have generated. Amongst the paper's conclusions is that the competitive practices now being pursued within the auspices of regional policy-making generate a set of new interactions that have significance both across Australia and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital has enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years, however debate continues over the concept in policy and community renewal strategies. This paper explores how different interpretations of the concept may affect the role that government is perceived to have in developing 'social capital'. Empirical research findings are used to explore the relevance of different social capital interpretations to the role of government in rural prosperity. The paper argues that the current dominant interpretation obscures the role that government can play in generating community prosperity. Additionally, this paper argues that the dominant interpretation of the concept does not acknowledge the effect that government actions may have on social networks and, therefore, social and economic outcomes. The paper comments on the implications of different social capital interpretations for policy development focused on the social and economic sustainability of rural Australia. It concludes that the political context of the use of social capital affects how it is interpreted. Further, the interpretation utilised affects government policy responses to the renewal of rural communities, a factor largely unrecognised in social capital debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global oil prices have risen markedly over the past 18 months, generating considerable speculation regarding their economic and social impacts. Cities that are highly dependent on petroleum for urban transport are likely to be most adversely affected by rising oil prices. Yet there has been little recent scholarly engagement with the socioeconomic implications of increasing oil prices. This paper develops a basic framework and methodology for assessing the socioeconomic ‘oil vulnerability’ of Australian cities. The paper demonstrates that there is wide spatial variability in the vulnerability of Australia's urban populations to rising fuel costs which may compound existing socio-spatial divisions and speculates on some underlying causal factors. The paper calls for better data and new methods to understand the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Government's Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program aims to encourage greater participation of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in higher education. Historically, participation and retention rates of students from under-represented groups have been less than for the majority of school leavers. Universities are now intensifying their efforts to improve retention, and expect all parts of their institutions, including the university library, to contribute. Through a review of conceptual and empirical literature, this paper identifies five potential means by which a library may contribute to student retention and concludes by outlining one library's approach to investigating its contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of what has been broadly labelled the knowledge economy has been such that, even in the absence of precise measurement, it is the undoubted dynamo of today's global market and an essential part of any global city. The socio-economic importance of knowledge production in a knowledge economy is clear, and it is an emerging social phenomenon and research agenda in geographical studies. Knowledge production, and where, how and by whom it is produced, is an urban phenomenon that is poorly understood in an era of strong urbanization. This paper focuses on knowledge community precincts as the catalytic magnet infrastructures impacting on knowledge production in cities. The paper discusses the increasing importance of knowledge-based urban development (KBUD) within the paradigm of the knowledge economy and the role of knowledge community precincts as instruments to seed the foundation of knowledge production in cities. This paper explores the KBUD, and particularly knowledge community precinct development, potentials of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and benchmarks this against that of Boston, MA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low health status of indigenous communities in Australia, and other countries, has been a continuing societal problem. One way to improve health status involves the provision of health-related information. Computer-based systems offer new ways to provide such information: thus their application can be seen as process innovations. This paper describes the use of touch-screen technology to present health information in a culturally relevant fashion for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Queensland, Australia. Touch-screen kiosks incorporate both computer hardware and software. The paper also outlines some of the key economic concepts relevant to an economic analysis of an information system employing touch-screen technology. It is shown that the economic analysis involves a two-stage process, and it is somewhat more complex than setting up an Internet website. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Port Adelaide waterfront is symbolic of a distinctive form of entrepreneurial urban governance that emphasises specific forms of capital accumulation. As in waterfront projects elsewhere in Australia and overseas, depicting Port Adelaide as an 'urban problem' has been critical in legitimating the public-private market-based approach to regenerating the waterfront site. This paper outlines how the ascendancy of urban governance in Australian political sensibility is coinciding with and facilitating a particular urban form in waterfront developments. This involves transforming the Port's disused industrial and maritime landscape from a site of production to one of consumption. This urban makeover signifies a radical reconstitution of place identity, economic function and social relations. This paper also investigates the impact on the pre-existing social structure, built form and economic activity base of the location and suggests that the potential for this significant waterfront project is not confined to the re-imagining of the discursive identity of the place but extends to meeting wider institutional metropolitan and regional planning objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New national and international economic and social forces have reshaped national geographies in general and the characteristics of cities in particular, resulting in a range of diverse social and spatial outcomes. These outcomes, which include greater differentiation across, within and between cities has become a feature of the economic and social forces associated with post-Fordist social structures. Taking localities across Australia's metropolitan regions, this paper develops a typology of advantage and disadvantage using a model-based approach with clustering of data represented by a parameterised Gaussian mixture model and confidence intervals of the means providing a measure of differences between the clusters. The analysis finds seven clusters of localities that represent different aspects of the socio-spatial structure of the metropolitan regions studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to estimate the trend of social welfare for Australia using 1983-1984, 1988-1989 and 1993-1994 Household Expenditure Survey data. The functional form of the Social Welfare Function (SWF) was derived by Sen, Degum, Yitzhaki and Shesinski (all independently). Since the function contains the Gini coefficient as the inequality parameter, it could not be formally disaggregated by subgroups of population. This paper, using a method of subgroup decomposition of the Gini coefficient developed by Podder, attempts to disaggregate the SWF. With this method it is now possible to identify disadvantaged groups by their relative shares in total welfare. In addition the method is used to determine effect of economic growth on specific subgroups, and in turn, on total social welfare. This study is based on the Australian economy. Distribution of relative shares of total social welfare among various regional groups are identified, groups determined by occupational status and groups determined by country of birth. The effect on society's welfare for a percentage change in income of a group and the trend of relative welfare of a specific group are also computed. This information can be used in a variety of social decision making situations, including cost benefit analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper falls into two parts. The first contributes to the development of concepts necessary to understand questions of 'self-formation', particularly in relation to domains of government. The second seeks to work these concepts within a case-study of what it calls 'governmental-ethical practices'. The case-study consists of an examination of the recent reform of social security and income support practices concerning the unemployed in Australia and the utilization of the language, rationality and techniques that have been elaborated under the rubric of the 'active society' by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It offers an analysis of these governmental-ethical practices of the unemployed in terms of what they seek to govern, the means by which they propose to do so, their forms of subjectification, and the mode of existence they envision. It suggests that the analysis of these practices challenges and forces us to refine our approach to the formulae of neoliberal or advanced liberal government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we first explore the trends in the maintenance of migrant community languages among the first generation migrants and then the socio-economic variation in the shift in use of community languages. Our analysis showed that language shift to English among first generation migrants has not been uniform, with some migrant groups adopting English as a home language at a much faster rate than others. Gender and duration of residence had strong association with language shift; languages of migrant groups of the pre-1980 period have not been maintained as well as that of later arrivals. Place of residence and the distribution of a linguistic community also provided opportunities for language maintenance as migrants residing in major capital cities in Australia tended to better maintain their community language. Finally, higher level of education was associated with lower likelihood of speaking a community language at home. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Managers operating in data-poor environments are often required to use data from one region to draw inferences about another. The quality of decisions made using this ‘typology’ approach will depend, at least in part, upon the degree of similarity between the two regions. Using data from a variety of sources relating to several different domains in 55 separate catchments in northern Australia, this paper uses statistical clustering techniques to test if it is possible to identify socioeconomically ‘similar’ catchments. It finds that regions which are socioeconomically ‘similar’ are not always adjacent, and that assessment of ‘similarity’ depends upon the type of data used. Evidently, the typology approach offers itself as a useful framework for management, but still requires reliable baseline data with which to construct the typologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses some of the reasons why in the Northern Territory of Australia speakers of indigenous languages shift from using indigenous languages to using creoles and standard or non-standard English. Language attitudes of speakers are discussed in terms of what people say about languages, what public activities they engage in with respect to language maintenance, and how they talk in informal settings. The divergence between people's positive attitudes towards a language (as indicated by public language activities) and