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Environmental epigenetics is increasingly employed to understand the health outcomes of communities who have experienced historical trauma and structural violence. Epigenetics provides a way to think about traumatic events and sustained deprivation as biological "exposures" that contribute to ill-health across generations. In Australia, some Indigenous researchers and clinicians are embracing epigenetic science as a framework for theorising the slow violence of colonialism as it plays out in intergenerational legacies of trauma and illness. However, there is dispute, contention, and caution as well as enthusiasm among these research communities.In this article, we trace strategies of "refusal" (Simpson, 2014) in response to epigenetics in Indigenous contexts. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Australia with researchers and clinicians in Indigenous health, we explore how some construct epigenetics as useless knowledge and a distraction from implementing anti-colonial change, rather than a tool with which to enact change. Secondly, we explore how epigenetics narrows definitions of colonial harm through the optic of molecular trauma, reproducing conditions in which Indigenous people are made intelligible through a lens of "damaged" bodies. Faced with these two concerns, many turn away from epigenetics altogether, refusing its novelty and supposed benefit for Indigenous health equity and resisting the pull of postgenomics., (© 2023. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

This paper is one of two that bring together a range of education scholars to consider how education might be for democracy in a time of complex challenges facing twenty-first century societies. In this paper, scholars from Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom consider how sites of formal and informal education can respond to multiple unfolding crises, including the COVID-19 global pandemic, catastrophic climate change and ecological collapse, political upheaval, and growing social and economic inequality. What emerges is a wide-ranging set of reflections that engage with these complexities and challenges in a considered and hopeful way.

This paper explores young people's understandings of gender and investigates their gender-based experiences in high schools in Australia. The discussion is based on qualitative research including focus groups and interviews with 47 recent high school leavers from diverse linguistic, socioeconomic, religious, ethnic, gender and sexuality backgrounds, who attended a broad range of high school types in New South Wales (NSW). We found that young people are critically engaging in gender issues and are often challenging binary gender and associated inequitable practices in schools and beyond. They are taking a leading role in educating adults about gender—that is, they are 'teaching up', as young people conceptualised it, to their families and teachers about gender, gender-related issues and doing gender differently in contemporary times. Their views on gender are often in contrast to those institutional views that currently prevail in NSW schools, which often still reflect stereotypes that perpetuate gender inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the role that guilt plays in Australia's construction of its outsiders by focusing on contemporary migrant experience. I build upon Sarah Ahmed's work on the politics of emotion to read migrant interviews in relation to media: films, political speeches, and other discursive structures that facilitate social organization in Australia. In the first part of this paper, I argue that a 'multicultural narrative' positions the nation as a 'happy home,' and examine how this can displace feelings of guilt in the migrant by rendering possible social transgressions positive steps towards attaining a greater social good. In the second section of this paper, I discuss Australia's 'hatred narratives.' I do not define hatred as a necessarily aggressive emotion, but instead, demonstrate the way particular words can be affectively charged because of the histories they invoke, and show how this affect can be mobilized to create outsiders who are not welcome in the national imaginary and Australian society. These narratives however, are not fixed: political parties can appeal to tropes that have accumulated in affective value – such as the 'home' – in order to achieve different political goals, and to organize social groups by aligning individuals with or against affectively charged objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent comments by the Federal Education Minister, Alan Tudge, have reignited the socalled history and culture war in Australian schools. Tudge has argued that the newest draft version of the Australian Curriculum is critical of Australia's proud history and does not leave students feeling optimistic about their future in Australia. This paper examines the accuracy of Tudge's claims by carefully placing them within the context of the draft and current version of the Australian Curriculum in relation to History and Civics and Citizenship and also examining them in relation to the history of political involvement in the development of curriculum. By doing so, it demonstrates that Tudge's claims are not founded on an understanding of the content and structure of the curriculum and betray a limited understanding of both the teaching of History and Civics and Citizenship, and the development of curriculum as a whole. The paper concludes with advice for teachers seeking to navigate the troubled waters of curriculum and education at this time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce and quantify a relatively new form of influence: the Answer Bot Effect (ABE). In a 2015 report in PNAS, researchers demonstrated the power that biased search results have to shift opinions and voting preferences without people's knowledge-by up to 80% in some demographic groups. They labeled this phenomenon the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME), speculating that its power derives from the high level of trust people have in algorithmically-generated content. We now describe three experiments with a total of 1,736 US participants conducted to determine to what extent giving users "the answer"-either via an answer box at the top of a page of search results or via a vocal reply to a question posed to an intelligent personal assistant (IPA)-might also impact opinions and votes. Participants were first given basic information about two candidates running for prime minister of Australia (this, in order to assure that participants were "undecided"), then asked questions about their voting preferences, then given answers to questions they posed about the candidates-either with answer boxes or with vocal answers on an Alexa simulator-and then asked again about their voting preferences. The experiments were controlled, randomized, double-blind, and counterbalanced. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that answer boxes can shift voting preferences by as much as 38.6% and that the appearance of an answer box can reduce search times and clicks on search results. Experiment 3 demonstrated that even a single question-and-answer interaction on an IPA can shift voting preferences by more than 40%. Multiple questions posed to an IPA leading to answers that all have the same bias can shift voting preferences by more than 65%. Simple masking procedures still produced large opinion shifts while reducing awareness of bias to close to zero. ABE poses a serious threat to both democracy and human autonomy because (a) it produces large shifts in opinions and voting preferences with little or no user awareness, (b) it is an ephemeral form of influence that leaves no paper trail, and (c) worldwide, it is controlled almost exclusively by just four American tech companies. ABE will become a greater threat as people increasingly rely on IPAs for answers., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Contract cheating remains a significant problem for universities and higher education (HE) generally, both within Australia and internationally. In 2020, the Australian Federal Government passed legislation establishing a new criminal offence, criminalising the provision or advertisement of academic cheating services by individuals and businesses. This legislation represents the Australian Government's formal commitment to a criminal justice response to address the problem of contract cheating behaviour, which seeks to prevent and minimise the use and/or promotion of such cheating services within the higher education sector. This paper provides a political discourse analysis (PDA) and interpretive policy analysis (IPA) of Australian Parliamentary Hansard documents regarding debate of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services) Bill 2019. Our findings suggest a discord between the putative purpose of this legislation and the way the contract cheating problem has been represented in Australian Parliament. We argue that debates regarding the solution to, or at least how to address contract cheating first need to understand and agree on the problem if they are to meaningfully prevent crime. Our analysis exposes the politicisation of the higher education sector and associated discourse, where concern about contract cheating, in this case, was used as a vehicle to further rationalise ongoing Government paternalism and interference in tertiary institutions, underscoring the need for critical evaluation of criminological interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing women's representation in male‐dominated work sectors remains a persistent problem. This paper reorientates the focus from women's underrepresentation to male overrepresentation and privilege, to identify and compare the causal mechanisms between the overrepresentation of men in two traditionally male‐dominated work places in Australia: politics and construction. By applying feminist institutionalism, masculinities, and privilege, it argues the overrepresentation of men is linked to gendered rules that uphold hegemonic masculinities which produce masculine privilege and supports a gender hierarchy. Masculine privilege occurs via three mechanisms: (1) a culture of denial; (2) perceptions that rules are neutral, legitimate, and applied objectively; (3) through backlash and resistance to keep the gender status quo in place. We argue the effects of privilege combine to act as a barrier to the attraction, retention, and progression of women to both sectors and conclude that the masculine privilege provides a valuable lens to explore how male dominance operates within work sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If health promotion as a field of change for human and ecological health is to maintain its urgency, it needs to continue building its policy credentials. This paper charts the development of policy as a concern for IUHE/IUHPE (International Union for Health Education/International Union for Health Promotion and Education) from the mid-1970s when 'health education policies' were prominent issues, to the launch of Healthy Public Policy (in the 1980s) and Health in All Policy (in the 2000s). We argue that solid conceptual and theoretical foundations exist to frame and develop the relevance and connectedness of health promotion more prominently. We start off with a brief introduction into (health) political science, and then illustrate the urgency of the argument with three case studies. The first takes a critical realist perspective on 'closing the gap' in Australian Indigenous populations. With recent evidence it demonstrates that the core of the policymaking process needs to re-align itself with an Indigenous narrative. The second case study reviews the politics of healthy urban planning and health equity in cities. Taking a critical theory institutionalist view, the case describes how the political and narrative parallels between urban theory and health equity have gone underexplored. With an explicit gaze to connect the two, the field could become a large and influential driver of enhanced health promotion and public health policy. The third case describes the languages, policy frames, and distinctions, in four urban/health paradigms. It shows that unconscious policy and practice bias exists in policy priorities and processes. We conclude with observations and recommendations on the role of health promotion as a conceptual realm and field of activity. We show that all health promoters should be aware of the political nature of their enterprise. Tools and analyses exist to help further action.

