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Past research has demonstrated an association between financial hardships and risk-taking behaviors (defined as delinquent or transgressive acts). However, this effect may differ based upon the provision of protective spaces, like those offered in extracurricular activities. In the current study, we examined the longitudinal effect of financial hardships on risk-taking in a sample of Australian adolescents (N = 3,852). We found experiences of financial hardship at the age of 12/13 predicted higher risk-taking 2 years later. Further, a longitudinal indirect effect was observed, where financial hardships were associated with higher risk-taking 4 years later via increased exposure to risk-taking peers. Non-sporting activity participation (e.g., debating, dance) was found to offset the risks associated with experiencing financial hardships. Participation in sports was not significantly related to any of our outcomes. Our data highlights how the provision of non-sporting activities may improve behavioral outcomes, especially among more financially disadvantaged adolescents.

Past research has established clear educational inequities between young people with disabilities and their peers. In part, some of these inequities may be attributed to expectations. In this study, we examined whether parental expectations were related to school functioning at high school, with school functioning broadly defined as ease and frequency of engagement in school-based activities. Using the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (N = 3,956; 48.9% female; 5.01% with disability), we examined parental expectations and school functioning measured at three time-points, biennially from the ages of 12 and 13 through to 16 and 17. A multigroup, parallel latent growth curve analysis revealed that high parental expectations at the first timepoint predicted steeper increases in the trajectory of school functioning over time, but only among young people with disability. Parental expectations did not significantly predict school functioning trajectories for the remainder of the sample. Subsequent multigroup analyses that compared disability characteristics revealed that learning difficulties and speech problems, in particular, were associated with lower parental expectations. These results suggest that the perceptions of parents in the lives of young people with disability are important and efforts to shape them may have long-term benefits.

Young people are encouraged to take responsibility for their educational outcomes by actively engaging in their education (their 'project-of-self'), but many also take responsibility for the care of family members who have serious health concerns (their 'project-of-family'). Drawing on the concepts of responsibilisation and neoliberal governance, and a feminist ethic of care, we aim to better understand how young people with care responsibilities navigate these dual projects. We use national survey data for young Australians aged 13-14 (N = 3,594) to compare boys' and girls' school engagement (projects-of-self) and caregiving for family members with serious health concerns (projects-of-family). Young people with family health concerns report low levels of school engagement. However, caregiving is associated with somewhat increased school engagement for girls, but not for boys. These findings suggest implicit gendered expectations of education systems which are more supportive of girls' than of boys' engagement in projects-of-family.

Background: Real life stories can enable audiences to empathise with the experiences of marginalised groups and communities and are extremely powerful tools in struggles for equality. High-quality documentary research can convey the life experiences of marginalised peoples in ways that are recognisable to them and which further their struggle for equality. Often, marginalised people are represented by 'filmmakers' eager to capitalise on the affect produced by detailed renditions of everyday political struggles. However, film-makers are rarely trained in how to empower participants to understand film-making and distribution processes. These understandings and dialogic processes are important if participants are to have a real say in how they are represented. Process: In 2011, Maya Newell and Charlotte Mars began to develop an observational feature documentary Gayby Baby (2015) focused on same-sex families, for the first time revealing the child's perspective on debates concerning Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer and their children's equality. They were interested in empowering participants to have a real say in the film. Jen Skattebol's family was one of the four families featured in the film. This shared activist experience grounds the authors' discussion of ethical care in representative practices. Discussion: Recently, documentary film-making and academic research has seen the emergence of a new value system that measures success in terms of 'impact' in the public sphere. This developing interest amplifies the ethical issues involved in representational work and raises new questions concerning the implications of subject participation in the development of resources that aim to improve health and well-being in broad political terms. This article sketches out the contours of a more ethical form of social impact making that grew out of kitchen table conversations between documentary subject and maker--the researched and researcher. Ethical frameworks of care need to be recalibrated in line with the issues foregrounded by burgeoning social impact agendas.

