Rob Watts

Co-Designing a Civics Curriculum: Young People, Democratic Deficit and Political Renewal in the EU.

Contemporary discussion of the ‘crisis in democracy’ displays a tendency to see young people as the problem because they are ‘apolitical’, ‘apathetic’ and ‘disengaged’, or point to deficiencies in institutions deemed responsible for civic education. This discussion normally comes as a prelude to calls for more civics education. This article points to a renewal of politics at the hands of young people relying on new media, and draws on evidence like survey research, case studies and action research projects. This political renewal is occurring largely in response to the assumption of political elites that a ‘politics-as-usual’ will suffice to address the major political challenges of our time. Against the assumption that teachers, curriculum experts and policy-makers already know what kinds of knowledge and skills students need to become good citizens, we make a case for co-designing a contemporary citizenship curriculum with young people to be used for the professional development of policy-makers. We argue that such an intervention is likely to have a salutary educational effect on policy-makers, influence how they see young people’s political engagement and how they set policy agendas. The article also canvasses the protocols such a project might observe.

Making numbers count: The birth of the census and racial government in Victoria, 1835-1840

In a context of a uncritical reliance by Australian historians on census data as a source of ‘historical evidence ‘, this paper argues that early colonial censuses played a key role in the processes of colonial dispossession of the Aborigines. Following Foucault, the paper argues that statistical measurement was to play a key role in establishing ‘racial government’. In the Port Phillip District in 1835–40, censuses became a central part of the governmentality used to mark the ‘progress’ of colonial ‘settlement’ and to trace out the unsettling of the Aboriginal peoples. The paper locates the impulses to ‘protect’ the Aborigines and to pursue the colonisation and dispossession of the Aborigines in the first decade of black‐white contact by the use of racialised censuses: the authoritative ones which counted only the people who counted, and separate policing censuses that kept count of the ‘natives’. In this way the central category, ‘the population’, apparently both neutral and objective, was available to be used complacently by later empiricist historians to track the development of colonial society and its economy. It could only be used in this way by forgetting that the numbers referred only to those people who counted, and were produced by those people who did the counting.

‘Cruel optimism’: a southern theory perspective on the European Union's Youth Strategy, 2008–2012

European Union youth policy since the 1990s has been ostensibly committed to enhancing the social participation of young people. This study explores the reliance of the 2009 European Union (EU) Youth Strategy on a combination of OECD ‘active society’ and human capital theory which seeks to increase educational participation rates in Europe with the goal of creating more and better opportunities for young people and to promote active citizenship, social inclusion and solidarity. The authors adopt a ‘southern theory’ perspective to open up a range of problems with the EU Youth Strategy which begins to indicate why, contrary to expectations, this policy has failed to ameliorate the increasing levels of youth unemployment, underemployment and child and youth poverty. The study concludes that the EU Youth Strategy has consolidated ‘a relation of cruel optimism’ when what is desired, in this case more education, has become an obstacle to human flourishing.

The mismeasurement of youth: why adolescent brain science is bad science

Medical imaging technology has been used since the 1990s to make claims about how adolescent brains are different to adult brains. In turn these differences have been used to explain what are said to be typical patterns of adolescent behaviour like risk taking, sensation seeking and intense peer interaction. This article critically assesses the scientific basis of the claims that link observations about adolescent brains to adolescent behaviour via a critical review of the current literature. It argues that use of visual evidence to support claims about structural or functional differences from adolescent brains relies on naïve epistemic assumptions. It argues that there is currently no evidence to warrant claims that there are typical predictable differences in brain structure or function among adolescents or to suggest that adolescent behaviour is different from adult behaviour. The science of adolescent brains is testimony more to the continuing appeal of scientism and its promotion of biological reductionism than to careful and reflexive scientific practice.

