Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ray Laurence, Professor of Ancient History, Macquarie University

Roman concrete is pretty amazing stuff. It’s among the main reasons we know so much about Roman architecture today. So many structures built by the Romans still survive, in some form, thanks to their ingenious concrete and construction techniques.

However, there’s a lot we still don’t understand about exactly how the Romans made such strong concrete or built all those impressive buildings, houses, public baths, bridges and roads.

Scholars have long yearned for more physical evidence from Roman worksites to provide clues.

Now, a new study – led by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and published in the journal Nature Communications – sheds new light on Roman concrete and construction techniques.

That’s thanks to details sifted from partially constructed rooms in Pompeii – a worksite abandoned by workers as Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

New clues about concrete making

The discovery of this particular building site hit the news early last year.

The builders were quite literally repairing a house in the middle of the city, when Mount Vesuvius blew up in the first century CE.

This unique find included tiles sorted for recycling and wine containers known as amphorae that had been re-used for transporting building materials.

Most importantly, though, it also included evidence of dry material being prepared ahead of mixing to produce concrete.

It is this dry material that is the focus of the new study. Having access to the actual materials ahead of mixing represents a unique opportunity to understand the process of concrete making and how these materials reacted when water was added.

This has re-written our understanding of Roman concrete manufacture.

Self-healing concrete

The researchers behind this new paper studied the chemical composition of materials found at the site and defined some key elements: incredibly tiny pieces of quicklime that change our understanding of how the concrete was made.

Quicklime is calcium oxide, which is created by heating high-purity limestone (calcium carbonate).

The process of mixing concrete, the authors of this study explain, took place in the atrium of this house. The workers mixed dry lime (ground up lime) with pozzolana (a volcanic ash).

When water was added, the chemical reaction produced heat. In other words, it was an exothermic reaction. This is known as “hot-mixing” and results in a very different type of concrete than what you get from a hardware store.

Adding water to the quicklime forms something called slaked lime, along with generating heat. Within the slaked lime, the researchers identified tiny undissolved “lime clasts” that retained the reactive properties of quicklime. If this concrete forms cracks, the lime clasts react with water to heal the crack.

In other words, this form of Roman concrete can quite literally heal itself.

Techniques old and new

However, it is hard to tell how widespread this method was in ancient Rome.

Much of our understanding of Roman concrete is based on the writings of the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius.

He had advised to use pozzolana mixed with lime, but it had been assumed that this text did not refer to hot-mixing.

Yet, if we look at another Roman author, Pliny the Elder, we find a clear account of the reaction of quicklime with water that is the basis for the exothermic reaction involved in hot-mixing concrete.

So the ancients had knowledge of hot-mixing but we know less about how widespread the technique was.

Maybe more important is the detail in the texts of experimentation with different blends of sand, pozzolana and lime, leading to the mix used by the builders in Pompeii.

The MIT research team had previously found lime clasts (those tiny little bits of quicklime) in Roman remains at Privernum, about 43 kilometres north of Pompeii.

It’s also worth noting the healing of cracks has been observed in the concrete of the tomb of noblewoman Caecilia Metella outside Rome on the Via Appia (a famous Roman road).

Now this new Pompeii study has established hot-mixing happened and how it helped improve Roman concrete, scholars can look for instances in which concrete cracks have been healed this way.

Questions remain

All in all, this new study is exciting – but we must resist the assumption all Roman construction was made to a high standard.

The ancient Romans could make exceptional concrete mortars but as Pliny the Elder notes, poor mortar was the cause of the collapse of buildings in Rome. So just because they could make good mortar, doesn’t mean they always did.

Questions, of course, remain.

Can we generalise from this new study’s single example from 79 CE Pompeii to interpret all forms of Roman concrete?

Does it show progression from Vitruvius, who wrote some time earlier?

Was the use of quicklime to make a stronger concrete in this 79 CE Pompeii house a reaction to the presence of earthquakes in the region and an expectation cracking would occur in the future?

To answer any of these questions, further research is needed to see how prevalent lime clasts are in Roman concrete more generally, and to identify where Roman concrete has healed itself.

