Staff profile

Dr Paulina Billett

Associate Lecturer

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Social Sciences

2.18, Bendigo

 

Qualifications

BA (Hons), PhD ( Wollongong)

Membership of professional associations

The Australian Sociological Association

Area of study

Sociology

Brief profile

Paulina Billett is an associate lecturer in Sociology. Her interest areas of research and teaching include: social capital, youth, impact of reproductive technologies and ethics in research.

Research interests

Social Studies in Science and Technology

- Impact of reproductive technologies

Urban and Regional Studies

- Please contact me to discuss a topic.

Urban Sociology and Community Studies

- Social capital

- Social stratification and inequality

- Youth

Teaching units

  • SOC1SAC - Introduction to Sociology
  • SOC1AAB - Australia and Beyond
  • SOC2/3SHI - Sociology of Health and Illness
  • SOC3MSR - Social Research Methods

Recent publications

Refereed Journal Articles

  • Billett, P. (2012), Lessons from the field: Ethics in youth social capital research, Youth Studies Australia, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp 43-50.
  • Billett, P. (2012), Indicators of youth social capital: The case for not using adult indicators in the measurement of youth social capital, Youth Studies Australia, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp 9-16.

Presented papers

  • Youth, places and spaces: the impact of the disappearing ‘streetscape’ on youth social capital, paper presented at Children, young people and adults: Extending the conversation, September 5-7, 2012, University of Lancashire, U.K.
  • Dark social capital or another way to cope?” Paper presented at The Unacceptable April 29 to May 1, 2011, Macquarie University.

Research projects

Evaluating the indicators of vulnerability: Understanding its effects and creating positive outcomes (2012)

This project is a joint partnership between La Trobe University and Mallee Family Care (Mildura). It aims at recasting the concepts of vulnerability and resilience and creating a new framework for their measurement. This project aims to better understand and identify the pathways which individuals use in becoming resilient and contribute to the community’s understanding and response to vulnerability.

Motherhood in question : Interrogating the impact of Infertility (2012)

This project aims to explore issues surrounding infertility.  Western society almost exclusively construction femininity as linked to reproduction and nurturing. This has meant that many infertile women experience a sense of loss and insecurity, both self-created and societally projected, over their feminine status. Through this research I aim to not only interrogate the feminine/fertile nexus but also I aim to explore how infertile women are able to construct a sense of self outside their diagnoses.