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Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) degrees in Australian and British universities have come under attack from sceptics who argue that such courses teach only 'pseudoscience'. Moreover, CAM academics have themselves been publicly labelled 'quacks'. Comparatively little is known about this group of health professionals who span the two worlds of CAM practice and academia. How do they navigate between these domains, and how are their collective and individual professional identities constructed? Drawing on 47 semi-structured interviews, this paper explores the professional identities of academics working in three university-based CAM disciplines in Australia and the UK: osteopathy, chiropractic and Chinese medicine. By analysing these individuals' accounts, and building on prior research on health professions in the academy, the paper contributes to understanding how contests about professionalism and professional knowledge take place against the academic-practice divide. By focussing on a domain where knowledge claims are conspicuously contested, it highlights the salience of navigating 'epistemic stress' for both group and individual professional identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increased diversification of Australian families, the nuclear family formed through reproductive heterosex continues to be treated as the norm. This paper argues that this norm impacts negatively upon families formed in other ways, by exposing them to increased scrutiny. Drawing on interviews with 60 participants from four cohorts (families formed through reproductive heterosex, intercountry adoption, long-term foster care, or surrogacy), a comparative thematic analysis is presented in which two key themes are elaborated: (1) the impact of government policies and practices, and (2) the degree to which families are treated as public property. Findings suggest that families formed through reproductive heterosex were the least regulated and scrutinised; families formed through either adoption or surrogacy received a considerable degree of regulation and scrutiny; and foster families were the most scrutinised and negatively impacted by government policies. The paper concludes by considering what is required to engender more inclusive and supportive responses to all families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the Australian Government has provided significant support for the expansion of Nurse Practitioner services in the community. As a result, the emerging role and ongoing retention of these professionals is an area for policy investigation. However, there is also a broader significance in the Nurse Practitioner role for which sociological perspectives can provide insight. Sociologists identify two key characteristics of late-modernism as the rise in service work and the emphasis on service worker knowledge as a commodity. This paper argues that the Nurse Practitioner role is an embodiment of these trends. Specifically, the paper considers the expanding Nurse Practitioner role as an example of the shifting boundaries between human care professionals. The paper argues that these changes point to a need for renewed consideration of identity, interaction, negotiation and emotion in relation to professional human care work. It concludes by considering conceptual resources that could support new sociological understandings of the Nurse Practitioner role in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts from the premise that embodied knowledge is critical to understanding health policy implementation. We explore this notion through a qualitative investigation of the way that knowledge has functioned in the implementation of an Australian mental health policy, Partners in Recovery (PIR). Analysis uses the theoretical lens of interpretive policy analysis and the 'embodied, inscribed, enacted' knowledge schema developed by Freeman and Sturdy [(2014a). Introduction: Knowledge in policy – embodied, inscribed, enacted. In R. Freeman & S. Sturdy (Eds.), Knowledge in policy: Embodied, inscribed, enacted (pp. 1–19). Bristol: Policy Press]. Our analysis reveals a policy problem centred around difficulties of coordination where the inscribed solution lies in individuals who must implement the PIR program in local areas. Our interviews with PIR consortium members and stakeholders show that this implementation happens through the enactment of embodied knowledge. However this implementation is not straightforward and we point to difficulties arising from the centrality of embodied processes in implementation, related to the localisation of systems knowledge in individuals and structural devaluation of certain types of knowledge over others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to explore the Australian instance of a significant international problem: Intergenerational solidarity and the willingness of younger generations to support the future care of older people. It draws on Bengston's intergenerational solidarity theory, in particular his conception of normative solidarity relative to filial obligations, to analyse data from the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes. This data demonstrates evidence of intergenerational solidarity at the policy level and a need for a continued role for government in the provision of residential care, insurance schemes, and the payment of income to full time and occasional carers. At the family level there is less support for the role of adult children in the payment of formal care or the provision of informal care. There is also a significant difference between men and women concerning the direct provision of informal care to ageing parents. Suggestions for future research are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]