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Keywords: Myths

  • EDUCATION

    The myths of school funding

    • Chris Curtis
    • 29 November 2023
    6 Comments

    Australian school funding is full of common misconceptions, and creating a rational, just, and effective school funding model requires cutting through media-driven inaccuracies to understand the real needs of Australian students and schools.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Myths peddling the cycles of cruelty to children

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 27 July 2023
    6 Comments

    In a society quick to categorize children as either good or bad, reform efforts seem caught in a cyclical battle. Children often fall victim to these broad definitions, especially those from disadvantaged groups. What factors cause these cycles of progress and relapse, and how can lasting reform be achieved? 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Who tells your story?

    • Barry Gittins
    • 11 July 2023
    2 Comments

    From our most cherished childhood memories to the hard-won wisdom of our adult years, stories are the threads that bind us together, the tapestries that shape our identities. But who gets to tell these stories, and how are they preserved for future generations?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Kathleen Folbigg, monster mythology and science

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 14 June 2023
    3 Comments

    At the intersection of myth, science, and law is the contentious case of Kathleen Folbigg, accused of being a modern-day Medea. Convicted of killing her children and later exonerated, Folbigg’s story serves as a cautionary tale about the complexities of science in legal judgments and societal myths of motherhood cloud our interpretation of facts.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The myths and half-truths of fatherhood

    • Mike Kelly
    • 01 September 2022
    3 Comments

    With many types of fathering in a wide range of ethnic, cultural, and social situations by separated dads, stepdads, gay dads, uncles, and grandpas, as we celebrate today’s dads, it’s good to think about fatherhood and parenting myths and how they stack up in an ever-changing world.   

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Environmental movements need to critique capitalism, not overpopulation

    • Sangeetha Thanapal
    • 03 November 2020
    22 Comments

    The environmental movement in general has a serious race problem. Make no mistake, an ideology that says humans are the problem is a colonial ecology; the Malthusian fear of overpopulation is rooted in racist ideals.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A discovery of connections

    • Najma Sambul
    • 11 February 2020
    2 Comments

    The group had come together by the chance enquiry from one churchgoer who asked another if they could dedicate time to this — to us. So, we clambered into a mini van with our meagre possessions, and the myths and half-truths we knew about Australia followed suit.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Myths about quiet and shouty Australians

    • John Warhurst
    • 26 August 2019
    14 Comments

    Regional and rural Australians possess many powerful voices. As well as having a political party of their own, the Nationals, they are represented by many powerful lobby groups. Language which seeks to privilege quiet over loud citizens has the effect of advantaging the strong over the weak and insiders over outsiders in our political life.

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  • ECONOMICS

    NZ's riposte to modern economic myths

    • David James
    • 02 July 2019
    5 Comments

    While money can be transacted for things that are bad — air pollution, road deaths, cigarette ads — as long as more transactions occur, it creates the illusion the economy is growing, which, ipso facto, is good. Thus, Japan's GDP rose sharply after the tsunami disaster. New Zealand's initiative will track better what is really happening in the country.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    More myths about migrants and work

    • Devana Senanayake
    • 11 April 2019
    4 Comments

    Former NSW opposition leader Michael Daley was much maligned for his remarks that 'Sydney's young children [are] being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs'. The statement is symptomatic of a larger issue, reflecting the extent to which the community is misinformed and misled about these issues.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Climate indifference is an Aussie tradition

    • Greg Foyster
    • 31 January 2019
    9 Comments

    One of Australia's foundational myths is of white settlers weathering nature's worst. It's actually in our national character — the story we tell about the nation — to dismiss climatic extremes like heatwaves. Maybe one missing part of taking climate change more seriously in Australia is a shift in culture to respect the heat.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Rising above redhead myths

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 18 April 2018
    8 Comments

    In perspective, my hair colour really isn't that big of a deal. I don't face institutional discrimination because I'm a redhead. But because of the cultural fascination with red hair, people will always try to project their own ideas about redheadedness onto me. So as I've grown older, I decided to claim this part of my identity for myself.

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