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Purpose: Framed within the bioecological model, this autoethnographic case study explores the author's experiences as a working mother of two children with disability prior to, during and after emerging from compulsory remote learning arrangements in Victoria, Australia due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue. The intention of this paper is to share the author's experiences. Design/methodology/approach: Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model was overlaid on the author's experiences to explore direct and indirect impacts on her agency, educational priorities and personal values through each level of the model. Findings: This research presents a new perspective for examining how the global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the equilibrium typically experienced by individuals across the education system. Originality/value: This research presents a new perspective for examining how the global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the equilibrium typically experienced by individuals across the education system.

A range of structural, interpersonal and individual factors contribute to the extent to which people can access higher education and experience inclusion and equity once there. This paper considers the experiences of parents in higher education settings, and examines the extent to which universities in two countries support parents' inclusion through the facilities and services evident on their campus maps. The inclusion of such parent-related facilities and services on campus maps reflects not only a commitment to providing support infrastructure, but importantly to making them visible, promoting a culture of normalisation of parents and parenting in higher education. We used manifest content analysis to examine the campus maps of Australia's n = 37 and New Zealand's n = 8 public universities, with a total of 281 distinct physical sites identified. Childcare services, parents' rooms, baby change tables, nursing areas and parking-related services were identified, although the prevalence within and across sites varied greatly. A lack of clarity in labelling and inconsistency across different modes of maps pose barriers to access and visibility in some cases, and overall, reporting of parenting-related infrastructure was limited. Our analysis indicates that parents attending university campuses may face ongoing challenges as they navigate their dual academic and parenting responsibilities.

The underlying thesis of much popular parenting discourse in circulation in western Anglophone countries is that parenting labour has intensified historically, notably in regard to schooling, and that we are witnessing new kinds of parental attitudes and strategies. A related argument holds that parents, especially middle-class parents, have become entrepreneurial agents in their children's education, and that this activity is a consequence of global neoliberal policy reform. This paper examines the intensification thesis through a study of popular parenting advice in the late pre-neoliberal era, the 1960s and 1970s. It proposes that the rise of intensive school parenting must be understood not only through policy histories of competition, choice and marketisation but also through histories of domestic life, of the material and affective activities of 'home-making'. The focus is on a collection of parenting advice (including advertisements) published in one mass-market women's magazine, the Australian Women's Weekly. Such publications were, the paper argues, significant and exemplary in disseminating forms of advice that encouraged parents, especially mothers, to discover and develop new repertoires of educational child-rearing competencies and to consider themselves as competitors in the educational arena, on behalf of their own children.

By adopting a tripartite FLP framework, this study aims to explore the agentive role of Polish-speaking fathers in heritage language maintenance. At the outset, it should be noted that as the theme of paternal agency has not been given much prominence in research, this paper delves into how Polish fathers of heteronormative families endeavour to maintain the minority language. More significantly, with the perspective of a new father-child relationship characterised by acknowledged paternity, presence and active involvement in a child's life, the present article gives voice to fathers who want to engage in everyday language practices that seem to transgress the codes of hegemonic masculinity. Thus, the analysis of transcripts from semi-structured interviews disclose the informants' ample opportunities for childcare, and most importantly, their struggle for children's bilingual development. Fathers, as the primary agents, can have profound influence on their offspring's beliefs, values, attitudes and behavioural patterns concerning the heritage language. The investigation underlines the fact that the gender of the minority-language speaking parent is less important in bilingual childrearing than the actual access to resources, time, and motivation. The study suggests that paternal agency exerts a significant influence on children's linguistic orientation.

Early childhood is an important time for the development of resilience. A recently completed study has followed three cohorts of resilient children and young people living in disadvantaged areas in Victoria, Australia, through different transitions in their educational careers. This paper focuses on the early childhood cohort, where we have followed children from kindergarten/preschool into primary school. Using data gathered primarily through interviews with parents (mothers in each case), this paper presents a qualitative naturalistic sub-study that used deductive thematic analysis to explore the different strategies used by families to support their child's resilience. Our findings highlight that resilience was a salient concept for all of the mothers in the study and each mother articulated a range of strategies they used within the family to try and support their child's development and resilience. These strategies were constrained by the settings in which the families lived.

