Current funded research projects

Funding Source: Australian Research Council (Linkage Learned Academies Special Projects)

Key RMIT Researchers: Sara Charlesworth

The project aims to exploit an opportunity provided by the Global Financial Crisis to assess impact of economic downturn. It has assembled an interdisciplinary team to study the effects of the severity of the downturn on family income and employment, non-market production, family functioning and child well-being in Australia, the U.S. and the U.K, using existing major data sets. The project's findings will improve the evidence base for formulation of policy, provide important evidence about different policy settings in aiding recovery, and allow for better targeting of welfare expenditure. It will also demonstrate the practical value of advances in social science knowledge and provide valuable training and opportunities for early and mid career scholars.

Funding Source: Australian Research Council (Discovery Grant)

Key RMIT Researchers: Sara Charlesworth

Sexual harassment remains a persistent workplace issue with significant social costs. The project will examine how to most effectively prevent sexual harassment and to reduce the impact of sexual harassment for individuals and organizations where it occurs. A comprehensive analysis will be undertaken, drawing on a longitudinal study of more than 100 'targets' of sexual harassment, interviews with a wide range of employers and external complaint handling bodies, and an analysis of formal and informal reports. The project outcomes will contribute to improved policy and practice in workplaces and human rights and assist other bodies to prevent and more effectively respond to sexual harassment.

Funding Source: Canadian Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council International Opportunities Fund

Key RMIT Researchers: Sara Charlesworth

The proposed research aims to extend a highly successful Canadian study of the NPSSinto the comparative international arena. It will invovle comparative, intensive case studies in three distinct countries with liberal welfare states, namely New Zealand, Australia and the UK. The research objectives are to: (1) investigate the local impacts of globalized models of restructuring across four liberal welfarestates; (2) clarify the local and national-level structural and policy changes behind the convergence and particularities in NPSS provision and working conditions in four liberal welfare state regimes; (3) investigate the links between emerging aspects of NPSS work under restructuring and growing problems within the NPSS across our sample; and (4) advance our theoretical understanding of the NPSS, in particular with regard to labour process theories, focusing on processes of gendering and racialisation.

Funding Source: Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant)

Key RMIT Researchers: Sara Charlesworth, Iain Campbell

Industry Partners: Workforce Victoria and Regional Development Victoria

Work/family balance is a focus of significant attention at the community, national and international level. This project will generate new knowledge about the ways in which employment regulation directly and indirectly impacts on employee work/family balance outcomes within different regional and industry contexts.

A growing body of research recognises the linkages between employment regulation and effects on child and parent well-being and health, labour force supply, and economic outcomes. However, little is known about how geographical location shapes work/family balance. The research will thus contribute to improved understandings and to better social policy at the local, state and federal levels.

Read more about the research project: A Regional Perspective on Work, Family and Community Balance in Victoria

Funding Source: Workforce Victoria

Key RMIT Researchers: Sara Charlesworth, Helen Lingard

Until recently, work-family research has taken place almost exclusively in stable organisational environments with repetitive processes and regular work patterns. Consequently little is known about work-family experiences in the type of project-based work that characterises work in construction. The scoping study will address two key questions:

• How do working hours, working time conditions and access to flexible work differ for construction industry employees in comparison to other employees in small (20 or fewer employees), medium (21-100 employees) and large enterprises (more than 100 employees)
• How does the dynamic nature of work within the construction industry impact on the work/life experiences of construction industry employees in SMEs and how do these experiences differ from those employed by larger construction companies and in SMEs in other industries?

Funding Source: Federal Office for Women

Key RMIT Researchers: Sara Charlesworth

This project draws primarily on targeted research conducted over a three month period in early 2010 to provide evidence-based commentary on what use was made of the opportunity to provide better jobs and improved gender equality in the recovery period following the GED. It aims to give voice to different individual women’s experience of the GED. To that end the focus is not only on job loss or cuts in shifts and hours, but also on the unexpected and unexamined effects of the recession of a wide range of different groups of women. The project explores the impact of the GED from the perspectives of the women themselves - as well as from the perspectives of different employers, unions and employer associations.

