Australian Journal of Social Issues最新文献

This article seeks to understand who Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children select as role models, and the reasons underlying these choices. Drawing data from Wave 8 of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, it comprises a sample of 307 children (169 male and 138 female) aged between 10.5 and 12 years at the time of data collection. Content analysis was used to analyse survey responses regarding two questions pertaining to role models, the analytical process being underpinned by Indigenous standpoint theory. The findings show that participants tended to select role models correlating with their gender and who were Indigenous or people of colour. For boys, most selected Indigenous sportsmen, whilst girls more evenly selected mothers, women from the entertainment industry, and sportswomen. The reasons why these individuals were selected were similar for boys and girls: the role model's ability, mastery and/or competency in a given field. These findings are important for educators and schools in guiding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youths in their educational and career choices, and for policymakers in creating campaigns and pathways into fields where Indigenous persons are underrepresented.

Food insecurity is a prominent social determinant of health. There is evidence of increasing food insecurity in high-income countries amid inflationary pressures. Yet, we know relatively little about the strategies that people employ to manage food insecurity nor how the severity of food insecurity affects the use of these strategies. Accordingly, this study of a nonprobability convenience online panel sample of 1284 adults in Tasmania assessed food insecurity and the strategies undertaken to manage rising costs of living. Structural equation modelling of 51 financial management actions revealed five strategies: reducing food quantity and quality, reducing housing and transport costs, drawing on assets, savings and credit, reducing insurance costs and reducing discretionary expenditure. Generalised linear regression modelling demonstrated that the use of coping strategies increased significantly with each categorical increase in food insecurity for each strategy except reducing insurance costs, in which increases became significant at moderate food insecurity. Overall, the results suggest that those experiencing food insecurity are also sacrificing in other areas, which is likely to have immediate and longer-term effects on health, social and financial wellbeing. Opportunities to mitigate these consequences, including strengthening of social safety nets, nutrition programmes and structural investment to ensure universal access to food, are discussed.

In Australia, there is insufficient exploration and understanding of how we can strengthen the critical role played by Indigenous fathers. This paper argues that for Indigenous fathers to feel supported in childrearing, greater attention must be given to their social and cultural determinants of health and well-being. To gain insights into the challenges experienced by Indigenous fathers and the support they require in fatherhood, we primarily apply thematic analysis to data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC). The findings reveal that most fathers identify a social or cultural health and well-being determinant challenging their fatherhood journey. We examine these results and suggest why and how appropriately focussing on the social and cultural determinants of health and well-being will enhance and support Indigenous men in fatherhood.

An appreciation of Aboriginal land rights in New South Wales (NSW) is characterised by two dominant narratives. One is that land rights are central to achieving and advancing recognition and support for the existence and survival of Aboriginal peoples in the settled spaces of south-eastern Australia. In this view, Aboriginal land rights realise intrinsic political power. The second dominant narrative is that the land estate restituted to Aboriginal people's Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALCs) is to be “activated” and “leveraged” for economic prosperity of collectively defined groups and shared to support and sustain individuals and families. This perspective holds that land enables realisation of wealth and prosperity. Although these narratives are based in truth, they have served to make some important work and values held by Aboriginal people less visible in any evaluation of the benefits of land rights. It is this less visible work, the work of care that is unique to Aboriginal worlds and made possible by the resources and structures of LALCs realised through the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, 1983, that is the focus of this paper.

Since 1996, migration-related schemes have directed new immigrants, refugees and humanitarian entrants to regional Australia to mitigate the need for skills and declining population growth in these locations. However, a key concern of these schemes is the uncertainty of long-term immigrant retention in regional locations beyond the stipulated visa category period. We draw on the metaphor of stickiness: the ability of geographic clusters to attract and retain to examine Australian regional settlement literature and identify factors and processes associated with immigrant settlement and retention. Through a systematic and rigorous review process, we identify seven interconnected factors and processes nestled amongst three core themes of sticky factors and processes that attract, enable and impede settlement and retention contributing to the growing knowledge regarding regional immigrant settlement and retention.