Migrant and refugee parents considering raising their children in their non-mainstream home language often fear that this decision may impact negatively on their children's English language ability and thus affect their academic prospects. The lack of institutional support for home languages in the Australian school system, and the well-intentioned but misguided advice parents may receive to switch to the mainstream language in family interactions reinforce parents' doubts. To assuage parents' concerns and assist them in making an informed decision most appropriate for their family circumstances, we developed and delivered free workshops on bilingual upbringing. We also trained bilingual facilitators who adapted the workshops culturally and linguistically and conducted these in their own communities. This paper discusses these workshops, the feedback received, our observations, and lessons learned.

This paper examines Catholic girlhood, womanhood and the mother-daughter relationship, and its socio-historical construction within a range of disparate discourses. The aim of the paper is to deconstruct dominant patriarchal constructions and images of femininity, particularly those embedded within the doctrine of Catholicism. Moreover, the paper intends to reveal traces of maternal connections and relations which are often hidden by more dominant discourses. Rather than providing a historical account of Catholic girlhood, the object is to tell a perspectived story of the local and contextual experiences of growing up and being educated to be a "good Catholic woman" in suburban Melbourne, Australia in the 1920s and 1960s. In telling the story it is hoped that other women can momentarily engage with this narrative of Catholic girlhood and the mother-daughter relationship. (Contains 1 note and 2 figures.)

There has recently been a shift towards private expenditure in the tertiary education sector accompanied by a shift of public subsidies to students themselves. Implicit in this shift is the message that tertiary education is a private rather than public good, belonging to individual students rather than society. This paper explores the research on the wider social benefits of higher education and the data and methodologies that exist to underpin it. Its focus is on benefits to society but, since individual social benefits are entangled with wider benefits, both are discussed. The paper finds that little research has been undertaken in Australia even though understanding the wider social benefits of higher education is considered important to policy development. Longitudinal survey data do exist that could be extended and harnessed for such research. (Contains 1 table.)

In his 2007 PESA keynote address, Paul Smeyers discussed the increasing regulation of child-rearing through government intervention and the generation of "experts", citing particular examples from Europe where cases of childhood obesity and parental neglect have stirred public opinion and political debate. In his paper ("Child-Rearing: On government intervention and the discourse of experts", this issue), Smeyers touches on a number of tensions before concluding that child-rearing qualifies as a practice in which liberal governments should be reluctant to intervene. In response, I draw on recent experiences in Australia and argue that certain tragic events of late are the result of an ethical, moral and social vacuum in which these tensions coalesce. While I agree with Smeyers that governments should be reluctant to "intervene" in the private domain of the family, I argue that there is a difference between intervention and support. In concluding, I maintain that if certain Western liberal democracies did a more comprehensive job of supporting children and their families through active social investment in primary school education, then schools would be better equipped to deal with the challenges they now face.

This paper explores the lived experiences of parents with mental illness in Australia. It draws on in-depth interviews with parents (n = 10) who have mental illness and provides an analysis of national mental health policies. The analysis of the parents' narratives is essential in building a picture for those involved in the issues associated with directing and developing services to support parents with mental illness. This paper also provides information for workers who are often faced with a lack of good practice programmes to address the complexities that parents with mental health issues often present. Little is known in this field about the complex needs of families who live with mental illness or recognition of the complex needs of this vulnerable group of families. In fact, there is only recently emerging evidence to indicate an awareness of children in the lives of parents with mental illness. This paper focuses upon lived experience, social process, and social policy across the troubled terrain of mental illness.

Learning to parent sensitively and safely can be challenging for adults with childhood abuse and neglect experiences. Such childhood experiences are prevalent among incarcerated parents whose ability to parent their own children is also limited by separation from them. Several prisons have developed programs to foster pro-social parenting skills among incarcerated mothers and fathers to assist them on release. This paper reports a qualitative research study that explored the factors affecting the delivery and outcomes of parenting programs in correctional facilities in New South Wales Australia from the perspective of individuals involved in developing and implementing the programs. Thematic analysis of 19 interviews identified two main themes: supporting parents' learning in correctional settings and providers' learning about parent education in correctional settings. Respondents reported the benefits of providing creative learning opportunities enabling parents to build on their strengths and to develop relationships. These factors contributed to changing prisoners' attitudes and supporting them to consider alternative parenting approaches. The co-productive approach to parent education supported enhanced parenting knowledge among parents and greater insights among educators. Parenting education can be successfully delivered in correctional settings and can assist incarcerated parents to build on existing knowledge and adapt it to their own needs.

