Description:
his paper provides insight into the experience of Clemente humanities education for six regional and rural Australian women living around Ballarat. Each took part in an audio-taped semistructured interview which explored the impact that university study had on their lives. Their responses suggest that Clemente Ballarat was life-giving. The student insights identified the critical importance of: providing a supportive learning environment for people lacking life opportunities and routine; students feeling better and happier with themselves resultant from personal learning achievements; doing something that was about ‘me’; support from others including Learning Partners and the program’s counsellor; students appreciating their academic and inner strengths; rekindling dreams and hope; seeking ways out of poverty for their family; finding friendships and connection; appreciating the academic disciplines; improvements in well-being and mental health; and pride in achievements. Students also were apprehensive about what the future may hold after completion and graduation. These insights highlight the treasures that students found when engaged in humanities education based upon community embedded socially supported structures that enable learning. Further, these insights provide contextual outcomes for the Clemente program, which could be implemented across regional and rural Australia for people experiencing multiple disadvantages or social exclusion.
Description:
This paper reports on aspects of a recent project carried out for the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank, which was designed to feed into the process of updating and expanding India’s apprenticeship system. The apprenticeship system in India is extremely small for the country’s population, even taking into account the high proportion of jobs that are in the informal economy, and is subject to very rigid regulation. Expansion of the system has been seen as vital in order to improve the supply of skills to the rapidly expanding economy, and also to address issues of disparity in labour market participation and equity for certain groups in Indian society. The paper firstly explains how findings about apprenticeship systems from ten other countries, together with analysis of the Indian situation, were used to present options for consideration by the Indian government. It then analyses these options for their social justice and equity implications.
Description:
This paper reports on aspects of a recent project carried out for the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank, which was designed to feed into the process of updating and expanding India’s apprenticeship system. The apprenticeship system in India is extremely small for the country’s population, even taking into account the high proportion of jobs that are in the informal economy, and is subject to very rigid regulation. Expansion of the system has been seen as vital in order to improve the supply of skills to the rapidly expanding economy, and also to address issues of disparity in labour market participation and equity for certain groups in Indian society. The paper firstly explains how findings about apprenticeship systems from ten other countries, together with analysis of the Indian situation, were used to present options for consideration by the Indian government. It then analyses these options for their social justice and equity implications.
Narratives of access: A critical exploration of how institutional interactions with students affect regional student participation in higher education.
Description:
This article examines the narratives that drive university staff understanding of the concerns and experiences of regional and remote students at five universities in Australia. Interviews were conducted with thirty university staff members over a period of three months in 2018. Reflexive thematic analysis of the stories told by staff of supporting regional students found that staff used the lens of access to create meaningful stories for themselves and others in how they supported students. Access is defined as a multi-faceted term encompassing access to people, Internet, study materials and equipment and study environments. Access is facilitated by a sense of belonging or identity as a student and limited by the lack of this. Our analysis of “belongingness” draws on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitas to start to unpick the interactions between higher education institutions and the student that develop student identities as scholars and centres the narrative on the student as a person, wrestling to gain many forms of access within complex social situations.
Description:
This article examines the narratives that drive university staff understanding of the concerns and experiences of regional and remote students at five universities in Australia. Interviews were conducted with thirty university staff members over a period of three months in 2018. Reflexive thematic analysis of the stories told by staff of supporting regional students found that staff used the lens of access to create meaningful stories for themselves and others in how they supported students. Access is defined as a multi-faceted term encompassing access to people, Internet, study materials and equipment and study environments. Access is facilitated by a sense of belonging or identity as a student and limited by the lack of this. Our analysis of “belongingness” draws on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitas to start to unpick the interactions between higher education institutions and the student that develop student identities as scholars and centres the narrative on the student as a person, wrestling to gain many forms of access within complex social situations.
Description:
A cardinal value of social work practice is social justice. Social justice ranks as the second of five values that underpin the Code of Ethics of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW. However, although social work's commitment to promoting social justice is laudable and, indeed, may even be a distinguishing feature of the profession, precisely what kind of social justice does social work espouse? The answer to this question remains unclear. Views about the nature and scope of social justice stem from broader conceptions of justice that not only differ from, but may also conflict with, each other. Therefore, it is important not only for social work to be clear about the type of social justice that it currently advocates, but also to ensure that it is one that the profession seeks to defend and maximise. It is argued that the choice must be as egalitarian as possible. Indeed, it must be radically so. Otherwise, what is social work fighting for?
Description:
Social equity in higher education has been a priority for universities and policy makers throughout Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations for more than a decade. Limited improvement is seen among students in under-represented groups which remains a concern and for this reason social equity in higher education is presented as a wicked problem. This article will outline the steady massification of higher education where elitist discourses were largely abandoned, while social equity discourses flourished. The discussion will include key documents that have wielded great influence on discourse including The Bradley Review, Performance-Based Funding (PBF) and the Job-Ready Graduates legislation. After illuminating the Australian political context, this article will define four social equity discourses currently distinguishable in higher education literature: meritocratic, economist, social justice and human potential. Interrogation of these discourses will reveal complexity and divergence that contributes to the wicked nature of improving social equity in higher education.