Existing policy research has not comprehensively examined the processes by which young people experience social exclusion: that is, the relationships among different risk factors for exclusion, their actual experiences of exclusion, and outcomes that matter for their life chances. Drawing on data from a survey of Australian 13-14 year olds (N=3,535), this paper adapts the Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix to examine pathways from young people's personal and family resources, their experience of participation (school engagement; bullying victimization; teacher support), and their life satisfaction – a predictive indicator of wellbeing and mental health in adulthood. The effects of other characteristics or risk factors for young people's social exclusion (living with disability, being a young carer, identifying as Indigenous, and speaking a language other than English at home), are also examined. This paper shows that experience of exclusion mediates the relationship between young people's personal and family resources and life satisfaction. Controlling for characteristics or risk factors does not change this relationship, suggesting that processes of social exclusion, enacted in interpersonal encounters, are driven by overarching structural factors. These findings are relevant for policy in Australia, and in other countries with similar policy regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focusses on the schooling stories of two young women who moved from mainstream schooling into alternative learning program set up for Indigenous students and back into mainstream schooling to complete their Year 12 education. The manner in which these young women narrated their stories is understood through the prism of Indigenous notions of relatedness and affect theory and is as revealing as the actual reporting of the events and rationales in these young women's schooling trajectories. Young people's insights into the challenges of mainstream pedagogies and promises of relational pedagogies invite us to consider what could be different in structures and processes which aim to deliver educational equity. We argue there is a need for more research which offers rich accounts of the emotional and relational fields which underpin student subjectivities and engagement.

The issue of who should be included and recognised as professionals in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) service system is both contested and pressing in the current policy climate. At stake is a high-quality early childhood care and education service system that is both responsive and appropriate to the constituency it serves. A review of the history of ECEC professionalism reveals complex entanglements and debates regarding professional belonging. Services that deliver education and care to children and families living in high poverty contexts are often excluded from ECEC professionalism debates. Drawing on notions of rationality, emotionality and criticality presented in recent accounts of ECEC professionalism, we use data collected from interviews with service providers delivering services to children and families living in high poverty contexts in Australia to develop an account of criticality that is pertinent to current funding and policy contexts. We argue that these service providers' perspectives about their own professionalism have much to offer broader debates.

Past research has demonstrated an association between financial hardships and risk-taking behaviors (defined as delinquent or transgressive acts). However, this effect may differ based upon the provision of protective spaces, like those offered in extracurricular activities. In the current study, we examined the longitudinal effect of financial hardships on risk-taking in a sample of Australian adolescents (N = 3,852). We found experiences of financial hardship at the age of 12/13 predicted higher risk-taking 2 years later. Further, a longitudinal indirect effect was observed, where financial hardships were associated with higher risk-taking 4 years later via increased exposure to risk-taking peers. Non-sporting activity participation (e.g., debating, dance) was found to offset the risks associated with experiencing financial hardships. Participation in sports was not significantly related to any of our outcomes. Our data highlights how the provision of non-sporting activities may improve behavioral outcomes, especially among more financially disadvantaged adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early childhood, the body is frequently used as a pedagogical reference point to establish, affirm and stabilize children's gendered and racialized identities. Through this naming of the body, identities are disciplined to fit the social expectations and norms that circulate in educational settings. This article uses data from a case study in an early childhood setting to show how material bodies are not only subject to disciplinary regimes but are also sites of agency for varied practices of embodiment. Embodiment, in this sense, functions as a technology of identity and social belonging rather than as a state of being. Finally, the "technologies of self" used by children presented certain dilemmas to teachers who wished to collaborate with children to establish inclusive communities and to respect children's agency. (Contains 1 table.)