Extant research on sources of information about interventions used by parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has provided a general overview of sources used. However, it has provided little insight into why parents view certain sources as reliable or trustworthy, or how useful parents found the information provided to them by the sources and why. This paper provides a qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with 12 Australian parents of preschool-age children with ASD. Participants discussed the factors related to their perceptions of the reliability and trustworthiness of sources used, as well as the usefulness of the information provided. Parent ratings of the reliability of sources were influenced by factors including the firsthand experience of other parents, the parent's relationship with the source, and their beliefs about the sources' intentions. A number of parents reported that sources provided either information of limited use or an overwhelming amount of information. Considerable variation was reported in the usefulness of information provided to parents. Recommendations regarding research and practice are offered.

This paper draws on research that considers how gender and agency influence the engagement of sole parent postgraduates within the Australian academy. I argue that parental care responsibilities critically influence participation in higher education for sole parents. I suggest that the gendered construct of caring for children is a feminine performative which significantly determines how sole parents are able to engage with postgraduate education. By exploring motherhood practices and discourses as performatively queer, I am able to draw attention to everyday operations of motherhood and also begin to disrupt the naturalised link between female bodies and their care of children. This queering analysis aims to re-frame gendered constructs of feminine caring of children which significantly shapes participation and orientations towards higher education. Queer theory usefully investigates naturalised, so-called common-sense identity markers, including those re-inscribing gender. I suggest that "motherhood" equals feminine and that this powerful gendered social construction is an important site of critique. I suggest that sole parenting can be materially different because it is often experienced through intensified levels of childcare, domestic and financial management responsibilities. I argue that this increased level of childcare, household work and financial responsibility has material implications for sole parent's time, energy and engagement with postgraduate education.

This paper presents results from a pilot project that sought to establish parental motivations for raising children bilingually in regional Australia in the absence of a co-located speech community. Cultural and linguistic diversity outside metropolitan areas is increasing as a result of Commonwealth Government incentive schemes, and one effect of this is that migrant families must find innovative ways to stem the shift to English that is virtually inevitable in the absence of a systematic and committed family language policy. Five families of varied language background were interviewed regarding their motivations for and challenges in raising their children bilingually. Four key themes emerged, comprising three goals and one major challenge. The three goals were: to create a sense of belonging to a family, a community and a culture; to create a competitive advantage for their children's future; and to improve their children's school learning. The major challenge was the difficulty of the task despite their commitment to the family language plan. Results from this pilot have informed the design of a larger study of regional family language maintenance.

People with intellectual disabilities have poorer health than their non-disabled peers. They are also more likely to be exposed to a wide range of environmental adversities in childhood. Research undertaken in the general population has demonstrated that exposure to environmental adversity in childhood can have an adverse impact on health and well-being across the life course. Recently, research in this area has added new breadth and depth to our understanding of: (1) the extent to which cumulative exposure to environmental adversities across the life course, but especially in early childhood, can reduce health and well-being; (2) the social, psychological and biological mediating pathways through which environmental adversities may impair health; (3) the processes associated with resilience and vulnerability in the face of exposure to adversity; and (4) the social significance of these effects in accounting for the magnitude of the inequalities in health that are apparent both between and within populations. This new knowledge is making a significant contribution to the development of social policies that seek to combine health gain with the reduction in health inequalities. This paper attempts to apply this knowledge to research aimed at understanding and improving the health and well-being of people with intellectual disabilities. (Contains 1 figure and 1 footnote.)

When young children with behaviour and mental health disorders do not receive appropriate specialised support their problems can escalate over time. Their parents find the transition to and early years of schooling stressful and difficult. This paper argues that case management can be an effective strategy for this group of children. Although there is a body of literature on the topic of case management in schools, most of it supportive of this as a strategy, the bulk of the literature consists of policy discussion and anecdotal evidence; there is very little research in the area. This is especially true of the critical area of early childhood and the transition to and early years of schooling.

This paper reports on a small exploratory study that investigates the place and role of reciprocal learning within a partnership-based home visiting program for mothers experiencing depression. The study is one important example of an increased focus on reciprocal learning within practice that has significant implications for the development of professional education and, more generally, for workplace learning and ongoing professional development. The study addresses two major gaps in the research literature: a lack of detailed accounts of how partnership based approaches are taken up and developed in Australian health care; and a lack of attention to learning as a focus and outcome of partnership-based practice. Using information from in-depth interviews with nurses and mothers we describe and analyse the experience of participants, their learning and knowledge development, the techniques used to facilitate learning, and the development of a relationship between mother and nurse, and mother and child. We identify a fundamental repositioning in practice that was being enacted and learned by all nurses, and a shift in practice strategy from expert assessment and knowledge provision, to practice as a process of shared inquiry and learning. We identify key relational strategies developed by the nurses and commented on by the mothers. We identify a shift in how the mothers experienced the locus of knowing and decision making in relation to their child/children and their parenting. Nurses enhanced their ability to formulate effective interventions for mothers, to build a deeper understanding of mothers' experience, and to challenge or reinforce their own existing beliefs and knowledge. We suggest much of what was described by both the nurses and mothers within this study can usefully be described in terms of reciprocal learning, or as pedagogy. Such findings, we argue, have significant implications for the conceptualisation of health professional practice, the identification of the capabilities required to deliver partnership forms of practice, and, critically, for the redesign of curriculum in the area of health professional education.

