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Childhood poverty matters—not only because of the disturbingly high number of children affected, but also because of the deleterious impact on their human flourishing, both now and in the future. Effectively addressing child poverty requires clear identification of the nature and causes of the problem, as well as an understanding of how it is experienced. This paper aims to deepen understanding of child poverty, by drawing on key elements of a capability approach, rights-based approaches, and feminist standpoint theory, and empirical research. It is grounded in the findings of rights-based, participatory research with children aged between 7 and 15 years in Indonesia and in Australia, which cast new light on the dimensions of poverty that are most egregious from a child-driven standpoint. It presents a three-dimensional typology of material, opportunity, and relational poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colonialist views of Indigenous bodies and sexualities continue to affect Indigenous peoples worldwide. For Indigenous Australians, this burden has resulted in repression and oppression of power, sex and desire. Focusing on the sexual intimacies of Indigenous Australian women, this paper provides an account of the dominant Australian historical discourses, finding that Indigenous women were viewed as exotic, erotic, something to be desired, yet simultaneously something to be feared. Our sexualities were described as savage, promiscuous and primitive and we were often viewed as prostitutes with our voices and views constrained by patriarchal and imperial regimes of power. But within this context, Indigenous women fought back through both individual and collective acts of agency. This paper demonstrates how Indigenous Australian women's agency not as a new phenomenon but rather as a position that disrupts the popular discourses of exploitation and victimhood that have been persistently perpetrated against Indigenous women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Australians living with a disability find themselves recipients of Newstart Allowance when applying for the Disability Support Pension (DSP). Newstart Allowance is designed as a short-term payment for people looking for work, with a lower fortnightly payment and limited medical and transport subsidies compared to the DSP. This paper describes the financial challenges of living with a disability while on Newstart Allowance. With a focus on the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) Australians from two regional towns, qualitative semistructured interviews and focus groups documented experiences of 39 community members and 21 medical and nonmedical service providers supporting clients living with a disability on Newstart Allowance. Four themes were identified: (i) living with severe financial hardship, (ii) challenges complying with the DSP application, (iii) being financially penalised for not complying with Newstart Allowance conditions, and (iv) supporting community members to manage severe financial stress. Although people living with a disability on Newstart were experiencing severe hardship and poverty, there was limited participation of Centrelink-employed social workers within their described experiences with Centrelink. We argue that social workers can work to humanise human service settings and potentially help to mitigate these financial challenges. IMPLICATIONS Indigenous Australians living with a disability experience severe disadvantage and poverty while living on Newstart Allowance. Social workers must be easily accessible at Centrelink customer service centres and to Newstart Allowance recipients to help coordinate service engagement. Newstart Allowance should be increased to ensure recipients can respond to cost of living pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides three case studies of initiatives developed to improve educational opportunities in vulnerable urban communities. The cities in the three countries involved, Australia, the United States, and Spain, are different in many ways; however, each has persistent and entrenched inequalities between the educational opportunities and outcomes of historically marginalised students and their mainstream counterparts. Here, we focus on conceptualising and describing urban examples of poverty from three different countries, and reporting on programs and strategies aimed at enhancing the quality of teaching in schools in high-poverty areas. By providing and comparing the three cases, we aim to contribute to broader understandings of poverty in three locations and how teachers and schools in high-poverty urban settings can re-think their practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over two-thirds of Australians are owner-occupiers and a majority of the population holds most of their wealth in housing. Australian taxation privileges homeowners and retirement income policy is built around the assumption that state pensions can be kept low because an overwhelming majority of older Australians are outright homeowners and therefore have a considerable asset base and low housing costs post-retirement, a situation often referred to as ‘wealthfare’. However, ageing of the population and falling housing affordability mean that the number of asset-poor older Australians unable to rely on ‘wealthfare’ – lifetime renters or those who drop out of homeownership – is likely to grow in the future. In this paper we look at housing career pathways into precarious housing in older age, its impact on older Australians’ ontological security and coping strategies as they grapple with the housing circumstances that typically accompany asset poverty. Based on 30 interviews conducted with older Australians, the paper reports qualitative findings from a mixed methods research project conducted in Melbourne in 2009–2010. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is growing global consensus for researchers to look beyond patient culture to gain a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which wider socio-structural forces influence health outcomes. In line with these critiques, this paper examines culturally diverse patients’ views about the symptoms, aetiology, and experiences of their depression, and considers how socio-structural forces are implicated in the illness experience. Analysing the transcripts of interviews with 28 Indian-Australians and 30 Anglo-Australians with depression, our results reveal cultural differences between Indian- and Anglo-Australians regarding the chronicity, perceived severity, and aetiology of their depression. Our results also show how these cultural differences are related to socio-structural forces such as time, money, and migration. We conclude by arguing that the current medicalised approach to treating depression needs to shift to a more empathetic problem-solving one; such a change would prompt greater critical consideration of the socio-structural forces that impact people’s mental health and not just focus on individuals’ culture and pathologies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Housing costs have long been recognised as a factor contributing to poverty, and poverty researchers have estimated poverty using income before and after deducting housing costs. This paper examines the treatment of housing in the literatures on poverty and housing and applies the before and after housing costs approach to examine the extent of both poverty and income inequality in Australia and how they have changed since the early 2000s, focusing on the role of housing costs in the periods before and after the global financial crisis (GFC). Account has been taken of changes in the income measure used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in its household income surveys as these have been shown to have a marked impact on empirical estimates. The findings indicate that taking account of housing costs leads to greater increases in both poverty and inequality between 2003–2004 and 2007–2008 and to smaller reductions in both since the GFC in 2007–2008. