Articoli di riviste sul tema "Education – Parent participation – Western Australia"

This paper reports on findings from four case studies, as part of a large-scale study undertaken to evaluate the KindiLink initiative across Western Australia in remote, regional and metropolitan communities. KindiLink is an educator-led playgroup initiative in public school sites in Western Australia targeted at Aboriginal children and their families. KindiLink aims included the cultivation of Aboriginal families’ and children’s developing sense of belonging and engagement at their local primary school. A constructivist paradigm was used to describe the subjective experiences of individuals, which was important to ascertain if the aims of KindiLink had been met. To complement the meaning-making of the experience, qualitative data were collected via detailed studies of four KindiLink sites to capture similarities and differences of the settings and gain depth of experience through the voices of the participants. The study found KindiLink successfully connected Aboriginal children and families to schools and built a sense of belonging and productive relationships between families, staff, school and the community in a culturally safe space. Furthermore, KindiLink developed the capacity and confidence of parents as their children’s first teachers and supported the home learning environment. The Aboriginal Indigenous education officer in each programme was critical to the engagement of Aboriginal families and acknowledgement of cultural aspects important to children’s growing cultural identities. The relationships built between KindiLink staff and families, and between families, were important for children’s and their families’ growing sense of belonging to the school, which assisted participation at school.

IntroductionThere is recognition of the importance of comprehensive relationships and sexuality education (RSE) throughout the school years worldwide. Interventions have found some positive outcomes; however, the need for a greater focus on positive sexuality and relevant contemporary issues has been identified by teachers and students. The Curtin RSE Project provides training for teachers and preservice teachers and supports schools through training and advice to implement comprehensive school health promotion (CSHP) focusing on RSE allowing schools to develop programmes relevant to their school community. To examine contemporary phenomenon within a real word context, a case study design will be used to measure implementation. This paper will describe the protocol for a multiple, embedded case study to measure the implementation of CSHP focusing on RSE in a purposive sample of Western Australian schools.Methods and analysisThis mixed methods study will include a multiple, embedded case study. Schools (n=3–4) will be purposively selected from within Western Australia based on their capacity to commit to implementing RSE as a case study school. Data will be collected from students (Grade 6 for primary school; Grades 7–12 for secondary school); teachers and other key staff and parents. Methods include school climate and school curriculum audits, documentation (collected with key staff at baseline and annually), interviews (parents and teachers at Year 2), focus groups (students at Year 2) and an online student survey (collected with students baseline and annually).Ethics and disseminationSchool principals will provide consent for school participation and staff and parents will provide individual consent. Student assent and parental consent will be obtained for student participants. Results will be disseminated through open-access reports, peer-reviewed journals and conference presentations.

AbstractStories appear frequently in the Australian media regarding parent and teacher perceptions and attitudes towards the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy. However, thorough empirical investigations of parent perceptions are sparse. This study presents a survey of 345 parents across Years 3 and 5 from a sample of Independent schools in Western Australia. A representative sample of teachers from these schools were also surveyed in order to compare and contrast parent and teacher perspectives about the transparency and accountability associated with testing, the usefulness of results for helping individual students, and the perceived clarity of communication of results. Findings reveal mixed positive and negative views that reside within an overall prevailing low opinion of the testing. Some ways for improving the perception of the testing with the general public are discussed.

Participation in parent education appears to be becoming more acceptable and legitimate for many Victorian parents over the past decade. The experience of parenting or ‘being a parent’ has been recognised as potentially confusing and difficult for many adults (Allen and Schultz, 1987: 14). In response to parents' perceived difficulties and expression of need for assistance with the parenting role, professionals who work with children and families have devised a diverse range of approaches to working with parents from informal, often unstructured, individualised, needs based reading and/or discussion type programs to the more formal and structured approaches which employ the often imported pre packaged programs with groups of parents in a variety of settings. Although little systematic information is available concerning the basis and nature of the burgeoning parent education programs currently operating in Victoria, Allen and Schultz (1987) described the current status of parent education in Australia as diverse in theoretical orientations, emphases, topics and settings. However, it appears that many programs currently operating cannot be described as systematic and theoretically based. Fine (1980: 5) defined parent education as “instruction on how to parent” and argued that this definition properly applies to organised, structured programs rather than to more informal discussions.

In 1989, a Professional Education Program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (PEPA) was established at Murdoch University in Western Australia, to encourage the participation, retention and success of Indigenous Australians in studying for and qualifying as Veterinarians.

ABSTRACTInformed choice is an expectation of today’s parents. Concern is evident around whether education models are evolving to ensure flexibility for parents to access options perceived as meeting their needs. Historical and current evidence around childbirth education models including the introduction of mindfulness to parent education will be presented. The aim of this article is to describe the rationale for incorporating adult and experiential learning with mindfulness-based stress reduction in a childbirth education program implemented in Western Australia. The curriculum of the Mindfulness Based Childbirth Education 8-week program is shared with corresponding learning objectives for each session. Examples of educational materials that demonstrate how adult and experiential learning were embedded in the curriculum are presented.

An important contemporary issue in special education is the extent to which students with a disability are included in all mainstream educational activities, including educational accountability. In line with other Western countries, the extent of national testing conducted by Australian schools will increase in the near future. At the moment, the participation of students with a disability in national testing is low and it is unlikely to significantly increase without the development of clear guidelines about allowable accommodations in testing, and the development of alternative assessment protocols for students with high support needs. This paper reviews the recent literature on both accommodations and alternative testing for students with a disability and makes a number of recommendations about the inclusion of students with a disability in national and in school‐based testing.

Despite three decades of research, gendered participation in music continues to be problematic. While many aspects of Western society maintain a patriarchal stance in the workplace, it is apparent that girls have made some significant changes in their musical choices. Males, it seems, are maintaining the same preferences for instruments as they did 100 years ago, avoiding ‘gentler pursuits’ like singing and playing the flute. This paper seeks to investigate the continued existence of stereotyping of musical participation and to discover some of the underlying reasons for this in the musical choices for boys through the literature. Furthermore, themes arising from existing research are investigated through fieldwork recently conducted in Australia.

AbstractThis paper presents the findings of the first stage of research on the impact of the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI) at an independent primary school in Western Australia. A longitudinal (20 year) case study is being conducted, utilising data related to Education for Sustainability (EfS) at the school from 1990-2009. 2005 was a critical year for the school because it marked the beginning of participation in the Sustainable Schools Initiative pilot in Western Australia (AuSSI-WA). The research investigates elements of EfS in operation at the school pre- and post- AuSSI-WA, as well as student and teacher outcomes after involvement in the Initiative. An analysis of the initial data suggests that participation in AuSSI-WA enabled the school to engage with a growing commitment to EfS in the context of a whole - school approach.

In our society success in science is important for students as a means to full participation, empowerment, and access to career/further study options. Science in schools is an area of concern for Aboriginal education because of the low number of Aboriginal students who experience this success. Goal 3 of the Common And Agreed National Goals For Schooling In Australia (May, 1989) speaks of “equality of educational opportunities” and providing for “groups with special learning requirements”. For Aboriginal students, academic success and cultural identity are twin priorities: achievement and success need to go hand in hand with a strengthening and deepening of cultural identity. Students' Aboriginality must not be denied by learning programs which define science purely in terms of the dominant Western culture.

This article reports on a collaborative venture between Autism Spectrum Australia and the University of Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Social Club network was formed for children and adolescents to provide structured opportunities for positive peer interactions in safe, stimulating and nonjudgmental environments. The Social Clubs were run by expert facilitators with additional workers drawn from preservice teachers undertaking a service-learning unit of study within the Master of Teaching Secondary course at the University of Western Sydney. The research design included surveys and reflections. Data were drawn from 4 sources: 58 parent survey responses, 51 Social Club member survey responses, 9 facilitator survey responses and 9 preservice teachers’ reflections. Data analysis was framed by Bourdieu's work, which refers to the allocation of social power. After the experience, surveyed parents confirmed that their children were relaxed when changing topics in a conversation and working in groups. Members demonstrated that they engaged with other members and with preservice teachers. Club facilitators felt that the preservice teachers developed an understanding that students with autism spectrum disorder thrive in structured environments and that they would set up their own classrooms accordingly. For the future teachers, it was authentic learning that enriched their preparation for the classroom, however multilayered its student population might be.

Self-regulation and executive functioning impairments are common in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Given the high rates of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder identified amongst children living in the remote Fitzroy Valley region of Western Australia, the Alert Program® was identified as a culturally safe intervention for use in local primary schools. Researchers collaborated with Aboriginal Elders, community members, and staff from a Fitzroy Valley primary school to trial the Alert Program®. Teachers were trained to deliver eight Alert Program® lessons to children in class. Self-regulation and executive functioning were measured using teacher and parent/caregiver questionnaires three times. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA. Teacher-led delivery of the Alert Program® was feasible in a region with high fetal alcohol spectrum disorder rates. As measured by teacher and parent/caregiver ratings, this curriculum may improve the self-regulation and executive functioning of children for some outcomes and provide sustained effects for some children. This community partnered pilot research, evaluated a school-based program to reduce the behavioral impact of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and informed design of a larger trial across eight Aboriginal community schools.

Recruitment can be an issue for paediatric research. We aimed to investigate parental opinions of paediatric clinical assessments, and to combine findings with recent literature to inform the design of a clinical dietary trial. We used convenience sampling to recruit 17 parents of children aged 2–6 years from two community playgroups in Perth, Western Australia. Three focus groups considered proposed child assessments, study design, and potential study enrolment. Qualitative thematic analysis of focus group transcripts used NVivo 11 (QSR, Melbourne, VIC, Australia). Four main parental concerns emerged, presented here with solutions combining parent responses and relevant literature. (1) Parent and child needle fear: a good experience and a good phlebotomist help keep participants calm, and offering additional analysis (e.g., iron status) makes blood tests more worthwhile. (2) Concerns about children’s age, stage, understanding and ability to cope: create a themed adventure to help explain concepts and make procedures fun. (3) Persistent misunderstandings involving study purpose, design, randomization and equipoise: provide clear information via multiple platforms, and check understanding before enrolment. (4) Parental decisions to enrol children focused on time commitment, respectful treatment of their child, confronting tests and altruism: child-centred methodologies can help address concerns and keep participants engaged throughout procedures. Addressing the concerns identified could improve participation in a range of paediatric health interventions.

Purpose – While parents’ influence on their children’s smoking behaviour is widely recognised, little is known about parents of four to eight year olds’ attitudes and beliefs around smoking cessation and how they communicate with their children about smoking. The purpose of this paper is to explore parents’ perceptions of quitting smoking and their beliefs and actions related to the use of parenting practices to discourage smoking by their children. Design/methodology/approach – Four focus groups and 17 interviews were conducted with parents (n=46) of four to eight year old children in Perth, Western Australia. Findings – Many parents indicated their children strongly influenced their quitting behaviours, however, some resented being made to feel guilty about their smoking because of their children. Parents were divided in their beliefs about the amount of influence they had on their children’s future smoking. Feelings of hypocrisy appear to influence the extent to which parents who smoked talked with their child about smoking. Parents recommended a variety of resource options to support quitting and talking with their child about smoking. Practical implications – Interventions aimed at parents who smoke and have young children should: reinforce parents’ importance as role models; highlight the importance of talking to children about smoking when they are young and provide strategies for maintaining ongoing communication; be supportive and avoid making parents feel guilty; and emphasise that quitting smoking is the best option for their child’s health (and their own), while also providing effective harm minimisation options for parents who have not yet quit. Originality/value – Parents of children of lower primary school age can be highly influential on their children’s later smoking behaviours, thus, effective interventions that address the current beliefs and practices of these parents may be particularly advantageous.

This article provides methodological guidance to researchers wishing to develop collaborative research projects with local governments and other agencies, by describing the process adopted in a mixed methods study conducted in the City of Wanneroo (the City), a local government area in Perth, Western Australia. The study explored factors related to older people’s (60+ years) participation in community-based activities and links between their participation and levels of social isolation, loneliness, and social connectedness. The research incorporated four interrelated stages: (1) an audit of existing programs in the City and program participant characteristics; (2) focus groups with program participants and interviews with nonparticipants; (3) a cross-sectional survey to assess factors associated with participation and links to social isolation, loneliness, and social connectedness; (4) face-to-face interviews with survey respondents screened at risk for loneliness. Methodological recommendations are provided to guide future collaborative research with local authorities, program developers, and administrators, aimed at minimizing social isolation and loneliness among older people. These include the need for clear communication and documentation of mutually agreed research objectives and responsibilities from project initiation to completion, identifying and working with local agencies to maximize recruitment among “hard to reach” groups, understanding the dimensions of loneliness addressed in the selected instrument used to screen for loneliness, and integrating innovative data collection techniques when working with vulnerable groups such as socially isolated older people.

This special issue of The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education presents a second volume of papers which specifically address the issue of remote education for Indigenous Australians. ‘Red Dirt Revisited’, edited by John Guenther, presents findings from his team working on the Remote Education Systems (RES) project within the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP). Focusing on a number of remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educational sites in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia, the RES project is now in its final stages and the main intention behind this special issue is to share significant findings from this important research. Much of the work presented here is by postgraduate students and AJIE is very pleased to be able to provide a voice and forum to support and ‘grow’ early career researchers in our field.

BackgroundUse of mobile phones and portable audio equipment and alcohol are known to negatively affect cycling ability. Evidence suggests that cyclists may be less likely to engage in these behaviours while riding in a group; however, it is unknown whether group riders are also at reduced risk when participating in non-group riding.ObjectiveTo examine the association between group riding participation and the use of mobile phones and portable audio equipment and alcohol while non-group riding in Perth, Western Australia.MethodsA cross-sectional analysis of an online questionnaire was undertaken. Group and exclusive non-group riders were compared and separate binary logistic regression models were used to examine the association between group riding participation and the use of mobile phones and portable audio equipment and alcohol while non-group riding, controlling for gender, age, education and frequency of non-group riding.ResultsParticipants included 365 cyclists: 187 exclusive non-group riders (51.2%) and 178 group riders (48.8%). Group riders were less likely to have possibly cycled while over the legal blood alcohol limit in the past 12 months (OR: 0.56, 95% CI 0.34 to 0.92) and were less likely to ever use portable audio equipment (OR: 0.57, 95% CI 0.34 to 0.94) than exclusive non-group riders, while participating in non-group riding. Group riding status was not associated with mobile phone use.ConclusionsThis study provides early evidence that there may be differences between group and non-group riders that impact on their safety behaviours while participating in non-group riding.

The education system, as it relates to very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia, faces challenges. While considerable resources have been applied to very remote schools, results in terms of enrolments, attendance and learning outcomes have changed little, despite the effort applied. The Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP) in its Remote Education Systems (RES) project is trying to understand why this might be the case, and also attempting to identify local solutions to the ‘problem’ of very remote education. The RES project is in the process of building its research program across five remote sites in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. As the project begins, the researchers involved have begun to consider what are the assumptions behind the ‘system’ in its current form(s). The article begins with an outline of the context of remote education in Australia within a rapidly changing global environment. However, the purpose of the article is to outline many of the assumptions built into remote education and to ask what the alternatives to these assumptions might be. The authors go on to ask questions about how a remote education system would approach some of the assumptions presented. The assumptions presented are based on a reading of the philosophical bases of education. The questions are designed to prompt a deeper discussion about how the values and worldviews of those living in very remote communities might be taken into consideration and acted upon.

Currently in Western Australia (WA) there is no requirement for dentists to participate in continuing professional development (CPD). The aim of this study was to determine the participation pattern of dentists in WA in CPD activities. Data was collated regarding registrants for courses conducted by the University Continuing Dental Education Committee. Information concerned number of courses attended by each dentist, location of work and year of graduation from university. Details of subject, length and type of courses conducted were also gathered. Most courses were half to one day in duration with many subjects covered. Between 10.1-24.4% of dentists registered in WA attended at least one course each year. Low numbers of recently graduated and older dentists attended courses. Similar percentages of metropolitan and rural dentists attended courses. Participation in CPD activities of dentists in WA was low. Half day or evening courses appear to be favoured by dentists.