Many children raised in orphanages suffered ongoing child abuse and neglect including sexual abuse, and nearly all were denied an adequate education. This paper explores adult females' perceptions of the impacts on their education of child sexual abuse they suffered while living in orphanages in Australia. In-depth qualitative and anonymous one-on-one interviews were undertaken with 10 female volunteers. Their narrative quotes emanate from questions asked about their experiences and perceptions of child sexual abuse, and its impacts on their educational achievement, educational development and educational opportunity. Of these volunteer females, only two had completed primary school, none had completed more than two years of secondary school, and none had undertaken any tertiary education. All had perceived child sexual abuse, in particular, to have had overwhelmingly negative impacts on their lifelong, educational achievement, educational development and educational opportunity. These impacts have had detrimental inter-generational consequences upon their own children. These adult females perceived child sexual abuse to be a major factor in their very poor, life-long educational development, achievement and opportunities, with intergenerational consequences for their self-esteem, wellbeing and success. Implications for practice are that children at risk should receive specialised teaching, educational support and counselling; adults with deficient education need help with learning processes such as dynamic learning, to help achieve active and inclusive citizenship.

Conceptualizations of the home have changed, particularly in respect to children's rearing and development. An increased awareness of early intervention in meeting a child's learning needs has filtered down into the organization of space in homes. Maximizing learning opportunities by creating "literacy nooks", which involves carving out interactive domains in the home, has become a way of asserting parental agency in their children's development. The Parents' Networks project is an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project that focuses on how specific locales, such as commercial retail outlets, playgroups, libraries, health services and home spaces, have become networks of information sourcing and learning. This paper refers to a sub-project derived from this larger study that focuses specifically on the home space. We suggest that within the home space, parents construct learning environments for preschool children based on concepts of "good" parenting. Four case studies of family homes in the US town of Greystone (pseudonym) are presented, exploring how space is arranged to produce an environment conducive to learning and development. In this article, we locate interview and observational data within space theory to posit how learning is mobilized within and across home environments. (Contains 1 note and 4 figures.)

The aim of this paper is to unpack the implicit ideology underpinning early childhood service delivery for families living with childhood disability. The family as the unit of care is central to the philosophy and practice of early childhood services. However, the practice of family-centred care can be problematic; it is based upon neo-liberal assumptions of "idealised" families, underestimates the profound impact of childhood disability on the family, and encourages service providers to conflate parents' involvement in care with responsibility for it. Further, the notion of chronic sorrow is often applied in order to describe parents and/or families as either "in denial" or too aggrieved to enact their therapeutic imperative, and individualised and psychologised interpretations are made. Service delivery in early childhood settings often reinforces--rather than acts to reduce--social, cultural and economic injustices. Clearly then, childhood disability remains institutionalised, but just within the institution of the family. Attention to the largely silenced, yet multiple, shifting, and complex issues faced by families living with childhood disability is required and will likely have implications for early childhood service delivery.

Objective: Child maltreatment is a problem that has longer recognition in the northern hemisphere and in high-income countries. Recent work has highlighted the nearly universal nature of the problem in other countries but demonstrated the lack of comparability of studies because of the variations in definitions and measures used. The International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect has developed instrumentation that may be used with cross-cultural and cross-national benchmarking by local investigators. Design and sampling: The instrument design began with a team of expert in Brisbane in 2004. A large bank of questions were subjected to two rounds of Delphi review to develop the fielded version of the instrument. Convenience samples included approximately 120 parent respondents with children under the age of 18 in each of six countries (697 total). Results: This paper presents an instrument that measures parental behaviors directed at children and reports data from pilot work in 6 countries and 7 languages. Patterns of response revealed few missing values and distributions of responses that generally were similar in the six countries. Subscales performed well in terms of internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha in very good range (0.77-0.88) with the exception of the neglect and sex abuse subscales. Results varied by child age and gender in expected directions but with large variations among the samples. About 15% of children were shaken, 24% hit on the buttocks with an object, and 37% were spanked. Reports of choking and smothering were made by 2% of parents. Conclusion: These pilot data demonstrate that the instrument is well tolerated and captures variations in, and potentially harmful forms of child discipline. Practice implications: The ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool--Parent Version (ICAST-P) has been developed as a survey instrument to be administered to parents for the assessment of child maltreatment in a multi-national and multi-cultural context. It was developed with broad input from international experts and subjected to Dephi review, translation, and pilot testing in six countries. The results of the Delphi study and pilot testing are presented. This study demonstrates that a single instrument can be used in a broad range of cultures and languages with low rates of missing data and moderate to high internal consistency. (Contains 3 tables.)

