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Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken centre stage in basic science. The five winners of the 2024 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics shared a common thread: AI.

Indeed, many scientists – including the Nobel committees – are celebrating AI as a force for transforming science.

As one of the laureates put it, AI’s potential for accelerating scientific discovery makes it “one of the most transformative technologies in human history”. But what will this transformation really mean for science?

AI promises to help scientists do more, faster, with less money. But it brings a host of new concerns, too – and if scientists rush ahead with AI adoption they risk transforming science into something that escapes public understanding and trust, and fails to meet the needs of society.

The illusions of understanding

Experts have already identified at least three illusions that can ensnare researchers using AI.

The first is the “illusion of explanatory depth”. Just because an AI model excels at predicting a phenomenon — like AlphaFold, which won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for its predictions of protein structures — that doesn’t mean it can accurately explain it. Research in neuroscience has already shown that AI models designed for optimised prediction can lead to misleading conclusions about the underlying neurobiological mechanisms.

Second is the “illusion of exploratory breadth”. Scientists might think they are investigating all testable hypotheses in their exploratory research, when in fact they are only looking at a limited set of hypotheses that can be tested using AI.

Finally, the “illusion of objectivity”. Scientists may believe AI models are free from bias, or that they can account for all possible human biases. In reality, however, all AI models inevitably reflect the biases present in their training data and the intentions of their developers.

Cheaper and faster science

One of the main reasons for AI’s increasing appeal in science is its potential to produce more results, faster, and at a much lower cost.

An extreme example of this push is the “AI Scientist” machine recently developed by Sakana AI Labs. The company’s vision is to develop a “fully AI-driven system for automated scientific discovery”, where each idea can be turned into a full research paper for just US$15 – though critics said the system produced “endless scientific slop”.

Do we really want a future where research papers can be produced with just a few clicks, simply to “accelerate” the production of science? This risks inundating the scientific ecosystem with papers with no meaning and value, further straining an already overburdened peer-review system.

We might find ourselves in a world where science, as we once knew it, is buried under the noise of AI-generated content.

A lack of context

The rise of AI in science comes at a time when public trust in science and scientists is still fairly high , but we can’t take it for granted. Trust is complex and fragile.

As we learned during the COVID pandemic, calls to “trust the science” can fall short because scientific evidence and computational models are often contested, incomplete, or open to various interpretations.

However, the world faces any number of problems, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality, that require public policies crafted with expert judgement. This judgement must also be sensitive to specific situations, gathering input from various disciplines and lived experiences that must be interpreted through the lens of local culture and values.

As an International Science Council report published last year argued, science must recognise nuance and context to rebuild public trust. Letting AI shape the future of science may undermine hard-won progress in this area.

If we allow AI to take the lead in scientific inquiry, we risk creating a monoculture of knowledge that prioritises the kinds of questions, methods, perspectives and experts best suited for AI.

This can move us away from the transdisciplinary approach essential for responsible AI, as well as the nuanced public reasoning and dialogue needed to tackle our social and environmental challenges.

A new social contract for science

As the 21st century began, some argued scientists had a renewed social contract in which scientists focus their talents on the most pressing issues of our time in exchange for public funding. The goal is to help society move toward a more sustainable biosphere – one that is ecologically sound, economically viable and socially just.

The rise of AI presents scientists with an opportunity not just to fulfil their responsibilities but to revitalise the contract itself. However, scientific communities will need to address some important questions about the use of AI first.

For example, is using AI in science a kind of “outsourcing” that could compromise the integrity of publicly funded work? How should this be handled?

What about the growing environmental footprint of AI? And how can researchers remain aligned with society’s expectations while integrating AI into the research pipeline?

The idea of transforming science with AI without first establishing this social contract risks putting the cart before the horse.

Letting AI shape our research priorities without input from diverse voices and disciplines can lead to a mismatch with what society actually needs and result in poorly allocated resources.

Science should benefit society as a whole. Scientists need to engage in real conversations about the future of AI within their community of practice and with research stakeholders. These discussions should address the dimensions of this renewed social contract, reflecting shared goals and values.

It’s time to actively explore the various futures that AI for science enables or blocks – and establish the necessary standards and guidelines to harness its potential responsibly. Läs mer…

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has often been accused of copying former US President Donald Trump’s tactics. Some analysts even refer to Dutton, like Trump, as a “populist” who seeks political gain by pitting ordinary citizens against corrupt “elites”.

There is evidence of this populism in the willingness of Trump, Dutton and other figures in their parties to attack “big business”.

This is unusual for the conservative parties, and it has alarmed business-aligned outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the Australian Financial Review.

Republicans and Liberals have always preferred to identify with small business rather than big business. Their relationship with corporate interests has not always been smooth.

But they do not believe there is a natural conflict between business and workers, or between different sections of the economy. And they usually align with big business on the critical issues of taxation and government regulation.

So Dutton’s declaration earlier this year that the Liberal Party is “not the party of big business” but “the friend of the worker” marks a notable rhetorical shift, even if there is reason to doubt the substance behind it.

It mirrors a similar shift to pro-worker rhetoric among leading Republicans. Florida Senator Marco Rubio said in 2020, for instance, the future of the Republican Party is based on “a multiethnic, multiracial, working-class coalition”.

Expanding their share of the working-class vote may be necessary for both parties, given their losses of tertiary-educated, middle-class voters and seats in recent elections. Economic populism may be one path to do it.

But how economically populist can conservative parties get in either country?

Donald Trump at a campaign rally at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Thomas Slusser/The Tribune-Democrat/AP

Why attack big business?

A lot of Republican and Liberal attacks on big business are fundamentally cultural rather than economic.

Publicly-owned corporations have embraced diversity, equity and inclusion policies. They declare commitments to “sustainability”. And plenty of them have backed causes like marriage equality, Black Lives Matter and the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

However cosmetic these gestures are, many conservatives see major corporations as culturally hostile to them. More importantly, they no longer see big business and finance as reliable political backers.

Peter Dutton addresses a summit of small business owners in Sydney in April.
Biance de Marchi/AAP

And they don’t need them like they once did. Dynastic wealth in both countries has seen the ascendancy of private companies owned by super-rich individuals and families. These, not corporate donors, are now the most consistent sources of financial and political support for conservative parties.

