Output list
Book chapter
Slow Dancing in a Microsoft Teams Room: A Sociology of Leadership in the Age of Geographic Dispersal
Published 2025
Organizational Sociology in the Digital Age, 21 - 36
This chapter comprises a comprehensive analysis of pertinent literature on leading geographically dispersed teams (GDTs), in particular, those working at Australian universities in the post-COVID era. The study seeks to understand the unique challenges faced by leaders whose teams operate geographically dispersed by choice and, where relevant, offers solutions to these challenges for those leading GDTs. The central finding is that successfully leading GDTs requires awareness of – and attendance to – an ‘Effective Leadership Triad', comprising the tenets of (1) Building Trust, (2) Getting the Communications Right, and (3) Privileging Distributed Leadership. We explore the implications of this review for current and emerging leaders in the tertiary education sector.
Journal article
Published 2024
Journal of applied learning and teaching, 7, 2, 1 - 14
This study investigates the transformation in student knowledge pertaining to the study area of ‘data analytics’, and the building of confidence, specifically in non-STEM students, to analyse, interpret, manipulate, and present data to a range of stakeholders using Microsoft Excel. The context of the study is a newly developed, centrally delivered undergraduate data analytics unit, within which a pre-and post-course survey was embedded. These surveys were administered to students across three separate semesters: S2 2022, S1 2023, and S2 2023. The confidence of both non-STEM and STEM students in conducting data analysis was captured. The findings indicate that students benefit from an immersive curriculum where they are exposed to both an understanding of data analytics in a broad global and social context, characterised by rapid technological change, as well as opportunities to master technical skills utilised through Microsoft Excel. The results demystify the notion that non-STEM students are less capable of expanding their depth of knowledge and technological skill development outside their discipline of choice. These results are important in the context of graduate employability and the importance of digital literacy in a rapidly changing world of work.
Book chapter
The History of Unreason: Social Construction of Mental Illness
Published 2021
Research Anthology on Mental Health Stigma, Education, and Treatment, 1 - 19
This chapter reflects on the importance of the historical narrative of mental illness, arguing that Western countries have sought new ways to confine the mentally ill in the post-asylum era, namely through the effects of stigma and medicalization. The walls are invisible, when once they were physical. The chapter outlines how health and illness can be understood as socially constructed illustrating how mental health has been constructed uniquely across cultures and over time. To understand this process more fully, it is necessary to consider the history of madness, a story of numerous social flashpoints. The trajectories of two primary mental health narratives are charted in this chapter. The authors argue that these narratives have played, and continue to play, an important role in the social construction of mental illness. These narratives are “confinement” and “individual responsibility.” Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Roy Porter, the authors describe how Western culture has come to consider the mentally ill as a distinct, abnormal other.
Book chapter
Violence: Mental Health, Family, and Media Reporting
Published 2021
Research Anthology on Mental Health Stigma, Education, and Treatment, 991 - 1011
This chapter explores the extent to which journalists draw on long-standing mental health narratives when telling their stories about the “mentally ill” and, in particular, their tendency to depict the mentally ill as violent and dangerous. The chapter is divided into three sub-categories based on the perpetrators of violent crime committed against members of their immediate family. These were “fathers,” of which 24 articles were dedicated to the stories of 11 men; “mothers,” where 22 articles documented the stories of 24 mothers who harmed their children; and finally, “progeny,” where 58 articles presented 17 cases of sons or daughters who killed, or planned to kill, one or both of their parents. Despite differences in the way Australian journalists explain the violence depicted in these stories, particularly when the perpetrator was a female, they continually drew on mental health as an explanatory device to account for how and why these crimes took place. This provides evidence for a continuation of the confinement narrative presented in Chapter 1.
Book chapter
Violence: Mental Health, Family, and Media Reporting
Published 2018
Mental Health Policy, Practice, and Service Accessibility in Contemporary Society, 134 - 154
This chapter explores the extent to which journalists draw on long-standing mental health narratives when telling their stories about the “mentally ill” and, in particular, their tendency to depict the mentally ill as violent and dangerous. The chapter is divided into three sub-categories based on the perpetrators of violent crime committed against members of their immediate family. These were “fathers,” of which 24 articles were dedicated to the stories of 11 men; “mothers,” where 22 articles documented the stories of 24 mothers who harmed their children; and finally, “progeny,” where 58 articles presented 17 cases of sons or daughters who killed, or planned to kill, one or both of their parents. Despite differences in the way Australian journalists explain the violence depicted in these stories, particularly when the perpetrator was a female, they continually drew on mental health as an explanatory device to account for how and why these crimes took place. This provides evidence for a continuation of the confinement narrative presented in Chapter 1.
Book chapter
The History of Unreason: Social Construction of Mental Illness
Published 2018
Mental Health Policy, Practice, and Service Accessibility in Contemporary Society, 1 - 19
This chapter reflects on the importance of the historical narrative of mental illness, arguing that Western countries have sought new ways to confine the mentally ill in the post-asylum era, namely through the effects of stigma and medicalization. The walls are invisible, when once they were physical. The chapter outlines how health and illness can be understood as socially constructed illustrating how mental health has been constructed uniquely across cultures and over time. To understand this process more fully, it is necessary to consider the history of madness, a story of numerous social flashpoints. The trajectories of two primary mental health narratives are charted in this chapter. The authors argue that these narratives have played, and continue to play, an important role in the social construction of mental illness. These narratives are “confinement” and “individual responsibility.” Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Roy Porter, the authors describe how Western culture has come to consider the mentally ill as a distinct, abnormal other.