Investigating literary knowledge in the making of English teachers. This project aims to create new understanding of the role of literary knowledge within subject English. English education is mandated in Australian schooling; however, subject content as well as teachers’ knowledge and pedagogical approaches are highly contested, particularly regarding the teaching of literature. Using a national survey, focus group interviews and a longitudinal study, the project aims to provide new understandi ....Investigating literary knowledge in the making of English teachers. This project aims to create new understanding of the role of literary knowledge within subject English. English education is mandated in Australian schooling; however, subject content as well as teachers’ knowledge and pedagogical approaches are highly contested, particularly regarding the teaching of literature. Using a national survey, focus group interviews and a longitudinal study, the project aims to provide new understandings of the literary knowledge that early career teachers need, of the impact of curricula and professional practice on disciplinary knowledge, and about the operation of literary studies across school and university. Significantly, it plans to use ‘literary sociability’, an innovative methodology, to generate empirical and conceptual perspectives on literary studies in Australia that will be of value internationally.Read moreRead less
The Ancient Today: Living Traditions of Classical Language Education. This project aims to compare, for the first time, ancient language education across world cultures with ‘classical’ literatures. It expects to illumine the purpose and value of classical language education in Chinese, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit historically and within global education systems today by comparing pedagogic ideals and practices across times and cultures. It aims to test the potential of inclusive classical langua ....The Ancient Today: Living Traditions of Classical Language Education. This project aims to compare, for the first time, ancient language education across world cultures with ‘classical’ literatures. It expects to illumine the purpose and value of classical language education in Chinese, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit historically and within global education systems today by comparing pedagogic ideals and practices across times and cultures. It aims to test the potential of inclusive classical language learning to boost educational outcomes for disadvantaged students. Other expected outcomes include two books, scholarly articles, education policy reports, and PhD student training. This should strengthen intercultural understanding and benefit school students, educators, policy makers and the wider public.Read moreRead less
Deep Timetable: A Noongar Rail History. This project aims to clarify the impact of the railway on Noongar people and Country. Rail infrastructure across south-western Western Australia exploited an older network of Aboriginal pathways; dislocated Noongar families found relocation through rail employment. Working closely with Noongar knowledge custodians the Project aims to reconstruct this hitherto overlooked history using a Noongar narrative framework - where storytelling actively maps Country ....Deep Timetable: A Noongar Rail History. This project aims to clarify the impact of the railway on Noongar people and Country. Rail infrastructure across south-western Western Australia exploited an older network of Aboriginal pathways; dislocated Noongar families found relocation through rail employment. Working closely with Noongar knowledge custodians the Project aims to reconstruct this hitherto overlooked history using a Noongar narrative framework - where storytelling actively maps Country and kinship relations - to plot the relationship with the emergent rail network. The Project will advance a new relational logic and a history that enhances the capacity of regional planning and development authorities in their future relationship with Indigenous people.Read moreRead less
Landscape, language and culture in Indigenous Australia. This project aims to determine how culture and social diversity interact with landscape in representing physical space in the minds and grammars of speakers of Australian Indigenous languages. The project will conduct the first Australia-wide survey of Indigenous spatial description correlated with landscape, and the first large-scale investigation of diversity in spatial behaviour among individuals within communities. The findings are exp ....Landscape, language and culture in Indigenous Australia. This project aims to determine how culture and social diversity interact with landscape in representing physical space in the minds and grammars of speakers of Australian Indigenous languages. The project will conduct the first Australia-wide survey of Indigenous spatial description correlated with landscape, and the first large-scale investigation of diversity in spatial behaviour among individuals within communities. The findings are expected to inform crucial debates on the formative role of landscape in language, and advance our knowledge of human spatial cognition. It will collect completely new experimental and natural data in six endangered languages, with significant benefits for the maintenance of Indigenous languages and cultures.Read moreRead less
Roads to the Future: Infrastructure and the New Development in Africa. This project aims to conduct a comparative analysis of new road schemes in East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean (a region which sits at the intersection of several major global transport and development corridors), in order to understand their economic, socio-political, cultural and public health effects. As global road-building accelerates at an unprecedented rate, especially in the developing world, there is an urgent n ....Roads to the Future: Infrastructure and the New Development in Africa. This project aims to conduct a comparative analysis of new road schemes in East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean (a region which sits at the intersection of several major global transport and development corridors), in order to understand their economic, socio-political, cultural and public health effects. As global road-building accelerates at an unprecedented rate, especially in the developing world, there is an urgent need for new models for understanding roads' potential economic benefits, as well as their risks, including their environmental risks. This project is benefitting citizens, NGOs, donors and governments, by generating new knowledge about how we have in the past, do at present, and should in the future, engage with roads.Read moreRead less