Background: Previous research has reported on the effectiveness of the Signposts program for supporting families of children with an intellectual disability and difficult behaviour (Hudson et al., 2003; Hudson, Cameron, & Matthews, 2008). This paper reports on an investigation of the extent to which child characteristics moderate the effectiveness of the program. Method: Data collected from 689 participants in the Signposts program were analysed to examine if the child characteristics of gender, age, or associated disability impacted on outcomes. Results: The gender analyses produced mean effect sizes of 0.39 for boys and 0.42 for girls; however, this difference was not statistically significant. The age analyses produced mean effect sizes of 0.38 for children aged 2-5 years, 0.42 for children aged 6-12 years, and 0.30 for children aged 13-18 years; however, these differences among the age groups were not statistically significant. The associated disability analyses across 7 groups produced mean effect sizes ranging from 0.31 to 0.75; however, the differences among these groups were not statistically significant. Conclusions: First, gender was not a moderating variable. Second, while the effect size for the older age group seemed to be marginally lower than that of the other two groups, age was not found to be a moderating variable. Finally, type of associated disability was not found to be a moderating variable. Methodological limitations of the study necessitate care in interpreting the findings. (Contains 3 tables.)

Parents with intellectual disabilities, like all other parents, need support with child rearing. Often this support comes from family and friends, but in the case of parents with intellectual disabilities, they are more likely to have to rely on the service system. Research from a number of countries demonstrates that there is limited system capacity to support these parents. There are few appropriate services, and practitioners are generally ill-equipped to meet the parents' particular learning and support needs. In response, the Australian government has funded a capacity-building model known as "Healthy Start: A national strategy for children of parents with intellectual disabilities," as part of its Stronger Families and Communities Strategy. This paper presents this model for building systems capacity that, in brief, addresses on the one hand, practitioner commitment, knowledge, and skills, and on the other, the parent education and community development resources needed to support parents with intellectual disability and promote a healthy start to life for their young children. The model involves the development of local leaders and practitioner networks in addition to dissemination of knowledge and innovation to support evidence-based practice. Innovative, cross-disciplinary, and inter-sectoral practitioner networks are at the heart of this capacity-building model. These networks bridge the gap between research knowledge and practitioner knowledge as a basis for planning and coordinating local service development.

Background: The purpose of this paper was to report on the results of an exploratory trial of an intensive home-based parenting programme for parents with an intellectual disability. The aim of the programme was to combine the delivery of evidence-based parent education technology for parents with an intellectual disability with two strategies aimed at promoting the contextual fit of the intervention with these families. Materials and Methods: A single group repeated measures design was adopted. The independent variable comprised the home-based intervention which all participants received. Multiple dependent variables included parents' perceived stress associated with parenting, parent sense of competence, parent-reported child problem behaviours, and quality of the home environment. During programme delivery the intervention's contextual fit with each family was assessed, and parent satisfaction with the intervention was measured at post-intervention. Results: Parents reported reductions in the frequency and intensity of potentially hassling events and reported more satisfaction and confidence with their role as a parent. Parents also reported a reduction in the frequency of child disruptive behaviour and a decrease in the number of disruptive behaviours that parents viewed as being a problem. Improvements were observed in the quality of the home environment for all families. Assessments of contextual fit showed that the programme fitted very well with the parents' own goals, values, and the families' lifestyles. Conclusion: The single group design of the current study precludes a firm conclusion being drawn about the effectiveness of the programme. However, these results show that the programme has promise for assisting families where a parent has an intellectual disability. This study adds to the research demonstrating the success of evidence-based parent education interventions for families headed by parents with intellectual disability by including ways to enhance the contextual fit of interventions.

