Australian Mainstream Research Articles

How First Nations peoples living in the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Area describe and discuss social and emotional well-being.

This study was the first phase of a broader project designed to develop a new tool to screen social and emotional well-being (SEWB). Its objective was to identify words used by First Nations people living in the Torres Strait (Zenadth Kes) and Northern Peninsula Area (NPA) to describe and discuss SEWB. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. We acknowledge the First Nations peoples who took part in this project as holders of their cultural knowledge now and forevermore. This study took place in community and primary health care settings located on islands of the Torres Strait and NPA of Australia. Twelve yarns with 35 community members and health professionals were led by Torres Strait Islander members of the project team between August and December 2022. This study employed a descriptive qualitative design. Yarning, an Australian First Nations relational method, was used to share stories about SEWB. All but one yarn was audio recorded and subsequently professionally transcribed. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyse the yarns. Worry, sad and stress were the words most often used by participants to describe feelings of low SEWB. Signs of low SEWB included behaviour change, particularly significantly reduced community engagement. Worry is not a word that is used in Australian mainstream tools that screen for psychological distress. Findings of this study indicate that a question that asks about worries should be included when screening for low SEWB in Australian First Nations peoples living in the Torres Strait and NPA.

Making Reasonable Adjustments for Students With Disability in Australian Mainstream Classrooms: A Scoping Review – CORRIGENDUM

Making Reasonable Adjustments for Students With Disability in Australian Mainstream Classrooms: A Scoping Review – CORRIGENDUM

Making Reasonable Adjustments for Students With Disability in Australian Mainstream Classrooms: A Scoping Review

Abstract Reasonable adjustments are measures and actions that have been adopted in Australia to assist students with disability to participate in their learning on the same basis as their peers in a way that is free of inequality and exclusion. However, little research explores the enablers and barriers associated with implementing reasonable adjustments to support student learning. Therefore, research-based guidance regarding how best to direct the successful implementation of reasonable adjustments is required. This scoping review of 25 studies found a limited body of research that suggested reasonable adjustments are an effective means to address learner diversity; however, several barriers exist in teacher and school attitudes towards making adjustments, as well as how policy of reasonable adjustments can be systematically applied. A model of best practice summarises a strategy to address these significant themes.

How indigenous australians try to preserve themselves

The article discusses personal and collective life ways of native people residing in remote settlements of the Cape York Peninsula, Australia, and offers a number of observations on the native population of Central Australia. It is drawn on the authors’ field materials collected in 2005, 2007-2009, 2015, and 2022. If set against the backdrop of the likewise framed project exploring the Evens and Evenkis of Eastern Siberia, the situation in faraway settlements of Australian Aboriginal people manifests both substantial similarities and important differences. Neither in the past when the colonization began to unfold, nor in the present did the Aboriginal people, for the most part, willingly join the commercial and entrepreneurial activities of the Australian mainstream circles or get involved in trade and economic relationships with the newcomers. They rather resisted, and still do, the authorities' and entrepreneurs' attempts at getting them involved in such relationships. We argue that the underlying reason behind that is the very character of the local traditional culture, the key aspects of which are consciously and resiliently preserved - even if sometimes in a transformed or deviant manner - by the native people.

Reasonable adjustments to the application of the comprehensive care standard within an Australian mainstream internal medicine outpatient clinic attended by adults with Down syndrome

ABSTRACT Background: The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care recommends the development of reasonable adjustments to Comprehensive Care Standard to better suit the needs of people with intellectual disability. Method: An audit of adults with Down syndrome attending a mainstream internal medicine outpatient clinic was undertaken to describe their biopsychosocial profile, identify previously developed reasonable adjustments to clinical service and to consider their alignment with comprehensive care. Results: Of 54 adults, 31 (57%) male, average age 36 years (17.5–68 years), there were multiple syndromal and non-syndromal co-morbidities, 10 deaths (9 expected), from dementia. All had some degree of intellectual disability with all requiring disability supports to assist in their healthcare and an active health-disability interface in most cases. Conclusions: Reasonable adjustments to usual clinical content, process, knowledge, and organisation were identified, which appeared to facilitate application of comprehensive care. These were predominantly influenced by intellectual disability, disability supports, and the health-disability interface rather than the disease profile.