Ray Laurence does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. A 2,000-year-old building site reveals the raw ingredients for ancient Roman self-healing concrete – https://theconversation.com/a-2-000-year-old-building-site-reveals-the-raw-ingredients-for-ancient-roman-self-healing-concrete-271405

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa M. Given, Professor of Information Sciences & Director, Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University

After months of anticipation and debate, Australia’s social media ban is now in force.

Young Australians under 16 must now come to grips with the new reality of being unable to have an account on some social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.

Only time will tell whether this bold, world-first experiment will succeed. Despite this, many countries are already considering following Australia’s lead.

But there are other jurisdictions that are taking a different approach to try and keep young people safe online.

Here’s what’s happening overseas.

A global movement

In November, the European parliament called for a similar social media ban for under 16s.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she has been studying Australia’s restrictions and how they address what she described as “algorithms that prey on children’s vulnerabilities”, leaving parents feeling powerless against “the tsunami of big tech flooding their homes”.

In October, New Zealand announced it would introduce similar legislation to Australia’s, following the work of a parliamentary committee to examine how best to address harm on social media platforms. The committee’s report will be released in early 2026.

Pakistan and India are aiming to reduce children’s exposure to harmful content by introducing rules requiring parental consent and age verification for platform access, alongside content moderation expectations for tech companies.

Malaysia has announced it will ban children under 16 from social media starting in 2026. This follows the country requiring social media and messaging platforms with eight million or more users to obtain licenses to operate, and use age verification and content-safety measures from January 2025.

France is also considering a social media ban for children under 15 and a 10pm to 8am curfew for platform use for 15- to 18-year-olds. These are among 43 recommendations made by a French inquiry in September 2025, which also recommended banning smartphones in schools, and implementing a crime of “digital negligence for parents who fail to protect their children”.

While France introduced a requirement in 2023 that platforms obtain parental consent for children under 15 to create social media accounts, it has yet to be enforced. This is also the case in Germany. There, children aged between 13 and 16 can only access platforms with parental consent, but without formal checks in place.

And, in Spain, the minimum age for social media accounts will rise from 14 to 16, unless parents provide consent.

Norway announced plans in July to restrict access to social media for under 15s. The government explained the law would be “designed in accordance with children’s fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, access to information, and the right to association”.

In November, Denmark announced it would “ban access to social media for anyone under 15”. However, unlike Australia’s legislation, parents can override the rules to enable 13- and 14-year-olds to retain platform access. Yet there is no date for implementation, with lawmakers expected to take months to pass the legislation.

It’s also unclear how Denmark’s ban will be enforced. But the country does have a national digital ID program that may be used.

In July, Denmark was named as part of a pilot program (with Greece, France, Spain, and Italy) to trial an age verification app that could be launched across the European Union for use by adult content sites and other digital providers.

Some pushback

The implementation of similar restrictions is not being taken up everywhere.

For example, South Korea has decided against a social media ban for children. But it will ban the use of mobile phones and other devices in classrooms starting in March 2026.

In the city of Toyoake (south-west of Tokyo, Japan), a very different solution has been proposed. The city’s mayor, Masafumi Koki, issued an ordinance in October, limiting the use of smartphones, tablets, and computers to two hours per day for people of all ages.

Koki is aware of Australia’s social media restrictions. But as he explained:

If adults are not held to the same standards, children will not accept the rules.

While the ordinance has faced backlash, and is non-binding, it prompted 40% of residents to reflect on their behaviour, with 10% reducing their time on smartphones.

In the United States, the opposition to Australia’s social media restrictions has been extremely vocal and significant.

American media and technology companies have urged President Donald Trump to “reprimand” Australia over its legislation. They argue American companies are being unfairly targeted and have lodged formal complaints with the Office of US Trade.

President Trump has stated he would stand up to any countries that “attacked” American technology companies. The US recently called eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant to testify in front of Congress. US Republican Jim Jordan claimed her enforcement of Australia’s Online Safety Act “imposes obligations on American companies and threatens speech of American citizens”, which Inman-Grant strongly denied.