These changing conditions have given Republicans and Liberals a free hand to make big business – never a popular entity – into a target of populist campaigns.

Many of their attacks are about “wokeness”. But not all. Consumer protection has also become an opportune theme, given the cost of living crisis in both the United States and Australia.

Trump, for instance, has floated capping credit card interest rates at 10%. Dutton has proposed using the government’s divestiture powers to break up supermarket and hardware chains that are accused of using their monopoly power to exploit consumers and suppliers.

They can propose these ideas because voters usually trust the Republican and Liberal parties more than their opponents on economic issues. Most Democratic and Labor politicians would be unwilling to take populist measures that far because of their perennial fears of being seen as economically irresponsible.

But when it comes to actually siding with workers over business, a different picture emerges.

The Republican romance with ‘union workers’

As president, Trump had a notably anti-union record. His appointees to the National Labor Relations Board, which enforces labour law, consistently ruled against unions.

In Trump’s current campaign to re-enter the White House, unions have criticised him for holding a rally appealing to “union workers” at a non-union shop, and for praising tech billionaire Elon Musk because he sacked workers who threatened to strike.

Trump also said recently that as a business owner he hated paying overtime. He has also previously said he preferred to use non-union workforces.

Despite all this, the Trump campaign is making a serious play for the votes of unionised workers, who could be critical in Midwestern battleground states.

Although unions as organisations usually support Democrats, the number of voters in union households who support Republicans is sometimes more than 40%.

Democratic President Joe Biden joins striking United Auto Workers on the picket line in Michigan in 2023.
Evan Vucci/AP

This year, Trump sought the endorsement of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the North American truck drivers’ union with 1.3 million members. The Teamsters have supported Democratic candidates in every presidential election since 2000, but prior to that, the organisation had also backed Republican candidates like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush.

This year, the Teamsters did not join most other unions in quickly endorsing Democratic incumbent Joe Biden before he stepped aside for Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Teamsters’ president, Sean O’Brien, almost got into a fight with a Republican senator in a committee hearing in 2023 after calling him a “greedy CEO who acts like he’s self-made”. Nonetheless, he got an invitation to speak at this year’s Republican National Convention. He praised Trump as a “tough SOB”, but then blasted various businesses and business organisations for being anti-union, to the discomfort of the audience.

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien addressing the Republican National Convention.

The Teamsters ultimately endorsed neither candidate. However, they released polling showing nearly 60% of their members supported Trump compared to a third for Harris.

Trump-era Republicans frequently praise “union workers” rather than actual unions. When Senators JD Vance (now Trump’s running mate) and Josh Hawley supported the striking United Auto Workers last year, they criticised the union’s leadership. But they are happy to be seen as being on the side of unionised workers against big businesses who send manufacturing jobs overseas, a trend Trump promises to reverse.

The term “union workers” prompts conservative nostalgia, especially for a group like the Teamsters with their mostly male membership and reputation for toughness. It evokes the anti-communist, blue-collar workers of the 1960s and ‘70s who supported Nixon and brawled in the streets with college-educated anti-Vietnam War protesters.

That is not the only nostalgic element. Through heavily protectionist measures, Trump is promising to restore millions of manufacturing jobs to the United States – the kinds of jobs that used to be largely unionised. He also promises to roll back environmental regulations to expand mining, drilling and fracking on federal land. Again, these are the kinds of jobs often associated with “union workers”.

When Trump and others praise “union workers”, they are not really talking about unions, but a certain type of blue-collar job they are promising to create and protect. “Union” in this context has the positive connotation of well-paid, stable work.

But Trump claims it is his policies that will guarantee these jobs, making unions themselves virtually irrelevant.

Where Liberals won’t follow

Dutton may praise workers, but he is unlikely to add the prefix “union” anytime soon. It is hard to imagine any Liberal leader courting the support of a union because Australia’s party system effectively enshrines the country’s adversarial industrial relations system in its politics.

The Australian Labor Party began as the parliamentary wing of the union movement, and to this day affiliated unions are entitled to 50% of delegates at party conferences. American unions are not linked to the Democratic Party in the same way.

This does not mean the votes of union members are off-limits to other parties. In 2006, then-economist (now Labor MP) Andrew Leigh estimated about a third of union members voted for the Coalition on a two party-preferred basis from 1966 to 2004. But Liberals will not appeal to these voters as “union workers” in the same way Republicans do.

Trump’s dream of restoring American manufacturing dominance would involve a resurgence of long-term employment in large and medium-sized firms. He is promising the stability once associated with unions, not the “flexibility” that Australia’s Liberals want in workplaces.

For the most part, Liberals still prefer to talk about blue-collar workers as independent tradespeople or aspiring business owners rather than employees.

Dutton says the modern Liberal Party is the friend of “small business owners and employees in that business”. This conjures images of family-like operations where staff loyally put in unpaid overtime – instead of larger, impersonal workplaces (where unpaid overtime is also the norm).

Peter Dutton (centre) at a visit to the A.H.Beard bedding manufacturer in outer Sydney in 2023.
Nikki Short/AAP

And unlike Trump Republicans, the Liberal and National parties still believe in free trade. After a long bipartisan opposition to protectionism, Labor has recently embraced a major new industrial policy. The Coalition is not on board.

Some doubt whether Trump is a genuine populist. But he has a wider scope for genuinely populist rhetoric than Dutton, at least for now.

Even though he’s a symbol of capitalist excess, part of Trump’s message is that capitalism has taken a wrong turn. Not just into excessive wokeness, but into globalisation and financialisation, where investment and speculation are more profitable than production.

There are limits to how much any Liberal leader, even Dutton, can tap into anger with capitalism itself. Läs mer…

Universities are supposed to be places where all students can learn, free from discrimination.

A key part of this ideal is academics welcoming all students to study and research, regardless of their racial background.

But as our new research shows, Australian academics responded differently to potential PhD students, depending on whether they were called “Melissa” or “Rahul”.

Racism on campus

Many overseas and Australian studies have shown racism is both a historical and ongoing problem for universities.

A 2020 Australian study showed universities tend to be run by older, white men. A 2021 UK study showed academics from different cultural backgrounds face racism at work.

But there has been less specific attention paid to those trying to become academics.

The main way people start an academic career is via a doctoral degree. In the Australian system, before a student is accepted they usually require an established academic to agree to supervise them. So a student’s initial communication with a potential supervisor is very important.

