Objective analysis of good microdata on students can yield results that are highly relevant to educational policy. This should come as no surprise, since it is the case in most other disciplines. To learn…
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Politics + Society – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 13276 - 13300 of 13312 articles
Bashing planning has become a national sport, and in NSW, we’re the best at it. Stuck in traffic? Blame the planners. Housing stress? Planners are too slow and too stingy with land release. In the perception…
If you’re in politics, population matters. Rival studies on what constitutes a sustainable Australian population project wildly different statistics. But behind the figures are real people whose lives…
Australia prides itself on its attractiveness to tourists, but for many, to the eternal frustration of Melbourne, visiting Australia is synonymous with the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney Opera House. It…
What happens to the brain in a collision? A blow to the head can cause any form of damage to the brain. On the serious side, it can cause a large haemorrhage and damage to a large amount of brain tissue…
As you sit in your usual morning traffic jam, increasingly agitated, blood pressure flying, do you continually wonder “Why can’t they fix this mess?” Widen some roads. Build some new links. Improve the…
A consistent theme of the media coverage following the rebel campaign in Libya is its disorganisation. The news footage shows gaggles of unkempt men remonstrating passionately with each other over what…
Violent crime represents a tragedy on many different levels. After working in prisons for a few years I was convinced, as I think most of us would be, not only about the limitations of our response to…
Foundation Essay – In 1529 the great monasteries of England and the 400 smaller establishments had never looked so good. They were doubly protected, by universal belief and by their many material connections…
Can you imagine Prince William, on his visit to Australia, being gifted a specimen of uranium? That’s what happened to his grandfather Prince Philip on a Royal Tour during the first great age of Australian…
Australia is in danger of forgetting its past. The government is starving history projects of their funding. And we have until Friday to try to stop the total abolition of the crucial Making History initiative…
There is a quiet revolution taking place in teaching and learning languages, in both primary and secondary teaching. For years, most Australian schools have lagged behind those in other countries in the…
The unfolding Fukushima nuclear disaster has highlighted the weaknesses and dysfunctions inherent in Japan’s conventional corporate culture. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), now the center of…
The recent anti-carbon tax rally that took place in front of Parliament House was compared to a US Tea Party rally. It certainly reflected its tone and style. There was the same anti-government, anti-tax…
The decision by a US Federal Court judge last week to reject a $US125 million settlement between Google Books and the publishing industry allows authors to protect their copyright and prevents Google from…
The trite stuff to say about the NSW election would begin with phrases like “bloodletting” or “slaughter”. It would involve excessive attention to serial mismanagement (political and policy) and the decline…
The protests that have swept the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt from power, and brought much of the region to a halt as massive crowds take to the streets to demand political change, have been spectacular…
When a media proprietor such as Seven Network chairman Kerry Stokes describes newspapers as a “sunset industry”, it goes without saying that the future of the newspaper does not involve paper. Mr Stokes…
All the signs point to a landslide victory for Barry O’Farrell and the Liberal National coalition tomorrow. Premier Kristina Keneally’s popularity has plummeted with only 30 per cent of voters satisfied…
Foundation essay – “If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?” While slightly flippant, this comment by Albert Einstein captures the unpredictability of research beautifully…
Australia used to be one of the most tolerant places in the world. In the 1980s when the spectre of HIV and AIDS reached around the globe, the government funded campaigns to raise awareness of the virus…
NSW Labor is so detested that many inside and outside the party look back nostalgically to the leadership of that erudite policy thug Bob Carr. As Premier, he stirred-up anti-Muslim racism for electoral…
Many of the nation’s most pressing problems cannot be met by any one government acting alone. Reforms to health, the environment, education, Indigenous disadvantage, taxation, business regulation and water…
In any criticism of a social out-group such as Muslims in Australia there is another unstated message being communicated: that those criticisms do not apply to us. To berate Muslims for intolerance, militancy…
Foundation Essay – A democracy needs conversations that range broadly, find space for many voices, accept new information, explore unexpected ideas, allow people to reach a judgement about the issues that…