Background:The influence of participating in vigorous-intensity physical activity and associated compensatory declines in other types of physical activity in the general population has not been studied well; hence, it is unknown if participation in recommended levels of vigorous-intensity physical activity influence the likelihood of participating in recommended levels of moderate-intensity physical activity.Methods:Face-to-face interviews were conducted on healthy adults (n = 1803), 18 to 59 years of age, recruited from the top and lower quintiles of socioeconomic status within Perth, Western Australia. Data on television watching, vigorous-intensity activity, moderate-intensity activity, and walking for recreation and transport were used in the analysis. Logistic regression was used to determine whether participation in recommended levels of vigorous-intensity activity predicted participation in recommended levels of other types of physical activity and television watching.Results:After controlling for age, gender, education, and social advantage, participating in recommended levels of vigorous-intensity physical activity (≥90 min/week) was not found to be associated with walking for transport (≥150 min/week) but was found to be significantly associated (OR = 1.38, 95%CI = 1.04–1.82) with recommended levels of recreational walking (≥150 min/week). Participation in recommended levels of vigorous-intensity physical activity was associated with a reduced likelihood of watching television more than 10 hours per/week (OR = 0.71, 95%CI = 0.57–0.89).Conclusion:In those who participate in recommended levels of vigorous-intensity physical activity, there appears to be no compensatory response in other moderate-intensity activities. Given the added health benefits associated with vigorous-intensity activity, concurrent promotion of moderate and vigorous-intensity physical activity guidelines is warranted, with no evidence that participation in vigorous-intensity activity will negatively influence participation in recommended levels of moderate-intensity activity.

Recent debates in Australia, largely led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island academics over the past 5 or so years, have focused on the need for non-Indigenous educators to understand how their practices not only demonstrate lack of understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, but even deny their presence. This debate has serious implications for the non-Indigenous remote educator who wishes to support remote students to achieve ‘success’ through their education. The debates on the one hand advocate the decolonising of knowledge, pedagogy and research methods in order to promote more just or equal approaches to research and education, while other voices continue to advocate the pursuit of mainstream dominant Western ‘outcomes’ as the preferred goal for Indigenous students across Australia. This dilemma frames the context for this study. The Remote Education Systems Project, in the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation, seeks to explore these and other questions as part of the broader research agenda being undertaken. This project is particularly focused on large-scale questions such as: ‘What is a remote education for and what would ‘success’ look like in the remote education context?’ We are approaching these research questions from community standpoints and perspectives as a critical starting point for these types of debates and discussions. In doing so, our findings indicate that remote Aboriginal community members have a strong sense of western education and its power to equip young people with critical skills, knowledge and understandings for the future, but also a strong sense of retaining of their ‘own’ knowledge, skills and understanding. This presents a complex challenge for educators who are new to this knowledge interface. Here, we offer the concept of ‘Red Dirt Thinking’ as a new way to position ourselves and engage in situated dialogue about what remote schooling might be if it took into account power issues around Indigenous knowledges in the current policy context. This article questions whether remote communities, schools and systems have, in fact, taken account of the knowledge/power debates that have taken place at an academic level and considers how remote education might consider the implications of stepping outside the ‘Western–Indigenous binary’. It seeks to propose new paradigms that non-Indigenous educators may need to engage in order to de-limit the repositioning of power-laden knowledge and pedagogies offered in remote classrooms.

Theoretical perspectives, and a large body of empirical research examining sex-segregated occupations, identify the attitudinal barriers of the majority as pivotal for both workplace well-being and the retention of minorities. Globally, where more than 90% of the early childhood education and care workforce is female, understanding the attitudes of the majority is critical in informing actions to sustain men’s participation. So too are female educators’ understanding, acceptance and responses to the attitudes of other key stakeholders. The extent to which decisions in the workplace reflect personal, organisational or parent perspectives is not well understood. In this study, the authors analyse interview data from the female majority to distinguish personal voice and attributed beliefs regarding the inclusion of men in the early childhood education and care workplace. They analyse interview data from 96 women working as educators in a representative sample of long-day-care and kindergarten services in Queensland, Australia. The analyses suggest that the view of male educators as assets was claimed, while concerns about risk or competency were typically attributed to others. Attributed views were not often contested, but instead accepted or excused. The findings suggest that while the inclusion of men in the early childhood education and care workforce is explicitly accepted by female colleagues, actions within the workforce may be influenced by the attitudes of those outside or by latent personal attitudes distanced by positioning as the voice of others.

AbstractLiterature relating to Indigenous Australian students in higher education highlights the need for improving the retention rates of Indigenous students in Australian universities. A cause for concern has been the increasing numbers of Indigenous Australian people experiencing lower progress and completion rates in comparison to non-Indigenous students. The literature suggests that flexible course delivery is a strategy for improving retention rates and participation. This research extends knowledge relating to the effectiveness of providing courses in flexible delivery mode as a retention strategy in Indigenous higher education. It investigates the “reverse block visit” component of a flexi-mode course delivered by the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia. Initial findings suggest that this community based support strategy may be impacting positively on risk factors contributing to students withdrawing from their studies. Further research is required to explore the validity of this initial data and how the “reverse block visit” from Centre staff may be working to help students to decide to continue studying.

Introduction: Ongoing professional education is an essential activity to ensure that hospital staff are using the best available evidence to deliver healthcare. Hospital staff from a range of professional groups cite increasing work volume and being too time poor to complete or attend education. To address this issue, a new 5-minute online education format (Take 5) was developed.Methods: A descriptive study using a short evaluation survey was undertaken at Royal Perth Hospital in Perth, Western Australia, to evaluate interprofessional healthcare staffs’ levels of engagement with the new education format.Results: The Take 5 education format facilitated the development of over 120 topics available via an intranet library page. During the study, it received 26,623 hits, averaging 19.3 visits per day. Topics were downloaded 45,611 times. Medication discrepancies (n = 1,326) and personal protective equipment (PPE) conservation (n = 1,115) were the most frequently downloaded. A total of 2,001 evaluation surveys were received, with nursing and medicine having the highest participation. The majority of staff (n = 1,895; 94.4%) rated the resource as having “good” to “high” quality content. Qualitative data showed that the topics were informative, easy to access and understand and perceived to help the participants change their clinical practice.Conclusion: The Take 5 uptake has been strong and sustained, as highlighted by the substantive utilisation and evaluation. The concept was not designed to replace formal education but to act as an adjunct, providing key education to meet staff demands. It provided immediacy of information and quality evidence-based content and directed the learner to more formal learning content and resources.

IntroductionAdolescents with brain injury frequently have difficulties with social competence, which persist into adulthood affecting their participation in daily life. To date, there has been limited research into the efficacy of social competence interventions in this population. Research from the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) has demonstrated significant improvements in social competence skills, maintained at 1-year to 5-year follow-up, for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. PEERS has not yet been tested among adolescents with brain injury. This protocol describes a pragmatic, parallel two-group pre-test post-test randomised waitlist control trial across two sites in Australia, which aims to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and efficacy of PEERS in adolescents with brain injury compared with usual care.Methods and analysisForty adolescents with an acquired brain injury or cerebral palsy will be randomly assigned to either the 14-week PEERS group or waitlist care as usual group. The waitlist group will then receive PEERS following the 26-week retention time point. Outcomes will be assessed at baseline, 14 weeks (immediately postintervention) and 26 weeks follow-up (retention). The primary outcomes are self-report and parent report on the Social Skills Improvement System Rating Scales immediately post PEERS at 14 weeks. Secondary outcomes include increased frequency of get-togethers with peers with reduced conflict and increased adolescent self-reported knowledge of social skills. Acceptability and feasibility will be examined through qualitative analysis of focus group data collected after the completion of each group.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval has been granted by the Medical Research Ethics Committee Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC/17/QRCH/87), The University of Queensland (2017000864) and the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Ethics Committee (20170802/HREC:EC00402). The findings will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals, by conference presentation and newsletters to consumers.Trial registration numberACTRN12617000723381.

PurposeAlcohol use by adults at school events and alcohol promotion through school fundraising activities is common, but little is known about secondary school parents' attitudes towards these practices. Parental attitudes may influence principals' decision-making on this topic, particularly in jurisdictions where education department guidance is limited. This study explored parents' attitudes towards the consumption or promotion of alcohol in schools or at school events.Design/methodology/approachParents (n = 298) from five non-government secondary schools in Western Australia completed an online survey and provided responses relating to the promotion and availability of alcohol through their child's school.FindingsThis sample of parents were evenly divided in support of alcohol consumption or support of schools as alcohol-free zones. Parents reporting higher alcohol consumption were more supportive of alcohol promotion and use through schools, and those with higher education supported use of alcohol for school fundraising. Almost 20% of parents were neutral on several measures indicating they could be swayed by social pressure. Engaging parents is an ongoing challenge for school principals and alcohol may play a part in engagement activities. The results from this small, exploratory study suggest even engaged parents may have very differing views on alcohol use in schools.Practical implicationsEducation departments are encouraged to explore these issues carefully and introduce changes incrementally to assist decision-making and minimise potential parent disengagement.Originality/valueThis paper addresses a knowledge gap about parents' attitudes towards alcohol in secondary schools. These findings can support those involved in the development of school alcohol policies.

Despite growing acknowledgement of the socially determined nature of health disparities among Aboriginal people, how to respond to this within health promotion programs can be challenging. The legacy of Australia’s assimilation policies have left profound consequences, including social marginalisation, limited educational opportunities, normalisation of premature death, and entrenched trauma. These social determinants, in conjunction with a reluctance to trust authorities, create barriers to accessing healthcare services for the prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of chronic disease. The Heart Health program is a culturally sensitive cardiac rehabilitation program run at the local Aboriginal Medical Service in Perth, Western Australia that has since moved beyond cardiac education to provide a holistic approach to chronic disease management. A participatory action research framework was used to explore Heart Health participant and service provider perspectives on the barriers, enablers, and critical success factors to program participation and behaviour change. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts was undertaken, and through yarning (Aboriginal storytelling) sessions, many participants made unprompted reference to the impacts of white settlement, discrimination, and the forced fracturing of Aboriginal families, which have been explored in this paper reiterating the need for a social determinants lens to be taken when planning and implementing Aboriginal health promotion programs.

This article sets the scene for the series of five articles on ‘red dirt thinking’. It first introduces the idea behind red dirt thinking as opposed to ‘blue sky thinking’. Both accept that there are any number of creative and expansive solutions and possibilities to identified challenges — in this case, the challenge of improving education in very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island schools. However, the authors believe that creative thinking needs to be grounded in the reality of the local community context in order to be relevant. This article draws on emerging data from the Remote Education Systems project (a project within the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation — CRC-REP) and highlights further questions and challenges we wish to address across the life of the project. It is part of a collection of papers presented on the theme ‘Red Dirt Thinking’. The red dirt of remote Australia is where thinking for the CRC-REP's Remote Education Systems research project emerged. This article will examine the various public positions that exist in regard to the aspirations of young remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, and consider the wider views that are held in terms of what constitutes educational ‘success’. We explore the models of thinking and assumptions that underpin this public dialogue and contrast these ideas to the ideas that are being shared by remote Aboriginal educators and local community members through the work of the Remote Education Systems project. We will consider the implications and relevance of the aspiration and success debate for the remote Australian context and propose approaches and key questions for improved practice and innovation in relation to delivering a more ‘successful’ education for remote students. The authors begin by posing the simple question: How would, and can remote educators build aspiration and success? The wisdom of several commentators on remote education in Australia is presented in terms of a set of simple solutions to a straightforward problem. The assumptions behind these simple solutions are often unstated, and part of this article's role is to highlight the assumptions that common arguments for solutions are premised on. Further to the above question, we will also consider the question: In remote communities where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students live and learn, how is success defined? Is there language that corresponds to the western philosophical meanings of success? Having considered some possible alternatives, based on the early findings of the Remote Education Systems project research, the authors then pose the question: How would educators teach for these alternative measures of success? The answers to these questions are still forthcoming. However, as the research process reveals further insights in relation to these questions, it may be possible for all those involved in remote education to approach the ‘problem’ of remote education using a different lens. The lens may be smeared with red dirt, but it will enable people involved in the system to develop creative solutions in a challenging and rich environment.

AbstractThis research investigated Education for Sustainability (EfS) at an independent Montessori primary school, located in the Perth metropolitan area of Western Australia. A longitudinal case study involving analysis of data from a 20-year period was conducted to determine the effectiveness of EfS. Historical information about EfS at the school from 1990 to 2005 was examined, with the main focus of the study being on the impact of the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI) between 2005 and 2009. AuSSI promotes a whole school, whole systems thinking approach to EfS.Three school-based issues in EfS were studied. First, the research aimed to determine what elements of EfS were in operation in the school prior to involvement in AuSSI. Second, student outcomes including engagement with whole systems thinking, attitudes and values, knowledge and understandings, and skills and behaviours related to EfS, were investigated during the first 5 years of participation in AuSSI. Third, teacher perceptions of the EfS program, including engagement with whole systems thinking, were examined during this same time period.A case study approach was employed to enable in-depth investigation of EfS in the life of the school prior to, during and post implementation of AuSSI. This approach facilitated revelation of participants’ lived experiences, their perceptions and understandings of EfS, as well as detailed information about student outcomes in EfS. Case study methodology was also compatible with the culture and processes of the participating school and provided an opportunity for utilising a whole systems thinking approach. Data was gathered from a range of sources, through surveys, interviews, observation and document analysis over a 5-year period. The total participants included 11 teachers and 75 students.The research identified particular antecedents of EfS in the Montessori method of education that existed in the school prior to AuSSI, including the whole child approach, together with the Montessori learning environment, curriculum and values. Following participation in AuSSI, student attitudes and values, knowledge and understandings, and skills and behaviours related to EfS were enhanced for all year levels. However, after 3 years, when specific EfS actions and projects ceased, student EfS outcomes were limited. Furthermore, students’ thinking and behaviour indicated a ‘silo’, rather than whole systems thinking approach to EfS. Teachers perceived the EfS program as highly effective in the initial 3 years after joining AuSSI. Key elements that enhanced EfS included EfS staff champions who had access to EfS networks, leadership support, and active school community involvement in all EfS processes. However, after 3 years of being an AuSSI school, the culmination of reduced leadership support for EfS, lack of staff training, vague designation of staff with EfS responsibilities and inadequate community involvement, resulted in cessation of the EfS program. Teacher perceptions on whole systems thinking revealed alignment between Montessori philosophy, EfS and whole system thinking was more in theory than in practice.Through an in-depth longitudinal case study of a school this research highlighted the importance of whole school EfS professional learning, embedding EfS and whole systems thinking across the curriculum at all year levels, whole school support, and the usefulness of a sustainability continuum that recognises the complex, dynamic interplay of issues involved in a school's EfS journey. It is strongly recommended that improvements to pre-service teacher education in EfS are implemented, and a review of the AuSSI toolkit is conducted to refine EfS evaluation processes and to target the specific EfS needs of teachers at different stages of schooling, as well as to enhance understanding and implementation of the whole systems thinking approach. Finally, EfS professional learning for all school staff in all schools is warranted to enhance depth of EfS engagement.

152 Background: Non-Western, non-Caucasian populations comprise 90% of the world’s estimated 3.2 billion women, living mostly in low and middle income nations. While medical advances have greatly reduced breast cancer morbidity and mortality in developed nations, those are on the rise in many low and middle income nations. The purpose of the study was to identify emerging needs and challenges observed by breast cancer thought leaders in diverse regions of the world consisting mainly of lesser developed nations to identify strategies for improving breast cancer control. Methods: 225 breast cancer medical, advocacy and policy leaders from 30 countries in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East/North and South Africa, Canada and Australia participated in this study. The study sample was composed of 203 breast cancer specialists, 12 patient advocates and 10 policy makers. Results: The most salient needs and challenges identified were to: (1) develop nurses trained in breast cancer patient and family care, management, education and clinical research (48%); (2) individualize breast cancer therapy (47%); and (3) improve understanding of the reasons for apparently higher proportions of younger women presenting with more aggressive tumors among these predominantly non-Caucasian populations (45%). Analysis of these and other needs identified evolved into 4 key themes and sub-dimensions involving nurses to improve breast cancer control: Capacity, Research, Advocacy and Access. Conclusions: The most significant need identified by this study was to increase both the capacity and capability of breast cancer nurses. A comprehensive approach to doing this would include: (1) increasing capacity to educate nurses in breast cancer patient education and related care issues in nursing schools and teaching hospitals; (2) working with local medical societies, educational institutions and governmental authorities to enable nurses to work as primary care practitioners; and (3) increasing participation of nurses in breast cancer clinical research, working with clinicians and in collaboration with breast cancer research centers of excellence from around the world.