To start a PhD, students usually need to have a supervisor lined up.
Jacob Lund/Shutterstock

How we set up our research

To investigate whether racism is playing a role at the entrance point to PhD study, in 2017 we sent about 7,000 emails from fictitious students to academics based at the main campuses of Australia’s Group of Eight universities (billed as Australia’s top research universities).

These are the Australian National University, Monash University, University of Adelaide, University of New South Wales, University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, University of Western Australia and University of Queensland.

We emailed staff ranked senior lecturer or above, as these are the levels most likely to be supervising PhD students. Academics were identified by university websites, and we sent emails to everyone who fit our rank criteria across all disciplines.

In this process, we found 70% of relevant academics were male and 84% were white. This did not improve in the more senior ranks – more than 68% of professors were white men.

What did the email say?

The emails asked for an meeting to talk about potential PhD supervision.

They were identical apart from the senders’ names. These names were tested to be associated with male and female and with white-European, Indigenous, South Asian, Chinese and Arab identities. Recipients were randomly allocated to different name groups.

The emails indicated the sender was an Australia-based student with fluent English. It conveyed an interest in the recipient’s research and urgency in meeting because the sender was only on campus for several days. It also noted “I have recently finished my honours degree” (a common path into a PhD in Australia) and was sent from a University of Sydney email address.

We emailed about 7,000 senior academics as part of our study.
Tipa Patt/Shutterstock

What did we find?

Responses agreeing to a meeting or requesting further information were categorised as “positive”. Those who declined a meeting were “non-positive”. Automated replies and those who did not reply were “non-responses”.

Of 6,928 emails sent, 2,986 (43.1%) received a reply within 24 hours and 2,469 (35.6%) received a positive reply. There were 3,942 (56.9%) non-responses and 517 (7.5%) non-positive responses (declining a meeting).

We initially planned to give academics a week to respond, but after IT at one university noticed several staff had received emails with identical text, we ended the experiment after 24 hours.

From here, the results were stark: emails from names associated with non-white racial groups received significantly fewer responses and positive replies than those from names typically associated with white individuals.

An email from “Melissa Smith” was far more likely to get a positive response than an identical email from “Grace Chen Jinyan” (six percentage points lower) or “Omar al-Haddad” (nine percentage points lower).

The most dramatic gap was in the positive response rates to Melissa Smith, compared with “Rahul Kumar”. The rate of positive responses to Melissa was 12 percentage points higher than for Rahul.

Overall, our statistical analysis showed the white-sounding names averaged a 7% higher reply rate and a 9% higher positive response rate than the non-white sounding names. Both these findings were highly statistically significant, meaning we can be very confident the results were not due to chance.

Of course, some faculty members may simply have been unable to meet with the student, or may have missed the email. However, given the randomisation used, it is reasonable to assume bias explains the gap in responses to students with different names.

This is alarming because it suggests racial bias is quietly influencing who gets a foot in the door of academia even before formal admissions processes begin.

Silver linings

One seemingly positive finding was academics at the more junior end of our study group appeared to show less bias towards students of different backgrounds.

For academics at senior lecturer or associate professor levels, Melissa was 10.5% more likely to receive a positive response than Rahul, while the corresponding figure for full professors was 14.7%.

However, junior academics often have little institutional power or much of a say on hiring. More research is needed to explore whether generational change is achievable (albeit painfully slow).

We also found that, unlike similar US studies, there was no significant bias against female students. In fact, there was some evidence of positive bias, or preference, for female students.

Our study found academics did not discriminate against potential candidates based on gender.
Matej Kastelic/ Shutterstock

Backlash to our study

We based our study on a peer-reviewed study carried out in the United States, and followed a research ethics protocol approved by our university.

However, minutes after academics received our follow-up email telling them they had been part of a research study (part of our ethics protocol), the backlash began.

The University of Sydney, our home institution at the time, received more than 500 inquiries about the study. While some were curious or supportive, the majority were complaints. These were primarily about our use of deception (a well-researched and supported method of studying bias). Megan MacKenzie, the more junior author (at the time a senior lecturer), received calls threatening her with consequences for her career.

Although unpleasant, the reaction was revealing. It reinforces other research on how defensive racial majorities can be when they believe they are suspected of bias. It also complements work showing internal resistance to diversity efforts in higher education.

What can we do?

Universities pride themselves on being meritocracies, where the best ideas and brightest minds rise to the top. But our study suggests racial bias is undermining this principle by influencing who is even considered for an academic career.

There is growing acknowledgement racism is a significant problem on Australian university campuses (as well as in broader society). In May, the federal government asked the Australian Human Rights Commission to study the prevalence and impact of racism at Australian universities.

But this study is not due to deliver its final report until June 2025, and any ensuing action will be further away still.

What can be done now to tackle this issue?

First, universities need to acknowledge academia remains overwhelmingly white and male, in spite of efforts to increase diversity.

Second, universities also need to acknowledge the existence of racial bias, the need for ongoing research into how it operates in higher education and the most effective strategies to tackle it. Läs mer…

Photography is an immensely powerful medium. Unlike paintings or drawings, photographs have long been connected to ideas of truth and used as evidence, shaping our understanding of the world. When it comes to journalism, photographs have been shown to have a greater impact than the written word alone – in fact, the lead image of a news article can alter how a reader interprets the text.

But right now the industry is having a crisis of conscience, and the past few years have seen a surge in online debate about ethics, as concerns have been raised about photographic practices across a wide range of industries, from fashion advertising to charity fundraising.

These concerns have extended to the news media, which has drawn criticism for the one-dimensional representation of certain communities, for example that of black men and Afghan women, which is exacerbated by inconsistent standards applied to publishing images of suffering.

This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

While questions of image ethics are not new, this crisis is only deepening with the exponential growth in the production and use of AI-generated images.

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It is often difficult to differentiate between photographs and photo-realistic AI-generated images, and the lines between the two are being increasingly blurred as AI images are sold on picture library platforms and used by advocacy campaigns for charities. AI images are now being used in the campaign for the upcoming US election, perhaps most famously with an AI image of Taylor Swift endorsing Donald Trump.

Despite the ongoing discussion about photography ethics, practice is sometimes slower to change. This can create a tension between those who espouse more traditional approaches to photography, and those who are critiquing those approaches. This is contributing to polarisation within the industry and a growing uncertainty about how we can use photography ethically today.