Funding Source: Australian Research Council (Discovery Grant)

Key RMIT Researchers: Suellen Murray

Domestic violence has significant costs to the community and this project will have national benefits by identifying effective policy directions. Through a combination of textual analysis and interviews with key policy makers, the research is documenting the history of public policy responses to domestic violence in Australia for the past 20 years and analysing the range of approaches and their implications over this time. The project will provide better understandings of the ways in which domestic violence policy has developed over time and, in doing so, provide assistance to state, territory and federal governments in formulating future policy in this area. Various peer-reviewed journal articles have been published from this research and a book will be published in 2011.

Funding Source: Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant)

Key RMIT Researchers: Suellen Murray

Industry Partner: Jobs Australia

This project, which is being undertaken with Industry Partner Jobs Australia, examines how welfare-to-work policies are experienced. The project aims to illuminate how incentives and obstacles are perceived; describe patterns of interdependency; and understand people’s discourses and values about welfare and obligation.

A book arising from the research will be published in 2011.

Funding Source: Australian Research Council (Discovery Grant)

Key RMIT Researchers: Adjunct Professor Judith Smart

This is an ARC-funded Linkage project , LP0883719 administered by the University of Melbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, in partnership with the National Council of Women of Australia. The National Council of Women of Australia was the principal force behind the exercise of mainstream Australian women’s political citizenship across most of the twentieth century. The absence of a comprehensive history of this important peak body is a gap in current understandings of Australian women’s activism. This project’s primary aim is to rewrite the history of Australian feminism to demonstrate the evolution of national identity and the exercise of gendered citizenship in mainstream organisations refracted through the NCWA. It is due for completion at the end of 2011.

Funding Source: Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant)

Key RMIT Researchers: Adjunct Professor Judith Smart

This is an ARC-funded Linkage project LP100200304 administered by the University of Melbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, in partnership with the Museum of Australian Democracy, National Library of Australia, National Archives of Australia, National Film and Sound Archive, National Foundation for Australian Women, Australian Nursing Federation, and eScholarshi REsearc Centre at the University of Melbourne.

The project promotes knowledge of women leaders in the past and present in a range of arenas, and disseminates its findings through the use of new technologies. The major outcomes will be at least 2 edited collections, a monograph and an eEncyclopedia. Smart and Swain are responsible for editing the encyclopedia and Smart is an editor of one of the collections. The project’s inclusiveness and breadth will extend awareness of the effectiveness of women’s leadership in many areas including Indigenous and migrant communities. By identifying the successful outcomes of women’s leadership, the project will offer young students and women from diverse backgrounds understanding of active female participation in politics, organisations and communities, and encouragement to exercise their capacities for agency and action. Findings will reach women’s advocacy groups including state and federal policy units.

Funding Source: Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant)

Key RMIT Researchers: Suellen Murray, Adjunct Professor Judith Smart

Industry Partner: Domestic Violence Victoria

Using a rich archive of source material and in-depth interviews, this project traces the unique history of the women’s refuge movement in Victoria, from its initiation in 1974 through to a period of significant change in 2004. The doctoral student, Jacqui Theobald, began work on the project in 2007. The research will make a substantial contribution to the body of knowledge concerned with the history of domestic violence and these longer term perspectives will be beneficial to future policy and program development. Jacqui will submit her thesis in 2011.

Funding Source: Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant)

Key RMIT Researchers: Chris Chamberlain, Guy Johnson

Industry Partner: The Salvation Army Crisis Services and HomeGround Services

Effective Interventions to assist homeless people depend upon understanding the reasons why people become homeless and how they exit from homelessness. This research investigates people’s pathways into and out of the homeless population, and explains why some individuals experience a short period of homelessness, whereas others remain homeless for a sustained period of time. The researchers examined 5526 case histories at two housing agencies in inner Melbourne, and gathered information on 4291 homeless people. The findings inform our knowledge about best practice and effective service delivery. The research will influence the thinking of policy makers and service providers for some years to come.