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Children have been made a priority in Australian government obesity interventions, with programmes tending to focus on promoting behaviour change in food and exercise practices. This paper reports findings from ethnographic research with a group of Australian children aged 10–14 years living in a low socio-economic suburban setting. We propose that central to these children’s experiences of food and eating is the negotiation and management of hunger. Historically, disadvantage has been embodied and inscribed on children’s bodies in very visible ways, and the coexistence of hunger and obesity is part of this continuum. Despite considerable evidence of food insecurity in our research site, issues of hunger were absent in an obesity intervention underway at the time. We examine how hunger was felt in children’s lives, how it was managed and the ways in which messages about eating less, while eating more ‘healthy foods’, were at odds with the children’s experiences of hunger. Moreover, we argue that hunger and obesity in this context were doubly stigmatised, as children were very aware of how their hunger and their bodies marked them as different and disadvantaged. Attention to both the embodied and social impacts of hunger on children and their everyday relationships is key in formulating more sensitive, contextualised public health interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates a suite of policies that comprise the National Partnership Agreement between federal, state and territory governments in Australia that are ostensibly aimed at improving the educational attainment levels of young Australians. It specifically explores the policy terrain of educational targets that have been arrived at by Australian governments and associated policies, using a critical policy ethnography approach. It first traces out the historical development of populist policies such as this, demonstrating how attainment targets affect the lives of young people from the most challenging backgrounds. The second, ethnographic component of this paper provides some powerful insights into what is missing from the policy although of central importance to the existential lives of the young Australians targeted by such policy reform initiatives. This paper reveals how both school and societal circumstances create barriers to the capacity of these young people to meet policy demands. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws upon literature from economics, and the human capital and equity fields in order to present a theoretical framework for a new multidimensional measure of poverty for Australia. Poverty is about having low living standards; but its measurement has traditionally focused only on an individual's income or on other dimensions of living standards that are not appropriate for contemporary Australian society, such as calorie intake. There are two additional capabilities individuals require for adequate living standards: health and education. Each of these is required for basic functioning within modern society, but have traditionally been ignored by measures of poverty. This paper argues that health is a basic capability people need for a fulfilling life, allowing individuals to participate in activities essential in modern society, and that education can also be seen in this light. As such it is vital that health and education be included in measures of poverty. In order to move Australian poverty measurement forward and build upon the work of the past, poverty measurement must move its focus away from only looking at low income, and take a holistic focus on the living standards of individuals by incorporating assessments of health and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, as in other jurisdictions, recent legislation and policy addressing child support was introduced as a response to child poverty in single-parent families. However, there has been very little research conducted on the question of how child support money is used by sole parents. This paper extends current knowledge by exploring how— and indeed, if—child support money is a useful resource in meeting the housing needs of the children of separated parents. The study reports on the findings arising out of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 33 parents who received child support money. The impact of child support is often limited by three factors: the amounts paid, the circumstances of its payment (and in particular, unreliable payments), and the values guiding its allocation. The paper argues that ultimately, the benefits of child support are constrained because it is a privatised response to gendered, structural inequalities in housing, care and income following separation and divorce. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While social exclusion has been identified as a major issue facing older Australians, it has not yet been identified as a priority area for Australian social policy on ageing. This paper critically examines the concept of social exclusion and the issues and challenges in applying a social inclusion approach to social work practice for Australia's ageing population. By critically examining the circumstances underpinning practices of social exclusion and highlighting the complexity of applying a social inclusion approach to ageing issues, this paper outlines the emerging issues and challenges for social workers in adopting a social inclusion approach to ageing issues in the Australian context. The analysis identifies a number of key issues that need to be addressed by service providers committed to redressing social exclusion in later life, including: economic deprivation, cumulative disadvantages, social participation and civic engagement, and cultural recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents Midgley's theory on social development to an Australian social work audience. It explores the concept and theory of social development, examines the relationship between social work and social