The world will keep watching

While much of the world seems united in concern about the harmful content and algorithmic features children experience on social media, only one thing is clear – there is no silver bullet for addressing these harms.

There is no agreed set of restrictions, or specific age at which legislators agree children should have unrestricted access to these platforms.

Many countries outside Australia are empowering parents to provide access, if they believe it is right for their children. And many countries are considering how best to enforce restrictions, if they implement similar rules.

As experts point to the technical challenges in enforcing Australia’s restrictions, and as young Australians consider workarounds to maintain their accounts or find new platforms to use, other countries will continue to watch and plan their next moves.

Lisa M. Given receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Australia’s eSafety Commission. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Association for Information Science and Technology.

– ref. Australia’s social media ban is now in force. Other countries are closely watching what happens – https://theconversation.com/australias-social-media-ban-is-now-in-force-other-countries-are-closely-watching-what-happens-271407

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vivian Gerrand, Associate Lecturer, Australian National University; Deakin University

The manosphere is big business today. Once a niche network lurking on the margins of the internet, this diverse community of male supremacist cultures has grown into a transnational profit-making enterprise.

Our new review of the growing body of research on the manosphere reveals how it’s evolved.

It used to be largely special interest men’s rights groups, such as pick-up artists and incels (involuntary celibates). It’s now a widely mainstreamed and commercialised ecosystem, led by high-profile influencers or “manfluencers”.

Here’s how the manosphere has found ways to cash in on the insecurities of men and boys, expand its reach, and how doing so has insured the movement’s longevity online.

The manosphere is a dark, but growing part of the internet that’s harming everyone who gets sucked into it. In this three-part series, Mapping the Manosphere, we’ve asked leading global experts how it works, what the dangers are and how this online phenomenon is playing out in real life.

Grifting their way to glory

Manosphere grift often takes the form of financial, health and relationship advice.

Platforms, driven by recommending similar content to consumers to keep them online longer, then push this content further.

Charged by anti-feminism, social media algorithms push apparent solutions for younger male internet users’ insecurities. This monetises them without providing true support.

The “thought leaders” of the manosphere maintain and grow their audiences by tapping into boy’s concerns about looks, economic futures and ability to attract women.

The solution they present is two-fold: urge viewers to direct their anger and resentment toward women and feminism, and buy the manfluencer’s products.

For example, many manfluencers have their own subscription-based “academies”, which they promote as an alternative to school or college. These can cost thousands of dollars.

Followers can buy one-on-one dating advice or access to networking groups of like-minded men.

There’s also manosphere podcast merchandise, including books.

Some sell supplements, like turmeric capsules, or swear by testosterone injections. Others peddle wellness-adjacent tech, such as water filters.

Many men and boys buying into this content have been raised on neoliberal ideas of winners and losers, hustle culture and individual choice.

In the manosphere, there’s no space for the collective, or discussions of systems and structures that negatively affect most of us. In this worldview, your perceived failings are all your own fault.

And so, manfluencers promise solutions to the isolation, alienation and precarity of existence under capitalism by offering up more of the same.

The rise of the manfluencer

In addition to its overtly anti-women messaging, today’s manosphere often operates through subtler forms of sexism.

Many creators promote gender essentialism: the idea that men and women are born with significant cognitive and personality differences, determined biologically rather than culturally.

This shift towards “alpha” masculinity marks a significant shift in men’s rights politics. It’s helped the movement have more mainstream appeal beyond the smaller corners of the web it used to occupy.

Male supremacists can now use influencer culture to gain substantial personal wealth, while promoting right-wing reactionary politics.

For example, Black manfluencers Myron Gaines and Walter Weekes regularly feature white supremacist guests and debates on their podcast, Fresh and Fit.

At the same time, mainstream platforms such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts have been instrumental for increasing commercialisation.

Experimental studies using sockpuppet accounts have looked at how quickly and how often young male users are being served manosphere content.

In the study conducted by Dublin City University, all of the accounts, whether they sought out the manosphere or not, were fed toxic content within the first 23 minutes of the experiment. Manosphere content appeared within the first 26 minutes.

New ways to monetise grievance

As the manosphere has expanded and shifted, it has also diversified. More users can find self-help advice from people who look like them.

