School of Social Sciences and Public Policy
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There is a wide range of research activity in AUT's School of Social Sciences and Public Policy. The school has an active research community, with staff and postgraduate research in areas such as psychology, sociology and public policy.
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- ItemNZ’s Workplace Rules Will Change Again with Each New Government – Unless We Do This(The Conversation, 2023-10-30) Molineaux, Julienne Andrea; Walker, Bernard; Anderson, Danae
- ItemThe Issues That Divide Us: Three Recent Books(Informa UK Limited, 2023-06-16) Nicholls, KThis essay reviews three recent books that address a range of policy issues currently affecting politics in Aotearoa New Zealand. Dominic O’Sullivan’s Sharing the Sovereign illustrates how treaties between states and Indigenous peoples can provide the basis for power-sharing arrangements across various spheres of public policy. Paul Spoonley’s The New New Zealand outlines the profound immigration-driven demographic changes experienced in recent decades and the failures of decision-makers to adjust to this new reality. Max Rashbrooke’s Too Much Money analyses the issue of social class in New Zealand and the dangers of an apparently increasing class divide. The essay outlines some of these arguments in detail and evaluates each contribution to both scholarship and actual public policy debates as New Zealand arguably enters a more contentious political moment.
- ItemSustainable Development in China? A Nonparametric Decomposition of Economic Growth(Elsevier BV, 2023-08-18) Deng, Z; Song, S; Jiang, N; Pang, RChina has undergone significant deviations from the command economy established in 1949, achieving unprecedented success in sustaining high growth. Consequently, numerous scholars have devoted their attention to studying China's economic development. In this study, we contribute to this literature using a new technique to examine China's economic development. This technique utilizes nonparametric directional distance function in the framework of neoclassical growth theory. It avoids the assumptions imposed on parametric production functions that are often short of practical justifications. Our analysis shows that capital and energy inputs account for 75.7% and 20.8% of China's GDP growth during 1985–2020. These figures characterize a capital-driven growth model that is unlikely to be sustainable by conventional wisdom. However, our empirical evidence, obtained through an interactive-fixed effects model, indicates that it is not unreasonable to say that growth in China is government-led rather than capital-driven; the former could be sustained by desirable reforms under strong national leadership while the latter is not.
- ItemUsing Electronic Health Record Data to Predict Future Self-Harm or Suicidal Ideation in Young People Treated by Child and Youth Mental Health Services(Wiley, 2023-08-14) Tennakoon, G; Byrne, EM; Vaithianathan, R; Middeldorp, CMIntroduction: Identifying young people who are at risk of self-harm or suicidal ideation (SHoSI) is a priority for mental health clinicians. We explore the utility of routinely collected data in developing a tool to aid early identification of those at risk. Method: We used electronic health records of 4610 young people aged 5–19 years who were treated by Child and Youth Mental Health Services (CYMHS) in greater Brisbane, Australia. Two Lasso models were trained to predict the risk of future SHoSI in young people currently rated SHoSI; and those who were not. Results: For currently non-SHoSI children, an Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristics (AUC) of 0.78 was achieved. Those with the highest risk were 4.97 (CI 4.35–5.66) times more likely to be categorized as SHoSI in the future. For current SHoSI children, the AUC was 0.62. Conclusion: A prediction model with fair overall predictive power for currently non-SHoSI children was generated. Predicting persistence for SHoSI was more difficult. The electronic health records alone were not sufficient to discriminate at acceptable levels and may require adding unstructured data such as clinical notes. To optimally predict SHoSI models need to be tested and validated separately for those young people with varying degrees of risk.
- ItemSilencing Queerness - Community and Family Relationships with Young Ethnic Queers in Aotearoa New Zealand(Taylor and Francis, ) Nakhid, C; Tuwe, M; Abu Ali, Z; Subramanian, P; Vano, LThe contribution that family and community make to the lives of ethnic young people is well documented. However, the support that queer ethnic young people receive from family and community is compromised by homophobic attitudes and behaviors influenced by misinformation, religious beliefs, and cultural practices. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the absence of research on young ethnic queers suggests that little is known about how this group fares in a close and culturally bound ethnic community within a predominantly white society. This in-depth qualitative study of 43 queer ethnic young people examined how community attitudes and behaviors toward queerness impacted their family and community relationships. Gossip, rumors, silence, stigma, and respectability politics resulted in gender silencing and monitoring, rejection, and self-exclusion. These behaviors exacerbated feelings of cultural alienation in a society where ethnic peoples are already racialized and minoritized, and where the lack of support systems compound an unsafe environment for queer ethnic young people. Homonegative attitudes within ethnic communities require education and interventions at the interpersonal as well as communal level. Families need professional support to address their shame toward children’s queerness and to consider the impact of prioritizing the politics of respectability over the wellbeing of their child.