A historic paper from 2010, republished here, describes a demonstration of wireless transmission between Victoria and Tasmania by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company in 1906. The subsequent debate and delays in adopting the new wireless communication system highlight the influence of imperial politics on Australian telecommunications, post Federation. The impasse with Marconi over his initial refusal to license his patent was eventually resolved by the creation of Amalgamated Wireless Holdings (AWA) in 1911. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data from a large-scale sample survey conducted in 2016 within the contemporary ethnic Japanese migrant community in Sydney, Australia, this article focuses on demographics and the political culture of this community to determine the context for Japanese migrants' attitudes, with a focus on gender. Findings suggest that the Japanese community is statistically less politically involved than the wider Australian population, possibly reflecting general attitudes towards politics in Japan, and unique social profiles within the Australian community. Superficially, the lack of interest in political commitment appeared to signify less integration into Australian society. However, our triangulation of the data, combined with follow-up interviews found a new form of political engagement within the Japanese community in contemporary Australia. This article contributes to a deeper understanding of the Japanese ethnic community in Australia and overseas, as well as broadening scholarship about the political awareness and activities of ethnic communities in settler societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropocentric climate change presents an existential threat through impacts such as rising sea levels, effects on agricultural crops and extreme weather events. However, governments, businesses and communities struggle to wean off fossil fuel dependency. In this article, we argue that this is due to the grip of fossil fuel hegemony. To explain this grip, we draw on the theoretical perspectives of new materialism to examine how fossil fuels and politics interact in upholding Australia's fossil fuel regime. Our analysis, based on 70 qualitative interviews conducted with politicians and political advisors, fossil fuel executives and experts and environmental activists, shows three processes – establishment, entrenchment and encroachment – through which political-material entanglements lock in a fossil fuel-based future. These processes are both discursive, with politicians and industry downplaying, if not outright denying, the climate emergency and material, with investment in new mines and infrastructure even while the negative ecological impacts of fossil fuel use gather pace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, "integrity" has emerged as a critical concept for sport, with scholars, government agencies and NGOs proposing the establishment of "integrity systems", comprising measures such as new policy units, ombudsmen and mediation services. The purpose of this study is to assess the coherence of this reform agenda, to determine its core features and gauge whether it constitutes a new governing paradigm and departure from "professionalisation". Drawing on case material from Australia and New Zealand, we trace the sport integrity agenda and its adoption into each country's government policies and programmes. The emerging agenda focuses on diverse risks at the periphery of "old" professionalised management, while demanding a sector-wide response and universal adherence. Coordination and regulation are emphasised (at national, state/regional and local levels), supported by central government policy frameworks and grievance detection regimes. While the integrity agenda has distinctive elements of a reform movement, preliminary evidence suggests it may become integrated under the existing logics of performance, audits and risk management. It nevertheless signals substantive changes to the conduct of sport organisations at multiple levels of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alcohol labelling laws and policy are contentious and highly politicized. Very few countries have been able to implement health warnings on alcohol labels due to complex legal and governance systems and coordinated industry lobbying. In 2020, Australia and New Zealand implemented a mandatory and evidence-based legal standard for pregnancy warning labels on alcohol products. This article discusses some of the challenges faced in achieving policy change and how these barriers were overcome by public health advocacy groups to build the evidence, counter industry conflicts of interest, consumer test health messages, mobilize community support and gather political support. Reflecting on the decades of ineffective regulation and politicization of this