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This paper explores how leadership is addressed within Australia's National Children's Education and Care Workforce Strategy (ACECQA, 2021). The Workforce Strategy has been widely welcomed, arriving at a time of unprecedented workforce pressures in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector. Yet, on close examination there appears an absence of focus on leaders as a distinct group within the ECEC workforce. Considering leadership is unequivocally central to retaining and sustaining early childhood educators, this absence of focus is noteworthy. First, the paper unpacks what is currently known about ECEC leadership. Then, how leadership in the policies under consideration is constructed as a problem in relation to quality and capability. Next, silences and ambiguities in how the strategy addresses the retention of leaders and their wellbeing is discussed. Ultimately it is argued that we need more understanding of the experiences of leaders as a distinct subset of the ECEC workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, competing discourses shape tensions between the role of the contemporary university and the global markets in which universities must exist. This paper draws on the examination of interviews with nine education academics in Australia to illuminate the construction of ‘global’ in the production of the global graduate (GG). Discourse analysis is used to explore how, against the backdrop of COVID 19, participants construct different identities variously related to current and future orientations for the GG. This paper uses two big ‘D’ discourses – efficiency as centralised imperative and boundless productivity – to explore knowledge production and accountabilities, neoliberalism, internationalisation and the construction of marketised universities operating in global knowledge economies. We conclude, the GG is an elusive notion, which draws mobile and multiple positionings to reveal unsettled and often ambiguous constructions of ‘university’ and ‘teacher’, with related tensions for the role and identity of education academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst endorsement of inquiry based learning (IBL) in primary and lower secondary settings in Australia, research indicates that IBL is underrepresented and/or under utilised in senior science education. To investigate this apparent pedagogical misalignment, a phenomenological study was undertaken to explore senior biology teachers’ perspectives and practices around IBL. Six senior biology teachers working in government schools in Victoria participated in this study. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews, transcribed, coded and thematically analysed. Findings revealed that despite being in favour of IBL, participants experienced tensions in teaching senior biology through inquiry and felt compelled to adopt transmissive techniques with senior secondary cohorts. Three major sets of commonalities causing tensions were identified: 1. Ambiguity in teachers’ interpretation of IBL; 2. Lack of student readiness for, or expertise in, IBL; 3. Pressures around school culture/expectations at senior secondary level. The research concludes with suggestions to address these identified tensions and create opportunity for IBL, including avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyzed the mitochondrial differentiation of the southeast Australian land snail genus Austrochloritis Pilsbry, 1890, family Camaenidae, which encompasses 34 currently accepted species. These species were exclusively described and delimited based on comparative shell morphology, while their reproductive anatomy has remained undocumented. Phylogenetic analyses of partial fragments of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene (COI) and 16S rRNA (16S) genes revealed widespread incongruence between the shell‐based species taxonomy and the branching patterns of phylogenetic trees indicating the urgent need of more comprehensive systematic review. The phylogeographic patterns in Austrochloritis are consistent with well‐documented biogeographic barriers in southeastern Australia, namely the Hunter River Valley and the McPherson Range, which demarcate concomitant biogeographic breaks in the biota of the region. These breaks are thought to result from past expansions and contractions of mesic forests caused by the climatic oscillations during the mid to late Neogene. Our study also provides evidence for potentially widespread sympatry of Austrochloritis species in the northern part of their distribution, which is in conflict with contemporary paradigms that presume predominantly allopatric distributions in congeneric land snails in eastern Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is extensive health and public health literature on the 'evidence-policy gap', exploring the frustrating experiences of scientists trying to secure a response to the problems and solutions they raise and identifying the need for better evidence to reduce policymaker uncertainty. We offer a new perspective by using policy theory to propose research with greater impact, identifying the need to use persuasion to reduce ambiguity, and to adapt to multi-level policymaking systems.We identify insights from secondary data, namely systematic reviews, critical analysis and policy theories relevant to evidence-based policymaking. The studies are drawn primarily from countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We combine empirical and normative elements to identify the ways in which scientists can, do and could influence policy.We identify two important dilemmas, for scientists and researchers, that arise from our initial advice. First, effective actors combine evidence with manipulative emotional appeals to influence the policy agenda - should scientists do the same, or would the reputational costs outweigh the policy benefits? Second, when adapting to multi-level policymaking, should scientists prioritise 'evidence-based' policymaking above other factors? The latter includes governance principles such the 'co-production' of policy between local public bodies, interest groups and service users. This process may be based primarily on values and involve actors with no commitment to a hierarchy of evidence.We conclude that successful engagement in 'evidence-based policymaking' requires pragmatism, combining scientific evidence with governance principles, and persuasion to translate