Industry Funded Research
Centre for Multicultural Youth: Report
Investigators:
- Danny Ben-Moshe
- Anna Halafoff
- Yin Paradies
Partner Organisation: Centre for Multicultural Youth
Project Summary: This project will evaluate two new Centres for Multicultural Youth (CMY) offices established in Ballarat and Gippsland in regional Victoria from 2013-2016.It will assess how CMY's regional presence is contributing to the improving young people from migrant and refugee background’s participation in work, school, family and community and contributing to their sense of wellbeing and belonging. It will also investigate to what extent CMY's regional presence is contributing to the ability of local communities and services to manage and develop an inclusive environment for young people from diverse backgrounds. This project will contribute new knowledge and understanding regarding migrant and refugee youth participation in regional areas, in this way it will assist in improving social welfare and individual wellbeing of young people living in regional areas. It will also assist service providers in regional areas, including CMY and its partners, to understand the needs of migrant and refugee youth and to improve their service provisions. While focused on Ballarat and Gippsland, the findings of this project can also inform and improve service provision for youth from migrant and refugee backgrounds youth in other regional areas.
Impact and Experiences of Racism on the Health and Wellbeing of Young Australians
Investigators:
- Fethi Mansouri
- Michael Leach
Partner Organisation: The Foundation for Young Australians
Project Summary: This project responds to an identified need for Australian youth-focused research into experiences of racism for young people of Indigenous, migrant and refugee backgrounds. It will map out the experience of racism for these groups of young people and how this impacts on heath and wellbeing. The project will also investigate mainstream attitudes of young people in relation to key issues in contemporary race relations, such as cultural diversity, tolerance and privilege.
Investigator: Linda Hancock
Partner Organisation: Department of Infrastructure
Project Summary: TravelSmart partnership is a two year project between DU and the Department of Infrastructure. This is the first Victorian TravelSmart project to include a whole-of-community approach, including both staff and students on a university campus. As part of the project pre and post travel surveys will be conducted and sustainable transport maps of the campus and surrounds will be aimed especially to inform international and country students of transport options. The project, seen as enhancing the university's corporate social responsibility, will run awareness raising strategies aimed at more sustainable transport outcomes, with pre/post measures, surveys, traffic counts and evaluation.
Measuring Human Rights Knowledge and Understanding within the Victoria Police
Investigator: Brown
Partner Organisation: Victoria Police
Project Summary: This project (funded and being undertaken on behalf of Vic Police) requires preparation of a survey and subsequent report informed by the collection and analysis of quantitative data gathered from the survey of Victoria Police employees. This focuses on issues relevant to a valid and reliable assessment of the current patterns of knowledge and understanding of human rights principles across Victoria Police. The three main aims are: to assess knowledge of human rights principles within Victoria Police employees; to assess understanding of human rights principles within Victoria Police employees; to gauge the relevance and application to Victoria Police of human rights principles.
Reshaping Rural and Regional Urban Customer Attitude to Water Saving and Recycling across South West Victoria
Investigator:
- O'Toole
- Wallis
- Mitchell
Partner Organisations:
- Victorian Water trust
- ALCOA
Project Summary: This project investigates the adoption of water saving initiatives across the customer base of Wannon Water, including a significant rural component not previously investigated. Developing a detailed understanding of the attitudinal barriers to the adoption of water saving behaviours and the implementation of strategies targeted to those behaviours are the primary goals of this project. Through a participatory research process that involves researchers, water managers and the community the benefits of behaviours that reduce water demand and the barriers to adopting these behaviours will be investigated so that effective programs for water saving and recycling can be developed, tested, refined and implemented as part of Wannon Water's demand management program.
Investigator: Colin Long
Partner Organisation: Search Foundation (the inaugural Roger Coasts Labour History Research Grant)
Project Summary: This grant will fund a treatment for a TV documentary on the history of the Australian labour movement entitled "Workers Paradise?".
The Challenge of Managing Cultural Diversity in Education: The Case of Arab-Australian Youth
Partner Organisation: Scanlon Foundation
Project Summary: This project funded by the Scanlon Foundation (2004-2007) investigated the challenges posed by cultural diversity in multicultural schools. It focused specifically on students from Arabic-speaking background (ASB) attending secondary schools in the Northern and Western regions of Melbourne. The study assessed whether individual student's attitudes and the school's structures and pedagogical ideology impact upon ASB student's achievements. In using focus group discussions and attitudinal surveys, the study also tested the cultural appropriateness of such methodological procedures. The study is tested in order to determine the optimal social environments and interethnic relations needed to successfully fulfil the potential of multicultural education.
