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Background: There is evidence that the transition to retirement can bring social challenges and may increase loneliness. Few studies have examined the impact of retirement on loneliness; most have been conducted in Western countries. It is important to examine the differences in loneliness postretirement across countries to identify patterns and risk factors that might influence the health and well-being of older adults. We aimed to examine the effect of retirement on loneliness among older adults in Australia, China and the USA., Methods: Longitudinal analysis of data from population-based samples of Australian, Chinese and American adults over 50. Lagged and fully lagged adjusted models were applied. Social engagement was examined as an effect modifier and a sensitivity analysis was conducted among urban participants., Results: Retirees had a higher predicted prevalence of loneliness than non-retirees in Australia (19.4% (95% CI 18.0% to 20.9%) vs 17.0% (95% CI 15.7% to 18.4%)) and in the USA (19.3% (95% CI 17.5% to 21.1%) vs 15.7% (95% CI 14.3% to 17.3%)). These differences were significant only in the USA. In China, loneliness was significantly lower in those who had retired (10.0% (95% CI 7.9% to 12.5%) vs 17.1% (95% CI 15.7% to 18.5%)). In Australia and the USA, voluntary retirees had the lowest loneliness and involuntary retirees had the highest. Social engagement did not modify the association between retirement and loneliness., Conclusions: Our findings imply that the effect of retirement should be considered within a cultural context to inform suitable and effective strategies to alleviate loneliness., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses articles within the issue on topics including issues relating to everyday nursing, changes in nursing education and practice in Australia, and differences in nursing thought inherent in internationalization.

Yolŋu Aboriginal people's knowledge about water ("gapu") and its governance has strong cultural significance and meaning in East Arnhem Land Aboriginal worlds in northern Australia. This study used transdisciplinary research methods to explore the ways in which Yolŋu Aboriginal gapu and Western science hydrological knowledge can work together and contribute towards water management on Milingimbi Island, a small, resource-constrained, bedrock island. Transcending disciplinary boundaries is distinctly different to an interdisciplinary, socio-hydrological perspective, which can pose a risk to hybridizing Aboriginal knowledge and Western science. Community engagement activities and workshops were conducted as part of a three-year research project to bring together the incommensurable knowledge communities. A participatory three-dimensional mapping exercise created a shared space, facilitating an open-dialogue exchange of insight and knowledge among Aboriginal knowledge authorities, hydrologists, public servants, and academic researchers. This paper prompts readers to reconsider the ways water can be perceived and conserved in a decolonizing way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the role of social science research in the family law system has been the subject of scholarly research for some time, less attention has been paid to how operating within the legal system might influence the work of social science and related expert witnesses who perform in that space. This article reports on interviews with family report writers, social science or similar expert witnesses, who provide assessments for the Australian family courts in contested cases about post-separation children's arrangements. It explores the impact of the law, or how those professionals perceive the law is applied, and the complexity of the family law system on these expert witnesses, particularly when working with families with allegations of domestic and family violence. The study shows that the participants are deeply acculturated to the legal system. They know how to speak its language and are aware of the different audiences they speak to including the court, the lawyers and the parents. Although an understanding of the legal context is essential for expert witnesses, the study suggests that the legal system, and their experience of it, may influence their assessment framework, affect their recommendations, and consequently impact parenting orders. Although this article investigates the situation in Australia, the results raise questions for similar family law jurisdictions which rely on family assessment reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The standard interview method (SIM) is a guidance framework for information gathering interviews. This article describes the purpose, scope, origin, experimental basis, and practical application of the SIM. It provides an informative overview of developments to date for psychologists and researchers within the behavioural sciences, as well as for practitioners who might use the SIM. The SIM contains core evidence‐based components but is otherwise open to tailoring and modifications to suit a variety of interviewing purposes such as policing, justice, education, and business. It provides an interview structure and exemplar dialogue, aligned with research into best‐practice interview technique. Method: A detailed overview of the SIM's interview phases, instructions, and exemplar dialogue is provided. The basis for these elements is explained in terms of the experimental and qualitative research that has informed their development. Results: The SIM provides evidence‐based guidance for investigative interviewers, and numerous versions have been created to suit different