Funding Source: Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant)

Key RMIT Researchers: Chris Chamberlain, Guy Johnson

Industry partner: Sacred Heart Mission

This is a longitudinal study of formerly chronically homeless people who are residents in a supportive housing facility in inner Melbourne. It will interview 40 residents twice over a 12 month period, analysing what factors enable people who have been chronically homeless to maintain their housing. The project will provide vital information on the best ways to assist chronically homeless people to remain housed and to address their social exclusion. It will enable policy makers and service providers to identify appropriate housing configurations and to develop support programs that better assist the chronically homeless.

Funding Source: University of Melbourne (from Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant))

Key RMIT Researchers: Suellen Murray

Industry Partners: Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, Department of Human Services, VACCA and others

This research is considering the impact of access to care records on the construction of care leavers’ identity and their health and well-being. It is providing evidence of the significance of these records and documenting care leavers’ experiences of seeking access to their care records. The research aims to inform improvements in record keeping, access and release of care records.

Funding Source: Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs

Key RMIT Researchers: Chris Chamberlain

This study will investigate the social characteristics and housing situation of people living in caravan parks and boarding houses. The study will involve a telephone survey of all caravan parks across Victoria, a review of the data available through the Victorian Boarding House Inspectorate, and field visits to boarding houses and caravan parks in 50 localities. The research will provide up-to-date information on changes in boarding houses and caravan parks across Victoria and investigate the feasibility of a national study.

Funding Source: Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, The Salvation Army Crisis Services and HomeGround Services

Key RMIT Researchers: Chris Chamberlain, Guy Johnson

One of the headline goals in the Australian Government’s White paper, The Road Home, is to offer supported accommodation to all rough sleepers who want it by 2020. The Streets to Home program is being implemented in each jurisdiction in order to advance this objective. The program is designed to assist people who have been sleeping rough to make the transition to sustainable supported housing. In Victoria, a consortium consisting of HomeGround Services, The Salvation Army Adult Services and The Salvation Army Crisis Services have been funded for three years to assist approximately 300 chronically homeless people into stable, sustainable housing. This project will undertake the evaluation of the Streets to Home initiative in Victoria.

Funding Source: The Australian Learning and Teaching Council (formerly the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Limited)

Key RMIT Researchers: Helen Marshall

Endorsed by: The Australian Sociological Association (TASA).

The project aims to review and scope the key issues facing sociology education across the higher education sector. The key findings were that while sociology is widely taught it is not as widely publicised as it could be. The identity of the discipline is complex, and this poses a challenge for teaching. Teachers of sociology also face difficulties in the current environment of higher education. The project will provide an evidence-based foundation for future investigations and interventions to improve educational quality in the discipline

Findings were presented at the 2009 TASA Annual Conference and a report, Teaching Sociology in Australia: A Report to the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, was released at the Conference.

Funding Source: Inner South Community Health Service

Key RMIT Researchers: James Rowe

SHANTUSI - Surveying HIV and Need in the Unregulated Sex Industry - The SHANTUSI project was an action-research project that engaged with individuals in the unregulated sex industry to ascertain some understanding of levels of HIV as well as the broader notion of ‘need’ on the part of those involved. Field research was conducted over the course of 12 months and 145 individuals gave of their time and experiences to contribute to our understandings of the street-based sex market, migrant workers in the illicit sex market and individuals who negotiate the sale of sexual services via the internet.

While there were numerous key findings to emerge from SHANTUSI, the link between these findings was that those who are at risk of exposure to sexually transmissible disease and vulnerable to harm as a consequence of their involvement in the unregulated sex industry are not in such a position due to decisions or a ‘lifestyle choice’ they have made. Those whose lives are characterised by ill health, poverty, homelessness and drug dependence did not make ‘choices’ to survive by selling sex. Rather, their vulnerability is a result of inequality, disadvantage and abuse. Their lived experiences will only be addressed when policy recognises ‘involuntary’ involvement in the unregulated sex industry as a response to need.

