Low Fertility and the Australian Dream: The Family Background of Australian Children

Despite the attention focused on changes in the family in Australia, the majority of children come from conventional family backgrounds. Most parents still pursue the ‘Australian dream’ of nuclear family life and home ownership. Yet while traditional goals remain Influential among parents, economic and other constraints mean that only a minority of children actually spend their first fifteen years in circumstances approaching a realisation of the ‘Australian dream’.     

THE BOYS IN BLUE AND THE BAD BLUE BOYS: A CASE STUDY OF INTERACTIVE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE POLICE AND ETHNIC YOUTH IN WESTERN SYDNEY

The paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken with a group of young men known collectively as the Bad Blue Boys (BBB)¹. These young men use the supporting of a soccer team (Sydney United in the national league) as a means of parading nationalistic allegiance to their parent's homeland, Croatia. Given the history of crowd conflict at Australian soccer matches and the current trends within soccer officialdom to move the sport away from its traditional affiliation with ethnic communities, it is inevitable that the BBB have come into confrontation with agents of social authority, such as the police, during an afternoon at the football. The participant observation aspect of the research is used to discuss the interaction between the police and the BBB at soccer matches, while interviews with members of the BBB are recounted to reveal group attitudes held about the police. The paper is written to articulate with other academic contributions which have investigated the relationship between youth from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) and the police in contemporary Australian urban contexts. A leading contributor to such studies, Janet Chan, has commented, ‘Australian research specifically on police-ethnic youth relations [paints] a negative portrait’ (Chan 1994, p. 176). The portrait painted by the present study is intended for comparison with such research. At the outset it must be stressed that the findings are peculiar to the study and that no great claim is made for extrapolation. However, this is not to say that the study does not reflect trends in relations between NESB youth and police in Australian cities. On the contrary, a conclusion will be drawn which argues that ethnographic studies of particular ethnic youth groupings and subcultures facilitate a social mapping of police youth relations.     

Understanding Ethnic Small Business: A Case Study of Marrickville

Ethnic small businesses are an increasingly important feature of economic life in Australian cities. Which groups are most likely to go into this sector, and what are the factors which make for ‘success’? What is the price for survival in terms of working conditions and family life, and what are the fruits of success? These are some of the questions being investigated in a two-year study of ethnic small business in the Sydney region. This paper provides the first report from the study, examining the development of Greek and Vietnamese businesses in the inner suburb of Marrickville.     

Barriers to Professional Roles in Urban Community Development

Problems in role performance for professionals engaged in research, planning, and delivery of services to low-income urban communities in the United States form the background for a discussion of class, cultural and professional perspectives and the effect of acceptance of ‘culture of poverty’ formulations. Implications for Australian health, education and social welfare programmes are considered, and it is suggested that a redefinition of professional roles may be needed to increase the effectiveness of future voluntary and governmental services aimed at lessening poverty and inequality in Australian society.     

A CAUTIONARY NOTE ON ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS

Environmental questions have become a permanent feature of the political landscape in contemporary Australia and now play a significant role in election campaigns at both state and federal levels. Indeed, one of the most significant policy debates in the 1996 Federal election focussed on the environmental policy proposed by the Liberal/National Party coalition, which sought to fund a host of environmental programs from the proceeds of a part privatisation of Telstra. The trade-offs involved in this policy have generated substantial opposition to it and served to underline the prominence of environmental questions in Australian politics. Despite the importance of ‘the environment’ in popular thought, public debate is still typically characterised by ‘feel good’ policy announcements by politicians, sensationalist media reporting and deceptive claims by some environmental interest groups. Whilst progress has undoubtedly been made, the result has often been a plethora of inchoate and frequently conflicting policies. Not surprisingly this ‘muddle through’ approach has produced numerous instances of government intervention not only failing to meet its planned objectives but also generating unintended consequences.     