Measuring the Impact of Farm Forestry in Dairy Country in South West Victoria
Investigators: K O'Toole
Partner Organisation: Gardiner Foundation
Project Summary: The project is in partnership with Corangamite Shire, Corangamite Catchemnt Management Authority and Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority)
Ageing Workforce in a Multicultural Australia-is there an issue?
Investigator: Linda Hancock
Partner Organisation: Department of Workforce Relations
Local Government, Volunteering and Community Strengthening Project
Investigator: Sue Kenny
Partner Organisation: MAV- Municipal Association of Victoria
Project Summary: This joint research project between CCHR and the Municipal Association of Victoria investigates the changing nature of volunteering, considers how these developments can contribute to community strengthening, and seeks to identify the unique opportunities that this may present for local government both now and in the future. Also included will be research about the requisite enabling attitudes, structures and conditions that have the potential to facilitate a meaningful and sustainable approach to volunteering by local government so that Councils can foster community development and use existing resources to their best advantage.
Investigators:
- Baogang He
- Takashi Inoguchi
Partner Organisation: The Japan Foundation
Benchmarks for Community Access/ Denial to Key Life Areas and the Development of a Human Rights Assessment Tool for People with a Communication Disability
Investigators:
- Kenny
- Leach
- Owens
Partner Organisation: Communication Aid User Society (C.A.U.S.)
In search for Deliberative Democracy in China
Investigator: Baogang He
Partner Organisation: Ford Foundation
Project Summary: The theory of deliberative democracy has offered a new perspective on democratic practice: the use of reason
predominates, the force of the better argument is supposed to prevail over wealth and political influence. In the last
decade, many democratic theorists have undertaken the empirical study of deliberative institutions through several
experiments focusing on citizens' participation (Fishkin 1991, 1995; Ackerman and Fishkin 2004; Fung 2001,
2003). This project builds upon and extends those studies to investigate how deliberative institutions can be
designed and improved in the Chinese polity that combines both authoritarian and democratic elements. The project initiates a number of innovative experiments in which ordinary citizens will discuss debate and deliberate on
village issues, on how to spend the annual budget at Zeguo town, and on environmental issue in the city of
Wenling. Its practical aims are: to organize citizens to participate widely in the decision-making process and in
managing the community's public affairs; to empower citizens through improving and revising the existing
deliberative institutions, and thereby cultivate deliberative citizens and influence the rural governance. The project
will also organize an international workshop on deliberative democratic practice in Australia.
Online Forums and Citizen Participation in Australian Democracy
Investigator:
- Merkes
- Walsh
Partner Organisation: Australian Internet Domain Name Administrator Foundation Grant
Project Summary: Citizenship disengagement from conventional politics has prompted governments to seek other methods of encouraging participation. This project reviews the use of online policy consultation and discussion forums seeking to foster greater citizen participation in Australia. It will do this by evaluating the goals, expectations and delivery of four current governmental initiatives in the area. The project will compare each government's intentions for using online forums against the empirical outcomes. The project will also compare these outcomes with different normative models of democracy. In so doing, this project will contribute to an assessment of the limits and possibilities for online forums to improve the quality of Australian democracy.
Reinvigorating Multicultural Education in Culturally Pluralist Communities
Investigator: Fethi Mansouri
Partner Organisation: Scanlon Foundation
Project Summary: This project funded from 2005-2007 is an action research project that develops and trials a multi-tiered approach to effecting successful multicultural educational change in culturally diverse schools. The project aimed to increase students, particularly Arabic-speaking background students, positive educational outcomes, particularly retention rates and educational achievements.
Tracking What Works: Voluntary Activity, Community Strengthening and Local Government
Investigator: Sue Kenny
Partner Organisation: MAV-Municipal Association of Victoria
Mature Workers in a Multicultural Australia: Is there an issue?
Investigator: Linda Hancock
Partner Organisation: Commonwealth Department of Employment and Workforce Relations (DEWR) Scoping Study Grant
Local Government and the Challenges to Cultural Diversity
Investigator: Fethi Mansouri
Partner Organisation: City of Darebin
Investigator: Linda Hancock
Partner Organisation: Melbourne Community Foundation
Human Resource Managers and Diversity Management: How mature workers fare
Investigators:
- Linda Hancock
- Barbara
Partner Organisation:Australian Human Resource Institute
International Tertiary Students and Gambling
Investigator: Linda Hancock
Partner Organisation: Helen Macpherson Smith Trust
A Multi-Tiered Model for Diversity Management in Schools
Investigator: Fethi Mansouri
Partner Organisation: Brencorp Foundation