Previous studies have indicated significant associations between relatively poor mental health of children and both perceived negative parenting and exposure to peer victimization at school. This paper examines their relative contribution to the mental status of adolescent school children. Questionnaires were administered to Australian school children (n=1432) aged 12-16 years. These contained reliable self-report measures of mental health (the GHQ) parental bonding (the PBI) and degree of peer victimization. As predicted, multiple regression analyses indicated that low levels of perceived parental care, high parental control and frequent peer victimization were each significantly and independently associated with relatively poor mental health. Together, they accounted for some 17% and 27% of variance in the mental health status of adolescent boys and girls, respectively. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are considered. Limitations of the study are also discussed (deleted).

This article critiques the Smart Population Foundation Initiative (SPFI), which was established to "bring parenting information and the science of child development to Australian parents and carers" (Smart Population Foundation, 2006) and to satisfy the need for a credible and easily accessible source of information for parents. The article draws on the notion of modern governance developed by Rose and analyses the Initiative as a deeply political project. It looks at the Initiative from a critical distance created by the context of governmentality. The authors argue that the discourses produced by the Initiative constitute a particular notion of parent as "smart" (lifelong learner, responsible and informed). These discourses govern parents through "ethopolitics" to take up a certain art of parenting as their supposed free choice. Through standardising and sanctioning a particular way of acting as a parent, the SPFI translates governmental objectives into parents' own values and practices. As a result, the discourse the SPFI constitutes about parenting effectively "shuts down" multiple understandings of being a "good" parent. Hence, parents' conscious formation of their parenting practices are inhibited and with that, the ethical debates around this contentious issue are silenced. (Contains 4 notes.)

Managing student behaviour is a primary task of principals and teachers, but it is not their responsibility alone. Parents are also responsible for their children's behaviour inside and outside school. As primary educators and caregivers parents have a duty of care and are responsible for nurturing, disciplining and socializing their children. In the wake of growing concerns about the apparent increase in antisocial behaviour inside and outside schools, the Government of Western Australia is planning to introduce the use of responsible parenting agreements and orders, modelled largely on UK policy. The aim of responsible parenting agreements and orders is to provide a statutory mechanism for directing parents to take responsibility for their children. The goal is to reduce truancy, antisocial behaviour and juvenile crime and to improve children's socialization and school performance. The Children's Court will be given power to issue orders that impose certain requirements on parents regarding the upbringing and discipline of their children. The purpose of this article is to examine the Western Australian government's policy on responsible parenting agreements and orders and their use in the school context. The article first provides an introduction to the role of parents in the area of school discipline, followed by an analysis of the State Government's discussion paper "Parental responsibility orders" and an overview of the proposed legislation. The discussion then focuses on the application of responsible parenting agreements and orders within the school context as a strategy for engaging parents in improving school discipline. (Contains 11 notes.)

A personal account of life experiences and research in relation to the concepts of respect, identity, relatedness and education offered by an Indigenous Australian woman reared by a non-Indigenous family in a non-Indigenous community. Western education philosophies--the goal of becoming the "self-realised individual": the independent self who succeeds as powerful and autonomous--are comparatively analysed with Indigenous Australian education philosophies--the goal of becoming the "related individual" to family, community and environmental resonance. Drawing on recent research initiated and conducted by Indigenous community organisations, Indigenous models for early childhood education are positioned as highly desirable for informing the future development of mainstream early childhood education policies. (Contains 5 endnotes.)

Children with life-threatening food allergies are increasing in number in Australia. A variety of foods such as dairy milk, peanut and tree nuts, fish and egg can cause severe allergic reactions in some children. The foods that cause allergies could trigger severe breathing difficulties (anaphylaxis) for these children and, if not treated immediately, could lead to death. Caring for a child with potentially life-threatening allergies has social, emotional, and financial consequences. This paper gives an insight into the psychosocial and cultural aspects and experiences of a migrant mother in raising a child with multiple and potentially life-threatening food allergies. It also advocates for improved and equitable access to child care for these children.

This paper draws together the as yet nascent literature on the development of failure-avoidant patterns of behaviour. These are behaviours intended to minimise risk to self-worth in the event of failure, thereby avoiding the negative impact of poor performance in terms of damage to self-worth. Self-worth protection, self-handicapping, impostor fears, procrastination and defensive pessimism fit this category. Increasingly the literature reveals arresting parallels in aspects of parenting and family messages that lay behind these behaviours. On the basis of aspects of parenting and personality variables common to failure-avoidant behaviours, implications are drawn in terms of the manner in which parents and teachers may help to contain their performance-limiting consequences.