Health literacy courses for health professionals have emerged in response to health professionals’ perceived lack of understanding of health literacy issues, and their failure to routinely adopt health literacy practices. Since 2013 in Victoria, Australia, the Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health has delivered an annual health literacy demonstration training course that it developed. Course development and delivery partners included HealthWest Partnership and cohealth. The courses are designed to develop the health literacy knowledge, skills and organisational capacity of the health and community services sector in the western metropolitan region of Melbourne. This study presents key learnings from evaluation data from three health literacy courses using Wenger’s professional educational learning design framework. The framework has three educational learning architecture components (engagement, imagination and alignment) and four educational learning architecture dimensions (participation, emergent, local/global, identification). Participatory realist evaluation approaches and qualitative methods were used. The evaluations revealed that the health literacy courses are developing leadership in health literacy, building partnerships among course participants, developing health literacy workforce knowledge and skills, developing ways to use and apply health literacy resources and are serving as a catalyst for building organisational infrastructure. Although the courses were not explicitly developed or implemented using Wenger’s educational learning design pedagogic features, the course structure (i.e. facilitation role of course coordinators, providing safe learning environments, encouraging small group work amongst participants, requiring participants to conduct mini-projects and sponsor organisation buy-in) provided opportunities for engagement, imagination and alignment. Wenger’s educational learning design framework can inform the design of future key pedagogic features of health literacy courses. What is known about the topic? Health professionals are increasingly participating in health literacy professional development courses. What does this paper add? This paper provides key lessons for designing health literacy professional development courses by reflecting upon Wenger’s professional educational learning design framework. What are the implications for practitioners? To ensure health professionals are receiving evidence-informed health literacy professional education, we encourage future health literacy courses be designed, implemented and evaluated using existing professional educational learning design frameworks.

Background The UK still has the highest rate of teenage births in western Europe. Teenagers are also the age group most likely to experience unplanned pregnancy, with around half of conceptions in those aged < 18 years ending in abortion. After controlling for prior disadvantage, teenage parenthood is associated with adverse medical and social outcomes for mothers and children, and increases health inequalities. This study evaluates Positive Choices (a new intervention for secondary schools in England) and study methods to assess the value of a Phase III trial. Objectives To optimise and feasibility-test Positive Choices and then conduct a pilot trial in the south of England assessing whether or not progression to Phase III would be justified in terms of prespecified criteria. Design Intervention optimisation and feasibility testing; pilot randomised controlled trial. Setting The south of England: optimisation and feasibility-testing in one secondary school; pilot cluster trial in six other secondary schools (four intervention, two control) varying by local deprivation and educational attainment. Participants School students in year 8 at baseline, and school staff. Interventions Schools were randomised (1 : 2) to control or intervention. The intervention comprised staff training, needs survey, school health promotion council, year 9 curriculum, student-led social marketing, parent information and review of school/local sexual health services. Main outcome measures The prespecified criteria for progression to Phase III concerned intervention fidelity of delivery and acceptability; successful randomisation and school retention; survey response rates; and feasible linkage to routine administrative data on pregnancies. The primary health outcome of births was assessed using routine data on births and abortions, and various self-reported secondary sexual health outcomes. Data sources The data sources were routine data on births and abortions, baseline and follow-up student surveys, interviews, audio-recordings, observations and logbooks. Results The intervention was optimised and feasible in the first secondary school, meeting the fidelity targets other than those for curriculum delivery and criteria for progress to the pilot trial. In the pilot trial, randomisation and school retention were successful. Student response rates in the intervention group and control group were 868 (89.4%) and 298 (84.2%), respectively, at baseline, and 863 (89.0%) and 296 (82.0%), respectively, at follow-up. The target of achieving ≥ 70% fidelity of implementation of essential elements in three schools was achieved. Coverage of relationships and sex education topics was much higher in intervention schools than in control schools. The intervention was acceptable to 80% of students. Interviews with staff indicated strong acceptability. Data linkage was feasible, but there were no exact matches for births or abortions in our cohort. Measures performed well. Poor test–retest reliability on some sexual behaviour measures reflected that this was a cohort of developing adolescents. Qualitative research confirmed the appropriateness of the intervention and theory of change, but suggested some refinements. Limitations The optimisation school underwent repeated changes in leadership, which undermined its participation. Moderator analyses were not conducted as these would be very underpowered. Conclusion Our findings suggest that this intervention has met prespecified criteria for progression to a Phase III trial. Future work Declining prevalence of teenage pregnancy suggests that the primary outcome in a full trial could be replaced by a more comprehensive measure of sexual health. Any future Phase III trial should have a longer lead-in from randomisation to intervention commencement. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN12524938. Funding This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Public Health Research programme and will be published in full in Public Health Research; Vol. 9, No. 1. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.

Many studies have shown a link between being competent in early mathematics and achievement in school. Early math skills have the potential to be the best predictors of later performance in reading and mathematics. Movement and songs are activities that children like, making it easier for teachers to apply mathematical concepts through this method. This study aims to develop audio-visual learning media in the form of songs with a mixture of western and traditional musical idioms, accompanied by movements that represent some of the teaching of early mathematics concepts. The stages of developing the ADDIE model are the basis for launching new learning media products related to math and art, and also planting the nation's cultural arts from an early age. These instructional media products were analyzed by experts and tested for their effectiveness through experiments on five children aged 3-4 years. The qualitative data were analyzed using transcripts of field notes and observations and interpreted in a descriptive narrative. The quantitative data were analyzed using gain score statistics. The results showed that there was a significant increase in value for early mathematical understanding of the concepts of geometry, numbers and measurement through this learning medium. The results of the effectiveness test become the final basis of reference for revision and complement the shortcomings of this learning medium. Further research can be carried out to develop other mathematical concepts through motion and song learning media, and to create experiments with a wider sample. Keywords: Early Mathematical Skills, Movement and Song Idiom Traditional, Audio-visual Learning Media References An, S. A., & Tillman, D. A. (2015). Music activities as a meaningful context for teaching elementary students mathematics: a quasi-experiment time series design with random assigned control group. 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This study aimed to explore the perceived barriers to physical activity among college students Study Design: Qualitative research design Eight focus group discussions on 67 college students aged 18-24 years (48 females, 19 males) was conducted on College premises. Data were analysed using inductive approach. Participants identified a number of obstacles to physical activity. Perceived barriers emerged from the analysis of the data addressed the different dimensions of the socio-ecological framework. The result indicated that the young adults perceived substantial amount of personal, social and environmental factors as barriers such as time constraint, tiredness, stress, family control, safety issues and much more. Understanding the barriers and overcoming the barriers at this stage will be valuable. Health professionals and researchers can use this information to design and implement interventions, strategies and policies to promote the participation in physical activity. This further can help the students to deal with those barriers and can help to instil the habit of regular physical activity in the later adult years.

This paper describes how individualized photobooks were used to support 3- and 4-year-old children in demonstrating their science learning and developing their science identity through participation in a science outreach program. Photographic images stimulate children’s visual thinking and allow them to provide explanations of complex concepts using their language, thus supporting children at their level of understanding. Twenty child/parent dyads were video-recorded interacting with the exhibits during a Science Outreach program into Western Australian community playgroups. Screen shots from the video-recordings were used to develop individual printed photobooks for each child. One week after the program, the photobooks were used in a photo-elicitation conversation with the children (accompanied by their parents) about how the exhibits worked. Children took their photobooks home and 7 weeks after the program parents were interviewed about how the photobooks were used. The photobooks were found to assist the children in demonstrating their science understandings by providing a context for conversation and allowing the children to show their competence, use multiple forms of communication (verbal, non-verbal and through parent), and participate or withdraw on their terms. At home, the photobooks were found to be a focus for the children to share their knowledge of the Outreach program with family members, give the children a voice, and provide them with time to express their understandings. Having the child as narrator of his/her story and the adult as listener empowered the child’s sense of identity. The use of individualized photobooks was found to contribute to the development of the children’s identity and increase their agency in science and enhanced the parents’ perceptions of their children as young scientists.

Abstract STUDY QUESTIONS What are the long-term health and reproductive outcomes for young men conceived using ICSI whose fathers had spermatogenic failure (STF)? Are there epigenetic consequences of ICSI conception? WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY Currently, little is known about the health of ICSI-conceived adults, and in particular the health and reproductive potential of ICSI-conceived men whose fathers had STF. Only one group to date has assessed semen parameters and reproductive hormones in ICSI-conceived men and suggested higher rates of impaired semen quality compared to spontaneously conceived (SC) peers. Metabolic parameters in this same cohort of men were mostly comparable. No study has yet evaluated other aspects of adult health. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION This cohort study aims to evaluate the general health and development (aim 1), fertility and metabolic parameters (aim 2) and epigenetic signatures (aim 3) of ICSI-conceived sons whose fathers had STF (ICSI study group). There are three age-matched control groups: ICSI-conceived sons whose fathers had obstructive azoospermia (OAZ) and who will be recruited in this study, as well as IVF sons and SC sons, recruited from other studies. Of 1112 ICSI parents including fathers with STF and OAZ, 78% (n = 867) of mothers and 74% (n = 823) of fathers were traced and contacted. Recruitment of ICSI sons started in March 2017 and will finish in July 2020. Based on preliminary participation rates, we estimate the following sample size will be achieved for the ICSI study group: mothers n = 275, fathers n = 225, sons n = 115. Per aim, the sample sizes of OAZ-ICSI (estimated), IVF and SC controls are: Aim 1—OAZ-ICSI: 28 (maternal surveys)/12 (son surveys), IVF: 352 (maternal surveys)/244 (son surveys), SC: 428 (maternal surveys)/255 (son surveys); Aim 2—OAZ-ICSI: 12, IVF: 72 (metabolic data), SC: 391 (metabolic data)/365 (reproductive data); Aim 3—OAZ-ICSI: 12, IVF: 71, SC: 292. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS Eligible parents are those who underwent ICSI at one of two major infertility treatment centres in Victoria, Australia and gave birth to one or more males between January 1994 and January 2000. Eligible sons are those aged 18 years or older, whose fathers had STF or OAZ, and whose parents allow researchers to approach sons. IVF and SC controls are age-matched men derived from previous studies, some from the same source population. Participating ICSI parents and sons complete a questionnaire, the latter also undergoing a clinical assessment. Outcome measures include validated survey questions, physical examination (testicular volumes, BMI and resting blood pressure), reproductive hormones (testosterone, sex hormone-binding globulin, FSH, LH), serum metabolic parameters (fasting glucose, insulin, lipid profile, highly sensitive C-reactive protein) and semen analysis. For epigenetic and future genetic analyses, ICSI sons provide specimens of blood, saliva, sperm and seminal fluid while their parents provide a saliva sample. The primary outcomes of interest are the number of mother-reported hospitalisations of the son; son-reported quality of life; prevalence of moderate-severe oligozoospermia (sperm concentration &lt;5 million/ml) and DNA methylation profile. For each outcome, differences between the ICSI study group and each control group will be investigated using multivariable linear and logistic regression for continuous and binary outcomes, respectively. Results will be presented as adjusted odds ratios and 95% CIs. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTERESTS This study is funded by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Partnership Grant (NHMRC APP1140706) and was partially funded by the Monash IVF Research and Education Foundation. L.R. is a minority shareholder and the Group Medical Director for Monash IVF Group, and reports personal fees from Monash IVF group and Ferring Australia, honoraria from Ferring Australia, and travel fees from Merck Serono, MSD and Guerbet; R.J.H. is the Medical Director of Fertility Specialists of Western Australia and has equity in Western IVF; R.I.M. is a consultant for and a shareholder of Monash IVF Group and S.R.C. reports personal fees from Besins Healthcare and non-financial support from Merck outside of the submitted work. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER Not applicable. TRIAL REGISTRATION DATE Not applicable. DATE OF FIRST PATIENT’S ENROLMENT Not applicable.

