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This paper investigates a suite of policies that comprise the National Partnership Agreement between federal, state and territory governments in Australia that are ostensibly aimed at improving the educational attainment levels of young Australians. It specifically explores the policy terrain of educational targets that have been arrived at by Australian governments and associated policies, using a critical policy ethnography approach. It first traces out the historical development of populist policies such as this, demonstrating how attainment targets affect the lives of young people from the most challenging backgrounds. The second, ethnographic component of this paper provides some powerful insights into what is missing from the policy although of central importance to the existential lives of the young Australians targeted by such policy reform initiatives. This paper reveals how both school and societal circumstances create barriers to the capacity of these young people to meet policy demands. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper looks at the factors associated with the decision by school students in Australia to work part-time. I find substantial variation in the probability of working across the eight Australian states and territories, as well as by remoteness. Those who live in households with low income are less likely to work. A person's ancestry is also associated with variation in the probability of working, as is the type of school they attend. This paper also looks at unemployment amongst school students. In addition to Indigenous Australians, one group of students found to be substantially more likely to be unemployed are those who live in a household where no one else is employed. Other authors have found that those who spend long hours at work have been found to achieve poorly across a number of outcomes. The biggest differences in the probability of working long hours are associated with the industry in which the student works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reaches into a comprehensive study of a generation of young people in Australia, drawing on a comparison with Canadian longitudinal data. It argues that this is a generation of reluctant change makers who have created new ways of living as a response to economic changes and government policies. These new ways of living, once exposed, ‘speak back’ to neoliberal policies, exposing their human costs. Australians found it more difficult than their Canadian counterparts to establish secure jobs and households, impacting on their patterns of family formation. These changes have secondary effects in other areas of young people's lives, particularly in health and well-being where patterns of inequality are reflected in levels of mental and physical problems – exposing the poverty of neoliberal policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Universities in Australia, like their counterparts abroad, are making available several different kinds of electronic information services for their student communities. University students need different types of information for the frequently entwined purposes of learning and living, and such information may be available from a variety of information channels and sources; often the required information may be hidden within the complex structure of various internal and external information systems and services. Organising and processing such a wide variety of information to allow easy access and retrieval is a great challenge. This paper calls for a concerted research effort in this direction, and specifies various tasks of a proposed research project: these range from identifying the learning and living information needs of various categories of students in Australian universities, to organising and processing such information for easy access based on the task, context, and characteristics of the student users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The underachievement of boys has been a focus of intense concern in Australia for over 15 years. Historical analyses suggest that male students' poor performance has traditionally been attributed to factors external to boys themselves (methods, teachers, texts), deflecting attention from the relationship between masculinity construction and successful engagement with school. This paper turns the focus back, addressing the ways in which gender itself was constructed within hearings held for the Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into Boys' Education. Discursive analysis demonstrates that witnesses to the Inquiry drew upon a series of gender binaries in representing male and female students, and accounting for their relative attainment. These binaries worked to associate masculinity with 'authentic' learning, such that the success of male students was naturalised even in the absence of achievement. Conversely, the association of femininity and 'inauthentic learning' worked to undermine female students' demonstrated success. The role of these binaries in the reproduction of a paradoxical relationship between gender and achievement is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although their rate of admission to university appears to be improving, the academic success of former TAFE students depends on the extent to which universities are prepared to meet their need for support in developing academic literacy skills. Australian universities' traditional reliance on schools to deliver students who are academically literate appears to disadvantage many students admitted to university on the basis of TAFE awards. This paper highlights the different rates of admission of TAFE award holders between universities and examines the experience of TAFE award holders in their first year of higher education. The author concludes that higher admission rates to university for TAFE award holders will not translate into improved completion rates for this group unless universities are willing to change their course delivery to cater for a more diverse student population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]