The origins of the ‘creative class’: provincial urban society,scientific culture and socio-political marginality in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries1

Recent historiography has revealed the importance of scientific culture in British society during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with scientific knowledge shown to have been central in a wide range of sites and contexts, from botanical gardens to mechanics’ institutes. The article draws upon the insights of historians of science, urban historians and others to argue that the concept of the English ‘urban renaissance’, the Habermasean model of the public sphere, various aspects of post-structural, post-modern and feminist theory, and attention to ‘the space’ and geography can all be used to enhance the understanding of this culture. Given that scientific culture has often been associated with social groups that have sometimes been described as ‘marginal’, the article explores the historiography of various aspects of what it defines as the ‘marginal model’ of cultural expression. Aspects of its various manifestations are explored with special reference to groups often perceived as ‘alternative’ or ‘peripheral’ to ‘dominant’ or majority culture, such as women, dissenters, gays or immigrants, including recent work in the United States concerning the activities of the ‘creative class’. It is contended that this can illuminate our understanding of British scientific culture, for instance through its emphasis on urban and regional differentiation and on the irrational aspects of intellectual endeavour. The study assesses how successfully models of social marginality account for the varied character and geography of this culture, using case-studies of scientific societies in different types of English town and a review of Scottish Enlightenment science.     

INTERPRETING ASYLUM,REINTERPRETING REFUGEES: AN AUSTRALIAN CASE-STUDY

Australian responses to Cambodian asylum-seekers have been characterised by a continuing history of conflict between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of Government. I argue that this conflict has worked to conceal Australian international and humanitarian obligations towards asylum-seekers and refugees. In addition to this, terms used to describe asylum-seekers and refugees as ‘boat people’ ‘queue jumpers’ ‘economic refugees’ etc, have operated as categories of bureaucratic control and political power which have also worked to conceal those obligations. Further to this, I explore the form and content of the relevant international instruments as these articulate the obligations upon states in the grant of asylum. I then examine Australian responses to Cambodian asylum-seekers and argue that the international instruments are no longer sufficient obligation upon signatory states such as Australia, to entrench the rights of asylum-seekers. I therefore suggest an extension to the current theoretical debate as this might inform possible ways in which to reconceptualise both the rights of asylum-seekers and the international and humanitarian obligations upon those countries from which they seek asylum.     

Social inclusion under Labor in South Australia

Social inclusion policies were championed by the former Rann Labor government in South Australia from 2002 to 2011. In 2011 the Social Inclusion Unit was dissolved by the South Australian government. It is argued that the relatively narrow focus of the former SIU on ‘problem’ communities limited its capacity to provide more than residual solutions. The diminishing political returns on social inclusion also encouraged the South Australian government to abandon this initiative. In 2014 this government has had to grapple with the end of car making in Australia and a declining manufacturing labour force, traditionally a ‘mainstream’ constituency of the Labor Party. The return to ‘mainstreaming’ social policy in South Australia might offer limited space for realignment of social policy with the concept of social citizenship. It might also represent a move away from the functionalist morality of social inclusion. Social inclusion as practiced in South Australia has limited capacity to address generalised social disadvantage. The latter is likely to concern a re‐elected Labor minority government grappling with significant job losses and a declining local economy.     

Renewing the Social Vision of Care

Care is a fundamental condition of human existence, an inherently social activity. Yet surprisingly, care has only recently begun to receive serious attention from social researchers and the public. Despite the fact that care has become a public issue over the past twenty‐five years or so, current thinking in policy and advocacy for carers has developed an overtly narrow and self‐limiting focus with a strong emphasis on the plight of primary or sole carers, with care being seen predominantly as a burden. From looking at Australian policy on carers, it may be concluded that care is essentially understood as a private, individual concern, a one‐way activity in which the active agent, the carer, does something to the other, passive, recipient. The challenge posed in this paper is to move beyond this approach to that of a more social conception of care. Following a review of the uses of the terms ‘care’ and ‘carers’ in the current Australian policy context, a discussion of the meaning of the term ‘care’ is presented and an alternative understanding of the term, with the potential of recognising and promoting care as a complex, social outcome is advanced.     