IntroductionAccounts of mentoring relationships inevitably draw attention to hierarchies of expertise, knowledge and learning. While public concerns about both the risks and benefits for young people of social media, little attention has been given to the nature of the mentoring role that parents and families play alongside of schools. This conceptual paper explores models of mentorship in the context of family dynamics as they are affected by social media use. This is a context that explicitly disrupts hierarchical structures of mentoring in that new media, and particularly social media use, tends to be driven by youth cultural practices, identity formation, experimentation and autonomy-seeking practices (see for example: Robards; boyd; Campos-Holland et al.; Hodkinson). A growing body of research supports the notion that young people are more skilled in navigating social media platforms than their parents (FOSI; Campos-Holland et al.). This research establishes that uncertainty and tension derived from parents’ impression that their children know more about social media they do (FOSI; Sorbring) has brought about a market for advice and educational programs. In the content of this paper it is notable that when family dynamics and young people’s social media use are addressed through notions of digital citizenship or cyber safety programs, a hierarchical mentorship is assumed, but also problematised; thus the expertise hierarchy is inverted. This paper argues that use of social media platforms, networks, and digital devices challenges traditional hierarchies of expertise in family environments. Family members, parents and children in particular, are involved in ongoing, complex conversations and negotiations about expertise in relation to technology and social media use. These negotiations open up an alternative space for mentorship, challenging traditional roles and suggesting the need for cooperative processes. And this, in turn, can inspire new ways of relating with and through social media and mobile technologies within the family.Inverting Expertise: Social Media, Family and MentoringSocial media are deeply embedded in everyday routines for the vast majority of the population. The emergence of the ‘networked society’, characterised by increasing and pervasive digital and social connectivity, has the potential to create new forms of social interactions within and across networks (Rainie and Wellman), but also to reconfigure intergenerational and family relations. In this way, social media introduces new power asymmetries that affect family dynamics and in particular relationships between young people and their parents. This relatively new mediated environment, by default, exposes young people to social contexts well beyond family and immediate peers making their lived experiences individual, situational and contextual (Swist et al.). The perceived risks this introduces can provoke tensions within families looking to manage those uncertain social contexts, in the process problematising traditional structures of mentorship. Mentoring is a practice predominantly understood within educational and professional workplace settings (Ambrosetti and Dekkers). Although different definitions can be found across disciplines, most models position a mentor as a more experienced knowledge holder, implying a hierarchical relationship between a mentor and mentee (Ambrosetti and Dekkers). Stereotypically, a mentor is understood to be older, wiser and more experienced, while a mentee is, in turn, younger and in need of guidance – a protégé. Alternative models of mentorship see mentoring as a reciprocal process (Eby, Rhodes and Allen; Naweed and Ambrosetti).This “reciprocal” perspective on mentorship recognises the opportunity both sides in the process have to contribute and benefit from the relationship. However, in situations where one party in the relationship does not have the expected knowledge, skills or confidence, this reciprocity becomes more difficult. Thus, as an alternative, asymmetrical or cooperative mentorship lies between the hierarchical and reciprocal (Naweed and Ambrosetti). It suggests that the more experienced side (whichever it is) takes a lead while mentoring is negotiated in a way that meets both sides’ needs. The parent-child relationship is generally understood in hierarchical terms. Traditionally, parents are considered to be mentors for their children, particularly in acquiring new skills and facilitating transitions towards adult life. Such perspectives on parent-child relationships are based on a “deficit” approach to youth, “whereby young people are situated as citizens-in-the-making” (Collin). Social media further problematises the hierarchical dynamic with the role of knowledge holder varying between and within the family members. In many contemporary mediated households, across developed and wealthy nations, technologically savvy children are actively tailoring their own childhoods. This is a context that requires a reconceptualisation of traditional mentoring models within the family context and recognition of each stakeholder’s expertise, knowledge and agency – a position that is markedly at odds with traditional deficit models. Negotiating Social Media Use within the FamilyIn the early stages of the internet and social media research, a generational gap was often at the centre of debates. Although highly contested, Prensky’s metaphor of digital natives and digital immigrants persists in both the popular media and academic literature. This paradigm portrays young people as tech savvy in contrast with their parents. However, such assumptions are rarely grounded in empirical evidence (Hargittai). Nonetheless, while parents are active users of social media, they find it difficult to negotiate social media use with their children (Sorbring). Some studies suggest that parental concerns arise from impressions that their children know more about social media than they do (FOSI; Wang, Bianchi and Raley). Additionally, parental concern with a child’s social media use is positively correlated with the child’s age; parents of older children are less confident in their skills and believe that their child is more digitally skillful (FOSI). However, it may be more productive to understand social media expertise within the family as shared: intermittently fluctuating between parents and children. In developed and wealthy countries, children are already using digital media by the age of five and throughout their pre-teen years predominantly for play and learning, and as teenagers they are almost universally avid social media users (Nansen; Nansen et al.; Swist et al.). Smartphone ownership has increased significantly among young people in Australia, reaching almost 80% in 2015, a proportion nearly identical to the adult population (Australian Communications and Media Authority). In addition, most young people are using multiple devices switching between them according to where, when and with whom they connect (Australian Communications and Media Authority). The locations of internet use have also diversified. While the home remains the most common site, young people make use of mobile devices to access the internet at school, friend’s homes, and via public Wi-Fi hotspots (Australian Communications and Media Authority). As a result, social media access and engagement has become more frequent and personalised and tied to processes of socialisation and well-being (Sorbring; Swist et al.). These developments have been rapid, introducing asymmetry into the parent-child mentoring dynamic along with family tensions about rules, norms and behaviours of media use. Negotiating an appropriate balance between emerging autonomy and parental oversight has always featured as a primary parenting challenge and social media seem to have introduced a new dimension in this context. A 2016 Pew report on parents, teens, and digital monitoring reveals that social media use has become central to the establishment of family rules and disciplinary practices, with over two thirds of parents reporting the use of “digital grounding” as punishment (Pew). As well as restricting social media use, the majority of parents report limiting the amount of time and times of day their children can be online. Interestingly, while parents engage in a variety of hands-on approaches to monitoring and regulating children’s social media use, they are less likely to use monitoring software, blocking/filtering online content, tracking locations and the like (Pew). These findings suggest that parents may lack confidence in technology-based restrictions or prefer pro-active, family based approaches involving discussion about appropriate social media use. This presents an opportunity to explore how social media produces new forms of parent-child relationships that might be best understood through the lens of cooperative models of mentorship. Digital Parenting: Technological and Pedagogical Interventions Parents along with educators and policy makers are looking for technological solutions to the knowledge gap, whether perceived or real, associated with concerns regarding young people’s social media use. Likewise, technology and social media companies are rushing to develop and sell advice, safety filters and resources of all kinds to meet such parental needs (Clark; McCosker). This relatively under-researched field requires further exploration and dissociation from the discourse of risk and fear (Livingstone). Furthermore, in order to develop opportunities modelled on concepts of cooperative mentoring, such programs and interventions need to move away from hierarchical assumptions about the nature of expertise within family contexts. As Collin and Swist point out, online campaigns aimed at addressing young people and children’s safety and wellbeing “are often still designed by adult ‘experts’” (Collin and Swist). A cooperative mentoring approach within family contexts would align with recent use of co-design or participatory design within social and health research and policy (Collin and Swist). In order to think through the potential of cooperative mentorship approaches in relation to social media use within the family, we examine some of the digital resources available to parents.Prominent US cyber safety and digital citizenship program Cyberwise is a commercial website founded by Diana Graber and Cynthia Lieberman, with connections to Verizon Wireless, Google and iKeepSafe among many other partnerships. In addition to learning resources around topics like “Being a Responsible Citizen of the Digital World”, Cyberwise offers online and face to face workshops on “cyber civics” in California, emphasising critical thinking, ethical discussion and decision making about digital media issues. The organisation aims to educate and support parents and teachers in their endeavor to guide young people in civil and safe social media use. CyberWise’s slogan “No grown up left behind!”, and its program of support and education is underpinned by and maintains the notion of adults as lacking expertise and lagging behind young people in digital literacy and social media skills. In the process, it introduces an additional level of expertise in the cyber safety expert and software-based interventions. Through a number of software partners, CyberWise provides a suite of tools that offer parents some control in preventing cyberbullying and establishing norms for cyber safety. For example, Frienedy is a dedicated social media platform that fosters a more private mode of networking for closed groups of mutually known people. It enables users to control completely what they share and with whom they share it. The tool does not introduce any explicit parental monitoring mechanisms, but seeks to impose an exclusive online environment divested of broader social influences and risks – an environment in which parents can “introduce kids to social media on their terms when they are ready”. Although Frienedy does not explicitly present itself as a monitoring tool, it does perpetuate hierarchical forms of mentorship and control for parents. On the other hand, PocketGuardian is a parental monitoring service for tracking children’s social media use, with an explicit emphasis on parental control: “Parents receive notification when cyberbullying or sexting is detected, plus resources to start a conversation with their child without intruding child’s privacy” (the software notifies parents when it detects an issue but without disclosing the content). The tool promotes its ability to step in on behalf of parents, removing “the task of manually inspecting your child's device and accounts”. The software claims that it analyses the content rather than merely catching “keywords” in its detection algorithms. Obviously, tools such as PocketGuardian reflect a hierarchical mentorship model (and recognise the expertise asymmetry) by imposing technological controls. The software, in a way, fosters a fear of expertise deficiency, while enabling technological controls to reassert the parent-child hierarchy. A different approach is exemplified by the Australian based Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, a “living lab” experiment – this is an overt attempt to reverse deliberate asymmetry. This pedagogical intervention, initially taking the form of an research project, involved four young people designing and delivering a three-hour workshop on social networking and cyber safety for adult participants (Third et al.). The central aim was to disrupt the traditional way adults and young people relate to each other in relation to social media and technology use and attempted to support learning by reversing traditional roles of adult teacher and young student. In this way ‘a non-hierarchical space of intergenerational learning’ was created (Third et al.). The result was to create a setting where intergenerational conversation helped to demystify social media and technology, generate familiarity with sites, improve adult’s understanding of when they should assist young people, and deliver agency and self-efficacy for the young people involved (7-8). In this way, young people’s expertise was acknowledged as a reflection of a cooperative or asymmetrical mentoring relationship in which adult’s guidance and support could also play a part. These lessons have been applied and developed further through a participatory design approach to producing apps and tools such as Appreciate-a-mate (Collin and Swist). In that project “the inclusion of young people’s contexts became a way of activating and sustaining attachments in regard to the campaign’s future use”(313).In stark contrast to the CyberWise tools, the cooperative mentoring (or participatory design) approach, exemplified in this second example, has multiple positive outcomes: first it demystifies social media use and increases understanding of the role it plays in young people’s (and adults’) lives. Second, it increases adults’ familiarity and comfort in navigating their children’s social media use. Finally, for the young people involved, it supports a sense of achievement and acknowledges their expertise and agency. To build sustainability into these processes, we would argue that it is important to look at the family context and cooperative mentorship as an additional point of intervention. Understood in this sense, cooperative and asymmetrical mentoring between a parent and child echoes an authoritative parenting style which is proven to have the best outcome for children (Baumrind), but in a way that accommodates young people’s technology expertise.Both programs analysed target adults (parents) as less skilful than young people (their children) in relation to social media use. However, while first case study, the technology based interventions endorses hierarchical model, the Living Lab example (a pedagogical intervention) attempts to create an environment without hierarchical obstacles to learning and knowledge exchange. Although the parent-child relationship is indubitably characterised by the hierarchy to some extent, it also assumes continuous negotiation and role fluctuation. A continuous process, negotiation intensifies as children age and transition to more independent media use. In the current digital environment, this negotiation is often facilitated (or even led) by social media platforms as additional agents in the process. Unarguably, digital parenting might implicate both technological and pedagogical interventions; however, there should be a dialogue between the two. Without presumed expertise roles, non-hierarchical, cooperative environment for negotiating social media use can be developed. Cooperative mentorship, as a concept, offers an opportunity to connect research and practice through participatory design and it deserves further consideration.ConclusionsPrevailing approaches to cyber safety education tend to focus on risk management and in doing so, they maintain hierarchical forms of parental control. Adhering to such methods fails to acknowledge young people’s expertise and further deepens generational misunderstanding over social media use. Rather than insisting on hierarchical and traditional roles, there is a need to recognise and leverage asymmetrical expertise within the family in regards to social media.Cooperative and asymmetrical mentorship happens naturally in the family and can be facilitated by and through social media. The inverted hierarchy of expertise we have described here puts both parents and children, in a position of constant negotiation over social media use. This negotiation is complex, relational, unpredictable, open toward emergent possibilities and often intensive. Unquestionably, it is clear that social media provides opportunities for negotiation over, and inversion of, traditional family roles. Whether this inversion of expertise is real or only perceived, however, deserves further investigation. This article formulates some of the conceptual groundwork for an empirical study of family dynamics in relation to social media use and rulemaking. The study aims to continue to probe the positive potential of cooperative and asymmetrical mentorship and participatory design concepts and practices. The idea of cooperative mentorship does not necessarily provide a universal solution to how families negotiate social media use, but it does provide a new lens through which this dynamic can be observed. Clearly family dynamics, and the parent-child relationship, in particular, can play a vital part in supporting effective digital citizenship and wellbeing processes. Learning about this spontaneous and natural process of family negotiations might equip us with tools to inform policy and practices that can help parents and children to collaboratively create ‘a networked world in which they all want to live’ (boyd). ReferencesAmbrosetti, Angelina, and John Dekkers. "The Interconnectedness of the Roles of Mentors and Mentees in Pre-Service Teacher Education Mentoring Relationships." 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All history of this area and the general talk and all of that is that 1973 was a turning point and the Aquarius Festival is credited with having turned this region around in so many ways, but I think that is a myth ... and I have to honour the truth; and the truth is that old Dicke Donelly came and did a Welcome to Country the night before the festival. (Joseph in Joseph and Hanley)In 1973 the Australian Union of Students (AUS) held the Aquarius Arts and Lifestyle Festival in a small, rural New South Wales town called Nimbin. The festival was seen as the peak expression of Australian counterculture and is attributed to creating the “Rainbow Region”, an area with a concentration of alternative life stylers in Northern NSW (Derrett 28). While the Aquarius Festival is recognised as a founding historical and countercultural event, the unique and important relationships established with Indigenous people at this time are generally less well known. This article investigates claims that the 1973 Aquarius Festival was “the first event in Australian history that sought permission for the use of the land from the Traditional Owners” (Joseph and Hanley). The diverse international, national and local conditions that coalesced at the Aquarius Festival suggest a fertile environment was created for reconciliatory bonds to develop. Often dismissed as a “tree hugging, soap dodging movement,” the counterculture was radically politicised having sprung from the 1960s social revolutions when the world witnessed mass demonstrations that confronted war, racism, sexism and capitalism. Primarily a youth movement, it was characterised by flamboyant dress, music, drugs and mass gatherings with universities forming the epicentre and white, middle class youth leading the charge. As their ideals of changing the world were frustrated by lack of systematic change, many decided to disengage and a migration to rural settings occurred (Jacob; Munro-Clarke; Newton). In the search for alternatives, the counterculture assimilated many spiritual practices, such as Eastern traditions and mysticism, which were previously obscure to the Western world. This practice of spiritual syncretism can be represented as a direct resistance to the hegemony of the dominant Western culture (Stell). As the new counterculture developed, its progression from urban to rural settings was driven by philosophies imbued with a desire to reconnect with and protect the natural world while simultaneously rejecting the dominant conservative order. A recurring feature of this countercultural ‘back to the land’ migration was not only an empathetic awareness of the injustices of colonial past, but also a genuine desire to learn from the Indigenous people of the land. Indigenous people were generally perceived as genuine opposers of Westernisation, inherently spiritual, ecological, tribal and communal, thus encompassing the primary values to which the counterculture was aspiring (Smith). Cultures converged. One, a youth culture rebelling from its parent culture; the other, ancient cultures reeling from the historical conquest by the youths’ own ancestors. Such cultural intersections are rich with complex scenarios and politics. As a result, often naïve, but well-intended relations were established with Native Americans, various South American Indigenous peoples, New Zealand Maori and, as this article demonstrates, the Original People of Australia (Smith; Newton; Barr-Melej; Zolov). The 1960s protest era fostered the formation of groups aiming to address a variety of issues, and at times many supported each other. Jennifer Clarke says it was the Civil Rights movement that provided the first models of dissent by formulating a “method, ideology and language of protest” as African Americans stood up and shouted prior to other movements (2). The issue of racial empowerment was not lost on Australia’s Indigenous population. Clarke writes that during the 1960s, encouraged by events overseas and buoyed by national organisation, Aborigines “slowly embarked on a political awakening, demanded freedom from the trappings of colonialism and responded to the effects of oppression at worst and neglect at best” (4). Activism of the 1960s had the “profoundly productive effect of providing Aborigines with the confidence to assert their racial identity” (159). Many Indigenous youth were compelled by the zeitgeist to address their people’s issues, fulfilling Charlie Perkins’s intentions of inspiring in Indigenous peoples a will to resist (Perkins). Enjoying new freedoms of movement out of missions, due to the 1967 Constitutional change and the practical implementation of the assimilation policy, up to 32,000 Indigenous youth moved to Redfern, Sydney between 1967 and 1972 (Foley, “An Evening With”). Gary Foley reports that a dynamic new Black Power Movement emerged but the important difference between this new younger group and the older Indigenous leaders of the day was the diverse range of contemporary influences. Taking its mantra from the Black Panther movement in America, though having more in common with the equivalent Native American Red Power movement, the Black Power Movement acknowledged many other international struggles for independence as equally inspiring (Foley, “An Evening”). People joined together for grassroots resistance, formed anti-hierarchical collectives and established solidarities between varied groups who previously would have had little to do with each other. The 1973 Aquarius Festival was directly aligned with “back to the land” philosophies. The intention was to provide a place and a reason for gathering to “facilitate exchanges on survival techniques” and to experience “living in harmony with the natural environment.” without being destructive to the land (Dunstan, “A Survival Festival”). Early documents in the archives, however, reveal no apparent interest in Australia’s Indigenous people, referring more to “silken Arabian tents, mediaeval banners, circus, jugglers and clowns, peace pipes, maypole and magic circles” (Dunstan, “A Survival Festival”). Obliterated from the social landscape and minimally referred to in the Australian education system, Indigenous people were “off the radar” to the majority mindset, and the Australian counterculture similarly was slow to appreciate Indigenous culture. Like mainstream Australia, the local counterculture movement largely perceived the “race” issue as something occurring in other countries, igniting the phrase “in your own backyard” which became a catchcry of Indigenous activists (Foley, “Whiteness and Blackness”) With no mention of any Indigenous interest, it seems likely that the decision to engage grew from the emerging climate of Indigenous activism in Australia. Frustrated by student protestors who seemed oblivious to local racial issues, focusing instead on popular international injustices, Indigenous activists accused them of hypocrisy. Aquarius Festival directors, found themselves open to similar accusations when public announcements elicited a range of responses. Once committed to the location of Nimbin, directors Graeme Dunstan and Johnny Allen began a tour of Australian universities to promote the upcoming event. While at the annual conference of AUS in January 1973 at Monash University, Dunstan met Indigenous activist Gary Foley: Gary witnessed the presentation of Johnny Allen and myself at the Aquarius Foundation session and our jubilation that we had agreement from the village residents to not only allow, but also to collaborate in the production of the Festival. After our presentation which won unanimous support, it was Gary who confronted me with the question “have you asked permission from local Aboriginal folk?” This threw me into confusion because we had seen no Aboriginals in Nimbin. (Dunstan, e-mail) Such a challenge came at a time when the historical climate was etched with political activism, not only within the student movement, but more importantly with Indigenous activists’ recent demonstrations, such as the installation in 1972 of the Tent Embassy in Canberra. As representatives of the counterculture movement, which was characterised by its inclinations towards consciousness-raising, AUS organisers were ethically obliged to respond appropriately to the questions about Indigenous permission and involvement in the Aquarius Festival at Nimbin. In addition to this political pressure, organisers in Nimbin began hearing stories of the area being cursed or taboo for women. This most likely originated from the tradition of Nimbin Rocks, a rocky outcrop one kilometre from Nimbin, as a place where only certain men could go. Jennifer Hoff explains that many major rock formations were immensely sacred places and were treated with great caution and respect. Only a few Elders and custodians could visit these places and many such locations were also forbidden for women. Ceremonies were conducted at places like Nimbin Rocks to ensure the wellbeing of all tribespeople. Stories of the Nimbin curse began to spread and most likely captivated a counterculture interested in mysticism. As organisers had hoped that news of the festival would spread on the “lips of the counterculture,” they were alarmed to hear how “fast the bad news of this curse was travelling” (Dunstan, e-mail). A diplomatic issue escalated with further challenges from the Black Power community when organisers discovered that word had spread to Sydney’s Indigenous community in Redfern. Organisers faced a hostile reaction to their alleged cultural insensitivity and were plagued by negative publicity with accusations the AUS were “violating sacred ground” (Janice Newton 62). Faced with such bad press, Dunstan was determined to repair what was becoming a public relations disaster. It seemed once prompted to the path, a sense of moral responsibility prevailed amongst the organisers and they took the unprecedented step of reaching out to Australia’s Indigenous people. Dunstan claimed that an expedition was made to the local Woodenbong mission to consult with Elder, Uncle Lyle Roberts. To connect with local people required crossing the great social divide present in that era of Australia’s history. Amy Nethery described how from the nineteenth century to the 1960s, a “system of reserves, missions and other institutions isolated, confined and controlled Aboriginal people” (9). She explains that the people were incarcerated as a solution to perceived social problems. For Foley, “the widespread genocidal activity of early “settlement” gave way to a policy of containment” (Foley, “Australia and the Holocaust”). Conditions on missions were notoriously bad with alcoholism, extreme poverty, violence, serious health issues and depression common. Of particular concern to mission administrators was the perceived need to keep Indigenous people separate from the non-indigenous population. Dunstan described the mission he visited as having “bad vibes.” He found it difficult to communicate with the elderly man, and was not sure if he understood Dunstan’s quest, as his “responses came as disjointed raves about Jesus and saving grace” (Dunstan, e-mail). Uncle Lyle, he claimed, did not respond affirmatively or negatively to the suggestion that Nimbin was cursed, and so Dunstan left assuming it was not true. Other organisers began to believe the curse and worried that female festival goers might get sick or worse, die. This interpretation reflected, as Vanessa Bible argues, a general Eurocentric misunderstanding of the relationship of Indigenous peoples with the land. Paul Joseph admits they were naïve whites coming into a place with very little understanding, “we didn’t know if we needed a witch doctor or what we needed but we knew we needed something from the Aborigines to lift the spell!”