Child abuse and neglect in the home is a prevalent and significant issue in Australia. Recent findings from the Australian Child Maltreatment Study revealed that 62.2 per cent of participants had experienced at least one type of maltreatment during childhood, with most reporting multi-type maltreatment. This rapid evidence review was aimed at understanding factors associated with child abuse and neglect in the family context. Results from the included studies indicated that there is a complex interplay between various child-related factors, parent or family characteristics and contextual factors in understanding child maltreatment. Implications for a reliance on proxy measures of child maltreatment, including involvement with child protection systems, are also considered. A key finding across the included studies was that parent characteristics were consistently identified and should be a key target for prevention. Further research is needed to explore the role of parenting capacity and skills in the prevention of harm, the intersection between associated factors, how protective factors and strength-based approaches can inform prevention efforts and how policies and practices can be designed to appropriately address this issue.

Influenced by a harm reduction philosophy, the then Victorian Labor Government announced the establishment of the state's first medically supervised injecting room (MSIR) in North Richmond in late 2017. But, public and political opinion remains sharply divided as to the merits of the MSIR. One influence on policy development appears to be media commentary on the MSIR and the wider illicit drugs policy debate. This paper compares the official editorials of the two daily Melbourne newspapers, the Herald Sun and The Age regarding the MSIR, from November 2017 until November 2022. Based on 33 articles (Herald Sun, N = 28; The Age, N = 5), our findings identify philosophical differences between the two newspapers as reflected in their sources of information, language and highlighted issues. The Age was mostly supportive of both the introduction of the North Richmond MSIR and proposals for a second site. The Herald Sun's position was more ambiguous, ranging from qualified support for the North Richmond MSIR to strong opposition to further sites.

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of several factors that potentially contribute to attitudes toward demographic (i.e., racial, ethnic and religious) diversity in 16 advanced economies, using data from a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2021 (N = 16,254). Specifically, the study aimed to examine 12 potential covariates of anti-diversity attitudes, using Bayesian multilevel modelling. The results showed that the variables with the strongest positive association with anti-diversity attitudes were perceived domestic conflict (perception of greater conflict between different groups in one's country), being older and dissatisfaction with the way democracy works in one's country. The strongest negative covariates of anti-diversity attitudes were higher levels of education and perceiving discrimination as a problem. Household income was not associated with diversity attitudes, whereas being female was associated with more pro-diversity attitudes. The model was tested separately in Australia, and the results were generally consistent with the findings from the multinational sample. Perceived domestic conflict emerged as the strongest covariate of unfavourable diversity attitudes both in the overall sample and in Australia.

Ableist hate speech regularly appears in online comment-enabled articles on social media, whenever disability-related topics enter public discourse. In 2022, Dylan Alcott's appointment as Australian of the Year as a person with disability was widely celebrated. Despite this progress, we identified new forms of politicised ableism in online responses to his disability advocacy in this role. This research considers readership responses to an April 2022 Facebook post by an Australian tabloid publication. The post editorialised Alcott's Twitter response to the then Australian Prime Minister's comments on feeling “blessed” to have children without disability. Enmeshed within the usual ableist imaginary—“why would any parent want to have a child with disability?”—were new justifications for ableism associated with political “wokeness.” We analyse this emerging contour of politicised ableism in contemporary Australia to consider the complex patterns of progress toward social justice for people with disability.

In this paper, we discuss a rapid-fire study involving Indigenous and non-Indigenous stakeholders from the urban Indigenous health sector who collaborated to produce an “Urban COVID-19 Systems Map.” The map outlines the behaviours, actions and responses that stakeholders identified as mitigating or exacerbating COVID-19 risks in urban Indigenous communities. Data were collected and analysed during the height of the pandemic in 2021. We begin by introducing the characteristics of system thinking—the methodology that informed our research—and consider its use in Indigenous health research more broadly. We then outline our utilisation of system thinking and discuss how it was applied to the three workshops. System thinking contributes to collaboration and collective debate amongst stakeholders and aims to produce holistic understandings of complex problems, such as pandemics. This article provides a reflective overview of the benefits and challenges of applying system thinking in Indigenous health research whilst also sharing some of the research findings. We argue that centralising the voices of stakeholders, particularly Indigenous stakeholders, is critical to developing and implementing effective and culturally appropriate responses to pandemics and is equally as important to the preparedness for future pandemics.