This article presents a cooperative inquiry into the lived experience of pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree with publications or creative works. Drawing on the insights of five online PhD students and their two supervisors in an Australian online program, the research objective is to present perspectives contemporaneous with the online doctoral journey and address the research question: What are the strengths and challenges in undertaking a PhD with publication or creative works, and how do these differ according to personal backgrounds and academic disciplines? The research uncovers: first, the importance of passion, motivation, emotional aspects, and connections supporting these types of doctoral journeys; second, that navigating the formidable pressures and celebrating the rewards of publishing and creating is part of the process; and third, the integral partnership between supervisors and students in an online environment is essential in creating outputs. These themes were typical for the five student co-inquirers, but how they manifested differed relative to each individual’s personal and professional backgrounds. This research expands current conversations about the emotional, psychological, and structural dimensions, adding nuance to the existing literature. It provides others considering enrolling, currently studying or who are new to supervising these types of online PhDs with valuable insights that can benefit the future cohort of PhD candidates, particularly as universities address recent trends of declining enrolments in doctoral programs.

This scoping review synthesises evidence on the system-level barriers Australian veterans and their families encounter during post-service reintegration, with a particular focus on accessing resources across the health, social, and community domains. A structured search of seven databases (CINAHL, JBI EBP Database, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) and Google Scholar identified 509 studies published between 2013 and 2024, of which, 16 met the inclusion criteria. The findings reveal significant challenges, including fragmented service coordination, limited accessibility, employment-related constraints, and low awareness of entitlements and available supports. Although the military-to-civilian transition is widely recognised as a vulnerable period, existing research tends to prioritise psychosocial outcomes, leaving the structural and institutional barriers underexamined. While grounded in the Australian context, this review offers insights relevant to other Five Eyes nations and calls for more cohesive transition programs and integrated support systems to improve long-term reintegration trajectories.

The objective of this scoping literature review is to investigate: what is known about the connection between philosophical and spiritual worldviews and professional resilience in frontline social work and human services? Resilience is essential to these professionals sustaining practice during difficult times, and philosophical and spiritual worldviews are recognized as providing comfort and helping people function. The review showed that little is known about the role of philosophical and spiritual worldviews in the resilience of these professionals. We recommend that future research investigate whether engaging with the strength found in philosophical and spiritual worldviews promotes the resilience of these professionals.

Internationally, COVID-19 has forced educational reform and disrupted already strained social work field education systems. This inquiry began pre-pandemic, responding to placement scarcity, which was only exacerbated by the pandemic as agencies migrated to online service delivery and universities responded to sudden placement cancellations. Educators found themselves navigating two interlinked global trends: 1) workplace learning that was changing radically; and 2) the immediate need to identify and develop placement opportunities. This article presents themes from a co-operative inquiry that interrogated four innovative international placement scenarios from Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, highlighting enablers, markers, and aspects of quality learning. The four exemplars evidence the pedagogical challenges and opportunities presented by placement innovation and online learning. These placements reveal how tensions regarding placement scarcity, rapid placement innovation, and the concurrent need to mitigate risk while preserving placement quality were managed. The authors propose that creativity and innovation guided by well-articulated educational principles, learning outcomes, and pedagogical practices, promote the construction of quality placements that transcend potential risks. The challenge moving forward is upholding contemporary approaches to placement teaching and learning that ensure social work students' acquisition of professional knowledge, values and skills that are necessary for practice.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, educators around the globe seek to understand how to support students whose academic performance is impacted by mental health challenges. This article presents a co-operative inquiry undertaken by colleagues in Canada and Australia, responding to the question; what insights can the existing Carleton University framework of reflective questions offer to educators responding to student mental health challenges in social work education during the COVID-19 pandemic? The risks and complexities of attending to student mental health needs are illustrated by a pandemic-informed case study that extends the framework into this unique context and illustrates the importance of respecting learning requirements, combating discrimination, protecting students' rights, and honouring the professional and legislative mandates of social work within all responses aimed at supporting student mental health resilience during COVID-19. This article acknowledges the limitations of previous practices guiding work with students with mental health needs during any period of crisis or disaster and demonstrates that the Carleton University framework assists in developing improved processes and policy grounded in social work's commitment to social justice and critical reflection.