There’s greater visibility of ethnic diversity and non-white actors in the male supremacist ecosystem.

Gaines and Weekes use language to appeal to Black men. They selectively invoke the discourse of social justice while maintaining a misogynist, frequently homophobic and transphobic outlook.

Other manfluencers, such as Andrew Tate and Sneako, say they’ve converted to Islam. This has also broadened the manosphere’s appeal.

It’s clear the movement can shape-shift to reach ever-changing moods and markets. By being agile and adaptable, the manosphere is entrenching itself in the online landscape.

The female equivalent

There’s also a growing presence of anti-feminist “trad” women accounts.

While previously associated exclusively with white women, Black women creators have become big tradwives and “pick-me” girls (a derogatory term for anti-feminist women). They tailor their content strategically for Black manosphere men.

These successful women digital entrepreneurs encourage their followers to reject hustle culture and instead embrace traditional marriage through service to their husbands.

As with most manosphere trends we observed in our review, the phenomenon of pick-mes and tradwives is heavily influenced by socioeconomic conditions. Women in these situations reject the “strong Black woman” stereotype of economic struggle in favour of finding dignity in marriage and homemaking.

In a patriarchal bargain, husbands become “bosses” for these women, to whom they willingly submit.

Ideology meets industry

To fully confront the socioeconomic forces shaping digital gender politics, it’s essential to consider the manosphere as both ideology and industry.

Manfluencers, self-styled gurus and ideological entrepreneurs operate within a digital attention economy that converts human insecurity into capital.

As the manosphere becomes more diverse and ideologically unstable (driven predominantly by the whims of algorithmic capitalism), there is an increasingly urgent need to educate boys and men. They need to know more about gendered disinformation, mental health, gender-based abuse and the mechanics of social media and influencer culture.

By better understanding this monetisation of grievance and equipping boys to respond critically to it, we can build healthier and more gender-equitable online cultures.

Vivian Gerrand receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Josh Roose receives funding from The Australian Research Council and Department of Home Affairs.

Michael Flood receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Debbie Ging does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Hustle, muscle and grift: how the manosphere has grown into a money-making machine – https://theconversation.com/hustle-muscle-and-grift-how-the-manosphere-has-grown-into-a-money-making-machine-262432

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Smith, Senior Lecturer of Wellbeing Science, The University of Melbourne

Thriving Kids is a planned national program for children aged eight and under with developmental delay or autism who are assessed as having low to moderate support needs.

The idea is to move these children out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and into the new program, with its first services expected from July 2026.

The final design of the program, which is to receive A$2 billion in Commonwealth funding over five years, is still being settled with states and territories.

Now a new survey shows parents and carers have strong ideas about how to design Thriving Kids to make it successful.

Read more:
‘Thriving Kids’ could help secure the future of the NDIS. But what will the program mean for children and families?

We asked parents and carers

Many parents and carers of children with disability and the broader disability community have been critical of the Thriving Kids announcement. Some feared that by moving out of the NDIS and into the new program children might lose out on important supports at a crucial point in their development.

A week after Thriving Kids was announced in August 2025, Children and Young People with Disability Australia, the peak organisation representing the rights and interests of children and young people with disability, conducted a national online survey.

The survey asked what supports families use now, what they’d need under Thriving Kids, how often they’d use them, and how they feel about the proposal. We analysed and helped interpret the results.

There were 1,535 responses. This article focuses on the 1,235 responses from children and young people, and their parents and carers.

Of these, 91% were parents or carers, most caring for a child aged nine or under. Among those who identified their disability, 81% reported autism and 60% ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder), often together.

Here’s what respondents told us.

1. Families want continuity and clear guarantees

Respondents asked for protection that no child would be worse off by moving to Thriving Kids. They wanted a single point of access and little red tape. They also wanted to keep trusted clinicians through the transitions between Thriving Kids and the NDIS. As one parent said:

my kids will [lose] vital people they have taken a long […] time [to] get to know. They […] trust them and actually help our children.

So Thriving Kids needs to put “no‑worse‑off” protections in writing, and keep current clinicians where relationships are working. The pathway beyond age nine needs to be explicit and seamless.

