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From May 2024, Victoria (Australia) will mandatorily raise the minimum house energy rating standards from 6 to 7 stars. However, the latest data shows that only 5.73% of new Victorian houses were designed beyond 7-star. While previous literature indicates the issue’s link to the compliance behaviour of building practitioners in the design phase, the underlying behavioural determinants are rarely explored. This study thus preliminarily examines building practitioners’ compliance behaviour with 7-star Australian house energy ratings and beyond.

Using a widely-applied method to initially examine an under-explored phenomenon, eight expert interviews were conducted with building practitioners, a state-level industry regulator and a leading national building energy policy researcher. The study triangulated the data with government-led research reports.

The experts indicate that most building practitioners involved in mainstream volume projects do not go for 7 stars, mainly due to perceived compliance costs and reliance on standardized designs. In contrast, those who work on custom projects are more willing to go beyond 7-star mostly due to the moral norms for a low-carbon environment. The experts further agree that four behavioural determinants (attitudes towards compliance, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and personal norms) co-shape building practitioners’ compliance behaviour. Interventions targeting these behavioural determinants are recommended for achieving 7 stars and beyond.

This study demonstrates the behavioural determinants that influence building practitioners’ compliance decisions, and offers insight regarding how far they will go to meet 7 stars. It can facilitate the transition to 7 stars by informing policymakers of customized interventions to trigger behaviour change.

This study aims to examine the outcome of an online project to inform preservice English language teachers regarding the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A qualitative research method was used to understand participants’ overall knowledge. In total, 30 preservice teachers were selected from a larger pool after considering their grade point averages, sex, university affiliations and geographical backgrounds to ensure a balanced distribution and diversity. Qualitative data were collected through written productions, video recordings and a postproject survey.

Findings revealed that preservice teachers deepened their understanding of SDGs and adopted a positive attitude toward SDGs while increasing their pedagogical awareness and knowledge of teaching English in response to SDGs. They also regarded literary texts as a valuable resource for teaching SDGs.

This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that literary works are valuable for educating preservice teachers on integrating SDGs. A detailed overview of the project and its outcomes can guide practitioners and teacher educators in integrating SDGs into their education programs and English language teaching.

Aesthetic labour explains how employees are required to look and sound the part in many contemporary workplaces. That such corporeality affects workers' employment prospects, including career progression, is now well documented in research. As such, it can result in employment discrimination based on physical features, more commonly known as ‘lookism’. However, very few jurisdictions proscribe lookism, and little is known about the efficacy of those that do. Based on archival research, this chapter examines the procedures and operation of physical features inclusion in an Equal Opportunity Act in one jurisdiction that does proscribe ‘lookism – the state of Victoria in Australia. As the first analysis of such laws, the chapter provides an important opportunity to assess the efficacy of legal attempts to address employment discrimination based on employee appearance. In so doing, it draws out lessons about the legal challenge to lookism.

This paper aims to examine the ways in which the criminal justice system has evolved to accommodate mental illness. Mental health courts are one such alternative; these courts actively seek rehabilitative and therapeutic outcomes for participants. However, current literature suggests that these courts are ineffective for offenders who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

The aim of the current inquiry was to determine the degree to which participation in the Assessment and Referral Court (ARC) List in the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria reduced re-offending rates for offenders diagnosed with BPD by providing a comparative analysis of pre and post ARC List offending.

The results of a two-year recidivism study suggest that successful completion of the ARC List reduces recidivism for 50% of offenders diagnosed with BPD.

To the authoring team’s knowledge, this is the second paper to explore the efficacy of the Assessment of Referral Court List (Magistrates’ Court of Victoria) in reducing recidivist behaviours for programme participants; however, it is the first paper to look specifically at the recidivist behaviours of participants of the Assessment of Referral Court List (Magistrates’ Court of Victoria) who have been diagnosed with BPD.

This chapter provides a brief overview of community sanctions in Australia and examines the extent to which McNeill’s analysis in Pervasive Punishment (2019) is applicable in the Australian context. Two key issues in the Australian context are, firstly, state and territory-level variations within a federal political structure, and secondly, disproportionate Indigenous imprisonment and community sanction rates and the generally destructive impact of the criminal legal system on Indigenous communities and peoples. The chapter argues that developing a better agonistic politics around community sanctions requires descending from the broad level of historical and sociological analysis to examine state and territory-level variations in judicial and correctional structures, histories and cultures. Further, that Australian community sanctions cannot be understood without a primary focus on the differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous rates, experiences and meaning. The key to addressing the destructive impact of criminal legal processes and practices on Indigenous peoples lies in developing Indigenous governance, empowerment, self-determination, sovereignty and nation-building. Two recent developments promoting Indigenous governance are examined: the Uluru Statement from the Heart and Justice Reinvestment projects initiated by First Nations communities, highlighting the importance of activism, contest and struggle by community organisations.