For many years, the mistreatment of women in particular has essentially been normalized in many parts of the music industry. In recent years, however, there has been an increase in women coming forward and telling their stories, and asking that men be held accountable for wrongdoing. This interdisciplinary (sociology and philosophy) paper pursues two key feminist questions prompted by recent developments. Firstly: How has the construction of the history of popular music legitimated the continuation of this situation? Looking back' historically and sociologically, examples are provided of the legitimation or ignoring of violence against women (VAW) in the history of popular music to date. Secondly: How should we [archivists, historians, heritage curators and popular music educators], from now on, construct the history of popular music in a way that doesn't legitimate VAW? Turning to look forward', applied ethics frameworks are used to explore different aspects of this second question.

The gendered marketing of children’s toys is under considerable scrutiny, as reflected by numerous consumer-led campaigns and vigorous media debates. This article seeks to assist stakeholders to better understand the ethical and scientific assumptions that underlie the two opposing positions in this debate, and assess their relative strength. There is apparent consensus in the underlying ethical foundations of the debate, with all commentators seeming to endorse the values of corporate social responsibility and gender equality. However, the debate splits over three critical points of empirical disagreement: whether gendered toy marketing influences children’s toy preferences or simply reflects boys’ and girls’ fundamentally different interests; whether the effects of gendered toy marketing are negative, neutral or beneficial; and whether a shift to gender-neutral marketing would be economically viable. We assess the three points of disagreement against the available evidence and shared ethical principles underlying the debate, and conclude that current defences of gendered toy marketing fail.

What is a person? This article deepens students’, field educators’ and colleagues’ understanding of person-centred and other personalisation approaches. A group of field educators and aca- demics observed students’ tendency to apply personalisation approaches in their field education tasks and supervision sessions without reference to the person receiving the intervention.In response, the field educators began conversing about personhood, personalisation approaches and field education with colleagues from philosophy, chaplaincy, theology and sociology. A cross-disciplinary investigation between the university, field educators and the field emerged leading to this co-operative inquiry into the question: “What is a person?” This inquiry considers contemporary personhood debates and how such debates can influence field education. Personalisation approaches are considered capable of grounding students’, field educators’ and professionals’ theoretical knowledge in reality by ensuring that they listen to the person they are working with and that they provide that person with agency, power, control and choice over their life. This article invites students, field educators and colleagues to engage with contemporary discussions about personhood and how they apply to field education. It hopes to invigorate their application of personalisation approaches within the human services sector by arguing for a clear reference to the person receiving assistance.

An environmental ethics mirroring the distinctive account given by Raimond Gaita of human ethics offers a number of advantages. By understanding the moral significance of individuals to be related primarily to whether they are intelligible objects of love, a Gaitan environmental ethics clarifies the conceptual connections between experiences familiar to those who affirm environmental value: perception of intrinsic value in nature, love of particular natural things or places, an expanded sense of depth of meaning in life, and the sense that environmental commitment is partially constitutive of identity. It highlights the importance of an attitudinal shift in promoting broader acceptance of environmental ethics, and the need for nature preservation, environmental culture, and environmentally committed people who live with integrity to facilitate such an attitudinal shift. Finally, by explaining (via the critical concept of anthropocentrism) the depth of meaning in life that affirmation of environmental value makes possible, it might play a small role in reducing barriers to such affirmation. A Gaitan approach clarifies the conceptual connections between experiences familiar to many who affirm environmental value, highlights the importance of nature preservation, of environmental culture, and of environmentally committed people, and can provide the advantage of a deeper meaning in life over the current norm of seeing nature instrumentally.