Dear~~first_name~~,
After seven weeks of long service leave, I’m delighted to be back and reconnecting with our TASA community. My sincere thanks to Roger Wilkinson, our Digital Publications Editor, for so capably managing the newsletter in my absence. I really appreciate the care and continuity he provided in keeping everyone informed.
I'm also very grateful to Penny, Ali, and the Executive team for taking on additional responsibilities during my leave. Thanks to everyone's support, I was able to truly switch off and return feeling refreshed.
In this newsletter edition, you’ll find the latest publications from our members, as well as details about upcoming events. A highlight: the Urban Sociology Thematic Group is hosting a symposium today, Thursday, 9 October, exploring Knowing the City: Movements, Epistemologies, and Visions.
Sally Daly
Executive Officer, TASA
| A warm TASA welcome to this week's new members, Sarah Gerard and Nicholas Regan. And thank you also to the many members who are renewing their TASA membership at this time of year -- your support is what makes our TASA community sustainable and vibrant.
| | International Sociological Association
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Also, TASA President, Kim Humphery will be representing our association at the upcoming ISA Council of National Associations Conference at FLAME University, Pune, India, from December 17 to 20, 2025. The conference presents a unique opportunity to discuss key questions in sociology, exchange perspectives from around the world, and foster collaboration among ISA's collective members. Please reach out to Kim if you have a matter you would like them to raise during the conference.
| Michael, S., Abood, J., & Nicholas, L. (2025) “LGBTQIA+ Health Teaching in Undergraduate Medical Education: A Scoping Review”. 2025. Focus on Health Professional Education: A Multi-Professional Journal 26 (3): 9-43. https://fohpe.org/FoHPE/article/view/901
Nguyen-Trung, K., Saeri, A. K., Zhao, K., Boulet, M., & Kaufman, S. (2025). SeCOM-B: An integrated model for understanding human behaviour change in wicked socio-ecological problems. Socio-Ecological Practice Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-025-00227-y [full access].
Coleman-Hicks, R., and G. van Toorn. 2025. “ Beyond Robodebt: Media Representations of Welfare and Fraud Before and After the Robodebt Royal Commission.” Australian Journal of Social Issues 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.70069 [full access].
| The latest special issue of the Journal of Sociology explores ‘Equity in the creative industries’ in the context of a changing employment landscape in Australia. Inequality is central to understanding the social consequences and distribution of cultural work. The COVID-19 pandemic, rise of digital cultural production, growth of media sharing platforms, and instability of changes in government (and policy) have both disrupted and re-organised cultural work. The collection of articles aims to develop debate on competing imaginaries of the lived experiences of workers, and to shed light on the struggle and complexities of contemporary creative labour.
All articles have been published on open access and are available here.
| | TASA 2025 Conference Program
You can search by day, track, thematic group, workshop, social function, or keynote, and even download a personalised program containing only the sessions you wish to attend.
You can access the program here. | | | The Urban Sociology Thematic Group invites scholars, practitioners, and students to join us on Wednesday, 9 October at The University of Sydney for an engaging symposium exploring the theme Knowing the City – Movements, Epistemologies, and Visions.
Event Details
Date: TODAY 9th October
Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm (AEDT)
Location: University of Sydney
Cost: In-person $30 | Online $20
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Event Details
Date: Friday 21 November
Time: 9:30am - 5:00pm
Location: Monash University City Campus
Cost: TASA Member In-person - $40 | TASA Member PG, Casual, unwaged In-person- $15 | Non Member In-person $40 | Online - Complimentary
| | | Research Fellow
The Australian National University
The Research Fellow will contribute to RegNet’s teaching efforts, particularly at postgraduate, professional training and higher degree by research (HDR) levels, and carry out activities to develop their scholarly, research and/or professional track record. Early career scholars working on the following topics are particularly welcome to apply: concerns related to complexity and uncertainty in governance, contemporary regulatory governance and the governance of innovation and risk.
| Research Specialist
Academia Sinica (Taiwan)
The Center for Survey Research, Academia Sinica (Taiwan) invites applications for a full-time position at the rank of Assistant Research Specialist or above with a focus on computational social science and survey methodology
Application deadline: October 31. Read on...