On Being Unemployed and Being a Victim of Crime—A Commentary

In a paper illustrating the shifting ground of Australian criminological debate Braithwaite and Biles claim the results of the National Crime Victim Survey (showing the unemployed have higher victimization rates for certain crimes: breaking and entering, peeping and assault, than ‘the wealthy’ or ‘the poor’) amount to a refutation of ‘a long tradition of radical criminology’. This tradition is portrayed as ‘crime is a manifestation of working class rebellion against the ruling class’. It is argued that this belated entry into confrontation with marxist oriented radical criminology, evaded for so long, is to be welcomed. However certain formal requirements: properly reading, representing, documenting and referencing ‘the radical critique’ are essential for theoretical advance. On these criteria the Braithwaite and Biles paper is deficient and distorted. The results of the victimization survey bolster rather than deny adequately represented radical critiques.     

“汽车梦”的社会建构 对《南方周末》(1998～2007)汽车广告内容的分析

今日中国,拥有汽车已成为大多数城市家庭幸福生活的一种理想.在"汽车梦"的社会建构过程中,作为一种消费意识形态的汽车广告在其中起了非常大的作用.本文以<南方周末>(1998～2007)为例,对近十年的汽车广告内容进行分析.文章认为,"个体享乐性想象认同"和"社会参照性成功认同"是汽车广告用来建构"汽车梦"的两个重要的"认同策略",其影响作用远远超过了汽车广告中的"功用策略",对广告内容分析的结果证明了本文所提出的研究假设.文章最后对"汽车梦"为什么在近十年得到极力建构的社会根源进行了探讨,并对其所带来的潜在的社会后果进行了深刻的反思.     

Third Way Social Governance: Where is the State?

The ‘Third Way’ politics of Blair's New Labour government of the United Kingdom has popularised a number of policy reforms centred on a supposedly new discourse of ‘devolution’, ‘inclusion’, ‘partnerships’ and ‘community’. These notions reflect a re‐emergence of the ideas and values of civil society, participation and localism. Key drivers of this discourse are: new conceptions of citizenship; a retreat from the social state to a politics of community; and a questioning of both ‘big‐state’ interventionist and competitive market approaches to public policy. These trends have resonance in the Australian context. The welfare reform agenda of the Australian Commonwealth government together with community building and engagement initiatives of State governments have been sites for these policy directions. Much of the debate surrounding these policies excludes or minimises the fundamental role of an active state by focusing on an uncritical conception of community. Drawing on the notion of network governance, an alternative framework for re‐conceptualising state‐community relations and delivering improved community outcomes is posited. The paper concludes by suggesting possible social governance methodologies for actioning this framework.     

Culturalising the Abject: Islam,Law and Moral Panic in the West

This paper explores the construction of Islam as abject and the symbolic positioning of Muslims as being outside secular modernity in Australia through an analysis of the way the criminal legal process and perceptions of criminality are culturalised. The empirical focus is gang rape and the trials of Muslim youth on gang rape charges in Sydney between 2000–2003 which quickly became culturally inflected as ‘Muslim’ and ‘Lebanese’ by media reporting of the criminal trials and moral panic about them as source of social menace. Three dimensions of culturalisation of crime and the criminalisation of culture are identified in the criminal legal process and media reporting of it; firstly the cultural inflection of new laws against gang rape by their association with particular events and trials; secondly the introduction of ‘cultural defence’ by the accused as a mitigating factor in the criminal legal process; thirdly, media reporting and commentary on criminal cases which emphasize cultural explanations for individual criminal behaviour.     