2. Design it with lived experience

Families were clear that language and process matter, and that people with disability must shape the program from the start, not be consulted after the fact. One person said:

The program is not evidence based and not co-designed with families. Shouldn’t
we get a right to say what supports suit our children?

That means co‑designing Thriving Kids with people with lived experience of disability and their families and carers – in governance, safeguards and evaluation, not just in messaging.

3. Supports must be neuro‑affirming

Respondents asked for help that respects neurodivergent ways of being and avoids approaches that teach masking or “passing” as neurotypical. Many carers don’t want autistic children to attend therapies and groups based on a contested approach called “applied behaviour analysis”. One parent said:

I don’t want her disability to be ‘trained out of her’ or encourage masking.

So Thriving Kids needs to publish guardrails that exclude approaches that push for conformity to neurotypical standards.

4. A broad mix across flexible settings works best

Core allied health sits at the heart of what people asked for – occupational therapy, speech pathology, psychology and physiotherapy. They also asked for peer networks, parenting programs, skills groups, assistive technology and support for children who cannot attend school (known as school-can’t responses).

Families want these delivered where children live and learn. As one parent said:

Teachers need a better education program for handling kids with disabilities. I waste [NDIS] funding educating teachers on how to handle autistic children and how not to become part of the problem.

So Thriving Kids needs a broad, flexible menu of supports that help children participate and feel safe – at home, in early learning, at school and in the community.

That includes embedding allied health in early learning and schools to coach staff and adjust environments, while preserving one‑to‑one therapy and out‑of‑school options for home‑schoolers and students unable to attend.

5. Resource for equity

There is less access to supports and services in regional and remote areas and for First Nations, multicultural and LGBTIQA+ families. Waiting lists are long, travel is costly and choice is thin.

One parent said:

In the country, the therapists don’t exist to embed anywhere.

Families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds also asked for interpreters, translated plain-language materials, and options to choose the gender of their clinician.

So Thriving Kids needs to commission services in regional areas, with outreach and telehealth. It needs to invest in culturally safe models, including interpreters and bilingual clinicians. It also needs to train and support schools without shifting costs to families.

What next?

If Thriving Kids delivers on these priorities, it could potentially improve services for children with disability and their families.

If it doesn’t, families will be left to navigate yet another complex system while needs go unmet.

Families, children and young people told us, with striking consistency, what would help. The task now is to build Thriving Kids with them and to guarantee no child is worse off.

Catherine Smith has prevously received research funding from Children and Young People with Disability Australia.

Helen Dickinson receives funding from ARC, NHMRC, MRFF, Children and Young People with Disability Australia, and Australian governments.

– ref. If parents designed the new ‘Thriving Kids’ program, it’d look like this – https://theconversation.com/if-parents-designed-the-new-thriving-kids-program-itd-look-like-this-271182

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jordana Hunter, School Education Program Director, Grattan Institute

On a typical school day in Australia this year, about 11% of students were absent. In 2014, the figure was 7%.

Two in five students now miss about a day of school each fortnight on average. This makes improving school attendance an urgent, national priority.

In a new policy brief, the Grattan Institute details how student absences are changing post-pandemic. It also shows how Australia can look to England for ideas on what to do.

Every day counts

The more days of school a student attends, the better off they are academically, socially and emotionally.

Every day counts. Even a single day of absence is connected to a decline in achievement. The more days of school a student misses, the greater this decline. For example, a study of NAPLAN results in Western Australia found every day of school missed was associated with lower test scores in numeracy, reading and writing.

Poor attendance doesn’t just harm absent students. It puts more pressure on teachers to help them catch up, it disrupts the learning of their classmates, and can increase the burden on parents trying to juggle work and caring responsibilities.

This is not just a small group

New Grattan analysis gives the first post-pandemic insight into how student absences are changing. We used records for almost one third of Australian government-school students from the first year of school to Year 12, from 2017 to 2024. This data reveals how and why students are missing school.

There is a small but growing group of students who miss months, terms, or even entire years of school. That group attracts significant attention, as it should. These students face huge challenges to complete school, and often need intensive, tailored support if they are to return to the classroom.

