Dr. Elizabeth Taylor is an Australian scholar, working as an Urban Studies Post-doctoral Research Fellow. She is also a blogger, musician and Radio Broadcaster with 3 RRR program, “The Urbanists.” Here she discusses the difficulties of academia in comparison to the work of being a musician. The interview is conducted by Australian sociologist Dr Sheree Gregory.
Continue reading “The Academic Musician”Same sex marriages have been talking place in the Australian Capital Territory, the first Australian state or territory to legalise non-heterosexual marriage. Continue reading Marriage Equality in Canberra
I’ve been doing a visual sociology of the Western Suburbs of Melbourne via Instagram, which is why I loved this story from early November. The Western Sydney suburb of Granville had been hosting a bus tour highlighting the cultural diversity of Sydney’s architecture.
Continue reading “Cultural Architecture of Western Sydney”
Social policy makers need ongoing research into the social behaviour of crowds. This is partly about urban planning, such as management of landscapes, improving infrastructure, decreasing traffic congestion and so on. Governments also need to understand crowd behaviour because local communities need to improve social service delivery.
Continue reading “Social Science of Crowds”Tides of people follow social norms of respectful admiration after La Sylphide ballet performance at the Arts Centre Melbourne Australia. There are certain times during a ballet when you’re supposed to clap and not necessarily after a long pause in … Continue reading Sociology of a Crowd
The New South Wales Court of Appeal ruled that people do not have to be officially registered as male or female, after Sydney activist ‘Norrie’ (below) contested this law. The judges panel ruled “as a matter of construction … the word sex does not bear a binary meaning of ‘male’ or ‘female.’” This means that transgender, intersex and other queer-identified Australians are no longer forced to fit themselves into a narrow gender binary.
Continue reading “NSW Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages vs Norrie”
Today’s post provides an overview of the key personality types that are used in management training and in team building exercises. I will then talk about some of the limitations of applying personality types too strictly within organisations. I’ll discuss how managers and leaders can adopt a more flexible model of personality types to improve how their team members communicate with one another, which in turn will boost their team contributions at work.
Continue reading “Making the Most of Communication Styles Within Business”
On Sociology at Work, a not-for-profit that I run, Scott Burrows writes about his work addressing youth unemployment in picturesque Illawara, in regional New South Wales, Australia. Scott works a sociologist and research consultant for private industry.
Continue reading “Research Consultancy to Improve Civic Participation”
The Conversation recently featured a new study that finds that Aboriginal people who are incarcerated are in dire need of mental health support services. Aboriginal people make up 26 percent of the prison population in Australia, despite the fact that they comprise less than three percent of the general population.
Continue reading “Aboriginal People, Incarceration and Mental Health”
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