development, and discusses the relevance of social development to social work in Australia. The paper suggests that although social work and social development may share similar broad goals, their strategic approaches differ, with the former cast within a professional model concerned with welfare broadly conceived and the latter directly concerned with the alleviation of poverty in the less-developed parts of the world. The paper concludes with thoughts on the Australian face of social development and suggests changes that would need to be made if social work were to embrace social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the Australian Agency for International Development `s (AusAID) approach to overseas development assistance (ODA) through an examination of AusA ID's recent White Paper. The White Paper focuses on the nexus between poverty reduction and security in the Asia-Pacific region. We argue that the Paper's emphasis upon good governance as the key to poverty reduction and security is fundamentally flawed. This stems from the particular ideological and political conditions in which the Paper materialised. In focusing on good governance and security the Paper neglects more fundamental poverty reduction issues, while promoting policies that are difficult to implement and, when implemented, have highly problematic outcomes. This article examines the Australian-led intervention in Solomon Islands and the Australian aid programme in Indonesia as examples for the shortcomings of the approach articula ted in the White Paper. We conclude by examining alternative development policies that move beyond the neo-liberal orthodoxy endorsed by AusAID. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite many years of poverty eradication programs in numerous countries, 25% of the world's population continues to live in poverty. In the light of this global crisis, it is clear that anti-poverty strategies have not been as successful as they should have been. This paper argues that continuing poverty may be related in part to the fact that policies developed to alleviate the problem are mainly based on monetary definitions developed by ‘experts’, rather than by the poor themselves. Thus this paper will demonstrate that expert definitions invariably neglect the more qualitative aspects and experiences of poverty. In contrast, it is argued here that the poor are the ‘real’ poverty experts and their voices should be included in the definition of poverty and the formulation of solutions. While there is increasing recognition of this latter approach in developing nations, often taking a human needs perspective, this response is only in its infancy in Australia. After a discussion of the conceptualisation of human needs, this paper reports on a small pilot study that presents the voices of 10 disadvantaged men, identifying what poverty is for them in Melbourne [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a methodology to measure the effectiveness of government's income support on poverty. This is accomplished by computing poverty elasticities with respect to individual income components. A poverty reform index is developed to bring marginal reforms in government transfer programmes in order to minimize aggregate poverty. Applying the methodology developed in this paper to Australian data offers many useful conclusions concerning the changes in poverty in Australia between 1984 to 1988-9 and 1988-9 to 1993-4. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's history is not often considered to be an indicator of any person's health status. However, as health professionals we are taught the importance of taking and listening to our client's detailed history to assist us in our comprehension of the issues impacting upon their lives. This skill base is an important one in that it makes available valuable information that assists the health professional to be discerning of intimate and specific circumstances that could contribute to health related problems not previously diagnosed. It is a vital screening tool. I would like to advocate that history taking, that being Australia's colonial, political, social and economic histories be a course of action undertaken by all health professionals working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Health researchers of recent years have been able to clearly illustrate that there is a powerful relationship between health status and individuals or collectives; social, political and economic circumstances (Marmot, 2011; Marmot & Wilkinson, 2001; Saggers & Gray, 2007). This way of knowing how health can be affected through such social health determinants is an important health competency (Anderson, 2007; Marmot, 2011). As such this paper delivers a timeline of specific historical and political events, contributing to current social health determinants that are undermining Indigenous Australians health and well-being. This has been undertaken because most Australians including Indigenous Australians have not benefited from a balanced and well informed historical account of the past 200 and something years. The implication of this lack of knowing unfortunately has left its effect on the way health service providers have delivered health to Indigenous children, mothers, fathers, and their communities. Indigenous Australians view the way forward in improving health outcomes, as active partners in their health service delivery. This partnership requires health professionals to listen to their clients, with respect and a decolonising gaze. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores which measures of health accurately reflect the functional capabilities of individuals -- that is, in what measures of health do those classified as having poorer health actually have poorer functional outcomes. Using the 2003 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers, cross-tabulations, chi-squared analysis, and logistic regression models were used to identify the relationship between functional outcomes (core activity limitations and employment and education participation) and various measures of health and disability (composite disability measure, health utility scores and general health assessment). Both the composite disability measure and the health utility score accurately capture individual functional capacity -- with both measures being related to employment participation, employment and education restrictions, and core activity imitations. The health utility scores can also be divided into a categorical measure and still reflect this functional capacity. The general health assessment measure is also related to functional capacity and can potentially be used in the place of both the composite disability measure and the health utility score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Judith Butler's theory of performative subjection, this paper examines the injurious attitudes of three staff members at an outer-metropolitan high school who are heavily involved in the enactment and monitoring of Senior Education and Training (SET) Plan