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In an era of internationalism, higher education and vocational training have been core to Australia’s nation-building, regional co-operation and public diplomacy. This essay examines what has become of the people-to-people aspect of Australia’s engagements in the Indo-Pacific region, as discussed in the Australian government’s influential White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century (2012). More recently, established patterns of international educational exchange, and their economic, social and cultural benefits, have been disrupted by the global COVID-19 pandemic, shifting international relations and domestic politics, with consequences for international education and public diplomacy.

This essay introduces the scholarly context for a reappraisal of Australian histories of international education within the Indo-Pacific region since the mid-20th century, and the role of NGOs, academia and government in educational schemes and scholarships. It draws on an approach informed by international history, the history of education and diplomatic studies, to provide an overview of key themes and the past and present case studies discussed in the seven articles of this special journal issue.

The little-known histories of international education in Australia, and associated scholarship schemes, are important aspects of soft power or public diplomacy and the nation’s relations with the Indo-Pacific region. We argue that there needs to be greater acknowledgement of the vital role of these interpersonal interactions and the international organisations that facilitated such exchanges in histories of Australia’s internationalism and diplomacy. While Australian governments have initiated scholarship programmes, what is becoming clear is that understanding their significance for Australian–regional relationships demands a research focus on student expectations and experiences that often lay beyond government control.

This essay and the articles in this special issue offer new historic and current insights on international education policy and programmes and Australia’s diplomatic relations. Many of the highlighted case studies have not previously been analysed within this context, and fresh analysis makes an intervention into the field, revealing the complexities and limitations of international education and people-to-people relationships for Australia’s past and present connections with the Indo-Pacific region.

This study was intended to investigate a small-scale School-based Motivational Interviewing (SBMI) pilot with first-year college students. This approach honors student autonomy, supports self-determination and has the potential to impact educational outcomes in higher education. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is an evidence based conversational skill set, defined as “a collaborative conversational style for strengthening a person's own motivation and commitment to change” (Miller and Rollnick, 2013, p. 12). Student perceptions of satisfaction with the faculty-student mentoring intervention were sought. Relational aspects of MI (partnership, empathy and alliance) were also explored.

A mixed-method approach was used for the SBMI study, focused on college students with recent academic setbacks (N = 19).

The intervention was deployed with high levels of MI technical fidelity and relational quality. Participants reported high satisfaction with the intervention. The relational aspects and participant perceived alliance with their faculty were highly correlated across the intervention, adding to the discussion of the mechanisms of MI that contribute to its effectiveness.

This work is formative, yet at this point is not generalizable given the scope of the study.

Findings are encouraging for further development of this innovative pedagogical approach. Possible future applications of research are provided.

Discussed herein, SBMI has the potential to meet the needs of traditionally underrepresented student groups.

The reported study is the initial portion of a larger intervention development project.

Food sector supply chains have significant negative environmental impacts, including the expansion of global food commodity production, which is driving tropical deforestation – a major climate and biodiversity problem. Innovative supply chain monitoring services promise to address such impacts. Legislation also designates “forest-risk commodities”, demanding supply chain due diligence of their provenance. But such data alone does not produce change. This study investigates how theory in performance measurement and management (PMM) can combine with sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and decision theory (DT) via case study research that addresses paradoxes of simplicity and complexity.

Given existing relevant theory but the nascent nature of the topic, theory elaboration via abductive case study research is conducted. Data collection involves interviews and participatory design workshops with supply chain actors across two supply chains (coffee and soy), exploring the potential opportunities and challenges of new deforestation monitoring services for food supply chains.

Two archetypal food supply chain structures (short food supply chains with high transparency and direct links between farmer and consumer and complex food supply chains with highly disaggregated and opaque links) provide a dichotomy akin to the known/unknown, structured/unstructured contexts in DT, enabling novel theoretical elaboration of the performance alignment matrix model in PMM, resulting in implications for practice and a future research agenda.