complex evidence into simple stories. To maximise the use of scientific evidence in health and public health policy, researchers should recognise the tendency of policymakers to base judgements on their beliefs, and shortcuts based on their emotions and familiarity with information; learn 'where the action is', and be prepared to engage in long-term strategies to be able to influence policy; and, in both cases, decide how far you are willing to go to persuade policymakers to act and secure a hierarchy of evidence underpinning policy. These are value-driven and political, not just 'evidence-based', choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the cultural figure of ‘the bogan’. It offers an analysis of the modes of sociality, the affective flows and the relational intensities through which the heterogeneous categories of ‘bogan’ and ‘anti-bogan’ take shape. It draws on the work of Sara Ahmed on ‘Affective Economies’ to explore how ‘bogan’ works as a ‘sticky sign’. The paper sits alongside other scholarly studies that elaborate the material-affective registers through which ‘bogan’ and ‘anti-bogan’ take shape, and are embodied and placed. However, where some see anti-boganism, in its various forms, as representing a newly animated class war driven by disgust, this paper argues that what is most remarkable, and challenging to analyse, is the very ordinariness of the identifications, and disidentifications, with ‘bogan’. This is not to suggest that class does not matter, but rather, that what happens around ‘bogan’ is as fleeting and labile as it is congealed and sticky. Attunement to the ambiguity and complexity of these movements, and the curious mingling of contempt and love that ‘bogan’ signifies, may afford some insights into the matter of class and culture in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how attitude to risk in the tourism industry impacts on the role of strategic alliances in developing technology-based knowledge. A survey of Australian travel sector businesses indicates that strategic alliances in tourism contribute only marginally to technology-based knowledge. The study further found that executives in the travel sector of tourism are risk-averse and this has implications for their perceptions regarding the contribution of alliances to technology-based knowledge. The findings imply that Australian industry policy towards tourism needs to encourage strategic alliances that have the potential to stimulate knowledge-based innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The language of Aboriginal songs is often described by both researchers and Aboriginal people as being unintelligible to those who do not have the ritual knowledge to understand it. The Minamina yawulyu performed by Warlpiri women from Yuendumu community, Central Australia, is one such song cycle that is described in this way. However, it does not display many instances of ritual or archaic words or phonological skewing that would clearly differentiate this language from everyday Warlpiri. Instead the Minamina yawulyu uses regular language in a connotative way such that it is unintelligible without knowledge of the symbolic associations intended. In this way ritually knowledgeable people who understand the connotations of this language are required to interpret these songs giving them a degree of control over how this knowledge is transmitted. In this paper I will present some examples of metaphor, metonymy and image-schemata along with accompanying exegesis provided by Warlpiri informants. In highlighting this symbolic way of using language I will show that Warlpiri song language uses familiar physical and social experiences in Warlpiri people's lives such as those around landscape, kin relations and physical appearances and movement, to connote emotive responses to country and associated ceremonies. This paper will demonstrate the role of song in passing on the complexity of religious knowledge and also the ways in which ritually knowledgeable people control its transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The inclusion of patent linkage mechanisms in bilateral and plurilateral trade and investment agreements has emerged as a key element in the United States' TRIPS-Plus intellectual property (IP) negotiating agenda. However, the provisions establishing patent linkage mechanisms in several agreements appear to reflect a degree of ambiguity, potentially enabling some flexibility in their implementation. In this study, we reviewed the features of the prototypic patent linkage mechanism established by the Hatch-Waxman Act in the United States, and compared these with the implementation of systems in three countries whose agreements with the US include patent linkage obligations. From these analyses, we draw lessons for moderating the impact of these mechanisms on access to generic medicines.Methods: We reviewed the features of the patent linkage mechanism in the US, and undertook a detailed analysis of relevant treaty provisions and the manner of implementation in Canada, Australia, and South Korea.Results: A key difference between the US implementation of patent linkage and that of its trading partners is the disparate treatment afforded to biologics. Because of the significant differences in the regulatory frameworks applying to small molecule and biologic medicines in the US, the Hatch- Waxman provisions do not apply to biologics and they are not subject to patent linkage. By contrast, the regulatory frameworks in Canada, Australia and South Korea do not reflect similar distinctions and thus patent linkage mechanisms also capture biologics. Additional variations in implementation, mainly the result of constructive ambiguities in the respective treaty texts, offer potential opportunity for mitigating the adverse impact of patent linkage provisions on market entry of generic medicines. Practical measures include ensuring the availability of an accessible, transparent and easily searchable database of patent information; avoiding automatic stays of generic marketing approval where possible; and requiring certification by rights holders to prevent abuse of the system.Conclusions: Where countries accept treaty obligations to establish patent linkage mechanisms, the impact on access to generic medicines may be moderated to a degree by retaining and exploiting constructive ambiguities in the treaty text and addressing practical aspects of implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]