(Joseph and Hanley). Joseph, one of the first “hippies” who moved to the area, had joined forces with AUS organisers. He said, “it just felt right” to get Indigenous involvement and recounted how organisers made another trip to Woodenbong Mission to find Dickee (Richard) Donnelly, a Song Man, who was very happy to be invited. Whether the curse was valid or not it proved to be productive in further instigating respectful action. Perhaps feeling out of their depth, the organisers initiated another strategy to engage with Australian Indigenous people. A call out was sent through the AUS network to diversify the cultural input and it was recommended they engage the services of South African artist, Bauxhau Stone. Timing aligned well as in 1972 Australia had voted in a new Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. Whitlam brought about significant political changes, many in response to socialist protests that left a buoyancy in the air for the counterculturalist movement. He made prodigious political changes in support of Indigenous people, including creating the Aboriginal Arts Board as part of the Australian Council of the Arts (ACA). As the ACA were already funding activities for the Aquarius Festival, organisers were successful in gaining two additional grants specifically for Indigenous participation (Farnham). As a result We were able to hire […] representatives, a couple of Kalahari bushmen. ‘Cause we were so dumb, we didn’t think we could speak to the black people, you know what I mean, we thought we would be rejected, or whatever, so for us to really reach out, we needed somebody black to go and talk to them, or so we thought, and it was remarkable. This one Bau, a remarkable fellow really, great artist, great character, he went all over Australia. He went to Pitjantjatjara, Yirrkala and we arranged buses and tents when they got here. We had a very large contingent of Aboriginal people come to the Aquarius Festival, thanks to Whitlam. (Joseph in Joseph and Henley) It was under the aegis of these government grants that Bauxhau Stone conducted his work. Stone embodied a nexus of contemporary issues. Acutely aware of the international movement for racial equality and its relevance to Australia, where conditions were “really appalling”, Stone set out to transform Australian race relations by engaging with the alternative arts movement (Stone). While his white Australian contemporaries may have been unaccustomed to dealing with the Indigenous racial issue, Stone was actively engaged and thus well suited to act as a cultural envoy for the Aquarius Festival. He visited several local missions, inviting people to attend and notifying them of ceremonies being conducted by respected Elders. Nimbin was then the site of the Aquarius Lifestyle and Celebration Festival, a two week gathering of alternative cultures, technologies and youth. It innovatively demonstrated its diversity of influences, attracted people from all over the world and was the first time that the general public really witnessed Australia’s counterculture (Derrett 224). As markers of cultural life, counterculture festivals of the 1960s and 1970s were as iconic as the era itself and many around the world drew on the unique Indigenous heritage of their settings in some form or another (Partridge; Perone; Broadley and Jones; Zolov). The social phenomenon of coming together to experience, celebrate and foster a sense of unity was triggered by protests, music and a simple, yet deep desire to reconnect with each other. Festivals provided an environment where the negative social pressures of race, gender, class and mores (such as clothes) were suspended and held the potential “for personal and social transformation” (St John 167). With the expressed intent to “take matters into our own hands” and try to develop alternative, innovative ways of doing things with collective participation, the Aquarius Festival thus became an optimal space for reinvigorating ancient and Indigenous ways (Dunstan, “A Survival Festival”). With philosophies that venerated collectivism, tribalism, connecting with the earth, and the use of ritual, the Indigenous presence at the Aquarius Festival gave attendees the opportunity to experience these values. To connect authentically with Nimbin’s landscape, forming bonds with the Traditional Owners was essential. Participants were very fortunate to have the presence of the last known initiated men of the area, Uncle Lyle Roberts and Uncle Dickee Donnely. These Elders represented the last vestiges of an ancient culture and conducted innovative ceremonies, song, teachings and created a sacred fire for the new youth they encountered in their land. They welcomed the young people and were very happy for their presence, believing it represented a revolutionary shift (Wedd; King; John Roberts; Cecil Roberts). Images 1 and 2: Ceremony and talks conducted at the Aquarius Festival (people unknown). Photographs reproduced by permission of photographer and festival attendee Paul White. The festival thus provided an important platform for the regeneration of cultural and spiritual practices. John Roberts, nephew of Uncle Lyle, recalled being surprised by the reaction of festival participants to his uncle: “He was happy and then he started to sing. And my God … I couldn’t get near him! There was this big ring of hippies around him. They were about twenty deep!” Sharing to an enthusiastic, captive audience had a positive effect and gave the non-indigenous a direct Indigenous encounter (Cecil Roberts; King; Oshlak). Estimates of the number of Indigenous people in attendance vary, with the main organisers suggesting 800 to 1000 and participants suggesting 200 to 400 (Stone; Wedd; Oshlak: Joseph; King; Cecil Roberts). As the Festival lasted over a two week period, many came and left within that time and estimates are at best reliant on memory, engagement and perspectives. With an estimated total attendance at the Festival between 5000 and 10,000, either number of Indigenous attendees is symbolic and a significant symbolic statistic for Indigenous and non-indigenous to be together on mutual ground in Australia in 1973. Images 3-5: Performers from Yirrkala Dance Group, brought to the festival by Stone with funding from the Federal Government. Photographs reproduced by permission of photographer and festival attendee Dr Ian Cameron. For Indigenous people, the event provided an important occasion to reconnect with their own people, to share their culture with enthusiastic recipients, as well as the chance to experience diverse aspects of the counterculture. Though the northern NSW region has a history of diverse cultural migration of Italian and Indian families, the majority of non-indigenous and Indigenous people had limited interaction with cosmopolitan influences (Kijas 20). Thus Nimbin was a conservative region and many Christianised Indigenous people were also conservative in their outlook. The Aquarius Festival changed that as the Indigenous people experienced the wide-ranging cultural elements of the alternative movement. The festival epitomised countercultural tendencies towards flamboyant fashion and hairstyles, architectural design, fantastical art, circus performance, Asian clothes and religious products, vegetarian food and nudity. Exposure to this bohemian culture would have surely led to “mind expansion and consciousness raising,” explicit aims adhered to by the movement (Roszak). Performers and participants from Africa, America and India also gave attending Indigenous Australians the opportunity to interact with non-European cultures. Many people interviewed for this paper indicated that Indigenous people’s reception of this festival experience was joyous. For Australia’s early counterculture, interest in Indigenous Australia was limited and for organisers of the AUS Aquarius Festival, it was not originally on the agenda. The counterculture in the USA and New Zealand had already started to engage with their Indigenous people some years earlier. However due to the Aquarius Festival’s origins in the student movement and its solidarities with the international Indigenous activist movement, they were forced to shift their priorities. The coincidental selection of a significant spiritual location at Nimbin to hold the festival brought up additional challenges and countercultural intrigue with mystical powers and a desire to connect authentically to the land, further prompted action. Essentially, it was the voices of empowered Indigenous activists, like Gary Foley, which in fact triggered the reaching out to Indigenous involvement. While the counterculture organisers were ultimately receptive and did act with unprecedented respect, credit must be given to Indigenous activists. The activist’s role is to trigger action and challenge thinking and in this case, it was ultimately productive. Therefore the Indigenous people were not merely passive recipients of beneficiary goodwill, but active instigators of appropriate cultural exchange. After the 1973 festival many attendees decided to stay in Nimbin to purchase land collectively and a community was born. Relationships established with local Indigenous people developed further. Upon visiting Nimbin now, one will see a vibrant visual display of Indigenous and psychedelic themed art, a central park with an open fire tended by local custodians and other Indigenous community members, an Aboriginal Centre whose rent is paid for by local shopkeepers, and various expressions of a fusion of counterculture and Indigenous art, music and dance. While it appears that reconciliation became the aspiration for mainstream society in the 1990s, Nimbin’s early counterculture history had Indigenous reconciliation at its very foundation. The efforts made by organisers of the 1973 Aquarius Festival stand as one of very few examples in Australian history where non-indigenous Australians have respectfully sought to learn from Indigenous people and to assimilate their cultural practices. It also stands as an example for the world, of reconciliation, based on hippie ideals of peace and love. They encouraged the hippies moving up here, even when they came out for Aquarius, old Uncle Lyle and Richard Donnelly, they came out and they blessed the mob out here, it was like the hairy people had come back, with the Nimbin, cause the Nimbynji is the little hairy people, so the hairy people came back (Jerome). References Barr-Melej, Patrick. “Siloísmo and the Self in Allende’s Chile: Youth, 'Total Revolution,' and the Roots of the Humanist Movement.” Hispanic American Historical Review 86.4 (Nov. 2006): 747-784. Bible, Vanessa. Aquarius Rising: Terania Creek and the Australian Forest Protest Movement. BA (Honours) Thesis. University of New England, Armidale, 2010. Broadley, Colin, and Judith Jones, eds. Nambassa: A New Direction. Auckland: Reed, 1979. Bryant, Gordon M. Parliament of Australia. Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. 1 May 1973. Australian Union of Students. Records of the AUS, 1934-1991. National Library of Australia MS ACC GB 1992.0505. Cameron, Ian. “Aquarius Festival Photographs.” 1973. Clarke, Jennifer. Aborigines and Activism: Race, Aborigines and the Coming of the Sixties to Australia. Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2008. Derrett, Ross. Regional Festivals: Nourishing Community Resilience: The Nature and Role of Cultural Festivals in Northern Rivers NSW Communities. PhD Thesis. Southern Cross University, Lismore, 2008. Dunstan, Graeme. “A Survival Festival May 1973.” 1 Aug. 1972. Pamphlet. MS 6945/1. Nimbin Aquarius Festival Archives. National Library of Australia, Canberra. ---. E-mail to author, 11 July 2012. ---. “The Aquarius Festival.” Aquarius Rainbow Region. n.d. Farnham, Ken. Acting Executive Officer, Aboriginal Council for the Arts. 19 June 1973. Letter. MS ACC GB 1992.0505. Australian Union of Students. Records of the AUS, 1934-1991. National Library of Australia, Canberra. Foley, Gary. “Australia and the Holocaust: A Koori Perspective (1997).” The Koori History Website. n.d. 20 May 2013 ‹http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_8.html›. ---. “Whiteness and Blackness in the Koori Struggle for Self-Determination (1999).” The Koori History Website. n.d. 20 May 2013 ‹http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_9.html›. ---. “Black Power in Redfern 1968-1972 (2001).” The Koori History Website. n.d. 20 May 2013 ‹http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_1.html›. ---. “An Evening with Legendary Aboriginal Activist Gary Foley.” Conference Session. Marxism 2012 “Revolution in the Air”, Melbourne, Mar. 2012. Hoff, Jennifer. Bundjalung Jugun: Bundjalung Country. Lismore: Richmond River Historical Society, 2006. Jacob, Jeffrey. New Pioneers: The Back-to-the-Land Movement and the Search for a Sustainable Future. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press, 1997. Jerome, Burri. Interview. 31 July 2012. Joseph, Paul. Interview. 7 Aug. 2012. Joseph, Paul, and Brendan ‘Mookx’ Hanley. Interview by Rob Willis. 14 Aug. 2010. Audiofile, Session 2 of 3. nla.oh-vn4978025. Rob Willis Folklore Collection. National Library of Australia, Canberra. Kijas, Johanna, Caravans and Communes: Stories of Settling in the Tweed 1970s & 1980s. Murwillumbah: Tweed Shire Council, 2011. King, Vivienne (Aunty Viv). Interview. 1 Aug. 2012. Munro-Clarke, Margaret. Communes of Rural Australia: The Movement Since 1970. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1986. Nethery, Amy. “Aboriginal Reserves: ‘A Modern-Day Concentration Camp’: Using History to Make Sense of Australian Immigration Detention Centres.” Does History Matter? Making and Debating Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Policy in Australia and New Zealand. Eds. Klaus Neumann and Gwenda Tavan. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2009. 4. Newton, Janice. “Aborigines, Tribes and the Counterculture.” Social Analysis 23 (1988): 53-71. Newton, John. The Double Rainbow: James K Baxter, Ngati Hau and the Jerusalem Commune. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2009. Offord, Baden. “Mapping the Rainbow Region: Fields of Belonging and Sites of Confluence.” Transformations 2 (March 2002): 1-5. Oshlak, Al. Interview. 27 Mar. 2013. Partridge, Christopher. “The Spiritual and the Revolutionary: Alternative Spirituality, British Free Festivals, and the Emergence of Rave Culture.” Culture and Religion: An Interdisciplinary Journal 7 (2006): 3-5. Perkins, Charlie. “Charlie Perkins on 1965 Freedom Ride.” Youtube, 13 Oct. 2009. Perone, James E. Woodstock: An Encyclopedia of the Music and Art Fair. Greenwood: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005. Roberts, John. Interview. 1 Aug. 2012. Roberts, Cecil. Interview. 6 Aug. 2012. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. New York: University of California Press,1969. St John, Graham. “Going Feral: Authentica on the Edge of Australian culture.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 8 (1997): 167-189. Smith, Sherry. Hippies, Indians and the Fight for Red Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Stell, Alex. Dancing in the Hyper-Crucible: The Rite de Passage of the Post-Rave Movement. BA (Honours) Thesis. University of Westminster, London, 2005. Stone, Trevor Bauxhau. Interview. 1 Oct. 2012. Wedd, Leila. Interview. 27 Sep. 2012. White, Paul. “Aquarius Revisited.” 1973. Zolov, Eric. Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Introduction One in three Australian marriages ends in divorce (ABS, Parental Divorce). While such statistics may be interpreted to mean that marriage is becoming less significant to Australians, many Australians continue to invest heavily in marriage as a constitutive mode of subjectification. Recently released first-wave data from a longitudinal study being conducted with seven thousand high school students in Queensland indicates that the majority of high schoolers expect to get married (Skrbis et al. 76). Significant political attention and debate in Australia has centred on the issue of marriage “equality” in relation to legislating same-sex marriage. Many accounts problematise marriage in Australia today by focussing on the current inequities involved in who can and cannot legally get married, which are important debates to be had in the process of understanding the persistent importance of marriage as a social institution. This paper, however, provides a critical account of “equality” in contemporary heterosexual marriages or heteronormative monogamous relationships. I argue that, far from being a mundane “old” debate, the distribution of unpaid work between spouses has a significant effect on women’s spousal satisfaction, and it calls into question the notion of “marriage equality” in everyday heterosexual marriages whether these are civil or common law relationships. I suggest that the contemporary “Hollywood” fantasy about marriage, which informs the same-sex marriage movement, sets up expectations that belie most people’s lived realities.Project Overview This paper draws on data from a larger research project that explores the impact of globalised ideas about good womanhood and good motherhood on Western Australian women, and how local context shapes these women’s personal ideals about their own life trajectories. Interviews were conducted with a series of women living in regional Western Australia. While more women were interviewed as part of the larger research project, this paper draws on interviews with seven intending-to-mother women and fifteen mothers. Through several open-ended questions, the women were asked about either their plans for motherhood or their experiences of motherhood, in relation to additional expectations of women’s lives, such as participation in the paid sector and body ideals. Married women were also asked about how unpaid labour—that is, domestic and, where relevant, childcare labour—is divided between themselves and their husbands. Women’s responses to these questions provide a critical account of how marriage and the notion of “equality” is currently lived out in Australia. To ensure confidentiality, their real names have been replaced by pseudonyms. My purpose in drawing on my own data in conjunction with literature on the gendered division of unpaid labour is to emphasise that while the theoretical insights are not new, the fact that a gendered disparity continues to exist is of concern because of women’s dissatisfaction with the situation, particularly in the context of frequent claims that equality is already achieved, and given that it queries the fantasy of marriage continuing to circulate in contemporary culture. The women I interviewed responded openly to questions about the division of domestic, and where relevant, childcare labour and the affects of this on their relationships. Feminist approaches to the research process highlight the importance of being reflexive about the relationship(s) between researcher and researched to make the presence of the researcher in the research process explicit (Ramazanoglu and Holland 156). Ramazanoglu and Holland argue “producing knowledge through empirical research is not the same as acting as a conduit for the voices of others” (116). While the power dynamic between researcher and researched is not generally an equal one, the fact that I am younger than all of my participants bar one (who is the same age) I believe went some way towards diffusing my position of power in the interviews. Some of my participants were also either already known to me, or had been referred to me by another participant prior to the interview, which may have made the process of interview less intimidating and more comfortable. Importantly, in many instances, my participants’ reflections about the division of unpaid labour in their marriages, their expectations, hopes for the future, and feelings about it mirrored my own feelings and realities. I related personally to their experiences, and empathise with their dilemmas. This is significant methodologically because “emotional connectedness” (Coffey 158–9) including a close identification with participants (Conle 53–4) influences the process of interpretation. However, in Scott’s terms, power operated through my assessment of participants’ dilemmas being similar to my own and my writing up of their interviews (780). The findings presented in this paper are based on my interpretation of the voices of others, and are unavoidably influenced by my personal context as the researcher. Two predominate themes emerged from women’s accounts of unpaid domestic and childcare labour. Women anticipated their partner’s participation in domestic care activities, although in most cases, this expectation was not met. Further, women held these expectations for “when they had children,” even though their partners did not presently participate in domestic activities. At the same time, the women accepted that, while their husband’s should participate more in unpaid work, this participation would not be equal to their own responsibilities regardless of what other activities either were engaged in outside of the domestic and familial sphere. I found that while women expect a fairer division of domestic labour, they do not expect it to be “50/50.” I argue that the gendered division of labour has changed less than most couples readily admit, as seen through the following overview. Gender Relations: Changes and Stases In Western societies, women’s roles in the public sphere have changed considerably over the last fifty plus years. Women now constitute a significant percentage of the paid workforce. Today, couple families where both partners work in the paid sector are the most common of all families (ABS, Family Functioning). However, there has not been a corresponding shift in the way that unpaid labour is divided between partners. Only one half of the historical gendered division of labour has undergone change; while women as well as men now operate in the paid (and thus valued) sector (traditionally available only to men), women still predominately perform most of the unpaid (and undervalued) domestic work. Gender researchers have been reporting on the unequal division of domestic labour between couples, and the material and emotional consequences for women, for a long time (see Hochschild; DeVault; Coltrane), yet I argue that it remains largely unchanged, and dismissed as an important issue in the Australian community. Hochschild’s work, in particular, made a significant contribution to research into the gendered division of unpaid labour between couples by analysing and reporting on interview data collected from fifty couples, both working full-time in the paid sector, with young children. Hochschild identified and reported on couples justifications for the way they divide domestic and care, which, as I will demonstrate, are still common today (17, see also Hochschild with Machung 128). Several contemporary studies (Meisenbach; Shelton and Johnson) report that women perform the majority of domestic and care duties, despite women’s long established presence in the paid workforce. Indeed, historically, the majority of women participated in the workforce, with only middle and upper-class women experiencing a delayed entry to paid work. In their review of current research into the division of household labour in the United States Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard find that: In spite of women’s increased commitment to the labour force market and their associated political and social achievements, their advances have not been paralleled in the familiar sphere…the gains women have made outside the home have not translated directly into an egalitarian allocation of household labour…[American] women continue to perform the vast majority of unpaid tasks performed to satisfy the needs of family members or to maintain the home. (767) Exchange theories predicted that women’s increased participation in paid work would stimulate an increase in the time men spent performing domestic work (Carter 16). However, various studies including Lupton’s investigation into the distinctions, or indeed, commonalities, between the roles of “mother” and “father” find that women still perform the majority of childcare and domestic labour, even those who are also engaged in paid employment. Time use studies conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics also suggest that this prediction has not eventuated, and that whilst some women may have an improved capacity to negotiate with their partners about domestic labour division because of their income, this is not always the case (Carter 17). Ella (aged 32, mother of one) described “quite enjoying it” when her partner was away on business because it was less work not having to deal with his mess on top of other tasks. This is consistent with earlier research findings that single mothers spend less time on domestic work than women with children who live with men (Carter 17). It is common for men to do less domestic work than they create (Bittman 3). All of the women I interviewed who were in partnerships and intending to mother sometime in the future were either employed full-time in the paid sector, seeking full-time employment after completing graduate degrees, or combining paid work with tertiary study. One participant had recently dropped her hours from full-time to part-time because she was pregnant. All of the partnered women who were already mothering at the time of the interview were in full-time employment before the birth of their first child, and seven of them were still in paid employment; one full-time, one three-quarter time and five part time. Most women reported doing the majority, if not all, of the domestic and childcare labour regardless of whether they combined this work with paid work outside of the home. Whilst some women were indifferent to the inequity in their domestic labour and childcare responsibilities, most identified it as a source of tension, conflict, and disappointment in their spousal relationships. These women had anticipated greater participation by their husbands in the home, an optimism derived from some other source than those women with whom they interact.Anticipating Participation In their in-depth psychological study into the specific temporal disruptions and occasions of social dislocation ensuing from the birth of a child in the United States, Monk et al. found that the disruption to daily events and the reduction of social activities were more discernible for women than for men. Other research (Arendell; Hays; Mauthner; Nicolson) conducted at this time concurred with these findings. Similar results are found over a decade later. Choi et al. found most women feel at least some resentment about the impact of parenthood on their lives being “far greater for them than for their partner” (174). Influenced by reports of a supposed ideological shift in the late 1990s wherein fathers were encouraged to take a more active role in the raising of their children in ways previously considered maternal (Lupton 51), women today tend to anticipate that their husband’s will participate more in domestic and care activities, which predominately, does not eventuate. Consequently, feeling “let down” by partners has been identified as a key factor in the presentation of postnatal depression (Choi et al. 175). The women I interviewed who were planning to mother sometime in the future anticipated that their husbands would participate more in the home after the birth of a child. Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years) hoped that this would be an 80/20 split. The idea of an 80/20 split as an “improvement” may be confronting, but this is Gabrielle’s reality, and her predicament—shared by many other women today—captures the prevailing importance of discussions around the gendered division of domestic labour. Several interviewees who were already mothering had also anticipated that their husbands would participate alongside them in household and childcare related activities. For most, this kind of participation had not eventuated and women were left with feelings of disappointment, and tensions and conflicts in their marriages. Grainne (aged 30, married for five years, mother of one) had expected her husband to be reasonably supportive and helpful around the house when they started their family. Yet she was unpleasantly surprised and intensely disappointed by how participation in the home had worked out since she and her husband had become parents six months ago. Grainne explained that she: expected that my husband would be more supportive and more helpful…I’ve been even more disappointed because he hasn’t followed through with…how I thought he would be…I almost despair a bit…we have actually struggled more in our relationship in the last six months than in the five and a half years. Grainne spoke about the impact of this inequity on the intimacy in her relationship. This is consistent with Pocock who identifies inequity in the division of unpaid work as one of “two work-related spokes in the wheel” (106–107) of spousal intimacy; the other being time and energy to communicate. According to Pocock intimacy, not necessarily sexual, is lacking in many Australian spousal relationships with unequal divisions of unpaid labour (107). While the loss of intimacy results in feelings of loss and regret, for some women, it is characterised as a past concern in their overworked and stressed lives (Pocock 107). Several women from professional backgrounds, in particular Lena and Freya, identified the inequity in their partnerships when it came to home duties and childcare as a significant, and even as the “main,” source of tension and conflict in their spousal relationships. Lena (aged 30, married for five years, mother of two) described having “great debates” with her husband about the division of domestic labour and childcare in their partnership. From her husband’s perspective, it is her “job…to do all the kids and the housework and everything else,” whereas from Lena’s perspective, “he should be able to feed the kids and clean up” on the weekend if she needs to go out. Freya (aged 30, married for ten years, mother of three) also talked about the “various rows” she had had with her husband about her domestic and childcare load. She described herself as “not coping” with the workload. For all of these women, domestic inequality in their marriages has real emotional consequences for them as individuals, and is a significant source of marital discontent. Women’s decisions about whether and when to have children, and how many to have, are influenced by the inequity experienced in marital relationships. Although I suggest that women’s desire to become mothers may eventually outweigh these immediate and everyday concerns, reports from already mothering women suggest that this source of conflict does not dissipate. The evidence gathered from my interviews demonstrates that trying to change dynamics in a relationship, when it comes to domestic tasks, is even more difficult when it is compounded with the emotional, mental and physical demands of motherhood, as Choi et al. also suggest (177).Accepting Inequality The findings of my study suggest that women intending to mother and those already mothering continue to expect to do more domestic and childcare labour than their partners. However, even with this concession, some women are still over-optimistic in their estimations about the amount of domestic labour their partner’s will perform. Fetterolf and Eagly find similar patterns in gender equality expectations in the United States amongst female college undergraduates planning to mother sometime in the future (90–91). Some women I interviewed who were planning to mother sometime in the future described their own attempts to negotiate with their partner to make them do more work. For instance, Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years), who, as discussed earlier, hoped that her husband will participate more in the home after the birth of a child, said: Once we’ve had kids he might change and realise he might have to help out a little bit more, I can’t actually do everything…I don’t think it’ll be 50/50 just from experience of how we’ve been married so far… I do hope that it’ll be maybe 80/20 or something like that. When asked about whether their current division of house work was a concern for her, particularly in relation to having children, Gabrielle replied that she just “nagged” about it. Putting her discontent in the frame of “nagging” trivialises the issue. While it is men who tend to characterise women’s discontent as “nagging,” women can also internalise, and use this language to minimise their own feelings. That men “just don’t see mess and dirt” in the same way that women do is a popular idea drawn on to account for women’s acceptance of inequity in the home as evidenced in numerous statements from the women I interviewed. Commentaries like these align with Carter’s (1) observations that generally accepted ideas about women and men (for example, that women see dirt and men do not) are drawn on to explain and justify domestic labour arrangements. In response to how domestic labour is divided between her husband and herself, Marguerite (aged 25, married for ten months), like Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years), described an “80/20 split,” with her as the 80%. Marguerite commented that “it’s not that he’s lazy, it’s just that he doesn’t see it, he doesn’t realise that a house needs cleaning.” Fallding described these ideas, and the behaviours that ensue, as a type of patriarchal family model, specifically “rightful patriarchy” (69) that includes the idea that women naturally pay more attention to detail than men. Conclusion “Falling in love” and “getting married” remains an important cultural narrative in Australian society. As Gabrielle (aged 25, married for three years) described, people ask you “when are you getting married? When are you having kids?” because “that’s just what you do.” I argue that offering critical accounts of heteronormative monogamous relationships/marriage equality from a variety of positions is important to understandings of these relationships in contemporary Australia. Accounts of the division of unpaid labour in the home between spouses provide one forum through which equality within marriage/heteronormative monogamous relationships can be examined. A tension exists between an expectation of participation on the part of women about their partner’s role in the home, and a latent acceptance by most women that equality in the division of unpaid work is unrealistic and unachievable. Men remain largely removed from work in the home and appear to have a degree of choice about their level of participation in domestic and care duties. The consistency of these findings with earlier work, some of which is over a decade old, suggests that the way families divide unpaid domestic and care labour remains gendered, despite significant changes in other aspects of gender relations. Many of the current discussions about marriage idealise it in ways that are not borne out in this research. This idealisation feeds into the romance of marriage, which maintains women’s investment in it, and thus the likelihood that they will find themselves in a relationship that disappoints them in significant and easily dismissed ways.ReferencesAustralian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Social Trends, 2003, Family Functioning: Balancing Family and Work. 4102.0 (2010). ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/c8647f1dd5f36f42ca2570eb00835397!OpenDocument›. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Social Trends, 2010, Parental Divorce or Death During Childhood. 4102.0 (2010). ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features40Sep+2010›. Arendell, Terry. “Conceiving and Investigating Motherhood: The Decade's Scholarship.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 62.4 (2000): 1192–207. Bittman, Michael. Juggling Time: How Australian Families Use Time. Office of the Status of Women, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet: Canberra, 1991. Carter, Meg. Who Cares Anyway? Negotiating Domestic Labour in Families with Teenage Kids. (Doctoral dissertation). (2007). ‹http://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/swin:15946.› Choi, P., Henshaw, C , Baker, S, and J Tree. "Supermum, Superwife, Supereverything: Performing Femininity in the Transition to Motherhood." Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 23.2 (2005): 167–180. Coffey, Amanda. The Ethnographic Self: Fieldwork and the Representation of Identity. London: Sage Publications, 1999. Coltrane, Scott. “Research on Household Labour: Modelling and Measuring Social Embeddedness of Routine Family Work.” Journal of Marriage and Family 62.4 (2000): 1208-1233. Conle, Carola. 2000. “Narrative Inquiry: Research Tool and Medium for Professional Development.” European Journal of Teacher Education 23.1 (2000): 773-97. DeVault, Marjorie. Feeding the Family: The Social Organisation of Caring as Gendered Work. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1991. Fallding, Harold. “Inside the Australian Family.” Marriage and the Family in Australia. Ed. Adolphus Elkin. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1957. 54–81. Fetterolf, Janell and Alice Eagly. “Do Young Women Expect Gender Equality in Their Future Lives? An Answer From a Possible Selves Experiment.” Sex Roles 65.1 (2011): 83–93. Hays, Susan. The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. Hochschild, Arlie. The Second Shift. New York: Viking, 1989. Hochschild, Arlie with Anne Machung. The Second Shift. New York: Penguin Edition, 2003. Lachance-Grzela, Mylene, and Genevieve Bouchard. “Why Do Women Do the Lion's Share of Housework? A Decade of Research.” Sex Roles 63.1 (2010): 767–80. Lupton, Deborah. “‘A Love/Hate Relationship’: the Ideals and Experiences of First-Time Mothers.” Journal of Sociology 36.1 (2000): 50–63. Mauthner, Natasha. “Reassessing the Importance and Role of the Marital Relationship in Postnatal Depression: Methodological and Theoretical Implications.” Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 1.16 (1998): 157–75. Meisenbach, Rebecca. “The Female Breadwinner: Phenomenological Experience and Gendered Identity in Work/Family Spaces.” Sex Roles 62.1 (2010): 2–19. Monk, Timonthy H., Marilyn J. Essex, Nancy A. Smider, Marjorie H. Klein, and David J. Kupfer. “The Impact of the Birth of a Baby on the Time Structure and Social Mixture of a Couple's Daily Life and Its Consequences for Well-Being.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 26.14 (1996): 1237– 58. Nicolson, Paula. Postnatal Depression: Psychology, Science and the Transition to Motherhood. London: Routledge, 1998. Pocock, Barbara. The Work/Life Collision: What Work is Doing to Australians and What to Do About It. Sydney: The Federation Press, 2003. Ramazanoglu, Caroline and Janet Holland. Feminist Methodology: Challenges and Choices. London: Sage, 2002. Scott, Joan. “The Evidence of Experience.” Critical Inquiry 17.4 (1991): 773–97. Shelton, Nikki, and Sally Johnson. “'I Think Motherhood for Me Was a Bit Like a Double-Edged Sword': The Narratives of Older Mothers.” Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 16.1 (2006): 316–30. Skrbis, Zlatko, Mark Western, Bruce Tranter, David Hogan, Rebecca Coates, Jonathan Smith, Belinda Hewitt, and Margery Mayall. “Expecting the Unexpected: Young People’s Expectations about Marriage and Family.” Journal of Sociology 48.1 (2012): 63–83.

