Roadmap to recovery: Reporting on a research taskforce supporting Indigenous responses to COVID‐19 in Australia

In April 2020 a Group of Eight Taskforce was convened, consisting of over 100 researchers, to provide independent, research‐based recommendations to the Commonwealth Government on a “Roadmap to Recovery” from COVID‐19. The report covered issues ranging from pandemic control and relaxation of social distancing measures, to well‐being and special considerations for vulnerable populations. Our work focused on the critical needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities; this paper presents an overview of our recommendations to the Roadmap report. In addressing the global challenges posed by pandemics for citizens around the world, Indigenous people are recognised as highly vulnerable. At the time of writing Australia's First Nations Peoples have been largely spared from COVID‐19 in comparison to other Indigenous populations globally. Our recommendations emphasise self‐determination and equitable needs‐based funding to support Indigenous communities to recover from COVID‐19, addressing persistent overcrowded housing, and a focus on workforce, especially for regional and remote communities. These latter two issues have been highlighted as major issues of risk for Indigenous communities in Australia It remains to be seen how governments across Australia take up these recommendations to support Indigenous peoples' health and healing journey through yet another, potentially catastrophic, health crisis.     

Manufacturing resource planning: An information systems model

This paper presents Manufacturing Resource Planning, an information system that will enable the developing and monitoring of strategic plans. Incorporation proven material and capacity requirements planning techniques, strategic planners can determine readily the impact of their plans on the manufacturing resources of the company. Decision making is more coordinated because all managers work from a common data base. However, the attainment of this level of planning sophistication is costly not only in capital outlays for computer software and hardware but also in the time to train users. But those firms who have successfully incorporated this integrated approach to strategic planning feel strongly that the end results justify the expenditures.     

A Discrete Time Parametric Model for the Analysis of Failure Time Data

This paper introduces a parametric discrete failure time model which allows a variety of smooth hazard function shapes, including shapes which are not readily available with continuous failure time models. The model is easy to fit, and statistical inference is simple. Further, it is readily extended to allow for differences between subjects while retaining the ease of fit and simplicity of statistical inference. The performance of the discrete time analysis is demonstrated by application to several data sets.     

Families and family study in international perspective

Many changes are occurring in the world's families. Some observers feel that the changes are destructive, whereas others see them as leading to new opportunities and understanding. Issues in international family studies include regional limitations and the various aspects of doing research cross‐culturally. Knowledge regarding certain categories of families, inheritance, and the social psychology of families is incomplete. There are, however, some universals and universal or worldwide changes, including movement toward individual partner choice, more divorces, lower fertility, and greater opportunities for women.     

The effect of migration on ages at vital events: A critique of family reconstitution in historical demography

Demographic rates of historical populations have usually been calculated using only data from stayers alone. Can they be extrapolated to the population as a whole? Ruggles has recently pointed out, using both logic and a computer simulation, that stayers experience vital events earlier in life than movers due to migration censorship: those who experience them later in life have often migrated away from the community being studied. We show that stayers do indeed marry and die at younger ages than do movers, using a genealogical database on the American North (1620–1880). These differences are caused, however, both by migration censorship and by genuine differences between the two groups and the places they lived. Therefore changes over time among stayers are not good indicators of changes in the population as a whole because they are affected by changing migration rates. Thus no simple “correction factor” can be extrapolated to estimate the general population; neither stayers (nor movers) constitute a “baseline” or “normal” process: both must be considered together in order to gain an accurate picture of the population as a whole.     