John Braithwaite and Crime, Shame and Reintegration: Some Reflections on Theory and Criminology

John Braithwaites ‘republican theory of criminology’ (1989) claims to offer a new general theory of crime, an account of ‘the good society’ and a set of policy prescriptions for effective crime control. Along the way he has spelt out a moral theory grounded in communitarianism, and refined his own version of a ‘progressive’ politics. This paper examines two central aspects of Braithwaites work. Given Braithwaites claim to say why ‘some kinds of individuals and some kinds of societies exhibit more crime’, the paper suggests his answers to this question and the adequacy of his notion of good social science are severely wanting. Braithwaites claim to be offering a theory of the moral shares with the Durkheimian tradition he draws on, a refusal of the moral. The contemporary praise accorded Braithwaites work is a sign both of intellectual desperation and of a pervasive nostalgia for a return to ‘community’ exemplified in the work of communitarians like Macintyre (1981) and Bellah (1985).

The Precarious Generation : A Political Economy of Young People

Many young people born since the early 1980s face unprecedented social and economic disadvantage. While they spend more time in education, even university graduates now find it difficult to access full-time work, find affordable decent housing or enjoy the economic security needed to start families. This book draws on the voices of young people to document their experiences in increasingly unequal societies like the USA, United Kingdom, France, Spain and Australia. While governments and experts refer to new technologies, globalisation and risk society to explain their plight, the authors maintain we need look no further than recent public policies adopted by governments wedded to advancing market capitalism to understand why this is happening. This book draws on a wealth of evidence including young peoples own stories to document how they are now faring in increasingly unequal societies like America, Britain, Australia, France and Spain. It points to systematic generational inequality as those born since 1980 become the first generation to have a lower standard of living than previous generations. While governments and experts typically explain this by referring to globalization, new technologies or young peoples deficits, the authors of this book offer a new political economy of generations which identifies the central role played by governments promoting neoliberal policies that exacerbate existing social inequalities based on age, ethnicity, gender and class. The book is a must read for social science students, human service workers and policy-makers and indeed for anyone interested in understanding the impact of government policy over the last 40 years on young people.

The Student Experience

Contemporary higher education in Britain, America, and Australia is synonymous with large numbers of students. Each of these countries now has a mass system of higher education. In America over 6,000 universities and colleges enrolled more than 20 million students in 2014, an increase of 30 percent from 2000. Some 70 percent of US high school students go on to higher education, the highest level of matriculation in the world. In Australia around 1.1 million domestic students were enrolled in higher education in 2014 along with 350,000 international students. In the United Kingdom in 2015 there were some 2.23 million university students, including 1.5 million studying for their first degree. The United States has a higher proportion of its population in university than the United Kingdom, which has the smallest proportion, but both are now mass university systems.

Continuing subversion of the children's court: A review of Victoria's new child protection laws 2014

This article describes and assesses the Children, Youth & Families Amendment (Permanent Care and Other Matters) Act 2014 passed into law in the last months of Victorias Napthine government just prior to its defeat in the 2014 state election. The article argues there are good reasons for concern about both the process and substance of the legislation. It is argued that this was an unusual legislative process marked by a relative absence of the lengthy process of consultation that normally precedes the introduction of important new legislation. The secrecy and intimidation characterising this process also did nothing to build public confidence let alone ensure good policymaking. It is also argued that while there were some important changes which kept faith with some recommendations made by the Protecting Victorias Vulnerable Children Inquiry established by the Baillieu government in 2011, the legislation made some quite problematic changes.

On ethics, the pursuit of knowledge, truth and status in the hallowed halls of academe

Advancement in academe is largely on the basis of research output; that is, refereed journal papers. This paper first explores pressures on academics, especially emerging researchers, when English is not a first language. We assess why, when faculty members rush to improve their station that they may elect to circumvent ethical protocols to accelerate their promotion and status. The resulting unethical behavior includes plagiarism and forms of duplication such as co-submission. Consideration is then given to the wider implications of both plagiarism and the theft of intellectual property, and the role these have played in the development of individuals, the university and society.

The Jargon Of Evaluation: Critical Considerations On The Baume Report

In the 1970s what can be called the “jargon of evaluation” has increasingly come to the fore within Australian social policy, social administration and even within welfare education. It has become part of the political currency of Frasers “New federalism” and of the Bailey Committee Reports. In professional welfare contexts agencies have been exhorted to carry out evaluation programmes, whilst many welfare courses include training in evaluation techniques.