their everyday talk is discussed in the light of linguistic vitality indicators, including the socio-structural features of political, social, economic and cultural control, institutional control and status, and demographic factors as well as interactional possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporary migration has become a significant component of Australia's migration programme, most notably via the skilled temporary work visa (s457), student visas with work rights and Working Holiday Maker visas, but also the pilot of the Pacific Seasonal Workers’ Scheme. Temporary migration is an extremely diverse phenomenon and it clearly creates opportunities for individuals, households and states. However, it just as clearly creates additional vulnerabilities. It can be a way to get workers to do work where citizens are unwilling, and temporary migrants can be politically excluded both at home and abroad. The decoupling of citizenship and work, however, has uneven affects depending on the bargaining position of workers. This paper examines temporary migration in the Australian context, and the role of NGOs and unions engaged with these migrants. The argument made is that temporary migration transnationalises these organisations. It also shows, however, the uneasy tension between national and transnational politics and solidarities, with implications for temporary migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the results of research into the learning experiences of a group of adult learners in a university preparation programme in a college of Technical and Further Education in Sydney, NSW, Australia. The research was conducted over a three year period by the author as a teacher-researcher and is grounded in the phenomenological work of Schutz, and Berger and Luckmann. Students identified the diverse segments of their complex life-worlds and the salient situated interactions within these segments which support or distract them from learning. What emerges is a representation of the life-world of the adult learner which enables adult educators and students to better understand the complex world of learning in adulthood. An understanding of this world has become increasingly significant as recent economic and social changes have ensured that more adults return to formal education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous Australians are significantly disadvantaged in comparison with non-Indigenous Australians on all socioeconomic indicators. Education and training are seen as a means of reducing inequality, and high levels of Indigenous participation in vocational education and training (VET) indicate that this sector has a central role in this process. This paper draws from an interview study undertaken to investigate the VET experiences of Indigenous adults in Victoria, Australia. Retrospective interviews were conducted with a sample of 128 current and former students, and teachers and other stakeholders in order to identify the factors that promote engagement in the system and improve qualifications and employment pathways. A major finding of the study was the vital role played by Indigenous Support Units in enabling Indigenous students to successfully negotiate their pathways through the VET system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional economic and social development is an important public issue in most countries, yet among the least successful. In Australia, some 40 years of trial and error regional strategy appear to have had limited success in securing long-range economic and social development leading to more diversified economies, population growth and converging regional wellbeing. The paper explores the nature of Australia's regional development problem and its causes as a prelude to summarising governments' changing capacity to influence and control events. Given this background, it sketches an emerging governance system, particularly in the State of New South Wales, designed to ameliorate regional adversity. Finally, it assesses the system's current and prospective functionality and impediments to system improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roles of universities have evolved over the last twenty years. Universities were once regarded as focusing on two key roles - teaching and research - which were exogenous to, and independent from, specific economic and social development imperatives. Today, it is increasingly recognised that universities perform important roles as enablers, even leaders, of regional economic and social development and in regional innovation systems; which has been captured in the notion of a third role for universities. This paper explores the nature of the third role of universities in the Australian setting as it applies to human capital formation. The roles of universities in this regard is categorised as being either generative or developmental in nature, based on the triple helix model of university, industry, government relations and the emerging literature on university engagement. This categorisation is explored using three case studies of non core-metropolitan universities. The study explores the nature of the roles performed by the universities in human capital formation and considers possible explanations of variation in the roles performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence from around the world shows low university participation among young people from low socioeconomic status backgrounds. A common concern is that disadvantaged young people may be unable to afford higher education costs. Using data on government benefits intended to support students from low income households in high school, we identify students at risk of being unable to pay higher education costs. Large differences in university participation rates are observed which are no longer evident after controlling for high school achievement. Results suggest improving high school achievement is an important channel through which disadvantaged student participation may be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I present