The novel conceptual synthesis of PMM, SSCM and DT highlights the importance of context specificity in developing PMM tools for SSCM and the challenge of achieving the general solutions needed to ensure that PMM, paradoxically, is both flexible to client needs and capable of replicable application to deliver economies of scale. To advance understanding of these paradoxes to develop network-level PMM systems to address deforestation impacts of food supply chains and respond to legislation, a future research agenda is presented.

When it comes to deterring and incarcerating people seeking asylum, there is a fusion between racialisation and politicisation. The bedrock is the colonisation of the nation now called Australia, where the dispossession of Indigenous peoples was a national project that later merged into the building of a state that lauded British heritage and the exclusion of migrants through the White Australia policy. This foundation of nationhood continues in a manner that challenges the myth of harmonious multiculturalism by determining who is deemed worthy and who is excluded. The centrepiece of racialised bordering is the immigration detention regime which is increasingly characterised by transporting people to offshore sites. This chapter argues through examples, how people seeking asylum have been racialised, dehumanised and criminalised, particularly through a national security lens.

Disasters continue to be most prevalent and severe for marginalised communities. To reach those furthest behind first, as the global community pledges in the 2030 Agenda, a critical assessment of equity in disaster risk governance is necessary. Yet, the understanding of factors that mediate the capacity of the governance processes to achieve equity ambitions is limited. This paper addresses this gap by proposing and testing a conceptual framework to assess equity in disaster risk governance.

The framework analyses the extent to which institutional relationships and data in risk governance support inclusion and diversity of voice and enable the equitable engagement of communities. The study applied the framework to key risk policies across governance levels in Brazil and Colombia.

The study finds that institutional awareness of cross-sectoral and -scalar coordination clearly exists. Yet, the engagement of actors further down the governance scale is framed reactively at all scales in both countries. The analysis of the risk data practices indicates that although data integration and sharing are key policy priorities, the policies frame the relations of disaster risk data actors as hierarchical, with data needs determined from the top down.

A key contribution of this framework is that its equity view results in a nuanced analysis, thus pointing to the differences between the two countries concerning the factors that mediate these challenges and providing specific entry points for strengthening equity in risk governance policies.

The purpose of this paper is to share learning about practical steps that can be taken to eliminate persistent racism from the workplace, including racism by people who have cognitive impairments who do not understand the impact of their behaviours.

This paper is informed by qualitative research. An independent researcher was commissioned to recruit 45 black British, black African and black Caribbean women living in Norfolk and working for a range of employers. Parameters were agreed in advance (aims, consent, data protection). A list of questions was provided to the researcher. The questions covered experiences of prejudice and discrimination. Data collection included face to face/online/telephone interviews, focus groups and questionnaires. The researcher recorded the women’s views and compiled them in a findings report. The report was shared with the women to confirm that their views had been recorded accurately. The author has also convened conversations with over 100 professionals representing providers of public services, including social and domiciliary care.

The author identified that it will be impossible for employers to eliminate persistent racism from their workplaces until all managers consistently and diligently address every report of racism effectively, in line with the steps set out in this paper. The purpose is to establish, over time, a workplace culture where racism is never tolerated or allowed to persist, and workers and managers learn – and become more confident – to recognise, address and eliminate racism at work. Until this is embedded, racism affecting workers will continue to go unchecked and unacknowledged in the workplace.

The data gathered to inform this paper (specifically the research commissioned and described in this abstract, in addition to other data, such as conversations convened with professionals) is qualitative data. It cannot be assumed that the experiences of the people interviewed reflect the experiences of all people. However, the voices of participants have highlighted issues to inform future planning.

The author must be clear that, so far there has been no definitive solution to persistent racism in the workplace. The learning so far is being shared with the hope that this assists others with developing strategies to eliminate persistent racism.

Workplaces across the UK are committed to eradicating racism. However, the rate of change is glacial. This research paper shares learning about how to address this, to increase the pace of change, to begin to genuinely eliminate persistent racism from the workplace.

To the author’s knowledge, the learning from this research is original and not replicated elsewhere.