This chapter focuses on the heterogeneous pathways (including marital and cohabiting union and parenting histories) through which people navigate their family life courses from adolescence through mid-life, and their implications for union dissolution in middle and later life. The analyses draw on data (retrospective, cross-sectional) from the 2011 and 2017 Canadian General Social Surveys. The study sample includes individuals aged 50 and over (n = 14,547) who were in a union at age 50. Sequence analyses are used to identify the most common family life course trajectories among these individuals from adolescence through midlife (ages 15–50). Logistic regression analyses then address the implications of these trajectories for union dissolution in middle and later life (ages 50+). The results reveal four main family trajectories that characterize the earlier years of the adult life course: married with children, cohabiting with children, single or cohabiting without children, and married without children. These family trajectories, together with their level of complexity, play an important role in relation to both marital and cohabiting union dissolution outcomes in later life.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate public disclosures and accountability for government decision-making in the case of a major prison project delivered through a Public–Private Partnership (PPP) in the State of Victoria (Australia).

The study explores a unique case to provide insights into public disclosures for PPPs in a jurisdiction that is a recognised leader in PPP policy and practice. The analysis is theoretically framed by an understanding of neoliberalism and New Public Management, and draws on data from case-specific reporting, media reporting and public policy, to examine interconnections between accounting, public discourse and accountability.

The analysis shows how publicly available information relating to key government decisions routinely lacked supporting evidence or explanation, even though areas of subjectivity were recognised in public policy. Accounting was deployed numerically and discursively to present potentially contestable decisions as being based on common-sense “facts”. The implied “truth” status of government reporting is problematised by media disclosure of key issues absent from government disclosures.

Under neoliberalism, accountingisation can help depoliticise the public sphere and limit discourse by constructing ostensible “facts” in an inherently contestable arena. By contrast, democratic accountability requires public disclosures that infuse a critical dialogical public sphere.

The paper shows how neoliberalism can be embedded in public policies and institutional practices, and buttressed by the use of accounting. The analysis illuminates the persistence and “failing forward” character of neoliberalism, whereby crises are addressed through further neoliberalisation.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a transcript of a dialogue among literacy educators and researchers on the impact of generative aritficial intelligence (AI) in the field. In the spring of 2023, a lively conversation emerged on the National Council of Research on Language and Literacy (NCRLL)’s listserv. Stephanie initiated the conversation by sharing an op-ed she wrote for Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the rise of ChatGPT and similar generative AI platforms, moving beyond the general public’s concerns about student cheating and robot takeovers. NCRLL then convened a webinar of eight leading scholars in writing and literacies development, inspired by that listerv conversation and an organizational interest in promoting intergenerational collaboration among literacy scholars.

As former doctoral students of two of the panel participants, webinar facilitators Grace and Victoria positioned themselves primarily as learners about this topic and gathered questions from colleagues, P-16 practitioners and those outside the field of education to assess the concerns and wonderings that ChatGPT and generative AI have raised. The following webinar conversation was recorded on two different days due to scheduling conflicts. It has been merged and edited into one dialogue for coherence and convergence.

Panel participants raise a host of questions and issues that go beyond topics of ethics, morality and basic writing instruction. Furthermore, in dialogue with one another, they describe possibilities for meaningful pedagogy and critical literacy to ensure that generative AI is used for a socially just future for students. While the discussion addressed matters of pedagogy, definitions of literacy and the purpose of (literacy) education, other themes included a critique of capitalism; an interrogation of the systems of power and oppression involved in using generative AI; and the philosophical, ontological, ethical and practical life questions about being human.

This paper provides a glimpse into one of the first panel conversations about ChatGPT and generative AI in the field of literacy. Not only are the panel members respected scholars in the field, they are also former doctoral students and advisors of one another, thus positioning all involved as both learners and teachers of this new technology.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the findings from focus group interviews conducted with librarians and library staff, faculty and students. It highlights the significance of implementing inclusive teaching and culturally responsive strategies in instructional settings and interactions with library patrons and seeks to emphasize the importance of developing guidelines, best practices and effective strategies.

Using focus groups, this study interviewed librarians and library staff, faculty and students. This research approach identified, reviewed and assessed existing programs and practices in instruction and library interactions.

The findings from this paper indicate that while faculty and librarians are making individual efforts to promote inclusivity in teaching and interacting with patrons, many participants expressed the necessity for institutional-level training, guidelines and good practices on how to achieve and implement culturally responsive and inclusive teaching strategies.

The methodology utilized in this study can be adapted by other libraries or institutions aiming to explore the practice of inclusive pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching within their own context. The insights from the study inform the development of strategies that librarians, faculty and staff can employ to integrate inclusive and culturally responsive teaching into their instruction and services for the wider academic community.