Foreign language pre-service teachers' perceptions of concerns before and challenges experienced during the first teaching practicum

The growing call among the countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to recruit, retrain, and recertify foreign and migrant teachers in order to diversify the teaching force to reflect the increasingly diverse student population justifies the need to explore the experiences of foreign language teachers during their first teaching practicum in Australian mainstream classrooms. Semi-structured interviews were held with six foreign language pre-service teachers pursuing the Master of Teaching (Secondary) programme. The purpose was to explore their teaching experiences, concerns prior to the first teaching practicum in Australian mainstream classrooms, and how they dealt with the challenges encountered. The findings indicate that although teaching a foreign language in community language schools provided the teachers with some practical teaching skills, values, and opportunities to practice the knowledge and theories acquired in their master’s programme, they all had concerns before the teaching practicum and encountered some challenges while undertaking it. The study discusses the challenges that the participants encountered and how they addressed them. In addition, it highlights the need for universities to design retraining programmes that address the unique concerns of foreign language teachers and equip them with the requisite knowledge and skills to enable them to become effective teachers in their new context.

The Australian Mainstream Media’s Portrayal of Youth Climate Activism and Dissent

The March 2019 School Strikes 4 Climate, predominantly organized by young students, garnered widespread and polarizing media coverage. We aimed to identify how Australian mainstream print news media portrays youth involvement and dissent within climate action movements. A qualitative media framing analysis was conducted to determine how youth climate activists and dissent were presented during the first large-scale youth climate protests in Australia. Australian newspaper articles and opinion pieces (N = 101) were identified via ProQuest and screened. An inductive thematic analysis was conducted in NVivo12. Findings were assessed through a typology of dissent to determine how different forms of dissent were represented in the Australian print news media. The framing of dissent in Australian media coverage was varied, with news articles being more likely to prioritize the voices of young people, while opinion pieces resorted to fear-mongering rhetoric that critiqued and invalidated their agency. Protestors used combinations of dutiful and disruptive dissent to advocate for climate action, with the latter being more effective for challenging systemic drivers of climate change.

A News-based Discourse Analysis of China’s Economic Image in Australian Mainstream Media in the Context of COVID-19 —The Case Study of Sydney Morning Herald

A News-based Discourse Analysis of China’s Economic Image in Australian Mainstream Media in the Context of COVID-19 —The Case Study of Sydney Morning Herald

Chinese Masculinity Redefined: Brian Castro’s After China

ABSTRACT Influential Australian author Brian Castro has a mixed ethnic background that often identifies him as a multicultural writer. To Castro, however, this label imposes upon him a static identity he has long tried to break away from. His agenda is to unshackle himself from both the Australian and Chinese cultures he straddles. This effort is evidenced by his attempts to redefine Chinese masculinity in his novel After China. In Chinese masculinity studies, Chinese masculinity can be best understood in terms of the wen–wu paradigm—the wen ideal being conditioned by Confucianism. The male protagonist in After China, however, You Bok Mun, is influenced by Taoism and Western postmodernism in his expression of masculinity. Furthermore, while in traditional gender discourse masculinity is equated with sexual potency, in this novel, Castro eliminates sexual prowess from You Bok Mun's masculinity and replaces it with his ability to narrate stories. Although You Bok Mun experiences displacement and alienation in Australia, he does not intend to elevate his manhood for the purpose of being admitted into the Australian mainstream. Instead, he chooses to remain an outsider and uses this status to unsettle and challenge stereotypes of Chinese masculinity.

