8-14 September 2025

Sign up
Sign up
Find an event

Events

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today
All Day

Addressing sensitive issues in the classroom

Recorded session

Queensland University of Technology  Recorded session – available anytime  Teachers cannot ignore sensitive issues. They may be circulating in the community or be part of the curriculum. For example, issues related to consent education, the Voice referendum, wars in foreign lands, climate change, nuclear power, religious discrimination and exemptions for schools, marriage equality, migration, refugees and social media influencer content can all make their ways into the classroom.  How should teachers respond: Is it best to ignore issues raised if they are not part of the curriculum? Should teachers say where they stand on particular topics? Can shutting down some debates protect vulnerable students? Does the raising of issues provide important teachable moments about engaging in civil discourse? Are there some topics which should never be discussed in the classroom? How do we determine age-appropriateness for some topics?  These and other questions were discussed at a recent Q&A panel consisting of academics from QUT’s School of Teacher Education and Leadership and experienced educators working in and with schools.   In this recorded session our panel explores ways to respond to and engage students when sensitive issues are raised in the classroom.  

Stop a Scam, Share a Story

Recorded session

Fraud affects millions of victims worldwide. However, there are many myths and misconceptions about fraud victimisation as well as negative stereotypes about who is involved. In a bid to challenge this, there are many victims who bravely share their own personal stories of financial and emotional betrayal.  In this recorded session we discuss media representations of victims, with a focus on romance fraud. Panellists, Stephanie and Tracy, share their own experiences of deception, while Cassandra, Laura and Phoebe share insights from their research into this area. The discussion provides insights into how offenders operate and manipulate their victims and showcases the reality and extent of their deception. Importantly, the discussion focusses on how media narratives of victimisation can help or hinder support of those involved. It also covers what to look out for to prevent it from happening to ourselves and our loved ones, and what can be done to better respond to this growing type of victimisation. 

Social Science Community for the Great Barrier Reef Symposium 2024

Hybrid: Griffith University Gold Coast Campus + Online 1 Parkland Drive, Southport

Social Science Community for the Great Barrier Reef Symposium 2024 Reimagining Reef Futures: Stories of Creativity, Cooperation, and Courage REGISTRATIONS NOW OPEN! The Social Science Community for the Great Barrier Reef (SSCR) Symposium 2024 is proudly hosted by Griffith University and held at the Gold Coast Campus. This three-day event will be running from 11th to 13th September 2024. This year, the Symposium will be held over three days - you have the option to attend any or all the days. This is a free event, led by The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (The Reef Authority), supported by our sponsors, and enabled by a dedicated and diverse group of Reef social scientists. For further program information including our wonderful keynote presentations, please visit our website. Register below to attend SSCR2024. SSCR Symposium 2024 (griffith.edu.au) Looking forward to seeing you there!  

Free
Ongoing

Making a Difference: How Does Social Change Happen?

Recorded session

Recorded session - available on demand Policymakers confront growing challenges in areas as diverse—and often interrelated—as climate change, social inequality, artificial intelligence, work, migration, declining biodiversity, and new threats to public health. Responses require changes or modifications to deeply entrenched social and economic structures. Consequently, reform attempts often generate conflict and resistance from those with a real or perceived interest in those structures. How can such conflict be managed to deliver urgently needed reforms? This question is central to social scientists, whose work is vital to both the implementation of effective policy, and to understanding the societal implications of policy choices. A panel of six leading social scientists analysed foundations and strategies of policy change in their areas of expertise—including some of the biggest, most difficult and pressing global and national challenges. This panel highlighted the breadth, diversity, and interrelationships within and between, social scientific and other disciplines, and their central importance to addressing these challenges. Each panellist addressed three thematic questions: What is the central conflict or problem inherent to their research topic? How can this be managed or overcome? What skills or insights enable social science to make a difference to public policy—and debate thereof—in their research field? […]

First Nations Research at Swinburne and Beyond – Enabling Ethical Research Across Continents

Hybrid

This panel event provides an opportunity for participants to hear from research active scholars in Swinburne University, Australia and from Umea University, Sweden about a range of initiatives and current research activities they relate to that focus on First Nations values and priorities.  Each short presentation will follow with an interactive time for discussion.  Presenters share a range of research methodology and methods across various academic disciplinary areas, showcase some First Nations Research practices, and flag ways in which First Nations Australians are strengthening their existing social research interests through networking and collaboration.