| Other Events, News & Opportunities
| New: Masculinity, migration and care: Men working in the adult social care sector in England
ANU, Canberra
Hybrid, Monday October 13th, 12pm - 1pm (AEDT)
Like many other countries, the adult social care sector in England depends on a predominantly female workforce, with men making up 21% of workers in 2024. As a result, some commentators have suggested that recruiting more men could be one solution to the staffing crisis which has long troubled the sector. In addition, adult social care is heavily reliant on migrant workers, with 25% of workers in England being born outside the UK. Notably, these demographic factors are interrelated, as a recent increase in the proportion of male care workers has been directly linked to an expansion in overseas recruitment, particularly from countries outside the EU.
New: Save the date - Western Sydney University, Sexualities and Genders Research (SaGR) presents our famous, excellent, fun annual research showcase on Nov 10th 2pm-5pm at Parramatta City Campus, along with the launch of our 5 year review report. Attend to see researchers and community partners speed present their contemporary research, and network with other Sexualities, Genders and feminist scholars.
Newcastle Youth Studies Online Seminar Series
The Newcastle Youth Studies Centre is a collaborative group of researchers who work with young people to understand their lives, and the socth, ial, cultural, and economic forces they are living in. They have the following online seminars scheduled:
- The False Divide between Nature and Culture (November 5)
- ‘Your mum didn’t take selfies’: Youth and image cultures on social media (November 19)
Critical Approaches to Researching Religion and Spirituality
Online, Thursday 16 October, 12:30–2:00pm AEDT
Fellow members Rosie Clare Shorter and Enqi Weng will present their work, which engages with feminist and decolonial frameworks to unpack the ethical, political, and epistemological challenges of studying religion and spirituality today.
For access, email event host Larney Peerenboom.
| | Australian Social Cohesion Summit 2025
Thursday 16 October, Melbourne City
This summit will actively drive dialogue, collaboration, and practical solutions. Through interactive discussions, and scenario-based activities, participants will gain actionable strategies to address social cohesion challenges at both local and national levels.
| | | Towards Development of Mediatization Research IX: Youth, Sports, and Media
Online, 5 December
Researchers who wish to discuss their current projects within a focused and closed group of media scholars, under the guidance of an expert, are invited to attend.
Abstract submission deadline: October 27th. Read on...
| BSA Annual Conference 2026: 75 Years of Sociology
University of Edinburgh, UK
8-10 April 2026
Predoctoral Preconference
Work and Family Researchers Network Conference
The Predoctoral Preconference will provide workshops intended to help graduate students form meaningful connections with diverse scholars, learn about publication strategies, as well as how to engage with stakeholders such as organisational leaders or policy advocates.
| | Reimagining Boyhood: Addressing the wellbeing of boys and young men through education
21 January, 2026
The University of Queensland
Key Speakers include fellow member Garth Stahl.
This event brings together leading international voices, cutting-edge research, and the shared commitment of schools and educators to shape the future of boys’ education, exploring identity, wellbeing, belonging, and learning in boyhood. With keynote speakers, expert panels, and interactive workshops, this full-day program offers evidence-based insights and practical strategies that educators can apply directly.
| | | Special Issues - call for submissions
| New: Professionalism beyond the Global North: A Space for New Theoretical Developments
Current Sociology Monographs
This issue invites contributions that advance sociological research on professions, professionalism, and expertise in the Global South—broadly defined to include Africa, Asia, Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe, and Oceania
The Normative Turn in Sociology. Opening the Black Box
Sociology’s special issue hopes to lay the groundwork for a sociology of normativity; that is, a form of sociology (be it “critical” or otherwise) which is expressly normative. Editors are looking for contributions, theoretical and/or empirical, that engage with the question of normativity in sociology.
Paper submission deadline: 22 January. Read on...
Earning while Learning: Experiences, patterns and the political economy of working students
Work, Employment and Society’s new special issue aims to interrogate and fundamentally reconceptualize the relationship between earning and learning, bringing together different disciplinary approaches to interrogate student work and the global political economy that shapes it.
Paper submission deadline: 27 February. Read on...