health issue, lessons for other countries include the importance of creating and maintaining relationships with decision makers and regularly updating them with evidence and recommendations, highlighting industry failures and tactics, building broad-based coalitions and sharing lived-experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Australia increasingly faces devastating weather events and natural disasters associated with climate change, strong political engagement by governments is necessary to implement effective policies that address the health impacts of climate change. Keywords: Climate change; Politics; Public health; Public policy EN Climate change Politics Public health Public policy 196 202 7 03/21/23 20230315 NES 230315 Urgent and sustained political engagement is needed to address the health impacts of climate change Recent extreme weather events and natural disasters in Australia, such as the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires and catastrophic floods throughout 2021-2022, have resulted in considerable negative impacts for community and individual health and wellbeing. However, whereas countries around the world are taking action to mitigate climate change, Australia lags, ranking 59/64 in the Climate Change Performance Index.[1] Australia's political engagement on health and climate change is particularly poor. The previous conservative Liberal-National Coalition governments (2013-2022) downplayed the health impacts of climate change, and avoided the use of climate change terminology when discussing the health, social and economic impacts of extreme weather events. [Extracted from the article]

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Summary: Medical workforce diversity is important with gender constituting a significant role. Male and female medical practitioners participate in the workforce differently: understanding the cultural and social expectations, economic productivity, professional opportunities, and the effects on workforce supply, will aid workforce planning. Having a workforce that reflects the diversity of the community is important in providing patient‐centred care. As more than half of medical graduates are female, it would be expected that this is reflected in radiology specialty. We analyse the Australian gender‐specific data from the Royal Australian and New Zealand Clinical Radiology (RANZCR) clinical radiology workforce census from 1992 to 2020, focusing on changes in gender representation, number of hours worked per week, differences in subspecialisation and geographical distribution. This analysis found that the proportion of the female radiologists increased from 13% to 29%: still an underrepresentation of women radiologists when compared with the gender distribution of medical students and junior doctors. This will persist in the short to medium term, given the tapering of female doctors entering radiology training. In terms of workforce planning, women are more likely to work less than their male counterparts in the early to mid‐career. Women are underrepresentated in interventional and neurointerventional radiology. There is more self‐reported subspecialty interest in breast and women's imaging. A review of the literature demonstrated a similar situation in comparable countries. We also considered the reasons, potential solutions for this, and knowledge gaps where research is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender and cultural studies is, at its core, a pedagogical project for social and political change. Students are invited to new ways of thinking and acting in the world, shaped by intellectual traditions evolving from various social movements around race, class and feminism in mostly Western nation-states. Our students' imaginations are very much captured by these political possibilities, including international students whose reception and interpretation of these knowledges are filtered through different cultural contexts and in different language registers. Teaching gender and cultural studies in Australia with increasing numbers of international students from Asian countries presents a range of practical, intellectual, and ethical questions. How might we translate different intellectual traditions and languages across local and international student groups, in ways that enhance learning for both cohorts? How might we be implicated in the reshaping of international students' imagination of their own genealogies, and their futurities? What colonising logics might unwittingly be reproduced in our curriculums that are expressly committed to the rhetoric and activism of decolonialism? Through the perspective of two classroom practitioners, this article investigates the challenges and possibilities of teaching Gender and Cultural Studies to local and international students in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]