Superdiversity – an emerging field

ASPA and SPRC present Professor Jenny Phillimore – 10 August 2015, UNSW. The emergence of superdiversity in industrialised countries has led to unprecedented population complexity, with associated challenges for delivering social welfare. In her upcoming seminar, Professor Jenny Phillimore, who is the Director of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) at the University of […]

This month’s featured research

Who you know or where you go? The role of formal and informal networks in finding employment and maintaining wellbeing. Chief investigators for the first Australian study to consider the role of formal policy networks and informal social networks in finding employment and maintaining well-being – Assoc Prof Gaby Ramia (University of Sydney), Prof Greg […]

Adam Graycar smiling

Welcome to ASPA eNews

Debates about wellbeing in our society are always lively, especially as greater wealth and greater inequality sit side by side. As the capacity and willingness of community and government to provide support and invest in social sustainability ebbs and flows, members of the Australian Social Policy Association (ASPA) are exceptionally well placed, not only to […]

photo of smiling Mary Ann O Loughlin

Occasional lecture both stimulating and provocative

Over 70 people from diverse backgrounds including the public sector, academia, consulting firms and NGOs were privileged to hear Mary Ann O’Loughlin’s stimulating and provocative lecture at ANU last month. Drawing on her extensive social policy experience in diverse roles and organisations, Mary Ann addressed the question of why, despite decades of action, have we […]

AJSI celebrates major milestone

To commemorate the 50th anniversary volume of the Australian Journal of Social Issues ASPA has created the Peter Saunders prize for the best paper published in the journal in a calendar year. The inaugural prize will be awarded at the Australian Social Policy Conference to be hosted in Sydney in September. See next month’s aspa […]

Photo of Guy Standing delivering lecture

ASPA part of Big Ideas in Sydney

Around 150 people attended a public lecture co-presented by ASPA as part of the University of Sydney’s Big Ideas series last month, where Professor Guy Standing spoke about his new book, A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens. Conference keynotes Standing, who is Professor of Development Studies at the University of London’s School of Oriental […]

Photo of lap-top computer screen with ASPA branding

Seminar focus on domestic violence

ASPA is co-presenting ‘Behind the wall’ – a research to practice seminar on domestic violence, Friday 24 April at the Australian Centre for Community Services Research, Flinders University, Adelaide. Speakers include internationally renowned professors Catherine Donovan from the University of Sunderland in England and Margareta Hyden from Linkoping University in Sweden. Referencing Tracy Chapman’s 1988 […]

Image of book cover market rights and power

Marketisation – a complex and disturbing trend

University of Sydney’s Professor Gabrielle Meagher has co-edited a new book – one that reveals marketisation as a complex and disturbing trend in Australian social policy. Published by Sydney University Press, Markets, rights and power in Australian social policy explores marketisation using case studies from community aged care, schooling, migrant skills assessment, retirement incomes, health […]

Move to Macquarie for Prof Meagher

In July Gabrielle Meagher takes up a new role as professor at Macquarie University’s sociology department. She is currently professor of social policy at the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Education and Social Work.

UK database offers one month’s free subscription

The UK Social Policy & Practice database has enhanced its coverage of child research with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children merging its bibliographic database this month. The database was first created in 2005 when the original five UK agencies – each specialists in seeking out high quality reports and research […]