Demographic data indicate that changes have taken place in family life and child rearing in Australia. Because more women work, traditional parenting roles have become strained. Children's emotional and physical development has been linked to effective parenting; preschool centers are accepted resources for parents who cannot stay at home with their children. (Author/DB)

Discusses an agency program in which biological and foster mothers both share in child care. Describes the feelings of both groups of mothers about the experience. (BC)

Objectives: We set out to examine the volume, scope and quality of research related to First Nations peoples' perceptions of, and experiences with, child rearing and/or parenting programs. Methods: We systematically reviewed the literature published between 2000 and 2020. Sixty-eight studies identified through electronic databases and references lists met inclusion criteria. Results: The study found an 8% increase in publications in the field each year (P -value = 0.002), mostly conducted in Australia with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (n = 29, 41%). Scope included positive and negative experiences relating to: parenting from adult (n = 19 studies) and teenager (n = 4) perspectives; and pregnancy, antenatal and postnatal care from the perspective of adults (n = 23) and teenagers (n = 2). Descriptive studies included qualitative (n = 40; 58%), quantitative (n = 8, 12%) or mixed methods (n = 7, 10%). Thirteen experimental studies reported the development, acceptability and/or effectiveness of programs (19%), of which three met the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care design criteria. Conclusions: Despite an overall increase in volume, research efforts do not demonstrate a clear scientific progression. Further methodologically rigorous studies examining child rearing and/or parenting programs developed in collaboration with First Nations populations are needed. What is known about the topic? Examining research output, effectiveness and acceptability of existing existing parenting and child rearing programs for First Nations parents can inform research priorities and service development.. What does this paper add? Rigorous research to inform the development and evaluation of parenting programs is limited. Strengths-based, community-wide approaches should integrate community identities, expertise and resources, encourage ownership and engagement, and build capacity.. What are the implications for practitioners? Continued efforts are necessary to develop programs uniquely informed by, and tailored to, First Nations parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews research studies regarding the father's role in child development and indicates that theoretical perspectives on father-child relationships are incomplete. According to recent research, the father's role noticeably influences child development. Changing sex roles do not appear to have influenced most Australian fathers to share caregiving responsibilities. (Author/DB)

Argues that inadequate parenting is a feature of Australian social life, partly because as a community, Australians are unaware of some of the problems that exist, and partly because they have few adequate procedures for coping with problems that arise during child-rearing. Problems addressed include short-term separations, child abuse, and joint custody of children after divorce. (Author/MP)

Explores some of the trends that make parenting such a challenging task for Australian parents, and discusses a variety of ways in which parents, teachers and the community can become involved in the education of children and their families. (Author/CM)

The articles in this section focus attention on (1) the historical shift in policies that affect the young men of this nation (2) how fatherhood policies and programmatic efforts are expanding and (3) how fatherhood practices and policies could and perhaps should be expanded and elaborated further. These efforts are linked to a growing body of research documenting the importance of fathers in children's lives, summarized in other sections of this issue. In our commentary we review the changing policy and programmatic climate with regards to fathers and note the opportunities for the policy and programmatic worlds for the future and for policy and programmatic research to move to new levels in enhancing the knowledge base.

