An informal research project with high local relevance was developed for a first-year sociology course at an Australian rural university campus. The project developed students' sociological insight by challenging them to investigate "truths" about their own region, rather than immediately pushing them to comprehend new and different…

This paper offers a preliminary exploration of Connell's idea of southern theory and its potential application to career development. Four assumptions of metropolitan (northern) social theory are described: (a) the claim of universality, (b) reading from the centre, (c) gestures of exclusion, and (d) grand erasure. These assumptions are…