As an anthropologist who teaches visual media ethics, I am interested in how professional photographers think about and practise ethics in their work. This year, as part of my research into this topic, I analysed 48 interviews I conducted between 2020 and 2023 with people working in photography.

These interviews focused particularly on the perspectives of professionals, including those whose voices have often been marginalised within the industry. This includes black photographers, photographers of colour, photographers in the global south, disabled photographers and female photographers. All of these interviews are publicly available online.

Lessons in self-reflection

In each interview, I asked: “What does photography ethics mean to you?” Through analysing their responses, I have distilled eight key lessons about photography ethics. From foundational ideas about the power of photography to practical advice about personal biases, collaboration, asking for consent and building trust, these lessons can help to foster a deeper understanding of the ethical considerations in photography.

One of the threads that runs through many of these lessons is the importance of self-reflection. Photographers speak about engaging in self-reflection to understand their own motivations for telling a certain story through photography, as well as their own personal perspective in relation to the stories they tell. Photographer Kirsty Mackay says:

I think looking at the objective and your own reasons for documenting a subject is really, really important. What we see, quite often, is middle-class photographers making a story about working-class people, not really to raise awareness of an issue, but really for themselves, and for their own ego, and to elevate their status within photography.

Self-reflection can help photographers to better understand how their perspective shapes the way they tell visual stories by identifying their underlying assumptions and unconscious biases. As photographer and academic Dr Tara Pixley explains: “In your career as a photographer … you’re going to tell hundreds of stories, but the first story you have to tell to yourself is the one about you.”

While self-reflection is important for mining our motivations and mitigating our biases, it cannot achieve objectivity. Despite long-held beliefs in the objectivity of photography, there is a growing recognition within the industry that we all see the world through our own lens, subjectively. This is why we need a diversity of photographers.

Additionally, no amount of self-reflection can substitute knowledge and understanding of the people, places and topics we are photographing. Photographers like Taha Ahmad stress the importance of research in their practice. He explains that doing research can help photographers to “have a better understanding of the kind of work they are going to produce and what impact the work could make when it is out in front of the world”.

Despite its limitations, self-reflection is critical for the future of the photography industry. Photography ethics are changing as the world changes. This may mean that past practice does not match up with the current ethical standards. This may also mean that we respond to ethical issues differently today than we might have in the past. The key is to learn from our past experiences to inform our practice in the future.

The lessons identified by this report should not be understood as guidelines or rules, nor are they comprehensive. Instead, they are intended to help inform how we think about photographs, the photographic process and photography ethics – and, perhaps, they can help us to navigate the current crisis of conscience felt across the photography industry.

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The tension was palpable as we waited to see if Glasgow would rescue the Commonwealth Games for 2026. After the Australian state of Victoria pulled out, the eyes of the Commonwealth turned to Scotland.

Glasgow delivered a hugely successful event in 2014, raising questions about whether a future games there could match that success. I was part of the bid team as the cultural advisor for Glasgow 2014 and went on to conduct research on the impact of the games on sustainable community participation for people with a disability. So I understand the positive impact the games had for Scotland.

My work over the past couple of decades has examined the social impact of mega sports events and their role as agents for change, specifically disability rights, social inclusion, and peace and diplomacy. In other words, considering whether major sport events truly serve as a force for good as it’s often argued they do. If this is indeed the case, why shouldn’t smaller Commonwealth nations benefit from hosting the games?

Experts often criticise the economic and social impact of major sporting events, but others argue for the social value these events can bring to communities long after they have left town.

My research team conducted a survey on perceptions of the impact of the Glasgow 2014 games that revealed overwhelming support for their lasting impact on the city and Scotland.

The results showed that 75% of respondents believed the games increased civic and national pride, boosted Glasgow and Scotland’s chances of securing future events, enhanced their international reputation, and, as often attested, strengthened the nation’s soft power. Scotland ranks second (behind Quebec) out of ten similar territories for overall soft power, and third for sport.

Amid a rise in the Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) using sport in soft power terms, other nations have sought to be part of this too. The Commonwealth Games is increasingly being used as a vehicle for positive change and regional soft power.

Read more:
Glasgow’s 2026 Commonwealth Games needs to showcase an affordable and socially beneficial way of hosting sporting events

There has been a rise in emerging states running mega sports events, often wealthy illiberal nations such as China and Qatar. However, what about the smaller nations in the Commonwealth? Only two – Malaysia and Jamaica – have ever hosted the Commonwealth Games, and the only other nation outside of Australia, Canada, UK and New Zealand to do so is India.

Glasgow is offering a new model that will create a legacy not only for Scotland, but for many other smaller nations in the Commonwealth. The games are known as the “Friendly Games” – it’s a community that is known for three core values: humanity, equality and destiny.

The family of nations

The African nations form a significant part of the Commonwealth sports movement, so shouldn’t we expect the model that Glasgow is developing to be transferable, ensuring that sport can serve a common good? An environmentally sustainable approach would use facilities and networks already in place to help developing nations, which already suffer disproportionately in terms of climate and environmental risks.

Under this model, venues and infrastructure are already in place. The event is athlete-focused, with competitors staying in hotels as opposed to a purpose-built athlete village, and transport needs minimised through walking or the use of team buses. The 2026 Glasgow event could serve as a blueprint for a sustainable approach to games delivery, inspiring nations such as Ghana, which already has the necessary venues and infrastructure to take on future Commonwealth Games.

With just ten sports across four venues, Glasgow 2026 has thought differently about delivery and digital broadcast. This is the only fully integrated games, hosting para competition at the same time as able-bodied events. This too will help smaller nations’ para-athletes, who often do not get a chance to compete internationally.

The Commonwealth is made up of 56 independent countries and the Commonwealth Games Federation consists of 72 member nations and territories. Gabon and Togo joined the Commonwealth in 2022, neither of which had previous ties to the British empire or other Commonwealth states, demonstrating that some countries still want to be part of a wider family.

Given 19 African countries have Commonwealth Games Associations, we could well see one of these take the baton in future. The Ghanaian sports minister made it clear that after hosting a successful African Games in 2024, he believed the next step would be the Commonwealth Games.