Past research has established clear educational inequities between young people with disabilities and their peers. In part, some of these inequities may be attributed to expectations. In this study, we examined whether parental expectations were related to school functioning at high school, with school functioning broadly defined as ease and frequency of engagement in school-based activities. Using the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (N = 3,956; 48.9% female; 5.01% with disability), we examined parental expectations and school functioning measured at three time-points, biennially from the ages of 12 and 13 through to 16 and 17. A multigroup, parallel latent growth curve analysis revealed that high parental expectations at the first timepoint predicted steeper increases in the trajectory of school functioning over time, but only among young people with disability. Parental expectations did not significantly predict school functioning trajectories for the remainder of the sample. Subsequent multigroup analyses that compared disability characteristics revealed that learning difficulties and speech problems, in particular, were associated with lower parental expectations. These results suggest that the perceptions of parents in the lives of young people with disability are important and efforts to shape them may have long-term benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people are encouraged to take responsibility for their educational outcomes by actively engaging in their education (their 'project-of-self'), but many also take responsibility for the care of family members who have serious health concerns (their 'project-of-family'). Drawing on the concepts of responsibilisation and neoliberal governance, and a feminist ethic of care, we aim to better understand how young people with care responsibilities navigate these dual projects. We use national survey data for young Australians aged 13–14 (N = 3,594) to compare boys' and girls' school engagement (projects-of-self) and caregiving for family members with serious health concerns (projects-of-family). Young people with family health concerns report low levels of school engagement. However, caregiving is associated with somewhat increased school engagement for girls, but not for boys. These findings suggest implicit gendered expectations of education systems which are more supportive of girls' than of boys' engagement in projects-of-family. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2021.1947189. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The words we choose to describe alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatments and interventions reveal assumptions about how we understand AOD use. Moreover, they have important implications for how the treatment is imagined, implemented and funded. Service provision which follows engagement in an intensive (usually residential) program is often called 'aftercare' in the international AOD field. In this commentary, we argue that the term 'aftercare' fails to articulate the nature of ongoing care required by people who are managing AOD use. We maintain that 'aftercare' positions post‐residential care as being less important than other treatment modalities, rather than as integral to a continuum of care. It is a term that implies that care should be acute, like much treatment delivered through a medical model, and assumes that people follow linear pathways in managing their AOD use. Assumptions embedded in the term 'aftercare' such as these may disincline governments from funding ongoing services for people exiting intensive programs. Alternative terms including 'continuing coordinated care' more aptly signal the integrated and ongoing service provision that should be available to support people in sustaining changes initiated through other AOD interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that families facing financial adversity have low enrolment rates in early childhood education and care services. This paper reports on a study that utilised Nancy Fraser's theorising of social justice to analyse the approaches and practices of five centres in Australia with a reputation for doing inclusion well. Findings showed that five-fold interconnected 'E' strategies were utilised in the participating centres – Equity focus; Equip for inclusion; Entice participation; Enable access; and Engage families – and that these strategies embraced both transformative and affirmative approaches to social injustice. In the context of low-income families, inclusion as a social justice construct and practice is shown to be distinct from enrolment and attendance in ECEC services, requiring purposeful and sustained practices that in the absence of transformative inclusive government policy, is likely to continue to be the exception rather than the norm in mainstream services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people growing up in poverty often have restricted access to out-of-school enrichment activities that are important for generating the soft skills that support post-school transitions. This paper compares young Australians' accounts of their opportunity structures - their engagement with enrichment activities, their post-school aspirations, and their knowledge of routes to achieve them - in two suburb types - improver suburbs (close to the median on many indicators) and isolate suburbs (severely disadvantaged on most indicators). While young people in improver suburbs felt able to access facilities and networks in equally or more affluent neighbouring suburbs, young people in isolate suburbs felt excluded from neighbouring suburbs, and experienced more restricted opportunity structures than young people living in improver suburbs, even those who were themselves economically disadvantaged. The paper argues that this geographical experience of exclusion prevents many economically disadvantaged young people from accumulating knowledge and skills valued in post-school settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]