Climate contestation: mobilisations, intersections, possibilities

Virtual

UTS Global Goals Month and ASSA Social Sciences Week 2024 UTS Annual Andrew Jakubowicz Lecture Climate contestation: mobilisations, intersections, possibilities Friday 13 September 12noon-130pm Online event, free registration: here With advancing climate change there are new convergences, both against climate action and for it. What intersectional alignments emerge? How does this shift politics, local and transnational? What barriers and possibilities are created? This Social Science Week Roundtable reflects on the state-of-play as society responds to climate disruption. Chair: Chris Ho (UTS) Presenters: James Goodman (UTS) - Is society 'climatizing'? Heidi Norman (UNSW) - Indigenous Peoples and climate change Priya Pillai (UTS/ASAR) - View from India - Global South climate justice Jon Marshall (UTS) - The conservatives: anti-renewables and the nuclear lobby Michelle Catanzaro (WSU) - Youth climate protest Julia Scott-Stevenson (UTS) - Diverse imagination and climate futures Discussant: Andrew Jakubowicz (UTS) There will be short contributions followed by Chair-moderated discussion. The forum will be in zoom meeting room format to allow participants to directly contribute. The meeting will be recorded and edited to publish on UTS Central News. Hosted by Social and Political Sciences discipline, FASS UTS, with the Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre (CSERC). Further info: James Goodman, james.goodman@uts.edu.au

Free

Corporations, Markets and Climate Change: Opposition or Opportunities?

Room 650, Social Sciences Building, University of Sydney Science Road, Camperdown

Corporations and capitalism are often blamed for environmental problems, and on climate change we are often told that there needs to be a ‘balance’ between economic and environmental outcomes.  This suggests they are mutually contradictory, and therefore that the environmental damage resulting from economic imperatives must somehow be accommodated.  On the other hand, there is enormous potential for business to drive the solutions necessary for decarbonising our economy given the economic motivators to do so through markets.  One reason why this is not stressed as much as it could be is that those benefitting from the status quo are in a position to politically frustrate the changes necessary, while for often ideological reasons others believe that the government must take the lead.  The presenters on this panel tease out the opposition and opportunities involved in such debates. Speakers: John Mikler (Chair) and Imogen Ryan: Gaslighting Australia: The Instrumental Power of Australia’s Mining and Energy Industries John Mikler is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He researches corporations' relations with states, civil society and international organisations, as well as how they are political actors in their own right. He has published […]

Free

Caroline E Schuster: Tech for good? Anthropology and the quest for ‘ground-truths’ after weather disasters

Macquarie University 25 Wally's Walk, North Ryde

This August, South America experienced a deadly heat wave, topping 40˚C in the middle of winter. Flash flooding, wildfires, and oceanic waterspouts are just some examples of what we might call ‘global weirding’ – weird, extreme weather events are becoming the norm.​​​ Many areas, including here in Australia, are at risk of becoming uninsurable. This talk explores new technology that is promising a financial safety net for vulnerable communities who are dealing with these environmental perils. Parametric insurance uses remote sensing technologies, weather stations, and state of the art climate models, to link policies to the weather itself – if a drought strikes, the insurance pays. And yet for all of their technological sophistication, do these novel financial arrangements actually work for the small family farms they cover? Taking an anthropological approach means we can ask hard questions about competing views of what the “ground-truth” is, how damage is measured, and who is ultimately responsible for making life liveable in increasingly unknowable and unrecognisable environments. Caroline E. Schuster is an Associate Professor in economic anthropology at the Australian National University. Her most recent book, Forecasts: a story of weather and finance at the edge of disaster (2023, University of Toronto […]

Free

Design Thinking in Correctional Settings?

Building 80, Level 8, Room 080.08.010 435-457 Swanston St, Melbourne

This seminar presents a collaborative cross-disciplinary project between Beyond the Stone Walls Advisory Collective (BSWAC), Corrections Victoria and RMIT. Mr Hisham Attia of College of Vocational Education, and Dr Marietta Martinovic of College of Design and Social Context, both at RMIT, employed design thinking to a project within a correctional setting - Improving offender reception process at a prison. We discuss the journey of this project and its outcomes. The feedback from Corrections Victoria was that it was ‘impressive,’ ‘ground-breaking,’ and that they ‘loved the thoughtfulness and considerations of each suggestion.’