But Australian students across the board are also attending school less than they used to.

In fact, it’s the highest-attending group whose numbers have fallen the most. In 2019, 71% of students attended school regularly (defined as at least 90% of the time). In 2024, this was only 59%.

UK research suggests there is a tipping point: students who attend at least 85–90% of school tend to sustain or improve their attendance in the following year. But the attendance of those who don’t meet this threshold rarely recovers. This suggests a large cohort of Australian students are at significant risk of further disengaging from school.

Students are having more sick days

The biggest factor driving increased school absences across the community has been increased sick days.

In 2024, students on average missed about 11.6 days of school due to illness or medical appointments, up from 6.6 days in 2017. That’s an additional week of school missed per student.

At the same time, school absences for family reasons, including holidays during term time, have more than doubled since 2017, averaging about four days a year in 2024. By contrast, disciplinary absences such as suspensions have remained, on average, low and fairly stable.

The rise in illness-related absences is understandable. No parent wants to send their child to school when they are seriously unwell. And limiting the spread of nasty bugs is important. But we have to get the balance right between minimising the impacts of missing school and preventing the spread of illness.

Lessons from England

Australia is not alone – many countries have struggled with school attendance, especially post-pandemic. Since 2021, England has made school attendance a system-wide priority. As of this year, their attendance rate is 94%. This compares to Australia’s 89%.

Before the pandemic, English schools reported attendance data to the Department for Education term by term. Now, they report data daily and the department publishes this data fortnightly. In contrast, Australia has a patchwork system of reporting, which differs by school sector and state. Only high-level data is published nationally after a two-term delay.

In England, the department has given schools access to new data dashboards so school leaders can make better decisions about which groups of students to prioritise for intervention and the department can more easily identify strengths and areas for improvement.

The UK government has also gathered leaders in education, health, policing and children’s services for regular meetings to tackle underlying barriers to attendance.

UK Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has emphasised how responsibility for boosting attendance rests with parents as well as schools. As she noted earlier this year:

It’s not OK just to say, ‘It’s only a Friday, you don’t need to go to school
today’.

Health professionals are also involved. The chief medical officer wrote to schools to emphasise the importance of attending school, even with mild illness. The UK’s National Health System has also developed guidance to help families decide when children should stay home. The peak bodies for general practice and paediatrics have issued guidance on scheduling and delivering appointments around school hours.

What now?

Federal and state education ministers have committed to an ambitious goal of getting Australia’s school attendance rate back to 91% – the 2019 rate – by the end of the decade. Our analysis suggests Australia will not achieve this by tinkering around the edges.

But with better data, clear health guidance for families, and coordinated action, Australia can also ensure every child has the chance to learn, every day.

Grattan Institute’s education program receives funding from the Helen MacPherson Smith Trust.

– ref. On a typical school day, 11% of students are absent. How can Australia fix this? – https://theconversation.com/on-a-typical-school-day-11-of-students-are-absent-how-can-australia-fix-this-271514

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Walker, Senior Lecturer (Organisational Behaviour), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

For some Indigenous peoples around the world, a day at work can mean experiencing repression, racism and regular reminders that we’re minorities in our own lands. Yet for others, work can be experienced as the exact opposite, as something that enables ourselves, our families and our communities to prosper.

What factors shape whether Indigenous employees experience their work as a source of strain or support? We’ve spent the past few years trying to answer this question by analysing as many studies of Indigenous workers as we could find.

All up, we reviewed 127 studies. Most came from Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada – though we also found studies of Indigenous workers in the United States, Taiwan, Vietnam, Mexico and Chile.

Our recently published study identified some common, recurring workplace challenges for Indigenous workers around the world. But it also found emerging evidence for what can help Indigenous workers thrive.

Mapping the challenges

As Indigenous workers ourselves, working on this project was sometimes quite disheartening. That’s because most studies paint a bleak picture of Indigenous work lives.

These work-related challenges are especially prominent in studies of Indigenous workers in mainstream organisations, such as government departments, accounting firms and mining companies.