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
The guest editors of this journal are seeking submissions for the forthcoming edition ‘Reframing artificial intelligence: Critical perspectives from AI social science’
In an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI), public and academic discourse is often dominated by polarised narratives—either heralding AI as a solution to complex problems or warning of its dangers … this Collection invites social science perspectives to advance the study of AI’s sociotechnical, cultural and political dimensions.
Submission deadline: 30 April. Read on...
| | New: Call for Participants – The Rationalisation of Love
Fellow member Nell Whittaker, UNSW
Have you been in a loving relationship for 12 months or longer? Researchers at UNSW want to hear how people narrate love in their everyday lives. By sharing your story in an interview, you’ll be contributing to sociological research aimed at understanding how love is rationalised.
If you’d like to participate and immortalise your love story, please email Nell or call on 0421 223 292.
| | |  | The Jobs & Scholarships Board allows you to view opportunities that TASA Admin and fellow members have posted.
In 4 easy steps, you can upload job & scholarship opportunities from your member's profile screen. For instructions, visit here.
The Jobs & Scholarships Board is a public facing searchable feature of TASAweb.
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 | TASA’s Executive Committee (EC) governs the Association and manages its daily business as outlined in the Constitution and by established policies. A call for nominations for the 2027 – 2028 Executive term will be disseminated on July 1, 2026.
The November 2024 - November 2026 Executive Team can be viewed on TASAweb here.
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 | TASA was officially established under the name of the Sociological Association of Australia and New Zealand (SAANZ) in 1963, crystallising what was a long, and perhaps delayed process of the discipline’s development in Australia.
For the 50th anniversary celebrations in 2013, pages on TASA's history were added to TASAweb.
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 | The more members TASA has, the stronger our association can be.
To help spread the word about TASA, you can quickly and easily gift a TASA membership to someone from within your TASA membership profile.
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 | | TASA members have free access to over 90 peer-reviewed Sage Sociology full-text collection online journals encompassing over 63,000 articles. The image on the left shows you where to access those journals, as well as the Sage Research Methods Collection & the Taylor and Francis Full Text Collection, when logged in to TASAweb. If needed, here is a short instructive video on how to access the online resources. |
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 | TASA currently has 27 thematic groups in operation and members can join up to 4 groups. This can be done quickly, and easily via your membership profile.
Watch the very short video (1:30) to learn how to join a thematic group/s.
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 | TASA's Membership Directory allows you to search for members by country and state. It also has search functions for members of a particular thematic group, and members who are available for supervision and/or mentoring.
To learn how to search the Membership Directory, watch this very short video (1 min).
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 | Via your membership profile, you can update many options including adding a secondary email address, and indicating if you are available for mentoring, supervising, consulting, and/or talking to the media, for example. If you are in a Tier 2, Tier 3 & Tier 4 membership category, you can also opt in or out of receiving a hard copy of the Journal of Sociology.
All of these changes can be done quickly and easily. To learn how, watch this video (1 min). |
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Personal pronoun preferences can be added to your profile. There are 9 combination options to choose from. Please let Sally in TASA Admin know if your preference/s is not on the list and we will have them added.
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 | We encourage you to support your colleagues by sharing details of your latest publications with them via this newsletter. No publication is too big or too small.
Any mention of sociology is of value to our association, and to the discipline, so please do email through details of your latest publication/s (fully referenced & with a link, where possible), events, job adverts etc. for the next newsletter, to TASA Admin (right click to retrieve the email address). Usually, the newsletter is disseminated every Thursday morning. |
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 | As part of the agreement with Taylor & Francis, TASA members are entitled to a 30% books discount. This discount is valid on any full priced CRC Press or Routledge book.
To access the book discount, click on the following link and then log in to TASAweb: book discount link. |
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Admin (Sally): admin@tasa.org.au
Events (Penny): events@tasa.org.au
Membership (Ali): membership@tasa.org.au
Digital Publications Editor (Roger): digitalpe@tasa.org.au
Indigenous (John): indigenousmembership@tasa.org.au
Thematic Groups (Naomi): thematicgroups@tasa.org.au
Postgraduates (Molly): postgraduates@tasa.org.au | |