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Keywords: Academic

  • PODCAST

    Eva Cox on macho economics and the feminist lens

    • Podcast
    • 07 February 2018
    1 Comment

    In many ways, feminism has pushed the boundaries of where and how women participate in the economy. But there is a deepening sense that this has not been enough. So what got missed? Prominent academic and feminist Eva Cox discusses the impact of neoliberalism on women, and why the social lens is more critical than ever. 

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  • PODCAST

    Eureka: Reclaiming the Southern Cross

    • Podcast
    • 06 December 2017

    Dr Anne Beggs-Sunter is a historian and academic specialising in the history of Ballarat. She takes us through the 1854 miners' rebellion, where the Eureka flag was first raised. What do people miss about this story? Can the Eureka Stockade be retold in an inclusive way?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Middle class privilege is more than material

    • Sonia Nair
    • 24 October 2016
    15 Comments

    Social theorist Pierre Bourdieu posited the disturbing finding that academic underperformance in lower-class students could be traced back to their lack of cultural capital, defined as 'familiarity with the dominant culture in a society, and especially the ability to understand and use 'educated' language''. According to Bourdieu, the mainstream education system assumes a certain level of cultural capital and as a result, educators speak in a manner that is only understood by a privileged few.

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  • RELIGION

    Pell abuse saga reeks of incompetent policing

    • Frank Brennan
    • 29 July 2016
    81 Comments

    Wednesday night's ABC 7.30 program carried allegations against Cardinal George Pell which, if true, are devastating: life ruining for victims like Damian Dignan and Lyndon Monument; confronting for all citizens committed to the wellbeing of children; and earth shattering for Catholics who still have faith in their church. The report is also troubling for those of us concerned about due process and the rule of law - not as academic notions for lawyers but as the secure bulwarks of a society in which everyone's rights and interests are protected.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Does religion in schools go beyond branding?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 27 August 2015
    27 Comments

    Religious schools have emphasised the transmission of faith and an ethical way of life through a network of relationships, symbols and processes. But this is now being tested, with the dominant view that values and faith are a private matter best hosted inside the family. The operative goals of schools become the academic and economic advancement of individuals, with religious classes and rituals little more than decoration and rhetorical branding.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The ins and outs of a regional solution for refugees

    • Samuel Tyrer
    • 06 August 2015
    21 Comments

    The Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers of 2012 said 'a regional cooperation and protection framework' should shape policymaking. Support for a regional solution also exists among academics and NGOs such as the Refugee Council of Australia. So what would such a framework look like? And when the time comes, will Australia be prepared to lead the way by increasing resettlement numbers?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australian academics right to resist respected global warming skeptic

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 03 August 2015
    8 Comments

    Lomborg's profile was built by a book on global warming in which he accepted its reality, but argued its effects would not be as catastrophic as predicted. He is a good media performer whose métier is not scholarship but popularisation. Universities, which claim that their activities are characterised by depth, appoint people with higher scholarly credentials and research experience to lead their research centres.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    This boy's life on the autism spectrum

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 09 April 2015
    2 Comments

    Nathan was diagnosed when he was young, and was encouraged by his parents to view the diagnosis as a gift rather than a curse. It manifests in part as a prodigious talent for mathematics. Nathan finds patterns soothing, and so mathematics becomes a refuge as much as an academic interest. He shares a close bond with his father, but his mother, despite her best efforts, struggles to connect in the same way.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Defending Gillian Triggs

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 18 February 2015
    22 Comments

    A group of 50 academics has pointed out that 'Independent public office holders are an important part of modern democratic societies.' The Australian Bar Association and the Law Council of Australia have similarly argued that the personal attacks on Triggs amounted to an undermining of justice and the protection of human rights. It is a point the Abbott Government neglects to its peril.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Australian Christian Lobby will not go away

    • John Warhurst
    • 04 November 2014
    14 Comments

    The ACL's recent national conference was held in Canberra and featured Opposition Leader Bill Shorten as keynote speaker. Appearances at the lobby's conferences have become something of a political rite of passage in recent years. Despite serious academic criticism from Professor Rodney Smith of the University of Sydney questioning its claims to political influence, it is now established in the top echelon of lobbying groups.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Time to take on the welfare sceptics

    • Catherine Magree
    • 29 July 2014
    22 Comments

    Imagine how the quality of the debate would improve if those who blamed the victims of poverty and illness for their plight were publicly labelled welfare sceptics or denialists, and forced to back up their claims. Social research academics would be thrust into the spotlight. If this issue received the scrutiny it deserves in the media there would be a sea change in attitudes to poverty, unemployment and income support over time.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dumb dealings in Nazi art war

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 13 March 2014
    1 Comment

    'If you destroy their history, you destroy their achievements and it's as if they never existed,' implores art scholar Frank Stokes. He subsequently leads a team of academics and artisans into World War II Germany on a mission to rescue important works of art from the Nazis. Great art possesses the power to move and inspire, and to document and critique a culture. But is the deadly mission worth the risk to life?

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