interviews for the Queensland Certificate of Education. It is argued that teachers at the case study school have inscripted students to the category of ‘underprivileged’, which in this context is labelled as ‘generational poverty’. Membership to this category has, in my view, positioned students as ‘backward’ and behind in schooling capability, thus placing them on a storyline trajectory associated with low paid labour market participation, reliance on government welfare and/or unemployment. I draw on teacher comments referring to students as possessing ‘deficit skills’ to form this argument. In order to help ‘break’ this cycle of poverty, staff involved in the SET Plan interviews have subsequently positioned themselves as ‘helpers’ by attempting to give curriculum pathway advice which they see as ‘appropriate’ for the students at the school. This advice and help with subject selection and curriculum pathway planning, while seemingly well intentioned, reinscribes gendered stereotypes and thus aids in the reproduction of schooling and post-schooling inequality for both sexes, but especially for girls. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Education policy intervention for schools in high poverty neighbourhoods has focused on the capacity of local schools to make a difference and on the kinds of co-ordinated human services provision that might support individual families with “high needs”. In this paper I suggest that a more detailed analysis of “the problem” represented in such schools might yield a richer and more integrated policy approach. I use the notion of “scale”, arbitrary and imperfect approximations of spheres of activity, and apply it to a specific context in Adelaide, South Australia, to demonstrate the connections between the local school and factors which impinge on its capacities to make a positive difference. I suggest that the implication of the analysis is a more holistic approach to policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to draw welfare and Indigenous history into the same analytic frame by analysing the religious impulses underpinning ideas about welfare for Indigenous people and poor whites in a period of acute transition for the poor law between 1815 and the 1830s. During these years the conceptual framework of the new poor law (less eligibility, pauperisation, indoor relief) came to dominate attitudes towards poor whites, particularly in the Australian convict colonies where poverty was frequently associated with vice, but lurked uncertainly around the edges of discourse regarding Aborigines. Even when it came to be directed at Aborigines, concerns over the issue of compensation lingered to distinguish the white poor from 'the poor Aboriginal'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In May 2005, the Commonwealth announced changes to the eligibility criteria for a number of farm welfare payments which have resulted in farmers receiving such payments on more generous terms than other disadvantaged groups in the community. The changes passed largely unremarked by the media or political commentators. Farm welfare programs are developed independently of the general welfare safety net and are based on assumptions about the nature, extent and causes of farm poverty. No comprehensive empirical research has been conducted into farm poverty since the Henderson Inquiry of the 1970s. This paper discusses the issue of farm poverty in Australia and how it fits into the broader welfare debate, and proposes a way forward to develop more effective and equitable farm welfare programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a collaborative research project that shows how participatory social research can be used as a strategy for combating social exclusion. The Crime Prevention Partnership Project brought together dominant and disempowered groups to explore social issues of mutual concern and identify potential solutions. Indigenous Australian undergraduate students played a central role in this project, working with the police as customer service trainees and with the university as members of a project research group. This project became an opportunity to train and empower new researchers who, as people from disadvantaged groups, brought their own knowledge, concerns, and worldviews to a research process that they helped design and carry out themselves. The result was a learning process for all involved, referred to here as multi-directional empowerment. It led to tangible bridge building between mainstream, powerful institutions and a disadvantaged community. The project process offers a model for using participatory research as a framework in which to address development issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports results from a survey of community attitudes to the meaning and measurement of poverty in Australia. The data indicate that most people agree with a subsistence definition of poverty, while comparisons with an earlier survey show that there has been a marked shift in attitudes in favour of structural, as opposed to individualist, explanations of the causes of poverty over the last three decades. The data are used to estimate subjective poverty and to show that estimates of a consensual poverty line-defined using perceptions of the minimum income required to make ends meet-vary considerably over time. Finally, it is shown that subjective poverty is generally much lower than consensual poverty and that there is little overlap between the two measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of pedagogical relationships offer insights into policies and practices which have the capacity to promote progressive change in educational practice for children in poverty This paper focus on relationships established in three differently-located Australian primary schools. Greytown a medium sized inner-city school in New South Wales, Manger, a large suburban school in Queensland, and Meiks, a small rural school in New South Wales Each school is a designated disadvantage school and finded according through accordingly through a fedral Disadvantage Schools Program, is located in working class area and is ethincally diverse. The schools' pedagogical response to children in poverty are contrasted and analysed in terms of their capacity to contribute to socially just outcome from schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subjective poverty line methodology derives a poverty fine from responses to a question asking people how much money they need in order to make ends meet. In this paper, we explore the relevance and implications of this approach using sample survey data for Australia and Sweden derived specifically for this purpose. We apply identical techniques to the two sets of data and compare and contrast the resulting poverty lines, before exploring their sensitivity to changes in the methods used to derive them. Finally, analysis focuses on a comparison of the characteristics of those families in each country whose incomes are below the subjective poverty line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]