8-14 September 2025

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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.  

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? […]

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