the key findings from a project entitled “The Social Context of Indigenous Poverty”. The research involved a series of interviews with Aboriginal people in urban SE Australia on issues of poverty, social capital and social exclusion. In the article I draw together Aboriginal perspectives on the meaning of poverty to reflect on the relevance of social capital concepts for understanding Aboriginal economic disadvantage and hence, the merits of policy framed in these terms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines the factors that shape secondary schools' offerings of academic curricula. While academic curricula provide many benefits to individuals and the larger society, inequalities in opportunities to study these subjects may exist between schools, even in comprehensive secondary education systems. We examine the Australian case as a vehicle for developing a theoretical framework about the causes of stratified and unequal access to academic curricula in comprehensive secondary education systems. We interviewed 17 school leaders from a range of secondary schools about their curricular offerings. All school leaders reported that curricular offerings are based on student choice and that subjects with sufficient demand are financially sustainable. But regardless of student choices, some schools offered academic curricula to maintain their reputation and competitive advantage in the education marketplace. School leaders of low socioeconomic public schools reported the most resource constraints in offering academic curricula, and all school leaders acknowledged systemic constraints related to the large number of curricula that could be offered. The findings highlight how marketisation dynamics combine with curriculum policies to shape schools' curricular offerings in ways that provide unequal access for different types of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Journal of Political Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Leisure Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this article is to explore aspiration in contemporary urban locations in the context of almost universal policy initiatives to raise aspirations of young people to participate in higher education. The article is based on a study of how children’s career and further education aspirations are shaped over time in five schools in western Sydney, Australia. Creative methods were used to produce children’s artifacts in early and late primary school and early and late high school and parent and teacher focus groups were conducted in each school. This article focuses on data from a low Socio-Economic Status (SES) and a mid-high SES primary school. A quantitative analysis of the children’s artifacts identified that a marked differentiation occurs between low SES and high SES primary school children from kindergarten to Year 5. Storylines ofCartographic time,Money matters, andVulnerable childhoodsemerged from a qualitative analysis of the parent focus group from the low SES primary school. These storylines chart a different navigational route for their own, and their children’s, aspirations that acknowledges the significance of materiality in the way aspirations are shaped in the ‘placetimemattering’ of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article provides a case study analysis of the social, economic and ecological impacts of open-cut coal mining in the Upper Hunter region of New South Wales (NSW) from the beginning of the resources boom in the early 1990s to the present. The article draws on secondary and grey literature relevant to open-cut coal mining in the Upper Hunter region to explore how the nature of the extractive process and its integrated logistics of 'the coal chain' directly affect mining workers, the community, primary producers and the physical environment, through an analysis of secondary and grey literature. It is argued that the operations of the mines has made the region a climate change 'hot spot' and a 'sacrifice zone' where the sacrifices are made by mining workforce, the people of the area and the land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within Australian cities, social and economic inequalities manifest themselves spatially. Perceived neighbourhood disorder and neighbourhood reputation are relevant to considering the ways in which social and economic inequalities translate into place-based inequalities. This article explores the ways in which residents of two socio-economically contrasting urban areas describe and explain neighbourhood disorder and neighbourhood reputation. It draws upon qualitative data from 40 in-depth interviews, in addition to quantitative data from a postal survey. The qualitative findings highlighted how issues of neighbourhood disorder and reputation were intertwined. In both areas, participants sought to portray themselves and their neighbourhoods in positive ways, by attributing responsibility for neighbourhood disorder to people who were unlike themselves, and by highlighting places that were perceived to have worse reputations and higher levels of disorder. The findings are considered in light of Bourdieu's theory of capitals. This article indicates that both neighbourhood disorder and reputation are pathways through which social, economic and health inequities are maintained in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In implementing water reforms under the National Water Initiative, water managers need to draw on quantitative socio-economic data. These data can help water managers build 'profiles' of populations affected by water reforms; understand how water is used by those populations; and understand the possible socioeconomic implications of changes in water availability as a result of reforms. This article describes where these data can come from, and discusses some of the advantages and disadvantages of these sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a prolonged period of Australian prosperity ends, attention has now begun to turn to the likely impacts of a severe economic downturn. The pain of recession is unlikely