As student voice has become popularised as a school reform strategy, it has been critiqued as another instrumental strategy that schools may use to govern students' speech, bodies and subjectivities. What necessitates further analysis is the relation between student voice and regulatory modes of governance entwined with geopolitical attention to…

Objective: School-based prevention interventions informed by the World Health Organization Health Promoting School (HPS) framework aim to improve the health and wellbeing of school-aged children, yet few studies describe factors influencing the successful implementation of this framework in secondary schools. This study sought to explore why and…

The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a…

Soon after it came to power in 2008, the Australian Government adopted six key targets relating to life expectancy, infant mortality, education and employment in its policy "Closing the Gap on Indigenous disadvantage". As it became apparent in 2011 that these targets were not being met, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, in her annual…

Health care systems worldwide are experiencing similar pressures such as rising cost, aging populations, and increased burden of disease. While policy makers in all countries face these challenges, their responses must consider local pressures, particularly the implicit social contract between the state, medicine, and insurers. We argue that…

Trade in Australian education services has expanded rapidly over recent years. The sector is the third largest exporter of Australian services. In 2001-2002, exports of education were about $A 4.2 billion. Government assistance to the sector includes export market development, regulation of education standards, and funding education activities;…

Recognising that there is now a globalised educational discourse about "failing boys" circulating in the privileged nations of the global north, this article provides a comparative perspective on educational policy responses to the "boy turn" in Australia and Iceland. Specificities of the responses to the boy turn in the two…

Intervention in vocational education and training by the federal level of government in Australia (the Commonwealth) expanded exponentially in the last quarter of the 20th century, after halting and intermittent involvement in earlier decades. Such intervention in a field of public policy once considered the exclusive preserve of the States…

Drawing on records of parliamentary debates, this paper investigates the first Commonwealth intervention in schooling. It reveals that compulsory provisions associated with formal schooling were employed to support a policy of compelling boys to undertake training. It shows how military training was positioned as a neglected aspect of ordinary…

In his 2007 PESA keynote address, Paul Smeyers discussed the increasing regulation of child-rearing through government intervention and the generation of "experts", citing particular examples from Europe where cases of childhood obesity and parental neglect have stirred public opinion and political debate. In his paper…

The article reviews the history of special education in Australia over the last 30 years and identifies issues including the efficacy of early intervention programs, legislation and other governmental acts, the move to integration, attitudes toward integration, and establishment of a multidisciplinary center providing training, resource, and…

This report presents procedures for national mental health that involve many levels of government and draws advice from a range of professional organizations. Due to the enormous impact of depression on the social, human, economic, and public health costs to Australians and the Australian government, this initiative focuses efforts on dealing with…

Ten papers address issues in preparing disabled students for life after school. The Education Standing Committee of the New South Wales Advisory Council on the Handicapped collected the papers as a way of contributing to the International Year of Disabled Persons. "The Parent's Role in the Life of a Child with a Disability" (N. Rigby)…