Recognition or Redistribution? How Mainstream Media Frames Charitable Responses to People Experiencing Poverty

Charitable responses to people experiencing poverty are often viewed as valuable community-led initiatives that address the support gaps created by a withdrawing welfare state. This perspective provides important insights into the culturally valorised nature of charity. The role of the mainstream media in cultivating and valorising charity, in contrast, remains relatively underexplored. Drawing on a framing analysis of Australian mainstream news reports published between 2014 and 2020, we analyse how the media frames charity as a response to people experiencing poverty. We demonstrate that the media frames people experiencing poverty as having a devalued identity, for which the remedy is the restoration of dignity through charity. Little attention is paid to the material inequalities that underpin people’s experiences of poverty; nor the role of the media as a body that reifies the interests of the powerful, who benefit from poverty and charitable responses to it.

Terminology and Provision for Students with Learning Difficulties: An Examination of Australian State Government Education Department Websites

Students with learning difficulties form the largest group of students with additional needs in Australian mainstream classrooms. However the terminology surrounding these students differs broadly across the country. A consistent and shared understanding of the term learning difficulties is vital, as this impacts the identification and equitable provision of support for students experiencing difficulties with learning. The website of each Australian state/territory government education department was examined to determine to how students with learning difficulties are formally identified and supported. It was found that considerable differences, and even conflicting information, exist both within and across education systems. Implications and the significance of this situation are discussed.

Transculturation and counter-narratives: The life and art of the Wurundjeri artist William Barak

A few decades ago the culture of Aboriginal Australians was believed to have been removed or assigned to the margins. It was considered static and primitive, produced by uncivilized and barbaric peoples. Since the 1980s the view has been successfully challenged and recent art histories produced in settler colonial countries emphasize that Indigenous cultures were neither stuck in the past nor resistant to change. Its development was due to contact between the Indigenous and settler societies and the cross-cultural interactions the contact engendered in political, social and artistic life. This was often against the backdrop of conquest and displacement, which was the result of colonization. Adopting as the main frame of the discussion the theory of transculturation and the concept of counter-narrative from cultural studies, this article will show these different types of encounters and their influence on the life and art of William Barak, a nineteenth-century Aboriginal Australian statesman, leader of a Woi Wurrung nation and an artist. It will also show – again through transculturation – what trajectory the Australian mainstream society followed from initial separation and exclusion, through assimilation to an integration of Indigenous Australians in the artistic and social life. The counter-narrative concocted on the basis of those encounters produces a nuanced picture of loss, survival and strength as experienced by William Barak and his peoples.

The Importance of the Promotion of Evidence-Based Practice as a Reasonable Adjustment in Mainstream Education Settings for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder

AbstractAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that can affect a person’s ability to manage the complexities of varied social and environmental situations. This is particularly evident in the dynamic context of a school classroom. To assist students with ASD to navigate the complexities of Australian primary and secondary mainstream classrooms, educators are required to provide ‘reasonable adjustments’ to support learning; that is, to make changes that are practicable and achievable in order for students to access learning on the same basis as their peers. We present an argument that the ‘reasonable adjustments’ made by schools to ensure that students with ASD have equitable learning opportunities should meet a criterion of acceptability where the adjustment is evidence based. The paper also offers a summary of evidence-based pedagogical strategies that have been effective for students with ASD and concludes with a discussion offering evidence-based practices as a solution to meeting legislative requirements for students with disability.

Accounting for Cultural Capital—Sustainability Agenda of Charities Serving the First Nations People towards Self-Determination—Evidence from the Northern Territory, Australia

This study examined the role of the First Nations beneficiary charities in contributing to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Northern Territory, Australia, as a way of attaining self-determination by closing the expectations gap between First Nations people and the mainstream Australians. Informed by the theory of self-determination (ethical and functional strands), a latent content analysis of 118 charities serving the First Nations people was conducted, coding the summary of their activities to ascertain their strategic engagement with the SDGs. A network analysis was also carried out to examine the charities’ connections with each other and their collective contribution towards the SDGs. The findings show that charities contribute to creating cultural capital through social capital, followed by intellectual capital dimensions. However, charities contributed little to building environmental capital dimension of the First Nations people. This study examined charities’ engagement with SDGs to build cultural capital in furtherance of self-determination of Australia’s First Nations people.

