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This paper examines attitudes to workplace entitlements, such as parental leave and flexible work hours. Family friendly policies such as leave to care for children have implications for feminist debates about sameness versus difference and the extent to which such policies will lead to greater equality between men and women, or alternatively, further entrench existing gender divisions of labour. Using data from a recent national survey in Australia, the paper shows that while the Australian workforce is generally in favour of workplace entitlements, women are generally more supportive of these kinds of benefits than men. Surprisingly, most respondents are more supportive of unpaid rather than paid parental leave. The results also show that the most important determinants of support for work entitlements are a combination of the extent to which one needs work entitlements and employment location. The results raise issues about whether the provision of workplace entitlements will encourage greater participation by men in domestic responsibilities, or simply ease women's double burden of paid and unpaid work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students’ increasing use of text messaging language has prompted concern that textisms (e.g., 2 for to, dont for don’t, ☺) will intrude into their formal written work. Eighty-six Australian and 150 Canadian undergraduates were asked to rate the appropriateness of textism use in various situations. Students distinguished between the appropriateness of using textisms in different writing modalities and to different recipients, rating textism use as inappropriate in formal exams and assignments, but appropriate in text messages, online chat and emails with friends and siblings. In a second study, we checked the examination papers of a separate sample of 153 Australian undergraduates for the presence of textisms. Only a negligible number were found. We conclude that, overall, university students recognise the different requirements of different recipients and modalities when considering textism use and that students are able to avoid textism use in exams despite media reports to the contrary. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hazaras form an Afghan ethnic minority group in Australia who arrived as refugees and through humanitarian resettlement schemes over the past three decades. This qualitative study explored psychological distress in a community sample of young adult Hazaras with a refugee background. The aim was to contribute to a more detailed understanding of their mental health, coping, and help-seeking in Australia. Eighteen Hazaras, nine males and nine females aged 18–30 years (M = 22.39, SD = 3.35), in Perth, Melbourne, or Sydney, who had been living in Australia on average 7.17 years (range 1 to 16 years), participated in a semi-structured interview based on Kleinman's explanatory model framework. Participants described mental and physical health as interconnected and their explanatory models for psychological distress focused on their current difficult life experiences as refugees. Findings indicated noteworthy gender differences, with young women reporting less distress associated with adaptation than did young men. Some young people used positive coping strategies in the community, while others engaged with a variety of mental health services. Level of satisfaction with these services varied considerably, with satisfaction highest for services provided by multicultural centers. Generally, respondents were not focused on their past traumas, but more interested in planning for their futures in Australia. Key implications for culturally appropriate training and specialized interventions for use with young adult Hazaras from refugee backgrounds are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study in the state of New South Wales, Australia, explored what Specialist Homelessness Services are currently implementing in regard to consumer participation, what is working and what barriers to consumer participation have been encountered by both service users and providers. Three staff members, one consumer volunteer and 10 homeless persons from three services were interviewed. The interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. The study found that while consumers have some opportunities to participate, and that participation is beneficial, there were barriers to participation, such as staff attitudes and the nature of the consumer group. The implications of these findings for staff, consumers and future policy direction are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored students’ feelings during the Australian National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy. It features student voice depicted as self-drawn images accompanied by words as they journeyed through four phases of the NAPLAN process: preparation, participation, completion and results. The 34 students in Years 3, 5 and 7 attended one of two Queensland primary schools with divergent approaches to National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy. One-hundred and thirty-six images accompanied by 372 words were collected. School A allocated considerable time to test readiness and emphasised the importance of National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy while School B engaged in minimal preparation and did not highlight National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy as important. We explored similarities or differences in how students from each site reported their feelings. Our exploration reveals an overall trend of negative images and words during the preparation and participation phases followed by more positive depictions when the tests are complete and results are received. Furthermore, School A participants reported more negative feelings in the preparation and testing phases across all year levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a study investigating young children’s views about learning. The researchers engaged 200 Australian children from 3 to 8 years of age in conversations about how they liked to learn. In an attempt to privilege children’s voices, the direct words of the participating children are used in the reporting of results. The children generated rich and thoughtful ideas about learning as well as factors contributing to their motivation and engagement in learning. Whereas Kindergarten children expressed a real sense of agency and self-efficacy in their learning, school-aged children expressed a strong desire for opportunities to be more actively engaged and have some control over their learning. Of concern was how quickly positive dispositions towards learning appeared to slide when children transitioned to school. The study challenges educators to find ways to listen to children in order to develop policies and practices that are responsive to children’s perspectives and create school systems in which all children, without exception, are actively engaged, motivated and exercising agency in their learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, many social care jobs have shifted from the public to the nonprofit sector, accompanied by funding cuts, government contracts, managerialism and performance management. Qualitative data collected in Australia, New Zealand and Canada show that agency mission and immediate supervisors remain centrally important to workers’ identity and willingness to remain employed in social care. With the exception of one study site (where targets were jointly resisted by managers and staff), outcome measures were seen by workers to detract from the quality of care and erode social justice. This article argues that agency mission and supportive supervision buffer the impact of poor wages and conditions in the sector, while outcome measures undermine workers’ identities as caring people, in effect making the ‘self’ a site of struggle and discontent. Resistance strategies that agencies, workers and unions have used to challenge the hegemony of outcome-oriented funding and management models are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multivariate analyses of national survey data show that social background has an important influence upon environmental attitudes and behaviour in Australia. The tertiary educated consistently adopt a pro-environmental stance across a range of behaviours, including reducing their consumption, initiating lifestyle changes and voting for the Australian Greens. Men are less likely than women to see global warming as a serious threat and less likely to change their behaviour to protect the environment. However, men are far more likely than women to favour nuclear over coal-fired power, even after controlling for a range of other social background effects. While younger people claim they are willing to pay extra taxes or higher prices to reduce global warming, it is older people who are consuming less and changing their lifestyles because of their environmental concerns. A partisan divide over environmental issues and (in)action on climate change is demonstrated empirically, while conservative political leaders are shown to have an influence upon Green voting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article applies Q methodology in order to explore Australian Muslims’ orientations to the secular society in which they live. The analysis is guided by some theoretical claims that are made about the dispositions of Muslims who live in Western societies. While a simple ‘closed’ versus ‘open’ dichotomy has some plausibility, deeper investigation reveals four empirical types: respectively, semi-engaged, coexisting, assertively religious and untroubled participant. These four types vary in the same direction from the theoretical specification that informed the search for the type in question in a way that appears to reduce the tension between the type and the norms of secular society. Generalizations commonly made in both popular and scholarly discourse about the problematic character of Muslim orientations to secular society appear not to apply in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the quality of part-time employment for solicitors in private practice in Australia. Although full-time jobs based on long hours are dominant in the legal profession, part-time jobs, primarily taken by women, have attracted attention in recent years. The article seeks to answer fundamental questions about the extent and quality of these jobs, and how well they serve the needs of the increasingly diverse workforce. The article draws on recent surveys and in-depth interviews, as well as Census and other secondary data to describe the features of the part-time workforce and to explore aspects of poor quality such as limited access, inferior job content, stalled career progression and narrow schedules. It suggests that the major barrier to improving the quality of part-time jobs is the dominant model of full-time work in law firms, centred on heavy workloads, high targets of ‘billable hours’ and long working hours. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]