Many studies, for example, point to the fact that Indigenous workers tend to be paid less. They’re also concentrated in jobs that provide few opportunities for skill development and building a sustainable career.

Indigenous employees can even struggle in workplaces that actually want to do better by Indigenous peoples. Plenty of studies highlight the sense of overload that can arise from “cultural double-shifting” – work Indigenous employees are expected to perform on top of their actual work, which draws on their Indigenous knowledge or connections.

Some research also exposes the strains Indigenous employees experience in jobs where we’re working for our own communities.

The recent TV shows Reservation Dogs and Dark Winds showcase some of these challenges in the work of Native American police officers.

Some of these challenges include community members’ negative stereotypes about one’s job, as well as unrealistic expectations about how much (or how often) workers should be available to help.

Clashing values

Why are these challenges so common? One answer is that mainstream organisations aren’t usually set up in ways that align with Indigenous people’s values and aspirations.

In fact, one of the strongest research themes we found was Indigenous workers’ feelings of misalignment between their Indigenous and workplace cultures. Consider this comment, from an interview-based study of First Nations workers in Canada’s mining industry:

I remember my friends also working at [the mine] with me telling me ‘Hey, it’s really different working in a mine, it isn’t the Cree way of life.’ It’s as if I’m involved in the destruction of our land.

We know these cultural tensions matter. That’s because some research shows the good that can happen when these tensions dissolve.

Indigenous workers often experience this when they move to work in Indigenous-centred (rather than mainstream) organisations.

One Australian study explains how in these kinds of workplaces, Indigenous values touch every part of the organisation, from hiring and recruitment to governance and leadership.

How managers can make a difference

Managers were also regularly highlighted as a “make or break” factor for Indigenous workers. On the one hand, having a strict, culturally ignorant manager means no softening of the organisation’s formality and rigidity.

On the other, a more supportive and inclusive manager can act as a buffer against these things. They can implement policies and procedures in ways that better align with the priorities of Indigenous employees.

Many studies show how this buffering was particularly helpful in allowing Indigenous workers to better juggle their work, cultural, family and community responsibilities.

Looking to the future

The body of research focused on Indigenous workers is still young, but also growing fast. Looking ahead, we see at least two key areas that deserve more attention.

First, we need more solution-focused studies. While exposing the challenges Indigenous peoples face at work is undoubtedly important, over-focusing on problems is also risky.

It can reinforce already negative stereotypes of Indigenous workers as troublesome or “high maintenance”. It can also crowd out space for finding solutions. We need more research that develops and tests initiatives that promote Indigenous thriving at work.

Second, we need more studies that explore the diverse identities of Indigenous workers. The research we collected tended to treat Indigenous and non-Indigenous people as entirely separate groups.

But many Indigenous people also have non-Indigenous heritage and identities – a reality that will only become more common in future generations.

For Indigenous workers, this kind of research is important because it helps to show employers and politicians the globalised nature of the challenges we can encounter at work. Doing so prompts reflection on why these challenges are so widespread, and crucially, what needs to be done to make work a place where more of us prosper.

Ben Walker receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand for research on cultural double-shifting amongst young Māori workers.

Nimbus A. Staniland receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi, the Health Research Council of New Zealand, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for her research on Māori careers, Māori midwives and their whānau, and Māori perspectives on equity and reward in the workplace.

– ref. Research finds Indigenous peoples face unique challenges at work – but also reveals what can help – https://theconversation.com/research-finds-indigenous-peoples-face-unique-challenges-at-work-but-also-reveals-what-can-help-271380

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joel Scanlan, Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity and Privacy, University of Tasmania

The tech industry’s unofficial motto for two decades was “move fast and break things”. It was a philosophy that broke more than just taxi monopolies or hotel chains. It also constructed a digital world filled with risks for our most vulnerable.

In the 2024–25 financial year alone, the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation received nearly 83,000 reports of online child sexual exploitation material (CSAM), primarily on mainstream platforms – a 41% increase from the year before.

Additionally, links between adolescent usage of social media and a range of harms have been found, such as adverse mental health outcomes, substance abuse and risky sexual behaviours. These findings represent the failure of a digital ecosystem built on profit rather than protection.