to be evenly distributed across the population or across space. Not that the previous economic good fortune was evenly spread across society. It is, therefore, expected that a new layer of socio-economic stress will be laid over existing patterns of social and spatial disparity. In this context, questions of deprivation and social exclusion are an important ongoing concern. Deprivation and social exclusion are operative at a number of levels of society. Neo-liberal thought and policy has been directed at the level of the individual. However, space and place are also important, as spatially concentrated disadvantage has structural consequences for both individual fortunes and the broader social fabric. This article considers the spatial distribution of disadvantage across our major metropolitan regions and considers potential approaches to address social exclusion in our suburban heartlands. [image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent reviews of crime prevention practice conclude that the local level of governance is most effective at coordinating various key actors and implementing workable policy. However, the question of how to evaluate effectiveness of these efforts is notoriously difficult to answer. Domestic violence, in particular, is largely under-reported to police, generational in nature, highly politicised, and contingent on external social and economic variables. This article will use the State of Victoria, Australia, as a case study to examine how attempts to develop demonstrated progress measures on safer streets, homes and workplaces have foundered because of lack of gender analysis, political interference and the inability to translate the current language of good governance into meaningful measures for locally based community safety efforts. [image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to answer the question: Is there evidence that the quality of life of residents in a community that has had community development intervention is different as compared to the quality of life of residents in a nearby community that did not have community development initiatives? This was done by administering community development initiatives in a local area and comparing it to a similar community that did not receive this intervention. The residents of these communities rated the quality of their lives and communities in two purposively selected suburbs in Perth, Western Australia using the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index to measure individual and neighbourhood well-being. The quality of life of residents in both communities is then compared to national averages for quality of life or well-being. Answering this question provides empirical evidence of variation between ratings of quality of life of residents in different communities and highlights the utility of the Wellbeing Index for the evaluation of interdisciplinary community development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital is generally recognized as the positive outcome of sociability and social connection and, more specifically, as the capacity to realize economic benefits through social connections. Limited attention has been paid to understanding the potential of social capital at the intersection of socioeconomic disadvantage. The first part of the article examines assumptions of class and gender in the theoretical literature on social capital. The second part explores the influence of class and gender contexts on social networks among women living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Victoria, Australia. The analysis reveals the ways in which social network assets are conditional on socioeconomic and gender circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the growth and development of consumerism in Australia in the first half of the 20th century. The advertising industry is particularly identified as having been a key force in modernizing the social, cultural, and economic life of Australia, suggesting that it predominantly perpetuated and distributed economic demand and its cultural side-effects. The consumption models and dominant ideologies in the 19th century are briefly reviewed and contrasted with those at the dawn of the advertising age, with attention to the forms adopted in the wake of events such as the Great Depression and World War II.

Objective. The epidemiology of gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms has been described in population surveys, yet their distribution by socio-economic (social) class remains largely uninvestigated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of social class on GI symptoms in an urban sample of Australian adults. Material and methods. The prevalence of 25 GI symptoms was determined by postal questionnaire. Five latent symptom groups were identified by a principal components analysis (PCA) (Esophageal, Dysmotility-like, Nausea/vomiting, Constipation and Diarrhea). These components were used to model the association between GI symptoms and adult social class. Social class was assigned according to a census-based measure of area disadvantage, and to highest level of completed education. Age- and sex-adjusted odds ratios – as identified by unconditional logistic regression – were used to describe the relationship between symptom groups and adult social class. Results. The effects of area disadvantage and education on Esophageal and Dysmotility-like symptoms were pronounced, with persistent trends for elevated symptom rates amongst the lower social classes (all p <0.01 on age- and sex-adjusted effects). When defined by area disadvantage, the odds ratios for Nausea/vomiting were significantly elevated among the lowest social class group ( p =0.01), whereas the odds for Constipation were significantly elevated among the upper–middle social class when defined by education ( p =0.001). Diarrhea was not associated with social class whether defined by area disadvantage or education. Conclusions. Low social class is a risk factor for upper GI complaints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]