Clarifying Cultural Safety: its focus and intent in an Australian context

The nursing/midwifery professions are facing a sea change with the inclusion of cultural safety in the Code of Conduct for Registered Nurses [Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. (2018a). Midwife standards of practice. Retrieved January 30, 2021, from https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/codes-guidelines-statements/professional-standards.aspx], the Code of Conduct for Midwives [Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. (2018b). Code of conduct for nurses. Retrieved January 30, 2021, from https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/codes-guidelines-statements/professional-standards.aspx], the Registered Nurse Accreditation Standards (Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council. (2019). Registered Nurse Accreditation Standards. Retrieved from https://www.anmac.org.au/), and the Midwife Accreditation Standards [Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council. (2021). Midwife Accreditation Standards. Retrieved from https://www.anmac.org.au/standards-and-review/midwife]. In this paper, we focus on the theme of enabling cultural safety seeking to overcome the barrier of confusion surrounding it. The inclusion of cultural safety in codes and accreditation standards highlights the pressing need for these professions to attain deep understanding of cultural safety so that clinicians and educators can confidently practice and teach in this area. This need is underscored by the context of heightened awareness, that developed amongst mainstream Australians with Black Lives Matter in 2020, of inequity including health inequity. Our concern as academics responsible for staff development, curriculum development and implementation in university Schools of Nursing/Midwifery is to enable and support the teaching and practice of cultural safety. Its focus on working in partnership, addressing power imbalances, racisms and related systems of discrimination constitutes it as a vastly different model to cultural other-awareness and notions of cultural competency which have held sway on matters of culture in health service provision up to now. Our approach was to undertake a reflection on our combined decades of studying, leadership, teaching, and practice of cultural safety, which consistently showed the confusion in Australia about the model overall and about the definition of culture underpinning it. This paper supports the profession by addressing the need to educate academics and clinicians on cultural safety itself and on the role of all nurses/midwives, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, in these endeavours. This paper encourages a coherent development and confident implementation of cultural safety curriculum and practice to meet current requirements.

The Belt and Road Initiative in Australian mainstream media: why did its narratives shift from 2013 to 2021?

Compared with similar research mainly focusing on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Australian mainstream media using discourse analysis, this paper explores the reasons for the narrative shift by conducting semi-structured interviews with leading and well-known Australian narrative producers. This paper takes two conditions as a given. Firstly, the BRI narratives in Australian mainstream media shifted in tone from mostly positive to highly critical. Secondly, the Australian mainstream media's increasingly negative attitudes towards the BRI are essentially not just about the BRI but the Chinese government. Based on my analysis and interviews, this paper makes contributions by filling in the gap of finding out reasons to explain this narrative shift. More concretely, this paper finds out that while mainstream media is influential in many areas of national policy making, mainstream media reporting on foreign affairs is less so. By comparison, the Australian government's BRI or China policy has a significant impact on Australian mainstream media reporting. This narrative shift has been driven by international politics and Australia's China policy, influenced by Australian audiences’ preference of local news and their local position, and its democratic responsibilities. Meanwhile, the vagueness and constant changing characteristics of the BRI do not help the understanding of the BRI in Australian media.

The Australian media’s foreign news coverage of COVID-19 and its declining reportage of the Asia Pacific region

This article examines the Australian mainstream media’s foreign news coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. It finds that the Australian mainstream media has comprehensively covered the devastation of COVID-19 in the United States and the United Kingdom, but there was scant coverage of the death toll and policy problems of countries in Australia’s region, particularly in neighbouring Southeast Asia. I documented COVID-19 television coverage in the ABC’s 7 p.m. news, ABC’s 730 current affairs programme and three major Australian broadsheet newspapers: the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and the West Australian. In a global pandemic causing widespread deaths on every continent, the article shows how the Australian mainstream media’s vast disparity in world coverage conveys a distorted reality of ‘newsworthy’ pandemic coverage, one that I argue does not reflect Australia’s increasingly diverse population nor its place in the Asia Pacific region.