Abstract Over recent years, considerable effort has been put into increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) participation in higher education. While there are signs that enrolments are increasing, the sustained engagement and successful completion of higher education remains challenging, particularly in remote locations. With this in mind, a collaborative research project among researchers from three northern Australian tertiary education institutions was designed to understand student perspectives, particularly from remote contexts, about their engagement and success towards completion in higher education. Based on a qualitative research design situating Indigenist/interpretive research within a critical realism metatheory, we present findings from the study, based in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and unpack implications for higher education provision in remote contexts. The findings point to the unique challenges faced by students who live in the Kimberley—and perhaps in other remote locations around Australia. In order to meet these needs, we suggest that tertiary education providers must tailor provision to ensure that engagement with Aboriginal students is relational and culturally safe.

Abstract Flexible learning programs (FLPs) provide a place for students who have disengaged and disconnected from mainstream schools. Despite the legislative framework in Australia supporting the participation of students with disability in their local mainstream schools wherever possible, very little research focusing on whether students with disability are being excluded from, or dropping out of, mainstream schools into these FLPs has been conducted. In this paper, we report on the findings of an online cross-sectional survey of FLP leaders about their student populations, with a focus on the 10 most prevalent disabilities among Australian children. Data from the 22 participants who completed all items of the survey were analysed. The participants’ (n = 22) schools represented a total enrolment of 2,383 students in FLPs across Australia: Tasmania (n = 3), Victoria (n = 5), New South Wales (n = 5), Queensland (n = 4), Western Australia (n = 3), and South Australia (n = 2). We found that while there was an apparent overrepresentation of students with certain types of disabilities in FLPs, others were not overrepresented at all. The findings of this preliminary study are discussed, with an exploration of issues relating to why students with some disabilities may be more likely to disengage, or be excluded, from mainstream schooling while others are not, as well as recommendations for future research.