The Common Assessment Framework: the impact of the lead professional on families and professionals as part of a continuum of care in England

This paper utilizes data gathered as part of an exploratory study to assess the costs and impact of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), to examine the impact that the lead professional role had on families and workers. The study found that both families and workers believed the lead professional to be central to the CAF process, providing a range of support, coordinating multi‐agency responses to need and acting as a single point of contact between families and workers. The paper highlights the need for consideration to be given to inter‐agency working, data sharing, training for workers and the capacity implications for those taking on the role. The extent to which the lead professional might be more integrated into the continuum of support for vulnerable children and families is also examined. The paper highlights the need to consider the lead professional's role in not only preventing the need for more intensive services, such as those provided by statutory social work, but also maintaining outcomes achieved once a child protection plan is closed, or a child is reunified with his or her birth family after a period of being in care. The implications of the findings for policy and practice are discussed.     

MY TICKET,MY "SELF": LOTTERY TICKET NUMBER SELECTION AND THE COMMODIFICATION AND EXTENSION OF THE SELF

According to the research literature, college‐educated women provide the most consistent support for nontraditional sex‐role attitudes. Conversely, working‐class males are supposedly the most ambivalent toward changes in gender roles. The present study involves a direct comparison of the attitudes of two different samples: one employed in blue‐collar occupations and the other enrolled in a small, private university. Some of the responses to an eleven‐item scale of sex‐role attitudes are consistent with the results of previous research. For example, women are generally more nontraditional than men. However, most surprising is the finding that male college students are the most conservative subgroup included in this study. By the senior year of college, students have become more liberal, but the “gender gap” persists. Parents’ educational status and fathers’ occupational status are statistically significant variables for female but not for male students. The authors conclude that the uncertain but dynamic relationship between socioeconomic status and sex‐role ideology will require further clarification and specification.     

Amidst the Reign of Behaviour and Disorder: Recalling Schools as Problems

In May 2013 one of the most profoundly influential books of the late twentieth and early twenty‐first century was released in its fifth edition. Yet, it is not unreasonable to speculate that this newest edition will pass largely unnoticed, even as new diagnoses (and the loss of current ones) seep into the everyday. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM‐5) will undoubtedly be influential in education – defining and re‐defining student maladies. Its list of extensive categories provides, so it is argued, a means to uniformly identify mental disorders. Applied in educational contexts, children and young people can thus be categorized by clinical experts and teachers able to identify an individual's problems, and in theory, respond appropriately. Criticism of the DSM includes debate over its application in cross‐cultural contexts as well as the ways that socio‐economic differences are, to put it bluntly, diagnosed differently. Although these issues of diagnosis do get attention, historical contexts can remain bereft in commentary. In this paper we consider the value that historical perspectives can bring to an analysis of the contemporary effects of DSM‐inspired readings of education and disadvantage. The paper also draws on two projects, one with young people, the other with parents of young children, both of whom experienced disadvantage and precarious relationships with education. In these excluded contexts, people are more likely to come into contact with diagnostic repertoires that originate from the DSM. Drawing on Georges Canguilhem's analysis the ‘concept' as well as Michel Foucault's discussion of Canguilhem's work, this paper considers how attention to school problems is important for disengaging with education's appetite for psychiatric disorders.     

A limit approaching pop-up message reduces gambling expenditures,except among players with a financially focused self-concept

Responsible gambling (RG) tools that guide electronic gaming machine (EGM) players to set a pre-set money limit on their gambling expenditures are known to reduce excessive gambling. However, not all EGM players who use a limit-setting RG tool will adhere to their limit. We hypothesized that limit adherence is facilitated by informing players that their limit is approaching (and when their limit is reached), but undermined by a financially focused self-concept (FFS). Accordingly, EGM players (N = 88) were provided seed funds to gamble with on a slot machine in a simulated virtual reality casino. They were randomly assigned to receive a limit reminder both when their limit was approaching and again when their limit was reached (experimental condition) or just when their limit was reached (control condition). Players in the experimental condition were more likely to stop playing before reaching their money limit compared to players in the control condition. However, this was observed among players who are low, but not high, in FFS. Unexpectedly, condition (control vs experimental) was unrelated to playing beyond the money limit and FFS did not moderate this relation. Results suggest that individual difference factors, like FFS, can undermine the utility of RG tools.