The recent African Games in Ghana’s capital Accra held athletics in a stadium that seats 11,000 spectators, while the World Athletics Championships in 2022 used the University of Oregon’s temporary stadium that seated 13,000. Commonwealth Games Scotland realised that, for 2026, Glasgow could host athletics at an existing stadium in the city with an upgrade to facilities that would provide seating for 11,000.

The 2024 African Games, held in Ghana, used an 11,000-seater stadium for athletics events.
Xinhua/Alamy Stock Photo

Ghana and Scotland are learning from each other to lay a path for smaller nations to host future games. The Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022 contributed £1.2 billion to the UK economy and £79.5 million in social value. This is possible for small nations too.

Glasgow 2026 can create a different legacy for the Commonwealth Games; one that is built on inclusion, diversity and sustainability and which incorporates the culture, values and pride of the Commonwealth. The time is right to offer a new approach to event delivery that offers other smaller nations the chance to benefit from sport as a force for good. Läs mer…

China is gradually establishing itself as a major player in what has recently been called the Global South, previously known as the Non-Aligned Movement. Over the last few decades, China has become the world’s biggest creditor of developing countries. That has prompted many to fear that it will subjugate partners through the “debt trap” and use this to establish a “hegemonic sphere of influence.”

China’s economic position is so strong that it is now considered the main threat to the U.S. dollar. It is an influential member of the BRICS+ group (which also includes Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa). This group is working to establish a multipolar world that challenges the hegemony of the West, specifically the leadership of the United States. I analyzed this issue in a previous article.

Without using the term “threat,” the U.S. administration now sees China as the “most serious long-term challenge” to the international order. It’s easy to understand why, since China’s strategic objective is to put an end to the supremacy of the U.S. dollar, the keystone of U.S. hegemony.

As a researcher in international political economy at the Université Laval, I am looking at the role China is playing in the dedollarization of the world.

The stronghold of the U.S. dollar

The supremacy of the U.S. dollar underpins American hegemony in the current international order, as French economist Denis Durand explains in his article Guerre monétaire internationale: l’hégémonie du dollar contestée? (International currency war: the dollar’s hegemony challenged?).

In addition to the fact that several currencies are linked to the dollar by a fixed link or band of fluctuation, American currency is also used in many Third World and Eastern European countries, where it enjoys a much higher level of public confidence than do local currencies. […] The United States is the only power that can incur foreign debt in its own currency.

The hegemony of the U.S. dollar over the world economy is reflected in its over-representation in the foreign exchange reserves held by the world’s central banks. The greenback still outstrips other currencies even though there has been some erosion in this.

Despite a fall of 12 percentage points between 1999 and 2021, the share of the U.S. dollar in the official assets of the world’s central banks remains fairly stable at around 58-59 per cent.

U.S. currency still enjoys widespread confidence around the world, reinforcing its status as the preeminent reserve currency. The U.S. dollar reserves of the world’s central banks are invested in U.S. Treasury bills on the U.S. capital market, helping to reduce the cost of financing both government debt and private investment in the United States.

However, the income generated for the U.S. economy by the hegemony of its dollar could also collapse like a house of cards. Durand makes this point when he writes that “the monetary hegemony of the United States […] is held together only by the confidence of economic agents around the world in the American dollar.”

There are two reasons that the world’s confidence in the U.S. dollar could decrease.

Firstly, as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted in an interview in April 2023, the United States is unequivocally using its dollar as a tool to bend enemies — but also some recalcitrant allies — to its will. This could ultimately undermine the dollar’s hegemony.

On the other hand, the U.S. debt situation, particularly its unsustainability, is a source of concern that could affect the dollar’s attractiveness as a global reserve currency.

Unsustainable debt

The U.S. dollar has been at the heart of the international monetary system since 1944, and even more so since the Bretton Woods Agreement came into force in 1959.

The Bretton Woods system was based on both gold and the greenback, which was the only currency convertible into gold; this convertibility was fixed at the rate of $35 per ounce.

That changed on Aug. 15, 1971, when, because of inflation and the growing imbalances in the United States’ international economic relations, Richard Nixon announced the end of the dollar’s convertibility into gold.

With the dollar pegged to gold, the United States’ ability to take on debt to meet public spending was limited. Under the gold-based system, where gold was the guarantor of the U.S. currency, the United States could only borrow according to the quantity of dollars in circulation and its gold reserves.

Abandoning the gold-based system gave the U.S. free rein over its debt. In 2023, the U.S. public debt reached more than $33.4 trillion, nine times the country’s debt in 1990.

This astronomical figure continues to raise concerns about its long-term sustainability. As U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has pointed out, U.S. debt is growing faster than the economy, making it unsustainable in the long term.

An opportunity for China

This is a reality to which China is clearly attuned, since it recently undertook a massive sell-off of the U.S. debt it owned. Between 2016 and 2023, China sold $600 billion worth of U.S. bonds.

However, in August 2017 China was the United States’ largest creditor, ahead of Japan. It held more than $1.146 billion in U.S. Treasuries, almost 20 per cent of the amount held by all foreign governments. Beijing is now the second-largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, with a claim of around $816 billion.

It is certainly no coincidence that before divesting itself of U.S. bonds, Beijing first launched its own gold pricing system in yuan. In fact, on April 19, 2016, the Shanghai Gold Exchange, China’s operator for precious metals, unveiled on its website its first “fixed” daily benchmark for gold at 256.92 yuan per gram.

This policy is part of China’s strategy to make gold a tangible guarantee of its currency.

China’s “Gold for Dollars” strategy

China is also selling its U.S. bonds. According to the U.S. Treasury, between March 2023 and March 2024, China sold off $100 billion in U.S. Treasuries, on top of the $300 billion it had already sold off over the past decade.

At the same time, the Middle Kingdom has replaced around a quarter of the U.S. Treasuries sold in 10 years with gold, of which it is now the leading producer and consumer. Like China’s central bank, other central banks in emerging countries continue to buy gold.

China’s appetite for gold was confirmed in 2010, when its gold reserves rose to 1,054 tonnes, from around 600 tonnes in 2005. Ten years later, in 2020, its stock of gold had almost doubled again, to nearly 2,000 tonnes. By the end of 2023, with a gold reserve of 2,235 tonnes, China will be the country with the sixth-largest gold reserve.