AbstractDiscussion about how to monitor and increase participation in languages study is gaining relevance in the UK, the US and Australia across various sectors, but particularly in higher education. In recent times levels of enrolment in modern languages at universities around the world have been described in terms of ‘crisis’ or even ‘permanent crisis’. In Australia, however, the introduction of a new course structure at the University of Western Australia, which established a three-year general Bachelor degree followed by professional degrees, has resulted in unprecedented levels of language enrolments. Using data from this university as a case in point, we provide substantial evidence to argue that language enrolments are directly related to overlooked issues of degree structure and flexibility, rather than to other factors.

<span>E-learning technologies are often seen as a driving force in the democratisation of contemporary education. However, few researchers have focused on inequalities in online learners' access to technologies or their abilities to use them. In 2009, we assessed The University of Western Australia's SmARTS outreach program, investigating the advantages and disadvantages of employing online learning in the local context of Perth, Western Australia. SmARTS uses blended learning techniques, combining both online and face to face methods. However, our discussion here is based primarily on the online component. Our research methods included the collection of 52 student surveys, a group interview with the 2009 tutors, and our own observations and experiences. Our findings suggested that students were not particularly savvy with technology, in contrast to the common assumption. We also found that the location of students' residences and the types of schools they attended had an impact on their self-assessed online participation, the reliability and speed of their Internet connections, and their confidence and ease with using computers and the Internet. Our findings revealed that the social inequalities present in the context of Perth had an impact on whether students were advantaged or disadvantaged by the online component of SmARTS.</span>

Music early learning programs (MELPs) that provide music services to parents and carers of children aged birth through 8 years are proliferating. Parents make significant financial and social investments in MELPs, yet little is known of their motivations and aspirations nor of the enduring outcomes of participation. This article reports the findings of an interview study with 10 parents, 1 grandparent, and 8 child former participants in a MELP program in regional Australia that investigated perceptions of MELP participation. Findings indicate that parents come from a range of musical backgrounds. Reasons and aspirations for MELP enrolment encompass developing both parents’ and children’s musical skills, providing social benefits for parent and child, exposure to musical experience, value-adding to their child’s education and expanding the family social circle. Enduring outcomes include developed music knowledge and skills, future investments, physical and emotional development, and new patterns of learning that are potentially transferable. Findings suggest that children arrive at formal schooling with a rich repertoire of music, a capacity to engage in embodied musical experience, and a set of expectations concerning their participation in music. Such knowledge holds implications for the ways in which music learning might be structured within the early childhood classroom.

<span>In 1997 an initiative by the Education Department of Western Australia extended the use of audiographic conferencing to provide for talented and gifted students in rural Western Australia. In addition to increasing the access and participation of rural and isolated students to a special curriculum designed to extend and enrich their learning, the initiative also aimed to extend and develop the applications of technology for gifted students. For these students, the goal of higher order thinking was sought as a learning outcome. Based on observations and research on the actual classrooms where audiographic conferencing was used to mediate learning, this paper suggests that higher order thinking among students can be fostered by utilising audiographic conferencing to create a classroom milieu of peer discourse, investigation and visual display of ideas. Teachers were encouraged to support the skills of negotiation, verbal elaboration and peer revision of ideas and to utilise the two-way audio and video elements of the technology to maximise learning. The initial evaluation of the project for gifted and talented students indicated that the interactive features of the technology provided the possibilities for task-related collaboration and gave students the opportunity to interpret, discuss and evaluate concepts, thereby leading to higher order thinking.</span>

It is with pleasure we present this Special Issue of The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, which is devoted to the research being conducted by the Remote Education Systems (RES) project in a range of sites in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia. The RES project is a 5-year project and represents one theme within the larger research program of the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP). The AJIE welcomes the chance to circulate the progress of this important work to our readership, many of whom are committed to improving Indigenous schooling. We particularly welcome the chance to devote an entire edition to remote Indigenous education, for the challenges in this context are not well understood, but are often the subject of public comment and opinion from all quarters. The RES project is investigating and challenging the assumptions that underpin the current rationales of Indigenous remote education systems. The AJIE is also pleased to welcome John Guenther and Melodie Bat as our Guest Editors for this volume. We also thank Professor Jeannie Herbert, Foundation Chair of Indigenous Studies at Charles Sturt University, for her Introduction to the journal articles. Born in the remote Kimberley, Jeannie has been a classroom teacher and educational administrator. She is best known as an Indigenous academic who has been an active Indigenous education advocate, researcher, author and speaker for many years. We look forward to your engagement with the themes and issues contained in this special edition and in future editions of AJIE.

