Category: Social inequality

What Does It Mean for Development to Make a Difference?

September 13, 2026

A project in international development brings piped water to a rural village. Before the project, families walked long distances to collect water. Afterwards, clean water flows close to their homes. We could count the households connected. We could calculate the time saved, estimate the economic return, measure reductions in illness, or ask people whether their … More What Does It Mean for Development to Make a Difference?

Empowering Women or Expanding Women’s Work?

May 18, 2026

Women’s empowerment is a complex thing. Especially when it becomes woven into the infrastructure of development itself. In WASH programs, involving women often appears not only appropriate, but obvious. Women are closely connected to water, hygiene, sanitation, childcare, household health, and everyday care work. They know the rhythms of households and communities. They know who … More Empowering Women or Expanding Women’s Work?

From Measuring Access to Practising Justice: Why Indigenous Data Sovereignty Matters for Evaluation

December 22, 2025

For many years, evaluation in higher education equity has been dominated by a familiar set of questions: Who gets in? Who stays? Who completes? These questions matter. But they are also deeply limited. They privilege institutional accountability over student experience, numerical indicators over lived realities, and compliance over justice. They rarely ask harder questions about … More From Measuring Access to Practising Justice: Why Indigenous Data Sovereignty Matters for Evaluation

How schools respond to COVID-19 disruption of Year 12 HSC says a lot about entrenched inequality in Australia’s education system

August 11, 2021

The COVID-19 lock down in Greater Sydney has thrown chaos in the HSC trials, but how schools choose to handle this disruption says a lot about inequality of Australia’s education system, which is deeply rooted in the mindset and practices of teachers and principals. On Tuesday 1oth August, the principal of Gosford High School, a … More How schools respond to COVID-19 disruption of Year 12 HSC says a lot about entrenched inequality in Australia’s education system

The arbitrariness of educational advantage and disadvantage

November 24, 2019

In the Australian educational system, there is the idea of gifted and talented students. According to the NSW Education Department, gifted students are those whose potential is distinctly above average in intellectual, creative, social and physical performance. Talented students are those whose skills are distinctly above average in one or more areas of human performance. … More The arbitrariness of educational advantage and disadvantage