As a substitute for the dollar, gold enables China to store the gains from its large trade surpluses. With the Shanghai Gold Exchange, which offers gold trading contracts in Yuan, Beijing is seeking to strengthen the use of its currency abroad with the aim of establishing the yuan as the benchmark currency for the global economy. Läs mer…

As the new senior head coach of the England men’s football team, Thomas Tuchel has assumed one of the most intensely scrutinised managerial roles, not only in football, but in all of sport.

Commentary following his appointment suggests that he should expect unprecedented scrutiny. Despite superb credentials, including coaching Chelsea to Champions League victory in 2021, Tuchel’s appointment has raised anew the question of whether English players should be managed by an English manager.

At the press conference announcing his appointment, he apologised (only partly in jest) for holding a German passport. He is the first German to be appointed to the role. Sceptics have voiced concern about whether a “foreign” manager – particularly one from the England team’s fiercest rival – could feel the requisite passion, loyalty and determination for English success. But doubts about his commitment are only the beginning – the role of England manager involves an unenviable footballing dilemma.

The renowned American football coach Vince Lombardi made popular the sporting mantra: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” On the Lombardian view, performance has no value independent of its outcome. Set aside the mastery of skills, the lessons of winning and losing, forging bonds with teammates and opponents and the simple joy of play – for him, the value of sport lies in winning – and winning alone.

On this view, the clamour for Tuchel’s predecessor, Gareth Southgate, to depart following the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship was misguided. In reaching the final of successive European championships (2020 and 2024) and the semi-final of the World Cup in 2018, Southgate brought English men’s football to its greatest height since the World Cup-winning team of 1966.

His team comfortably outperformed the so-called “golden generation” of David Beckham, Stephen Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney, which never progressed beyond the quarterfinals of a major tournament, playing for another foreign manager, Sven-Goran Ericksson. Judged by results alone, Southgate was a once in a generation England manager.

Southgate celebrates winning the Uefa Euro 2024 semi-finals against the Netherlands.
Ronald Wittek

However, the English public subscribed to a more demanding philosophy of football: “Winning is essential, but it is not enough.” Despite the team’s success, the public wanted more. They demanded not only victory, but style too.

Southgate’s team played a conservative, defensively-minded brand of football. In Euro 2024, their passing wasn’t fluid and they created few chances on goal. Instead, they relied on a strong defence coupled with rare moments of attacking brilliance from individual players. Despite their success, Southgate became a lightning rod for criticism due to the uninspiring manner of his team’s victories.

A philosophical dilemma

The pursuit of victory in sport would seem, on the face of it, to be a simple proposition – play as well as you can and hope that this suffices to overcome your opponent. But playing to win is often less about playing well and more about ensuring that your opponent plays badly. It is less about executing your strengths and more about stifling the opposition.

In happy circumstances, playing well and playing to win coincide. In such cases, an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses can largely be ignored. Athletes who are comfortably superior to their opposition (think Serena Williams, Simone Biles, or the All Blacks in their pomp) may have the luxury of ignoring their opponents’ performance. Such is their dominance that, if they play well, victory inevitably follows. However, for mere mortals – including the Three Lions – even a good day can be a losing day.

England celebrate after beating Finland in September 2024.
EPA-EFE/Andy Rain

This tension between playing well and playing to win is one that all athletes, of whatever level, must navigate. Tuchel now takes up the challenge of marrying these often opposed ideals – anything but victory is unacceptable and so too is anything but thrilling football.

In contrast to the Lombardian obsession with winning, sport can also be seen as a vehicle for self-expression. Each sport presents athletes with a unique set of obstacles, constraints embedded in the rules coupled with challenges presented by opponents. How we respond to those obstacles can express something about us, both to ourselves and to others.

Sporting competition can serve as a means of self-expression – a blank canvas on which athletes paint. We must decide how much we value sport as an avenue for proving athletic superiority and how much we value sport as an avenue to convey who we are and what we value. At its best, a national team’s style reflects a national footballing philosophy. But honouring our sporting identity may conflict with our desire to win.

Winning at the highest level and playing to express the pure form of our footballing philosophy may be mutually exclusive goals for all but the most dominant teams. Tuchel must grasp both horns of this dilemma while persuading the public of his desire for English success.

If the team’s results are anything but flawless, his commitment to the cause will be questioned. If the team’s style is unpleasing to the eye, he will be accused of misunderstanding England’s footballing identity. Who would envy him the task ahead?

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Many Americans had probably never heard of Aurora, Colorado, or Springfield, Ohio, before Donald Trump broadcast his false claims about these cities nationwide late in the 2024 presidential campaign.

First, in September 2024, the Republican presidential nominee claimed in a debate with Kamala Harris that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were stealing and eating other residents’ pets. A month later, at a rally in Aurora, Trump declared that city to be a “war zone” overrun by Venezuelan gangs.

Trump’s false claims went viral, creating chaos for these communities. Reporters rushed in. In Springfield, so did bomb threats.

These stories feel familiar to me as an anthropologist whose work has explored the social dynamics of immigrant destinations in the United States. Springfield and Aurora are only the latest small cities to become sudden flash points in America’s ongoing – and increasingly heated – immigration debate.

Siler City, North Carolina

The small town of Siler City, North Carolina, was used as a backdrop for anti-immigrant political rhetoric a quarter century ago.

In the late 20th century, jobs in Siler City’s local poultry industry became a magnet for Latin American immigrants and their families, leading to rapid demographic change. In 1990, the town was 98% white and African American. By the 2000 census, almost 40% of the town’s 6,000 residents identified as Hispanic or Latino.

This shift caused some racial tension, and in 2000 the notoriously racist politician David Duke headlined an anti-immigrant rally outside City Hall in Siler City.

Duke, who was also a former Louisiana state representative and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, railed against Latin American immigrants.

David Duke, speaking at a 1977 press conference, was a racist agitator who built his political career on white supremacy.
Bill Peters/The Denver Post via Getty Images

“Do you understand that immigration will destroy the foundations of this country?” Duke asked. “When you have more diversity, you end up with more division and more conflict,” he said, warning of “extinction” for white people in the U.S.

Duke also railed against school integration. Thirty-five years after desegregation, this remained a favorite complaint of white supremacists.

Only a handful of people, many of them from out of town, showed up to support Duke’s message, carrying signs like “The Melting Pot is Boiling Over.”

