The relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and the academic performance of children is well established in sociological research. Another important dimension is the factors that may influence educational outcomes within low SES families. This paper presents new data from a sample of over 3000 students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds to estimate the extent of socioeconomic, family, individual and contextual factors on school educational performance. Results obtained using binomial logistic regression techniques indicate that gender, unexplained absences, parental educational attainment, housing type, ethnicity and student age are all statistically significant variables and predictors of academic performance. In contrast, family structure, the main source of family income and geographical location do not significantly predict outcomes in school performance once other factors are controlled for. The findings support the notion that the 'social' and the 'economic' components of the socioeconomic status equation have distinct and separate influences on educational outcomes. While financial assistance to schools and families in need is important, policies and programmes that also assist low-income parents in providing appropriate psychological and educational support for their children should also be promoted.

This paper examines the relationship between the social dimension of corporate citizenship (corporate community involvement) and human resource management. It begins by briefly reviewing the positive effects that corporate community involvement can have on human resource management outcomes such as employee motivation, morale, commitment, recruitment, retention, development and teamwork. It presents findings that the human resource management function is not playing a significant role with respect to decisionmaking and implementation of corporate community involvement among top companies in Australia, despite the potential employee related benefits and importance of employees to corporate community involvement. The paper outlines four possible reasons that may help explain this apparent inconsistency as well as stimulate further research on the relationship between corporate citizenship and human resource management. It concludes by suggesting that the limited role of human resource management in corporate citizenship has potentially adverse implications for the human resource profession as well as the overall effectiveness of corporate community involvement for all stakeholders.

Despite figures suggesting that Australia is a high consumer of information and communication technologies (ICT), it is well documented that the pattern of this consumption is not spread evenly across the population; a 'digital divide' exists. In general, research suggests that people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds have greater access to ICT compared to those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. A less well-researched area is the factors that may influence ICT access and usage within certain demographic and socioeconomic groups. This paper presents new data on the access and usage of ICT (computers and the Internet) by 3,404 households and 6,874 children from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. Fifty-nine per cent of the sample had a home computer and just under one-third had the Internet connected at home. The most common location for accessing the Internet was at school. A striking finding was the strong association between the level of parental education and ICT access and use. Schools are important in closing or levelling the access gap, as most students use computers and the Internet at school. However, considering the importance of having home Internet access for children's educational performance, the fact that almost three-quarters of students in this study did not use the Internet at home is of concern, particularly given that almost half of a comparable Australian population have home Internet access. Finding ways to increase the home access of low-income families to the Internet should therefore remain a policy priority for all sectors aiming to bridge the digital divide. Policies aimed at bridging the digital divide should also ensure that programs provide appropriate parenting support and emphasise the educational importance of having home access to computers and the Internet.

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Despite the importance of fundraising to the nonprofit sector there has been surprisingly little research on fundraising as a revenue source in Australia. Research that has been conducted both here and internationally has focused on the cost of fundraising -the proportion of fundraising expenses to total fundraising revenue, and fundraising performance -the absolute or relative amount of money raised by organisations via fundraising. This paper examines why some nonprofit organisations are more dependent on fundraising as a source of revenue than others.The paper applies multivariate techniques to examine the influence that three broad sets of factors: organisational; revenue generation model; and fundraising approach, have on what we term 'fundraising dependency' -the percentage of a nonprofit organisation's total revenue that is derived from fundraising activities. It finds that fundraising dependency is associated with a range of organisational characteristics (e.g. size, geographical scope of the organisation and tax status); alternative forms of revenue generation (e.g. reliance on government funding and commercial venturing) and fundraising approach (e.g. whether professional fundraising staff are employed, the use of volunteer fundraisers and the number of fundraising practices used). The results support taking a multidimensional approach to understanding fundraising dependency.