Living Together: New Approaches to Multispecies Conflict and Coexistence. Building on the methods and concepts of the emerging environmental humanities, this project will produce a new conceptual vocabulary for a world in which multispecies conflict and coexistence is increasingly important. It brings critical and generative rereadings of classical political thought and contemporary biopolitical and cosmopolitical approaches into dialogue with a set of empirical case studies emerging from novel ....Living Together: New Approaches to Multispecies Conflict and Coexistence. Building on the methods and concepts of the emerging environmental humanities, this project will produce a new conceptual vocabulary for a world in which multispecies conflict and coexistence is increasingly important. It brings critical and generative rereadings of classical political thought and contemporary biopolitical and cosmopolitical approaches into dialogue with a set of empirical case studies emerging from novel encounters between humans and other animals. This project will expand Australia’s knowledge base and research capacity in the interdisciplinary environmental humanities and stake out new approaches to the question of living together in a changing environment.Read moreRead less
Understanding political debate and policy decisions using big data. This project aims to empirically test a novel framework for analysing the relationship between political debates and policy decisions. Using digital sources and computational modelling approaches, it will investigate three specific issues to test this framework. These issues, all drawn from different policy sectors, will be examined as a series of debates linked to specific decisions, over the last two decades. The expected outc ....Understanding political debate and policy decisions using big data. This project aims to empirically test a novel framework for analysing the relationship between political debates and policy decisions. Using digital sources and computational modelling approaches, it will investigate three specific issues to test this framework. These issues, all drawn from different policy sectors, will be examined as a series of debates linked to specific decisions, over the last two decades. The expected outcomes will provide insights into links between political debates and policy decisions with potential benefits for politics and policy-making.Read moreRead less
Optimizing benefits of cultural diversity in Australian healthcare sector. Australian society and workplaces are increasingly becoming culturally diverse with growing numbers of immigrants from culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) backgrounds. However, it is not clear to what extent this diversity is being harnessed to improve organisational performance by leveraging the diverse range of knowledge and skills of CaLD customers and employees. This project aims to use social identity theory ....Optimizing benefits of cultural diversity in Australian healthcare sector. Australian society and workplaces are increasingly becoming culturally diverse with growing numbers of immigrants from culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) backgrounds. However, it is not clear to what extent this diversity is being harnessed to improve organisational performance by leveraging the diverse range of knowledge and skills of CaLD customers and employees. This project aims to use social identity theory and role theory to develop a comprehensive conceptual model for the process by which organisations identify, acknowledge, engage, accept, and adapt to cultural and linguistic diversity among their customers and employees. We also plan to test this model with data from customers and employees in Australian service sector.Read moreRead less
Social, economic and health vulnerabilities in Indonesia. This project aims to study and provide ways to overcome vulnerability in Indonesia. Half the Indonesian population is still clustered around the poverty line, contributing to their vulnerability. This project will identify vulnerable groups and why they are vulnerable. Using a common framework of the life course in eight Indonesian field sites, this project will investigate whether social networks and welfare programs reduce vulnerability ....Social, economic and health vulnerabilities in Indonesia. This project aims to study and provide ways to overcome vulnerability in Indonesia. Half the Indonesian population is still clustered around the poverty line, contributing to their vulnerability. This project will identify vulnerable groups and why they are vulnerable. Using a common framework of the life course in eight Indonesian field sites, this project will investigate whether social networks and welfare programs reduce vulnerability, and pinpoint strategies for reducing vulnerabilities in the future. The project expects to show how vulnerable citizens in Indonesia can be made more secure, helping to build a more stable and prosperous region.Read moreRead less
Inequality, Trade, and Technology. This project aims to improve our understanding of the causes of rising income inequality in the world economy and in Australia since the early 1980s. We focus on the increasing building costs and imports of machinery as significant contributors to the increasing inequality. We hypothesize 1) that the increasing costs of buildings have reduced the demand for workers that are complementary to non-residential building capital; thus, reducing real wages; and 2) tha ....Inequality, Trade, and Technology. This project aims to improve our understanding of the causes of rising income inequality in the world economy and in Australia since the early 1980s. We focus on the increasing building costs and imports of machinery as significant contributors to the increasing inequality. We hypothesize 1) that the increasing costs of buildings have reduced the demand for workers that are complementary to non-residential building capital; thus, reducing real wages; and 2) that the marked increase in imports of machinery since the 1960s has reduced the demand for unskilled labour and widened the employment and wage gap between skilled and unskilled labour. Both factors may have driven the increasing inequality in Australia.
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