In the short term, Duke’s rally exacerbated polarization in Siler City. It also stoked fear and anxiety among foreign-born residents, some of whom believed the local government had endorsed Duke’s message because the rally took place in front of the town hall.

Looking back, however, many Siler City residents see the David Duke incident as a turning point – toward an improvement in ethnic relations in their town.

After Duke’s rally, local politicians spoke out against the divisiveness and hatred. Within a few months, residents offended by the anti-immigrant rally had organized a unity event and cultural festival.

By the time I visited Siler City in 2008 as a graduate research assistant studying new immigration destinations, many locals noted with pride that white supremacists could gain no foothold in town. They said Duke’s racist rally caused neighbors to stop and think, and decide what side they were on.

Today, Siler City has an immigrant community advisory board, and the government actively works to promote integration and social cohesion among residents.

Lewiston, Maine

A similar story unfolded in the working-class Maine city of Lewiston in 2002 after its mayor wrote a public letter about the city’s rising refugee population.

Just over 1,000 Somali refugees had settled in the city in the preceding year, having been displaced by civil war and drought back home.

“This large number of new arrivals cannot continue without negative results for all,” Mayor Laurier Raymond wrote. “Our city is maxed out financially, physically and emotionally.”

He called on Somali people to “pass the word (that) we have been overwhelmed.”

Raymond’s letter got the attention of organized white supremacist groups, who descended on Lewiston, a former sawmill hub of about 35,000 people. In response, local people formed an ad hoc community organization called “Many and One,” and when the hate group World Church of the Creator rallied in Lewiston on Jan. 11, 2003, only 36 people attended. About 4,000 counter-protesters came out to support the Somali community.

A film crew that had showed up to document the conflict ended up telling the story of Lewistonians sending a message of acceptance and unity.

At a 2003 rally on the steps of Lewiston City Hall, activists denounced ‘the climate of intolerance’ created by Mayor Larry Raymond.
Jack Milton/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

The temporary stresses on Lewiston were real, but in general locals came down on the side of inclusion and welcome. By 2021, Lewiston had one of the country’s highest per capita populations of Muslim residents, and of Somali-Americans.

Twenty years later, the arrival of Somali families has become part of the story Lewiston tells about its history and identity.

Conservative and anti-immigrant messages continue to resonate in the town. Yet many locals, like author Cynthia Anderson, say they are “moved and inspired” by the resilience of their Somali-American neighbors.

Like most Haitians living in Springfield, Somali people did not choose to leave their country. They were displaced, and many were traumatized – yet they built new lives and contributed to the community.

What can this history tell us now?

While there are key differences between Springfield, Aurora, Siler City and Lewiston, these four places also share many attributes.

These are all economically beleaguered cities with higher crime rates than the U.S. average but lower housing costs and more entry-level jobs in manufacturing. Such places are sometimes called “emerging gateway cities,” because they are appealing to immigrant families seeking opportunity.

Yet the same conditions also make these cities attractive to political figures seeking a stage to blame immigrants for the community’s preexisting economic, social and public safety challenges.

As in Siler City and Lewiston, Springfield and Aurora have mainly rejected false political claims and negative messages about their immigrant residents.

In Springfield, residents have organized rallies and a prayer vigil in solidarity with Haitians, and Ohio’s Republican governor defended the city against Trump’s allegations.

The Republican mayor of Aurora said before Trump’s Oct. 11 visit that he hoped “to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city – not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs.”

The 2024 election has brought tense and polarizing times to these towns. But history suggests that Springfield and Aurora will eventually be home to vibrant and integrated immigrant communities.

Once the vitriol fades, Trump’s incendiary misinformation will likely become just a footnote to the larger story of the country’s 21st-century transformation. Läs mer…

Psychologists know that childhood trauma, or the experience of harmful or adverse events, can have lasting repercussions on the health and well-being of people well into adulthood. But while the consequences of early adversity have been well researched in humans, people aren’t the only ones who can experience adversity.

If you have a rescue dog, you probably have witnessed how the abuse or neglect it may have experienced earlier in life now influence its behavior – these pets tend to be more skittish or reactive. Wild animals also experience adversity. Although their negative experiences are easy to dismiss as part of life in the wild, they still have lifelong repercussions – just like traumatic events in people and pets.

As behavioral ecologists, we are interested in how adverse experiences early in life can affect animals’ behavior, including the kinds of decisions they make and the way they interact with the world around them. In other words, we want to see how these experience affect the way they behave and survive in the wild.

Many studies in humans and other animals have shown the importance of early life experiences in shaping how individuals develop. But researchers know less about how multiple, different instances of adversity or stressors can accumulate within the body and what their overall impact is on an animal’s well-being.

Wild populations face many kinds of stressors. They compete for food, risk getting eaten by a predator, suffer illness and must contend with extreme weather conditions. And as if life in the wild wasn’t hard enough, humans are now adding additional stressors such as chemical, light and sound pollution, as well as habitat destruction.

Given the widespread loss of biodiversity, understanding how animals react to and are harmed by these stressors can help conservation groups better protect them. But accounting for such a diversity of stressors is no easy feat. To address this need and demonstrate the cumulative impact of multiple stressors, our research team decided to develop an index for wild animals based on psychological research on human childhood trauma.

A cumulative adversity index

Developmental psychologists began to develop what psychologists now call the adverse childhood experiences score, which describes the amount of adversity a person experienced as a child. Briefly, this index adds up all the adverse events – including forms of neglect, abuse or other household dysfunction – an individual experienced during childhood into a single cumulative score.

This score can then be used to predict later-life health risks such as chronic health conditions, mental illness or even economic status. This approach has revolutionized many human health intervention programs by identifying at-risk children and adults, which allows for more targeted interventions and preventive efforts.

So, what about wild animals? Can we use a similar type of score or index to predict negative survival outcomes and identify at-risk individuals and populations?

These are the questions we were interested in answering in our latest research paper. We developed a framework on how to create a cumulative adversity index – similar to the adverse childhood experiences score, but for populations of wild animals. We then used this index to gain insights about the survival and longevity of yellow-bellied marmots. In other words, we wanted to see whether we could use this index to estimate how long a marmot would live.

A marmot case study

Yellow-bellied marmots are a large ground squirrel closely related to groundhogs. Our research group has been studying these marmots in Colorado at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory since 1962.

