Our research
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Work, home and community study
Centre for Work + Life
This project is examining how new housing developments are succeeding in meeting residents' work, housing, services and community needs. The study compares high and low socioeconomic urban sites and studies men, women and children.
The project examines how South Australians, and Australians more broadly, are 'putting together' their changing work, housing, services and communities, how workers and residents see the relationship between these elements, and what kinds of spatial alignments they need and are best facilitated by all tiers of government, employers, urban developers, community services and organisations.
The project investigates six pivotal questions:
1. What do workers and those they live with seek from their work, homes and
communities?
2. What kinds of relationships do they seek between their workplaces, homes
and communities?
3. How do workers and families build their communities and sustain and strengthen
their social fabric?
4. Are these relationships and communities sustainable?
5. What can be learned from experiences elsewhere?
6. What are the policy implications of the analysis for different levels and
elements of government, as well as for employers, unions and community organisations?
Key researchers: Professor Barbara Pocock, Dr Pip Williams.
Playing for life
School of Communication, Information and New Media
Based in Australia with partners in the UK, US and Germany, Playing for Life is the first comparative international project to explore the everyday music cultures of disadvantaged or marginalised youth and the impact of global music industries on their lives. It is an international, cross-cultural three-year research project funded by the Australian Research Council from 2003 through 2005.
Playing for Life’s central premise is that popular music is globally acknowledged as affectively and culturally central to marginalised youth, often providing strategic pathways to employment and socio-economic inclusion. Previous studies have shown that music itself is central to Australia's cultural identity and to its night-time economy contributing to its leisure, hospitality, entertainment and tourism industries. Yet its strategic potential in underpinning cultural cohesion and sustaining community development has been grossly under-realised by Australian government agencies and social policy developers.
The project links Australian and transnational imperatives, investigating social and cultural sustainability, community and individual health, youth resilience, and the emerging patterns of new communications technology use. It is designed to deliver significant social and economic outcomes, such as a corpus of published documentation on youth music production and consumption practices, and the effective learning strategies used by marginalised youth. Both of these address the differential outcomes of achievement, education and employment of young people.
Visit the project's website and SBS's profile of the project so far.
Key researchers: Associate Professor Gerry Bloustien, Dr Margaret Peters.
Sleep deprivation and performance
Centre for Sleep Research
While much is now known about the processes of sleep and sleep loss, less is known about the way we recover from periods of sleep deprivation. This is particularly the case when our opportunities to obtain quality recovery sleep are less than optimal. One Centre for Sleep Research project aims to develop a better understanding of the dynamics of the recovery process, while a second study is examining the benefits that can be gained from naps of different lengths, measured in terms of performance and alertness, and their effects on subsequent daytime sleep. These studies therefore address factors and issues that hold significant implications for workplace productivity and safety, particularly in the context of shiftwork and twenty-four hour industry.
Key researchers: Dr Sally Ferguson, Dr Greg Roach, Dr Nicole Lamond, Dr Jill Dorrian, Sarah Jay.
Connecting lives and learning
Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures
The Connecting Lives and Learning project has brought together teachers from ten northern suburbs schools and researchers from the Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures, HRISS to address challenges such as student disengagement, poor attendance and early school leaving. It is a joint initiative of the Australian Education Union, UniSA, the Northern Areas State Secondary Schools Network, the Social Inclusion Unit and the Australian Research Council. The project focuses on middle schooling, with a commitment to value the lives and interests of students as a resource, and to produce a challenging curriculum that provides students with more life options and opportunities for success.
Early findings have shown that students' engagement and attendance often improve when teachers consciously work to connect students' lives and learning. The researchers will continue to work with teachers to help them to build strong learning relationships with students, and to make learning simultaneously intellectually demanding, relevant and fun.
Key researchers: Associate Professor Robert Hattam, Associate Professor Phil Cormack, Professor Barbara Comber, Professor Marie Brennan, Dr. Lew Zipin, Professor Alan Reid, Dr Kathy Paige, Dr David Lloyd, Associate Professor Helen Nixon, Mr Bill Lucas, Dr John Walsh, Dr Faye McCallum and Dr Brenton Prosser.
Using digital storytelling to explore how adolescents seek help
School of Psychology
Through the interpretation of adolescents' digital stories, this project is aimed at developing our understanding of how adolescents seek help. Ultimately, this project also seeks to contribute to the development of a multimedia package that can be used in both educational and counselling settings to enable helpers to reflect on their own practices. The package will inform young people about an array of support services available online, person to person or via the telephone.
Preliminary findings suggest that female adolescent participants prefer to seek help from informal sources such as friends and family. Further indications are that the young women have a general tendency to be hesitant in relation to seeking help from school and out of school help providers. The unique and creative digital stories created for this project offer insights into the issues facing young people, and the barriers for seeking help and the qualities young people look for in a helper.
Key researcher: Nadia Lovett
Supporting VET providers in building capability for the future
Centre for Research in Education, Equity and Work
This national Research Consortium is working together to build the workforce capability and professional standing of the VET workforce, focusing on three areas of workforce development that together build organisational capability: people, cultures and practices. Funded by the Department of Education, Science and Training and managed by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, the Consortium’s work is aimed at supporting RTOs, of all types, in building their capability for the future.
The research program has been designed to build upon the existing body of knowledge
by providing soundly based evaluations and evidence on the evolving dynamics
of the VET workforce and of the cultures and practices needed so that this workforce
might be more adequately prepared to respond rapidly and effectively to emerging
changes.
It also involves active collaboration with a variety of RTOs, key informants
and practitioners from a wide range of VET providers and stakeholder groups.
The researchers recognise that a single, homogeneous approach to developing
the capability of RTOs is neither possible nor desirable in our highly-diversified
Australian context.
Key researchers: Professor Roger Harris, Associate Professor Michele Simons.