investigation types, interviewee groups, and jurisdictional or organisational requirements. It is continually refined as new findings from experimental research around best‐practice interviewing emerge. Conclusions: Rather than a single entity or completed product, the SIM represents a dynamic evolution of research, collaboration, and testing. Its flexible nature will allow it to keep pace with the ever‐progressing knowledge base that informs interview protocol and guidance development, and adapt to local cultures, legislation, processes, and systems of operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects upon humanities 'interfaces' between academia and society via an analysis of two recent Australian policy moments. First, I reflect on the inaugural Engagement and Impact (E & I) Assessment of university research, undertaken in 2018 by the Australian Research Council (ARC). The EI 2018 points to the rich contribution of humanities interfaces to social function of contemporary research and the pivotal role that communication and media studies play. Second, I discuss the effort over the past 10–15 years to conceptualise and fashion an e-research infrastructure for humanities and social sciences research. Despite leadership in e-research infrastructure in sciences Australia lagged in addressing requirements of humanities and social science. Both cases show the stakes in digital humanities interfaces, which are vital to research and its social futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aboriginal Heritage Trails are a growing phenomenon in Australia. They come in all shapes and sizes, from mere signage to—in the case of the famous Lurujarri trail out of Broome, Western Australia—a nine-day immersive experience walking the beach with one of the Goolarabooloo family groups. Here people experience the beautiful Indian Ocean coastline, extensive dinosaur footprints, storytelling, and meals of freshly caught fish, mangrove crab, dugong and turtle. These trails are far more than 'tourism products'. For the Aboriginal families, with all ages present, they enact inter-generational knowledge transfer. Academic disciplines also change when they are 'on Country': Palaeontologists learn that the dinosaur footprints are also the traces of the emu ancestor, marala, and their discipline adjusts its epistemological parameters accordingly. Aboriginal walking trails have the potential to change every discipline willing to 're-boot' on a territorial, rather than global, scale. Walking with one's arts of paying attention on alert deepens and extends both European and Aboriginal knowledge, as they find agencies that can transfer and translate the multi-functionality inherent in the ecological 'pluriverse' that is this continent-wide network of dreaming tracks. Could this experiential model of knowledge transfer represent a path away from the nineteenth-century model of knowledge collection, storage and display that we find in universities and museums? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this article, we contribute to understanding of the mechanisms through which students' socio‐economic family background can translate into academic performance by focusing on the concept of student engagement. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from disciplines across the social sciences, and a major nationally representative dataset from Australia, which links survey responses with administrative records on school performance, we conduct a series of multiple regression models to investigate the mediating role of student engagement on the relationship between students' socio‐economic status (SES) and academic achievement. We find that, first, low‐SES students show lower levels of engagement than other students, particularly in terms of behavioural and cognitive aspects; they also have lower achievement levels as measured by standardised test scores. We further find that lower engagement is associated with lower achievement levels, and that the effects of SES on achievement are partially mediated through student engagement. Although there are clearly other mechanisms in place that operate at the same time, it is important to focus on student engagement since it can be directly influenced by teachers and school leaders, as well as curriculum choices and school resources. This makes it a ripe target for government policies aimed at improving educational outcomes for students from low‐SES families, compared with approaches targeting the influences of family environment or peer groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the deliberately speculative question of 'What might the school of 2030 be like?', with a specific focus on the influences of digital technologies. The article adopts the methodological approach of 'social science fiction' to explore the ways in which digital technologies might be used in one Australian high school in 2030 (Lakeside), and what this might mean for the people whose lives are enmeshed with these technologies. Through the co-construction of five social science fiction 'vignettes' about life within Lakeside, the article considers the increasing prevalence of dataveillance, digital deskilling and the de-territorialization of schooling. The article then goes on to consider changing relationships between time/place, material and coded structures, as well as the increasingly platformized and data-driven nature of schooling in the 2020s. The article ends by considering the ways in which critical scholars can continue to use the methodological approach of social science fiction writing with regard to unpacking the politics of digital education futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This literature review presents a critical appraisal of the dominant approaches toward the sexuality and relationships of people with acquired brain injury. In particular, we sought to identify and review existing programs focusing on sexuality and relationships which use an educational and/or peer–peer approach. A systematic and comprehensive search of the EBSCOHOST database was conducted within an unlimited time-frame to yield the highest number of relevant results possible, along with hand-searching of key journals and databases. Reports, papers and webpages, documents commonly referred to as 'grey literature' that are not published in peer-reviewed journals, were also hand searched as a part of this review. The database search yielded 862 results, 14 of which were found to be relevant to our research interests. All of the sexuality education programs identified in this review were experienced positively by participants, families, caregivers, and professionals working with people with acquired brain injury. No peer–peer sexuality and relationships programs were identified. However, we found strong support for the use of peer–peer approaches in other programs for people with acquired brain injury. This literature review provides strong support for the development peer–peer sexuality and relationships programs for people with acquired brain injury. However, any future programs would have to overcome the limitations of existing sexuality and relationships programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a highly contentious psychiatric diagnosis with ongoing tensions over nomenclature, aetiology and treatment recommendations. This article examines a number of these tensions and assesses how greater attention to the voices of people living with BPD may help inform the delivery of new modes of person-centred care. To this end, we present a critical social science research agenda for investigating the experiences, social contexts and support needs of people living with BPD. We canvass issues pertaining to the diagnosis of BPD (including its name), the strongly gendered dimensions of BPD, and the pressing need to improve support for people living with this condition. Throughout our analysis, we indicate how critical interdisciplinary inquiry may drive new responses to these challenges. Our analysis is illustrated with reference to experiences of BPD recounted in two Australia-wide surveys conducted in 2011 and 2017. We argue that greater progress towards person-centred care requires novel forms of evidence grounded in critical social inquiry into experiences of treatment and support among people living with BPD, and the varied social, cultural and political contexts underpinning these experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the prominence of 'vulnerability' as a way of making sense of disadvantage and suffering in both social policy and social science. It examines the interplay of vulnerability as a material phenomenon and cultural script by foregrounding the experiences of the most marginal benefit claimants in Australia's residual social security system. The article questions whether the everyday disruptions and challenges that unsettle yet settle-into life in poverty are intelligible within authorised idioms of vulnerability that govern access to support. By examining what people surviving on benefits are vulnerable to and how they are compelled to demonstrate their status as vulnerable, it contributes a critical account of lived experiences of vulnerability that holds both its discursive and phenomenological dimensions in view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Courts are increasingly called upon to adjudicate hard cases involving questions of social facts. In deciding these matters, in a just and efficient manner according to law, courts will desirably have recourse to social science material and, perhaps less desirably, be influenced by underlying assumptions based on the decision-maker's personal views. This article comments on three ways in which courts use social facts and treat social science material in the course of judicial decision-making. The authors suggest a 'best practice' approach for judges in approaching these questions, in the light of identified problems with the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Encouraged by Communist parties and left-wing trade unions, radical, or working-class, theatre groups of the twentieth century were crucial in the development of a long-lasting left-wing cultural activist impulse in a number of nations. The branches of the Unity Theatre in UK and the New Theatre in Australia had a highly conscious democratic and explicit working class orientation, and presented various combinations of mainstream and radical dramatic genres and plays. Drawing on oral histories and archival research, this chapter explores the politics of popular culture by focusing on the degrees of mobility of ideas, dramatic texts and people and politics between the two theatres. The emergent mobility patterns across these elements demonstrated the effect of 'tyranny of distance' to invoke Blainey's phrase1 and the sociocultural mores of 'Empire' on those transnational flows. Whether it was the mobility of ideas, texts or people, a more complex picture emerged than simple exchange or reciprocal influence. Informing our discussion is the mobility studies literature, following the 'mobility turn' in the social sciences. A number of concepts within mobility studies provide a lens for analysing the movement of ideas, scripts and people between Unity and the New Theatre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]