A marmot wearing an ear tag.
Xochitl Ortiz Ross

Yellow-bellied marmots are an excellent study system because they are diurnal, or active during the day, and they have an address. They live in burrows scattered across a small, defined geographical area called a colony. The size of the colony and the number of individuals that reside within varies greatly from year to year, but they are normally composed of matrilines, which means related females tend to remain within the natal colony, while male relatives move away to find a new colony.

Yellow-bellied marmots hibernate for most of the year, but they become active between April and September. During this active period, we observe each colony daily and regularly trap each individual in the population – that’s over 200 unique individuals just in 2023. We then mark their backs with a distinct symbol and give them uniquely numbered ear tags so they can be later identified.

Although they can live up to 15 years, we have detailed information about the life experiences of individual marmots spanning almost 30 generations. They were the perfect test population for our cumulative adversity index.

Among the sources of adversity, we included ecological measures such as a late spring, a summer drought and high predator presence. We also included parental measures such as having an underweight or stressed mother, being born or weaned late, and losing their mother. The model also included demographic measures such as being born in a large litter or having many male siblings.

Importantly, we looked only at females, since they are the ones who tend to stay home. Therefore, some of the adversities listed are only applicable to females. For example, females born in litters with many males become masculinized, likely from the high testosterone levels in the mother’s uterus. The females behave more like males, but this also reduces their life span and reproductive output. Therefore, having many male siblings is harmful to females, but maybe not to males.

A yellow-bellied marmot shown on a trail camera in Montana.

So, does our index, or the number of adverse events a marmot experienced early on, explain differences in marmot survival? We found that, yes, it does.

Experiencing even just one adversity event before age 2 nearly halved an adult marmot’s odds of survival, regardless of the type of adversity they experienced. This is the first record of lasting negative consequences from losing a mother in this species.

So what?

Our study isn’t the only one of its kind. A few other studies have used an index similar to the human adverse childhood experiences score with wild primates and hyenas, with largely similar results. We are interested in broadening this framework so that other researchers can adopt it for the species they study.

A better understanding of how animals can or cannot cope with multiple sources of adversity can inform wildlife conservation and management practices. For example, an index like ours could help identify at-risk populations that require a more immediate conservation action.

Instead of tackling the one stressor that seems to have the greatest effect on a species, this approach could help managers consider how best to reduce the total number of stressors a species experiences.

For example, changing weather patterns driven by global heating trends may create new stressors that a wildlife manager can’t address. But it might be possible to reduce how many times these animals have to interact with people during key times of the year by closing trails, or providing extra food to replace the food they lose from harsh weather.

While this index is still in early development, it could one day help researchers ask new questions about how animals adapt to stress in the wild. Läs mer…

An ABC report on Monday revealed a concerning rise in peer-on-peer sexual abuse within Australian primary schools.

Data on Victorian schools shows hundreds of such incidents were reported in 2022 and 2023, with many involving children under the age of ten.

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study also showed rates of sexual abuse inflicted by peers has been increasing. Overall, 18.2% of participants aged 16 to 24 reported being sexually abused by a peer during their childhood, compared to 12.1% of those aged 45 years and over.

Parents may be wondering how they can protect their children at school.

One of the most effective tools parents have is open, regular and age-appropriate conversations with their kids.

Read more:
There are reports some students are making sexual moaning noises at school. Here’s how parents and teachers can respond

Talk about boundaries and consent early

What should you be talking about?

It is crucial for parents to talk with their children about boundaries and consent from an early age. For younger children, this can be as simple as teaching them their body belongs to them and no one else has the right to touch them without permission. Asking if its OK for a hug, and respecting when children say “no” is a great start.

When discussing consent, it is important to highlight consent is not just about saying “no”, but also recognising and respecting others’ boundaries.

Peer relationships and trusted adults play a crucial role in a child’s life. Helping children identify adults they can trust if they need to talk about something is also very important. Peers are often the first to hear of concerns or are often the recipients of disclosures, so fostering healthy friendships and teaching children to report to trusted adults is crucial.

Addressing peer pressure and secrecy

Children may feel pressured by peers or may be told to keep certain behaviours secret.

It is essential for parents to emphasise no matter who asks them to keep a secret, they should always share concerns or things they are unsure about with a trusted adult.

Parents can reinforce the message that if someone tells them not to tell, it is a “red flag”.

Children can often feel unsure or scared of whether what has happened is wrong. This is why encouraging openness and creating a nonjudgmental space for children to share is important.

Discussing online safety

Research shows exposure to harmful material, like pornography, is a contributing factor to inappropriate sexual behaviour among peers.

Being aware of your child’s internet use and educating them on how to keep themselves safe online is crucial.

What else can parents do?

While conversations with your children are vital, parents can also take practical steps to ensure their child’s safety at school. These include:

familiarising yourself with school policies: understand the school’s procedures for reporting bullying, harassment and sexual abuse. Parents should ask about how teachers manage supervision during breaks or other occasions where children may be less well unsupervised
advocating for comprehensive sex education at your school: when parents are involved in sex education it leads to better outcomes for children. Check what your school covers in the curriculum. Ask about what supports are available to parents, and how you can be involved
getting involved in your child’s social world: knowing who your child’s friends are and staying connected with teachers can offer insight into troubling dynamics. Create opportunities for your child to talk about their friendships and school experiences regularly. And as they start navigating the digital world, it’s even more important to know who they are engaging with
teach assertiveness and confidence: find ways to empower your child to speak up for themselves when they are unsure, or something feels wrong. Don’t leave this up to a class teacher to deal with in respectful relationship education. At home, you can encourage assertiveness in expressing their preferences and boundaries. You can also model how to stand up to peer pressure. Children can learn and be encouraged to say simple phrases such as, “stop, I don’t like it” or “no, I don’t want to”.

If there is a problem

If you do come across an issue or problem, try and work with your school. Despite your distress, try not to be adversarial – rather pitch your conversation to the teacher or principal as “How can I help us work through this together?”

Parental involvement in education, can reduce the risk of child sexual abuse. If parents and schools can work together, they are more likely to be effective in keeping children safe.

Prevention requires vigilance, communication and support from both parents and schools. Parents play a crucial role in shaping their child’s understanding of what’s OK, what’s harmful, as well as boundaries, safety and consent.

By having ongoing conversations, staying informed, and working with schools, parents are the first step to creating safety for children – and supporting them if something goes wrong. Läs mer…