Increasing instances of divorce, de-facto separation and non-marital childbirth in westernised states have led to growing numbers of fathers living separately from their children. In Australia these non-resident fathers now number approximately 400,000. Despite increasing evidence that fathers can be central to their children’s education, health and wellbeing, and that for many non-resident fathers contact with their children is important and highly desirable but inadequate, research on non-resident fathers, fatherhood and family as aspects of contemporary western society is lacking. In particular, few investigators have explored the qualitative dimensions of non-resident parent–child contact and the role of leisure within this. This paper establishes parameters for future investigation into the levels, nature, meanings and impacts of leisure involving non-resident fathers and their children. Drawing on an international literature and with particular emphasis on the Australian context, it critically analyses the context of non-resident fathers’ leisure with their children. It examines the problematic terms of ‘father’ and ‘non-resident father’, describes the models of contact that occur between non-resident fathers and their children, and summarises the factors affecting that contact. The paper then turns to research into family and leisure, drawing attention to the salience of leisure in non-resident parenting while also highlighting the lack of substantive research into this area. Particular attention is paid to the trivialising of ‘leisure’ as a parenting activity in this context, and the underplaying of the positive qualities that leisure-based interaction may contribute. The paper concludes by suggesting initial directions for research into the role of leisure within the relationship that non-resident parents have with their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbourhoods are important spaces of interaction for children. This paper explores the perceptions of residents from seven suburbs in the inner area of Newcastle, Australia concerning what makes a good neighbourhood for children. Key factors identified by residents include the types of dwellings found in the neighbourhood (with detached houses being seen as preferable for children) and the quality of neighbourhood resources. Another important feature was social interactions within the neighbourhood, including interactions between children and adults and interactions between groups of children. The paper examines how different features of neighbourhoods interact to create adult perceptions about whether a neighbourhood is appropriate for children. The paper also points to the ways that children are seen to actively produce the neighbourhood in which they live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many developed countries lone parent families face high rates of child poverty. Among those lone parents who do get child maintenance there is a hidden problem. States may retain all, or a proportion, of the maintenance that is paid in order to offset other fiscal costs. Thus, the potential of child maintenance to alleviate poverty among lone parent families may not be fully realized, especially if the families are also in receipt of social assistance benefits. This paper provides an original comparative analysis exploring the effectiveness of child maintenance to reduce child poverty among lone parent families in receipt of social assistance. It addresses the question of whether effectiveness is compromised once interaction effects (such as the operation of a child maintenance disregard) are taken into account in four countries Australia, Finland, Germany and the UK using the LIS dataset (2013). It raises important policy considerations and provides evidence to show that if policy makers are serious about reducing child poverty, they must understand how hidden mechanisms within interactions between child maintenance and social security systems can work as effective cost recovery tools for the state, but have no poverty reduction impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's research and knowledge base on cultural competency has been slow to develop. To help address this gap, the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS) funded a large scale study in this area, which included a detailed literature review. The paper reports on key findings from that review including that collectivist values are at odds with 'child-centred' philosophies of child protection; there is an inherent tension between the right to equal protection from harm and the right for respect in cultural differences in parenting and family functioning ('cultural absolutism' versus 'cultural relativism'); there are factors that uniquely characterise 'the migrant context' (especially lack of awareness of child protection laws and systems, economic disadvantage, and fear of authority); and that cultural competency is separable from cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity, and also different from addressing language barriers. However, in reviewing the literature it became apparent that the specific roles and responsibilities of workers, agencies, and systems were not clearly delineated. Thus this paper also aimed to address this unmet need. Identifying their unique roles and responsibilities can help ensure that the delivery of child protection services are efficiently and effectively mobilised from both the 'top' and 'bottom' to benefit all ethnic minority families. Moreover, any implementation of cultural competency needs to move beyond the emphasis on culture and acknowledge the dimensions of inferiority and oppression to truly promote value for diversity and protect ethnic minority children from the dangers of systematic disadvantage that institutional racism represents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foster carers' knowledge of caring for abused and neglected children is a largely under-researched area. We know very little about the nature of carers' knowledge in relation to caring for children who have been abused or neglected. This paper reports on an exploratory study which examined the knowledge of caring. Qualitative data were analysed based on in-depth interviews with 10 foster carers in Queensland, Australia. A range of knowledge was identified showing an interaction of both personalized and formal understandings in the caring response. Given the breadth of knowledge recognized from the analysis, this paper presents one dimension of their knowing: theory and abuse-indicated understandings. Participants' responses in these areas were at times sound, but many struggled to provide convincing and well-formed explanations of topics, such as attachment, harm and child development which may suggest that their understandings are not what they could be. Although further research is needed on a larger scale, this study does highlight the necessity to re-examine processes and strategies for carer knowledge support, so as to strengthen their understanding of these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the authors’ primary concern is to outline the cultural and spatial boundaries delineated in the representation of children and childhood in a selection of Australian feature films. To this end they explore in some depth the depiction of children’s worlds in three films: The Kid Stakes (1927), Smiley (1956), and Storm Boy (1976). The analysis canvasses class, gender, race and ethnic, as well as geographic, boundaries. These films demonstrate the historicity of the concept of childhood in Australian cinema. They show how over time the boundaries between children and adults became blurred and, while free movement through the landscape was maintained, children’s worlds became more restricted and emotionally laden. In Weberian terms, childhood became increasingly disenchanted. These findings are supported by childhood research based on other approaches and sources. At the same time the authors contextualize the films under discussion and begin the larger task of constructing a map of the two genres of Australian feature films concerning childhood: children’s films and films about children. To this end, the paper traces the brief prominence of the child as central character in The Kid Stakes, through the 1950s when there was something of a ‘golden age’ of films about children, to the re-emergence of child-centred films in the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]