With the federal government’s ban on social media accounts for under-16s taking effect this week, as well as age assurance for logged-in search engine users on December 27 and adult content on March 9 2026, we have reached a landmark moment – but we must be clear about what this regulation achieves and what it ignores.

The ban may keep some children out (if they don’t circumvent it), but it does nothing to fix the harmful architecture awaiting them upon return. Nor does it take steps to modify the harmful behaviour of some adult users. We need meaningful change toward a digital duty of care, where platforms are legally required to anticipate and mitigate harm.

The need for safety by design

Currently, online safety often relies on a “whack-a-mole” approach: platforms wait for users to report harmful content, then moderators remove it. It is reactive, slow, and often traumatising for the human moderators involved.

To truly fix this, we need safety by design. This principle demands that safety features be embedded in a platform’s core architecture. It moves beyond simply blocking access, to questioning why the platform allows harmful pathways to exist in the first place.

We are already seeing this when platforms with histories of harm add new features – such as “trusted connections” on Roblox that limits in-game connections only to people the child also knows in the real world. This feature should have existed from the start.

At the CSAM Deterrence Centre, led by Jesuit Social Service in partnership with the University of Tasmania, our research challenges the industry narrative that safety is “too hard” or “too costly” to implement.

In fact, we have found that simple, well-designed interventions can disrupt harmful behaviours without breaking the user experience for everyone else.

Disrupting harm

One of our most significant findings comes from a partnership with one of the world’s largest adult sites, Pornhub. In the first publicly evaluated deterrence intervention, when a user searched for keywords associated with child abuse, they didn’t just hit a blank wall. They triggered a warning message and a chatbot directing the user to therapeutic help.

We observed a decrease in searches for illegal material, but also more than 80% of users who encountered this intervention did not attempt to search for that content on Pornhub again in that session.

This data, consistent with findings from three randomised control trials we have undertaken on Australian males aged 18–40, proves that warning messages work.

It is also in line with another finding: Jesuit Social Service’s Stop It Now (Australia), which provides therapeutic services to those concerned about their feelings towards children, received a dramatic increase in web referrals after the warning message Google shows in search results for child abuse material was improved earlier this year.

By interrupting the user’s flow with a clear deterrent message, we can stop a harmful thought from becoming a harmful action. This is safety by design, using a platform’s own interface to protect the community.

Holding platforms responsible

This is why it’s so vital to include a digital duty of care in Australia’s online safety legislation, something the government committed to earlier this year.

Instead of users entering at their own risk, online platforms would be legally responsible for identifying and mitigating risks – such as algorithms that recommend harmful content or search functions that help users access illegal material.

Platforms can start making meaningful changes today by considering how their platforms could facilitate harm, and building in protections.

Examples include implementing grooming detection (enabling the automated detection of perpetrators trying to exploit children), blocking the sharing of known abuse imagery and videos and the links to websites that host such material, as well as proactively removing harm pathways that target the vulnerable – such as children online being able to interact with adults not known to them.

As our research shows, deterrence messaging plays a role too – displaying clear warnings when users search for harmful terms is highly effective. Tech companies should partner with researchers and non-profit organisations to test what works, sharing data rather than hiding it.

The “move fast and break things” era is over. We need a cultural shift where safety online is treated as an essential feature, not an optional add-on. The technology to make these platforms safer already exists. And evidence shows that safety by design can have an impact. The only thing missing is the will to implement it.

Joel Scanlan is the academic co-lead of the CSAM Deterrence Centre, which is a partnership between the University of Tasmania and Jesuit Social Services, who operate Stop It Now (Australia), a therapeutic service providing support to people who are concerned with their own, or someone else’s, feelings towards children. Dr Scanlan has received funding from the Australian Research Council, Australian Institute of Criminology, the eSafety Commissioner, Lucy Faithfull Foundation and the Internet Watch Foundation.

– ref. Banning kids from social media doesn’t make online platforms safer. Here’s what will do that – https://theconversation.com/banning-kids-from-social-media-doesnt-make-online-platforms-safer-heres-what-will-do-that-271103