Identifying Racial Minorities' Nationality: Non-verbal Accent as a Cue to Cultural Group Membership.

Historically, racial appearance has been a common source of information upon which we categorize others, as have verbal accents. Enculturated non-verbal accents which are detected in facial expressions of emotion, hairstyle, and everyday behaviors, have also been found to exist. We investigated the effects of non-verbal accent on categorization and stereotyping when people are exposed to thin slices of behavior. The effects of racial essentialism, which inclines people to categorize and assess others by race, were also tested. In three studies, Australian participants were shown short, muted videos of target individuals performing everyday behaviors. The targets were of a minority (Asian) racial appearance, but half had been interracially adopted as babies and grew up in the Australian mainstream. The other half were foreign nationals who grew up in Asia. In Studies 1 and 2, Australian participants rated each target as Australian or foreign. In both studies, they correctly identified the targets at above chance levels. In Study 3, participants rated the targets on Australian and Asian stereotype traits. They were not told that some targets were Australian and some were foreign, but they nonetheless rated the congruent stereotypes more strongly. Lay theory of race moderated the effect of non-verbal accent, with a weaker effect among participants who endorsed racial essentialism. These preliminary findings reveal subtle effects of non-verbal accent as a cue to cultural group membership and invite further work into the effects of non-verbal accent on person perception and categorization processes.

Muslim like us: mobilizing minority identities in popular Australian entertainment media as sites of transnational representation

In the context of sustained interest in the mobilization of Muslimness beyond generic and hence immobile identity tropes, I consider how Australian mainstream television and film productions work to challenge and disrupt essentialist representations of Muslimness. Case studies feature two television series and a feature film, examined through the lens of transnational mobility theory and in the context of mediated anti-racism. The productions I discuss, ‘The Spice Journey’, ‘The Mosque Next Door’, and ‘Down Under’, all turn on intra- and inter-communal mobility of Muslim identities. They are part of a larger trend in popular media productions in current Australian film and on television, which reacts to Islamophobic sentiments in the country by drawing attention to embodied multiple subjectivities. Findings suggest that Australian entertainment media can add meaningful input to the diverse and complex negotiations of culture and identity among Muslims in Australia but may sidestep other forms of racism like anti-Indigeneity in the process.

Field testing an Australian model of practice for teaching young school-age students on the autism spectrum

BackgroundInternationally, many mainstream teachers have identified that they lack the specialised knowledge and skills to adequately include and educate the increasing number of students on the autism spectrum in their classrooms. AimsWe investigated the experiences and perceptions of Australian mainstream teachers who field-tested a validated Model of Practice designed to support their daily work with young school-aged students on the spectrum. This new online resource comprised 29 foundational research-informed practices, each accompanied by a 2-page practice brief. Methods and proceduresA convergent parallel mixed-methods design used semi-structured interviews and surveys to gather data from a sample of teachers (n = 38) prior to and following an 8-week field-testing period. Differentiated levels of professional support to facilitate engagement with the model were provided, with teachers receiving either in-person support, online support, or no additional support. Outcomes and resultsA majority of teachers endorsed the practice model. Those who engaged with the model reported statistically significant increases in knowledge, confidence, and efficacy. Professional support facilitated teacher use of the model. No significant changes in practice use were found. Conclusions and implicationsThis field-testing provides preliminary evidence of the applicability of the practice model in Australian early years classrooms. These findings have wider implications for the ways in which professional development can be targeted to promote research-informed teaching practice. What this paper adds This novel practice-based resource shows promise for building the capacity of mainstream teachers in educating young school-age students on the autism spectrum in the Australian context. Outcomes from this field testing confirm the usefulness of focusing on foundational teaching practices rather than single, stand-alone interventions. In addition, this research has highlighted the benefit of professional support in bridging the research-to-practice gap in autism education.