Beyond Symptoms: Crime Prevention And Community Development

Crime and crime prevention are currently ‘hot’ political and social issues. Fuelled by public calls for ‘solutions’, the responses by politicians and planners are typically ‘quick‐fix’ with emphasis on management of particular problems as, and where, they arise. We argue for longer term strategies aimed at dealing with the political, social, economic and cultural factors associated with crime. In doing so, we explore the potential of community development to contribute to crime prevention, particularly ‘community’ or ‘street’ crime and violence. Theoretical and practice intersections between community development and certain crime prevention approaches are identified – notably those which link crime and violence with dis‐empowerment, poverty, inequality, exclusion, the learning of violence within families and communities, and lack of opportunity for children and young people to develop their potential. We conclude that there is plenty of evidence to support the view that community development processes should be used more frequently in crime prevention programmes.     

Models of Disability, Work and Welfare in Australia

In discourse around disability there has been a shift away from a ‘medical model’, which perceives disability as an individual problem to be ‘cured’ or contained, towards a ‘social model’. The latter focuses on the relationship between people with disabilities and their social environment, locating the required interventions within the realm of social policy and institutional practice. Drawing upon a small qualitative study conducted in Melbourne, this article argues that recent plans by the Australian government to introduce mutual obligation requirements for recipients of the Disability Support Pension (DSP) sit in tension with this shift from the medical to the social models of disability. Mutual obligation is based on the assumption that income support recipients need to be taught how to be more ‘self‐reliant’, to ‘participate’ in society more fully and to become ‘active’, rather than ‘passive’, citizens. This language appears to overlap with that used to articulate a social model, which places emphasis on participation in the community and attempts a shift away from reliance on the medical profession. However, examples from interviews conducted with current and former DSP recipients demonstrate that, in practice, mutual obligation is likely to reinforce a medical model of disability, frame DSP recipients as ‘conditional’ citizens and ignore the obligations of the state and society regarding access and inclusiveness for people with disabilities.     

The challenge of quantifying national well-being: lessons from the Measures of Australia's Progress initiative

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, the use of gross domestic product (GDP) as a proxy for national well-being has been criticised on the grounds it excludes important social and ecological considerations. Several alternatives have been proposed that promise to generate more comprehensive and balanced quantitative measures of well-being, but all of these alternative indicators remain contested and controversial. This paper critically reviews Australia's contribution to this effort: the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS's) Measures of Australia's Progress initiative. Unlike many other alternatives to GDP, the Australian initiative does not settle on one measure but uses expert-mediated public consultation to establish a ‘dashboard’ of indicators. In so doing, this model makes explicit the serious challenges confronting efforts to coherently define and measure progress in late modernity. In its attempt to integrate diverse views on national progress, the ABS has created an ambiguous tool that is not being taken up in public and political discourse.     

IDENTIFICATIONS: BETWEEN NATIONALISTIC ‘CELLS’ AND AN AUSTRALIAN MUSLIM UMMAH

This paper explores the dynamics which have characterised the Australian Muslim (a term which is examined more critically throughout this paper) struggle for identity and self-identification from the late nineteenth century to the present. It will consider the two primary mechanisms through which this struggle has been articulated. The first of these relates to the ways in which many Australian Muslims have used the nationalist, linguistic and cultural affiliations, which played a critical role in their process of migration and settlement, as a way of forging personal and communal ‘cells’ of identification. The second explores the attempts made by Australian Muslims to draw this body of cells into a coherent whole structured around a religious framework, to create the ideal to which all Muslims aspire – a unified Muslim community or ummah. One of the critical questions which the various discourses relating to Australian Muslim identity and culture raise, and which will be considered in this paper, is: on what levels does this struggle for identification operate, and to what extent has it been successful in reconciling a sense of an Australian Muslim past with the present and future?     

Ethnic Groups in Urban Education

The concept of urban education is seen as education conducted under certain conditions and in a particular environment—for example, in inner city areas where immigrant groups have settled. Greek children in State schools in the inner city of Sydney serve as an example. It is suggested that for the local Australian pupils, and for those for whom English is a second language, school entry marks the beginning of their alienation process. Home and school value systems are at variance. The needs of the local Australian group and those of the immigrants are totally separate and disparate. Implications for an effective balance of home and school demands are discussed.