Breastfeeding after return to work: An Australian national workplace survey.

Breastfeeding initiation rates in Australia are high but duration rates fall well below the World Health Organization targets. Return to work is a known factor impacting 6 months exclusive breastfeeding and continuation into the infants second year of life. Work related factors can influence a woman's confidence in maintaining breastmilk supply after return to employment and determine whether she meets her personal breastfeeding goals. This cross-sectional online survey is the first Australian study to explore women's experience of maintaining breastfeeding after return to work, in all work sectors. Results revealed variations across work sectors reflected in worker autonomy and confidence in speaking up about breastfeeding rights. Women who had autonomy or flexibility in planning their workday were more likely to be confident in maintaining breastmilk supply. The main predictors for milk supply confidence and meeting personal breastfeeding goals included having: a suitable place to express milk; confidence in speaking out about rights; a formal return-to-work plan; a supportive workplace; and returning to work after the period of exclusive breastfeeding. This study reveals that supportive workplace environments can lead to increased confidence in maintaining milk supply, extending durations of breastfeeding. Women who are confident in their rights to express breastmilk, or breastfeed at work, are more likely to meet their own breastfeeding goals. Education, and awareness raising, on the rights of breastfeeding women in the workplace, is a gender equity imperative that can improve experiences for breastfeeding women, and, increase manager and co-worker knowledge for creating enabling workplace environments for breastfeeding employees.

Correction to: Sociality, resilience and agency: how did young Australians experience online learning during Covid-19?

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1007/s13384-021-00500-5.].

Sociality, resilience and agency: how did young Australians experience online learning during Covid-19?

In 2020 when schooling was abruptly reconfigured by the pandemic, young people were required to demonstrate new capabilities to manage their learning and their wellbeing. This paper reports on the feelings, thoughts and experiences of eight Year 9 and 10 students in NSW and Victoria about the initial period of online learning in Australian schools that resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic. Beyond dominant narratives of vulnerability and losses in learning, our participants offered counternarratives that stressed their capacities to rise and meet the times. We trace three central themes on how they: found moments of agency that increased their confidence, reconfigured resilience as a socially responsible set of practices, deployed sociality as a resource for the benefit of themselves and others. The pandemic opened up conversations with young people about where and how learning takes place and how schools might adapt and respond to young people's growing sense of urgency about the future of schooling.

Artefacts, practices and pedagogies: teaching writing in English in the NAPLAN era.

In secondary schools, English teachers are often made responsible for writing results in national testing. Yet there have been few studies that focussed on this key group, or on how pedagogical practices have been impacted in the teaching of writing in their classrooms. This study investigated practices of English teachers in four secondary schools across different states, systems and regions. It developed a novel method of case study at a distance that required no classroom presence or school visits for the researchers and allowed a multi-sited and geographically dispersed design. Teachers were invited to select classroom artefacts pertaining to the teaching of writing in their English classes, compile individualised e-portfolios and reflect on these items in writing and in digitally conducted interviews, as well as elaborating on their broader philosophies and feelings about the teaching of writing. Despite and sometimes because of NAPLAN, these teachers held strong views on explicit teaching of elements of writing, but approached these in different ways. The artefacts that they created animated their teaching practices, connected them to their students and their subject, suggested both the pressure of externally driven homogenising approaches to writing and the creative individualised responses of skilled teachers within their unique contexts. In addition to providing granular detail about pedagogical practices in the teaching of writing in the NAPLAN era, the contribution of this paper lies in its methodological adaptation of case study at a distance through teacher-curated artefact portfolios that enabled a deep dive into individual teachers' practices.