This article is about refugees’ and migrants’ dreams of home and family and stems from an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, “A Hand Up: Disrupting the Communication of Intergenerational Welfare Dependency” (LP140100935), with Partner Organisation St Vincent de Paul Society (WA) Inc. (Vinnies). A Vinnies-supported refugee and migrant support centre was chosen as one of the hubs for interviewee recruitment, given that many refugee families experience persistent and chronic economic disadvantage. The de-identified name for the drop-in language-teaching and learning social facility is the Migrant and Refugee Homebase (MARH). At the time of the research, in 2018, refugee and forced migrant families from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan constituted MARH’s primary membership base. MARH provided English language classes alongside other educational and financial support. It could also organise provision of emergency food and was a conduit for furniture donated by Australian families. Crucially, MARH operated as a space in which members could come together to build shared community.As part of her role, the researcher was introduced to Sara (de-identified), a mother-tongue Arabic speaker and the centre’s coordinator. Sara had personal experience of being a refugee, as well as being MARH’s manager, and she became both a point of contact for the researcher team, an interpreter/translator, and an empathetic listener as refugees shared their stories. Dreams of home and family emerged throughout the interviews as a vital part of participants’ everyday lives. These dreams and hopes were developed in the face of what was, for some, a nightmare of adversity. Underpinning participants’ sense of agency, subjectivity and resilience, Badiou argues (93, as noted in Jackson, 241) that hope can appear as a basic form of patience or perseverance rather than a dream for justice. Instead of imagining an improvement in personal circumstances, the dream is one of simply moving forward rather than backward. While dreams of being reunited with family are rooted in the past and project a vision of a family which no longer exists, these dreams help fashion a future which once again contains a range of possibilities.Although Sara volunteered her time on the research project as part of her commitment to Vinnies, she was well-known to interviewees as a MARH staff member and, in many cases, a friend and confidante. While Sara’s manager role implies an imbalance of power, with Sara powerful and participants comparatively less so, the majority of the information explored in the interviews pertained to refugees’ experiences of life outside the sphere in which MARH is engaged, so there was limited risk of the data being sanitised to reflect positively upon MARH. The specialist information and understandings that the interviewees shared positions them as experts, and as co-creators of knowledge.Recruitment and Methodological ApproachThe project researcher (Jaunzems) met potential contributors at MARH when its members gathered for a coffee morning. With Sara’s assistance, the researcher invited MARH members to take part in the research project, giving those present the opportunity to ask and have answered any questions they deemed important. Coffee morning attendees were under no obligation to take part, and about half chose not to do so, while the remainder volunteered to participate. Sara scheduled the interviews at times to suit the families participating. A parent and child from each volunteer family was interviewed, separately. In all cases it was the mother who volunteered to take part, and all interviewees chose to be interviewed in their homes. Each set of interviews was digitally recorded and lasted no longer than 90 minutes. This article includes extracts from interviews with three mothers from refugee families who escaped war-torn homelands for a new life in Australia, sometimes via interim refugee camps.The project researcher conducted the in-depth interviews with Sara’s crucial interpreting/translating assistance. The interviews followed a traditional approach, except that the researcher deferred to Sara as being more important in the interview exchange than she was. This reflects the premise that meaning is socially constructed, and that what people do and say makes visible the meanings that underpin their actions and statements within a wider social context (Burr). Conceptualising knowledge as socially constructed privileges the role of the decoder in receiving, understanding and communicating such knowledge (Crotty). Respecting the role of the interpreter/translator signified to the participants that their views, opinions and their overall cultural context were valued.Once complete, the interviews were sent for translation and transcription by a trusted bi-lingual transcriber, where both the English and Arabic exchanges were transcribed. This was deemed essential by the researchers, to ensure both the authenticity of the data collected and to demonstrate “trust, understanding, respect, and a caring connection” (Valibhoy, Kaplan, and Szwarc, 23) with the participants. Upon completion of the interviews with volunteer members of the MARH community, and at the beginning of the analysis phase, researchers recognised the need for the adoption of an interpretive framework. The interpretive approach seeks to understand an individual’s view of the world through the contexts of time, place and culture. The knowledge produced is contextualised and differs from one person to another as a result of individual subjectivities such as age, race and ethnicity, even within a shared social context (Guba and Lincoln). Accordingly, a mother-tongue Arabic speaker, who identifies as a refugee (Al-Hameed), was added to the project. All authors were involved in writing up the article while authors two, three and four took responsibility for transcript coding and analysis. In the transcripts that follow, words originally spoken in Arabic are in intalics, with non-italcised words originally spoken in English.Discrimination and BelongingAya initially fled from her home in Syria into neighbouring Jordan. She didn’t feel welcomed or supported there.[00:55:06] Aya: …in Jordan, refugees didn’t have rights, and the Jordanian schools refused to teach them [the children…] We were put aside.[00:55:49] Interpreter, Sara (to Researcher): And then she said they push us aside like you’re a zero on the left, yeah this is unfortunately the reality of our countries, I want to cry now.[00:56:10] Aya: You’re not allowed to cry because we’ll all cry.Some refugees and migrant communities suffer discrimination based on their ethnicity and perceived legitimacy as members of the host society. Although Australian refugees may have had searing experiences prior to their acceptance by Australia, migrant community members in Australia can also feel themselves “constructed in the public and political spheres as less legitimately Australian than others” (Green and Aly). Jackson argues that both refugees and migrants experiencethe impossibility of ever bridging the gap between one’s natal ties to the place one left because life was insupportable there, and the demands of the nation to which one has travelled, legally or illegally, in search of a better life. And this tension between belonging and not belonging, between a place where one has rights and a place where one does not, implies an unresolved relationship between one’s natural identity as a human being and one’s social identity as ‘undocumented migrant,’ a ‘resident alien,’ an ‘ethnic minority,’ or ‘the wretched of the earth,’ whose plight remains a stigma of radical alterity even though it inspires our compassion and moves us to political action. (223)The tension Jackson refers to, where the migrant is haunted by belonging and not belonging, is an area of much research focus. Moreover, the label of “asylum seeker” can contribute to systemic “exclusion of a marginalised and abject group of people, precisely by employing a term that emphasises the suspended recognition of a community” (Nyers). Unsurprisingly, many refugees in Australia long for the connectedness of the lives they left behind relocated in the safe spaces where they live now.Eades focuses on an emic approach to understanding refugee/migrant distress, or trauma, which seeks to incorporate the worldview of the people in distress: essentially replicating the interpretive perspective taken in the research. This emic framing is adopted in place of the etic approach that seeks to understand the distress through a Western biomedical lens that is positioned outside the social/cultural system in which the distress is taking place. Eades argues: “developing an emic approach is to engage in intercultural dialogue, raise dilemmas, test assumptions, document hopes and beliefs and explore their implications”. Furthermore, Eades sees the challenge for service providers working with refugee/migrants in distress as being able to move beyond “harm minimisation” models of care “to recognition of a facilitative, productive community of people who are in a transitional phase between homelands”. This opens the door for studies concerning the notions of attachment to place and its links to resilience and a refugee’s ability to “settle in” (for example, Myers’s ground-breaking place-making work in Plymouth).Resilient PrecariousnessChaima: We feel […] good here, we’re safe, but when we sit together, we remember what we went through how my kids screamed when the bombs came, and we went out in the car. My son was 12 and I was pregnant, every time I remember it, I go back.Alongside the dreams that migrants have possible futures are the nightmares that threaten to destabilise their daily lives. As per the work of Xavier and Rosaldo, post-migration social life is recreated in two ways: the first through participation and presence in localised events; the second by developing relationships with absent others (family and friends) across the globe through media. These relationships, both distanced and at a distance, are dispersed through time and space. In light of this, Campays and Said suggest that places of past experiences and rituals for meaning are commonly recreated or reproduced as new places of attachment abroad; similarly, other recollections and experience can trigger a sense of fragility when “we remember what we went through”. Gupta and Ferguson suggest that resilience is defined by the migrant/refugee capacity to “reimagine and re-materialise” their lost heritage in their new home. This involves a sense of connection to the good things in the past, while leaving the bad things behind.Resilience has also been linked to the migrant’s/refugee’s capacity “to manage their responses to adverse circumstances in an interpersonal community through the networks of relationships” (Eades). Resilience in this case is seen through an intersubjective lens. Joseph reminds us that there is danger in romanticising community. Local communities may not only be hostile toward different national and ethnic groups, they may actively display a level of hostility toward them (Boswell). However, Gill maintains that “the reciprocal relations found in communities are crucially important to their [migrant/refugee] well-being”. This is because inclusion in a given community allows migrants/refugees to shrug off the outsider label, and the feeling of being at risk, and provides the opportunity for them to become known as families and friends. One of MAHR’s central aims was to help bridge the cultural divide between MARH users and the broader Australian community.Hope[01:06: 10] Sara (to interviewee, Aya): What’s the key to your success here in Australia?[01:06:12] Aya: The people, and how they treat us.[01:06:15] Sara (to Researcher): People and how they deal with us.[01:06:21] Aya: It’s the best thing when you look around, and see people who don’t understand your language but they help you.[01:06:28] Sara (to Researcher): She said – this is nice. I want to cry also. She said the best thing when I see people, they don’t understand your language, and I don’t understand theirs but they still smile in your face.[01:06:43] Aya: It’s the best.[01:06:45] Sara (to Aya): yes, yes, people here are angels. This is the best thing about Australia.Here, Sara is possibly shown to be taking liberties with the translation offered to the researcher, talking about how Australians “smile in your face”, when (according to the translator) Aya talked about how Australians “help”. Even so, the capacity for social connection and other aspects of sociality have been linked to a person’s ability to turn a negative experience into a positive cultural resource (Wilson). Resilience is understood in these cases as a strength-based practice where families, communities and individuals are viewed in terms of their capabilities and possibilities, instead of their deficiencies or disorders (Graybeal and Saleeby in Eades). According to Fozdar and Torezani, there is an “apparent paradox between high-levels of discrimination experienced by humanitarian migrants to Australia in the labour market and everyday life” (30) on the one hand, and their reporting of positive well-being on the other. That disparity includes accounts such as the one offered by Aya.As Wilson and Arvanitakis suggest,the interaction between negative experiences of discrimination and reports of wellbeing suggested a counter-intuitive propensity among refugees to adapt to and make sense of their migration experiences in unique, resourceful and life-affirming ways. Such response patterns among refugees and trauma survivors indicate a similar resilience-related capacity to positively interpret and derive meaning from negative migration experiences and associated emotions. … However, resilience is not expressed or employed uniformly among individuals or communities. Some respond in a resilient manner, while others collapse. On this point, an argument could be made that collapse and breakdown is a built-in aspect of resilience, and necessary for renewal and ongoing growth.Using this approach, Wilson and Arvanitakis have linked resilience to hope, as a “present- and future-oriented mode of situated defence against adversity”. They argue that the term “hope” is often utilised in a tokenistic way “as a strategic instrument in increasingly empty domestic and international political vocabularies”. Nonetheless, Wilson and Arvanitakis believe hope to be of vital academic interest due to the prevalence of war and suffering throughout the world. In the research reported here, the authors found that participants’ hopes were interwoven with dreams of being reunited with their families in a place of safety. This is a common longing. As Jackson states,so it is that migrants travel abroad in pursuit of utopia, but having found that place, which is also no-place (ou-topos), they are haunted by the thought that utopia actually lies in the past. It is the family they left behind. That is where they properly belong. Though the family broke up long ago and is now scattered to the four winds, they imagine a reunion in which they are together again. (223)There is a sense here that with their hopes and dreams lying in the past, refugees/migrants are living forward while looking backwards (a Kierkegaardian concept). If hope is thought to be key to resilience (Wilson and Arvanitakis), and key to an individual’s ability to live with a sense of well-being, then perhaps a refugee’s past relations (familial) impact both their present relations (social/community), and their ability to transform negative experiences into positive experiences. And yet, there is no readily accessible way in which migrants and refugees can recreate the connections that sustained them in the past. As Jackson suggests,the irreversibility of time is intimately connected with the irreversibility of one’s place of origin, and this entwined movement through time and across space proves perplexing to many migrants, who, in imagining themselves one day returning to the place from where they started out, forget that there is no transport which will convey them back into the past. … Often it is only by going home that is becomes starkly and disconcertingly clear that one’s natal village is no longer the same and that one has also changed. (221)The dream of home and family, therefore and the hope that this might somehow be recreated in the safety of the here and now, becomes a paradoxical loss and longing even as it is a constant companion for many on their refugee journey.Esma’s DreamAccording to author three, personal dreams are not generally discussed in Arab culture, even though dreams themselves may form part of the rich tradition of Arabic folklore and storytelling. Alongside issues of mental wellbeing, dreams are constructed as something private, and it generally breaks social taboos to describe them publicly. However, in personal discussions with other refugee women and men, and echoing Jackson’s finding, a recurring dream is “to meet my family in a safe place and not be worried about my safety or theirs”. As a refugee, the third author shares this dream. This is also the perspective articulated by Esma, who had recently had a fifth child and was very much missing her extended family who had died, been scattered as refugees, or were still living in a conflict zone. The researcher asked Sara to ask Esma about the best aspect of her current life:[01:17:03] Esma: The thing that comforts me here is nature, it’s beautiful.[01:17:15] Sara (to the Researcher): The nature.[01:17:16] Esma: And feeling safe.[01:17:19] Sara (to the Researcher): The safety. ...[01:17:45] Esma: Life’s beautiful here.[01:17:47] Sara (to the Researcher): Life is beautiful here.[01:17:49] Esma: But I want to know people, speak the language, have friends, life is beautiful here even if I don’t have my family here.[01:17:56] Sara (to the Researcher): Life is so pretty you only need to improve the language and have friends, she said I love my life here even though I don’t have any family or community here. (To Esma:) I am your family.[01:18:12] Esma: Bring me my siblings here.[01:18:14] Sara (to Esma): I just want my brothers here and my sisters.[01:18:17] Esma: It’s a dream.[01:18:18] Sara (to Esma): it’s a dream, one day it will become true.Here Esma uses the term dream metaphorically, to describe an imagined utopia: a dream world. In supporting Esma, who is mourning the absence of her family, Sara finds herself reacting and emoting around their shared experience of leaving siblings behind. In doing so, she affirms the younger woman, but also offers a hope for the future. Esma had previously made a suggestion, absorbed into her larger dream, but more achievable in the short term, “to know people, speak the language, have friends”. The implication here is that Esma is keen to find a way to connect with Australians. She sees this as a means of compensating for the loss of family, a realistic hope rather than an impossible dream.ConclusionInterviews with refugee families in a Perth-based migrant support centre reveals both the nightmare pasts and the dreamed-of futures of people whose lives have experienced a radical disruption due to war, conflict and other life-threatening events. Jackson’s work with migrants provides a context for understanding the power of the dream in helping to resolve issues around the irreversibility of time and circumstance, while Wilson and Arvanitakis point to the importance of hope and resilience in supporting the building of a positive future. Within this mix of the longed for and the impossible, both the refugee informants and the academic literature suggest that participation in local events, and authentic engagement with the broader community, help make a difference in supporting a migrant’s transition from dreaming to reality.AcknowledgmentsThis article arises from an ARC Linkage Project, ‘A Hand Up: Disrupting the Communication of Intergenerational Welfare Dependency’ (LP140100935), supported by the Australian Research Council, Partner Organisation St Vincent de Paul Society (WA) Inc., and Edith Cowan University. The authors are grateful to the anonymous staff and member of Vinnies’ Migrant and Refugee Homebase for their trust in and support of this project, and for their contributions to it.ReferencesBadiou, Alan. Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism. Trans. Ray Brassier. 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The ProjectThe Hand Up Linkage project focuses on the family as a communication context through which to explore the dynamics of intergenerational welfare dependency. In particular, it explores ways that creative life-course interventions might allow children in welfare dependent families to construct alternative realities for themselves and alternative views of their future. Formed through an alliance between a key Western Australian social welfare not-for-profit organisation, St Vincent de Paul WA (SVDPWA and also, in the context of volunteers, ‘Vinnies’), and Edith Cowan University, the project aims to address the organisation’s vision to provide “a hand up” (St Vincent 1) rather than ‘a hand out’, so that people can move forward with their lives without becoming dependent upon welfare. Prior to the start of the research, SVDPWA already had a whole of family focus in its outreach to poverty-impacted families including offering homework clubs and school holiday children’s camps run by their youth services division. Selected families supported by SVDPWA have been invited to participate in an in-depth interview for the project (Seidman), partly so that researchers can help identify “turning points” (King et al.) that might disrupt the communication of welfare dependency and inform more generalised intervention strategies; but also in order to explore the response to creative interventions within the children’s daily lives, including investigation of how strategies the child (and family) employed might help them to imagine alternative realities and futures for themselves. This paper closely examines the way that one 10 year old child from a non-English-speaking background family has employed alternative ways of viewing her life, through the camp program provided by the Linkage Partner St Vincent de Paul WA, and through reading novels such as Harry Potter and the Lemony Snicket Unfortunate Incidents series. Such activities help fuel hope for a different future which, in Snyder’s view has “two main components: the ability to plan pathways to desired goals despite obstacles, and agency or motivation to use those pathways” (Carr 96).The FamilyKani is a 10 year old girl living in a migrant sole parent family. The parents had moved to Australia from Bangladesh on student visas when Kani was 5 years old, however due to domestic violence the mother had recently separated from her husband, first into a women’s refuge then into private rental accommodation. The mother is in protracted negotiations with the Department of Immigration for permanent residency, which she had to recommence due to her separation. There are also family court negotiations for child custody and which restrict her leaving Australia. She receives no government benefits and minimal child support, works fulltime and pays full childcare fees for Kani’s 3 year old brother Adil and full primary school fees for Kani at a local religious school, given that Kani had experienced bullying and social aggression in previous schools. Kani was referred to SVDPWA by the women’s refuge and she began attending SVDPWA Kids’ Camps thereafter. (NB: Whilst the relevant specifics of this description are accurate, non-relevant material has been added or changed to protect the child’s and family’s identity.)Creative Life-Course InterventionsThe creative engagement that Kani experienced in the Hand Up project is constructed as one component in a larger model of creativity which includes “intrapersonal insights and interpretations, which often live only within the person who created them,” (Kaufman and Beghetto 4). Such an approach also acknowledges Csikszentmihalyi’s work on the concept of “flow”, whereby optimal experiences can result from positive absorption in a creative activity. Relevant Australian research such as the YouthWorx project has identified participatory engagement in creativity as one means of engaging with young people at risk (Hopkins; Podkalicka). The creative interventions in the Hand Up project take two forms; one is the predesigned and participatory creative activities delivered as part of the SVDPWA Kids’ Camp program. The second is a personalised intervention, identified by way of an in-depth interview with the child and parent, and is wholly dependent on the interests expressed by the child, the ability for the family to engage in that activity, and the budget restraints of the project.Reading as an Alternative RealityA key creative intervention embedded in the Hand Up Linkage project is determined by the interests expressed by the child during their in-depth interview. Also taken into account is the ability for the family to engage in that activity. For example, Kani’s mother works fulltime at a location which is an hour by public transport from home and does not have a car or driver’s license, so the choice of creative opportunity was restricted to a home-based activity or a weekend activity accessible by public transport. A further restriction is the limited budget available for this intervention in the project, along with an imperative that such interventions should be equitable between families and within families, and be of benefit to all the children in addition to the interviewed child. Fortunately, transport was not an issue because Kani expressed her interest very emphatically as books and reading. When asked what she liked doing most in life, Kani replied: “Reading. I like reading like big books, like really thick books and stuff. I have like 30 in my room. Like those really big books. And I'm starting to read Harry Potter now. Okay, the books that I like reading is Harry Potter, the entire set Roald Dahl books and the Baudelaire Orphans by Lemony Snicket. I like reading David Walliams. I like Little Women” (Kani). Her excitement in listing these books further animated the interview and was immediately emphasised because Kani took the interviewer (second author) and her mother into her room to demonstrate the truth of her statement. When asked again at the close of the interview “what’s a favourite thing that makes you feel good inside?” Kani’s answer was “Family and reading”. The energy and enthusiasm with which Kani talked about her reading and books made these the obvious choice as her creative intervention. However, participation in book-related courses or after-school activities was restricted by Kani’s mother’s transportation limitations. Taking into account how the financial constraints of her sole parent family impacted upon their capacity to buy books, and the joy that Kani clearly experienced from having books of her own, it was decided that a book voucher would be provided for her at a local bookstore easily accessible by bus. The research team negotiated with the bookstore to try to ensure that Kani could choose a book a month until the funds were expended so that the intervention would last most of the coming six months.What Kani was expressing in her love of books was partly related to the raw material they provide that help her to imagine the alternative reality of the fictional worlds she loved reading about. Kani’s passionate engagement in these alternative realities reflects theories of narrative immersion in one’s chosen medium: “One key element of an enjoyable media experience is that it takes individuals away from their mundane reality and into a story world. We call the process of becoming fully engaged in a story transportation into a narrative world” (Green et al. 311–12). Kani said: “Reading is everything, yeah. Like getting more books and like those kind of things and making me read more... ‘cause I really love reading, it’s like watching a movie. Do you know ... have you watched Harry Potter? … the book is nothing like the movie, nothing, they’ve missed so many parts so the book is more enjoyable than the movie. That’s why I like reading more. ‘Cause like I have my own adventures in my head.” This process of imagining her own adventures in her head echoes Green and Brock’s explanation of the process of being transported into alternative realities through reading as a result of “an integrative melding of attention, imagery, and feelings” (701).Constructing Alternative Realities for Herself and an Alternative Possible FutureLike many 10 year olds, Kani has a challenging time at school, exacerbated by the many school moves brought about by changes in her family circumstances. Even though she is in a school which supports her family’s faith, her experience is one of being made to feel an outsider: “all the boys and the girls in our class are like friends, they’re like ... it’s a group. But I’m not in their group. I have my friends in other classes and they’re [my classmates are] not happy with it, that’s why they tease me and stuff. And like whenever I play with my friends they’re like ... yeah”. The interviewer asked her what she liked about her special friends. “They’re fun. Creative like, enjoyable, yeah, those kind of things …they have lots of cool ideas like plans and stuff like that.” As Hawkins et al. argue, the capacity to develop and maintain good relationships with peers (and parents) is a key factor in helping children be resilient. It is likely that Kani also shares her creativity, ideas and plans with her friendship group as part of her shared contribution to its existence.A domestication of technology framework (Silverstone et al.) can be useful as part of the explanation for Kani’s use of imaginative experience in building her social relationships. Silverstone et al. argue that technology is domesticated via four interlocking activities: ‘appropriation’ (where it embraced, purchased, taken into the household), ‘objectification’ (where a physical space is found for it), ‘incorporation’ (the spaces through which it is inserted into the everyday activities of the household or users) and ‘conversion’ (whereby the experience and fact of the technology use – or lack of use – becomes material through which family members express themselves and their priorities to the social world beyond the home). Arguably, Kani ‘converts’ her engagement with books and associated imaginative experiences into social currency through which she builds relationships with the like-minded children with whom she makes friends. At the same time, those children feed into her ideas of what constitutes a creative approach to life and help energise her plans for the future.Kani’s views of her future (at the age of 10) are influenced by the traditional occupations favoured by high achieving students, and by the fact that her parents are themselves educational high achievers, entering Australia on student visas. “I want to be a doctor … my cousin wants to be a doctor too. Mum said lawyer but we want to be a doctors anywhere. We want to be a ...me and my cousin want to be doctors like ...we like being doctors and like helping people.” Noting the pressures on the household of the possible fees and costs of high school, Kani adds “I need to work even harder so I get a scholarship. ‘Cause like my mum can’t pay for like four terms, you know how much money that will be? Yeah.” Kani’s follow-on statement, partly to justify why she wants “a big house”, adds some poignancy to her reference to a cousin (one of many), who still lives in Bangladesh and whom Kani hasn’t seen since 2011. “Like I want to live with my mum and like yeah and like I live with my cousin too because like I have a cousin ... she’s a girl, yeah? And like yeah, she’s in Bangladesh, I haven’t seen her for very long time so yeah.” In the absence of her extended family overseas, Kani adds her pets to those with whom she shares her family life: “And my mum and my uncle and then our cat Dobby. I named it [for Harry Potter’s house elf] ...and the goldfish. The goldfish are Twinkle, Glitter, Glow and Bobby.”Kani’s mum notes the importance of an opportunity to dream a future into existence: “maybe she’s too young or she hasn’t really kind of made up her mind as yet as to what she wants to do in life but just going out and just you know doing stuff and just giving them the opportunity”. The SVDPWA Kids’ Camp is an important part of this “they [the refuge] kind of told us like ‘there’s this child camp’. … I was like yeah, sure, why not?” Providing Alternative Spaces at the SVDPWA Kids’ CampThe SVDPWA Kids’ Camps themselves constitute a creative intervention in offering visions of alternative realities to their young participants. Their benefit is delivered via anticipation, as well as the reality of the camp experience. As Kani said “I forget all about the things that’s just past, like all the hard things, you know like I go through and stuff and it just makes me forget it and it makes me like think about camp, things we’re going to do at camp”. The Kids’ Camps take place three times a year and are open to children aged between 8 and 13, with follow-on Teen Camps for older age groups. Once a child is part of the program she or he can continue to participate in successive camps while they are in the target age group. Consisting of a four day activity-based experience in a natural setting, conducted by Vinnies Youth and staffed by key SVDPWA employees and Youth volunteers, the camps offer children a varied schedule of activities in a safe and supported environment, with at least one volunteer for every two child participants. The camps are specifically made available to children from disadvantaged families and are provided virtually free to participants. (A nominal $10 enrolment fee is applied per child). Kani was initially reticent about attending her first camp. She explained: “I was shy, scared because I sleep with my mum so it’s different sleeping without Mum. I know it’s kind of embarrassing ‘cause, sleeping with my mum like, but I just get scared at night”. Kani went on to explain how the camp facilitators were able to allay her fears “I knew I was safe. And I had people I could talk to so yeah ...like the leader”. As one Vinnies Youth volunteer explains, the potential of offering children like Kani time out from the pressures of everyday life is demonstrated when “towards the end of every camp we always see that progression of, they came out of their shell … So I think it’s really just a journey for everyone and it’s understandable if they did feel stuck. It’s about what we can do to help them progress forward” (VY1). Kani was empowered to envision an alternative idea of herself at camp, one which was unexpectedly intuited by the research interviewer.When the interviewer closed the interview by expressing that it had been lovely to talk to Kani as she was “such a bundle of energy”, Kani grinned and replied “Do you know the warm fuzzies, yeah? [When positive thoughts about others are exchanged at the SVDPWA Kids’ Camp]. The bundle ... all the leaders say I’m a bundle of happiness”. The Kids’ Camp provided Kani with a fun and positive alternative reality to the one she experienced as a child handling the considerable challenges experienced by social isolation, domestic violence and parental separation, including the loss of her home, diminished connection to her overseas extended family, legal custody issues, and several school changes. Taking the role of cultural intermediary, by offering the possibility of alternative realities via their camp, SVDPWA offered Kani a chance that supported her work on creating a range of enticing possible futures for herself. This was in contrast to some commercial holiday camp experiences which might more centrally use their “cultural authority as shapers of taste and … new consumerist dispositions” (Nixon and Du Gay 497). Even so, Kani’s interview made clear that her experience with the SVDPWA Kids’ Camps were only part of the ways in which she was crafting a range of possible visions for her adult life, adding to this her love of books and reading, her fun, creative friends, and her vision for a successful future which would reunite her with her distant cousin and offer security to her mother. ConclusionUnderstandably, Kani at 10 lacks the critical insight required to interpret how her imaginative and creative life provides the raw materials from which she crafts her visions for the future. Further, the interviewer is careful not to introduce words like ‘creative’ into her work with the participant families, so that when Kani used it to talk about her friends she did so drawing upon her own store of descriptions and not as a result of having recently been reminded of creativity as a desirable attribute. The interview with this young person indicates, however, how greatly she values the imaginative and cultural inputs into her life and how she converts them in ways which help ensure access to further such creative currency. Apart from referencing her reading in the naming of her cat, Kani’s vision for herself reflects both the conventional idea of success (“a doctor”) and a very specific idea of her future living as an adult in house large enough to include her mum and her cousin.Kani’s love of reading, her pleasure in books, her choice of friends and her aspirations to scholarly excellence all offer her ways to escape the restricted options available to families who seek support from organisations such as SVDPWA. At the same time the Kids’ Camps themselves, like Kani’s books, provide an escape from the difficulties of the present. 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