Funding Source: City of Port Phillip

Key RMIT Researchers: James Rowe

Although the presence of St Kilda’s street sex workers has been the subject of numerous studies and reports, there has been very little detailed and independent research conducted on the experiences of residents who live in areas of high sex work activity. This consultation paper was written to provide an overview of the experiences of residents’ who live in the vicinity of street sex work activity and determine if more could be done to improve the livability of the St Kilda community. Because of the complexity of this issue, this project did not propose to find an ‘answer’ that met all parties expectations by addressing the problems associated with street sex work. Instead, the research sought to:

• Deliver detailed information on local residents’ perspectives to Council, police, State Government, street sex workers, health and welfare agencies and the broader community
• Collect data exclusively from residents;
• Provide a very respectful, confidential method of collecting detailed experiences from a range of residents who live in the streets where street sex workers solicit;
• Model a respectful and inclusive method of discussing difficult social issues;
• Explore some practical steps for improvement that may arise from the consulting residents

The project was coordinated and funded by the City of Port Phillip Council (CoPP).

Funding Source: Department of Health

Key RMIT Researchers: Yoland Wadsworth

The NEAR project was initiated in 2003 by the then Victorian Department of Human Services, Western Metropolitan Region as a workforce development project with a strong emphasis on reflective change-oriented practice.

The aim of the project has been to build the capacity of community health agencies to evaluate and report on their Integrated Health Promotion programming using strengthened narrative annual reporting. It is designed as a process to enable health promotion staff, practitioners, community members and management to have an increased opportunity to reflect upon their activities as part of annual work plan evaluation cycles. Unversity collaborators have worked with more than 70 lead staff and management through the NEAR pilot Phase 1, 2 and 3. The current Phase 4 evaluation has been completed in 2011.

Funding Source: Global Action Network Net (GAN-Net), USA

Key RMIT Researchers: Patricia Rogers

GAN-Net’s work focuses on innovation and further development of social innovations for scaling positive change in the world. This project is designed to broaden and deepen the range of rigorous methods and approaches to impact evaluation that are credible, readily accessible, and useable by those working in development. Patricia is one of the six expert writers engaged to produce a series of written inputs leading up to a peer-reviewed publication that consolidates the new generation of rigorous mixed-method approaches for impact planning and learning for development.

Funding Source: University of South Australia

Key RMIT Researchers: Patricia Rogers, Kaye Stevens

The project, funded by the Department of Health, South Australia, under its Strategic Health Research Program, is being led by Dr Margaret Cargo and Dr David Evans of the University of South Australia.

It aims to distil from published and grey literatures of interventions on the prevention of mental health difficulties and promotion of social and emotional well-being among Aboriginal children and youth, the relationship between the context in which these interventions are implemented, the mechanisms by which they work and the outcomes that are achieved; and to engage decision-makers and end-users from government and non-governmental agencies and institutions in the knowledge synthesis process to facilitate the timely and relevant translation and application of study findings into programs and policies. It uses a realist synthesis approach, which combines diverse evidence about effectiveness and the contexts in which particular causal mechanisms operate. This is the approach to evidence synthesis developed by Professor Ray Pawson who was a Visiting Professor at RMIT in 2007. Patricia was engaged to provide expert advice for the realist synthesis methodology for the project.

Funding Source: Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth

Key RMIT Researchers: Patricia Rogers, Kaye Stevens, Susana Gavidia-Payne, Jan Matthews

Collaborative seed funding from the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth supported a collaboration involving RMIT, The Benevolent Society, the Parenting Research Centre and the Centre for Community Child Health to develop a research agenda for building practice based evidence about parenting and early childhood interventions through program evaluation. A 2 day workshop brought together researchers and practitioners with a range of perspectives to explore evaluation issues in parenting and early childhood programs, to identify priorities for longer term and more in depth collaborative research and to identify opportunities for collaborative research to build capacity for learning from practice. Practice based evidence is important for: learning about how to effectively translate evidence into practice; identifying and understanding innovative approaches; taking into account the impact of family values and priorities; and identifying differential outcomes for sub-groups of program participants.