Food and move project, promoting healthy eating & physical activity in a secondary school setting, pat 1: baseline data, interventions and future recommendations

The Food and Move project was a collaborative project with the students, staff and parents from four Warrnambool secondary colleges which focussed on promoting healthy eating and physical activity in secondary schools and built capacity for ongoing health promotion to address overweight/obesity.

The project aimed to:

1. Increase awareness amongst students, parents and staff of the links between regular physical activity and good nutrition to achieve optimal health.
2. Increase awareness amongst students, parents and staff of childhood/adolescent obesity and its implications for future health.
3. Improve the opportunities for students to access healthy food at their school canteen.
4. Improve the opportunities for students to access physical activity at recess and lunchtime.
5. Prepare a resource package of initiatives for use in secondary colleges to support the provision of opportunities for healthy eating and physical activity at Warrnambool secondary colleges.
6. Support the development of appropriate physical activity and nutrition curricula.

Review of Pat Jalland's 'Changing way of death in twentieth century Australia: war, medicine and the funeral business'

Tanja Luckins of La Trobe University reviews Changing Ways of Death in Twentieth Century Australia: War, Medicine and the Funeral Business, by Pat Jalland. (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press; 2006)

Helping doctoral students write : pedagogies for supervision

Helping Doctoral Students Write offers a new approach to doctoral writing. By treating research as writing and writing as research, the authors offer pedagogical strategies for doctoral supervisors that will assist the production of well-argued and lively dissertations." "It is clear that many doctoral candidates find research writing complicated and difficult, but the advice they receive often glosses over the complexities of writing and/or locates the problem in the writer. Rejecting the DIY websites and manuals that promote a privatized, skills-based approach to writing research, Kamler and Thomson provide a new framework for scholarly work that is located in personal institutional and cultural contexts. Their discussion of the complexities of forming a scholarly identity is illustrated by stories and writings of actual doctoral students.

The pedagogical approach developed in the book is based on the notion of writing as a social practice. This approach allows supervisors to think of doctoral writers as novices who need to learn new ways with words as they enter the discursive practices of scholarly communities. This involves learning sophisticated writing practices with specific sets of conventions and textual characteristics. The authors offer supervisors practical advice on helping with commonly encountered writing tasks such as the proposal, the journal abstract, the literature review and constructing the dissertation argument." "In conclusion, they present a persuasive argument that universities must move away from simply auditing supervision to supporting the development of scholarly research communities. Any doctoral supervisor keen to help their students develop as academics will find the new ideas presented in this book fascinating and insightful reading.

An `upside-down` view of rural health care

Access to high quality health care services plays an important part in the health of rural communities and individuals. This fact is reflected in efforts by governments to improve the quality of such services through better targeting of funds and more efficient management of services. In Australia, the difficulties experienced by rural communities in attracting and retaining doctors has long been recognized as a contributing factor to the relatively higher levels of morbidity and mortality in rural areas. However, this paper, based on a study of two small rural communities in Australia, suggests that resolving the health problems of rural communities will require more than simply increasing the quality and accessibility of health services. Health and well-being in such communities relates as much to the sense of community cohesion as it does to the direct provision of medical services. Over recent years, that cohesion has diminished, undermined in part by government policies that have fuelled an exodus from small rural communities to urban areas. Until governments begin to take an 'upside-down' perspective, focusing on building healthy communities rather than simply on building hospitals to make communities healthy, the disadvantages faced by rural people will continue to be exacerbated.

Amalgamation of health services in South-West Victoria: reinvention or survival?

In Australia 'the hospital' has long been considered the cornerstone of small, rural health services. However, this premise has been altered significantly by the introduction of casemix loading and diagnostic-related groups that promote a rationalised output-based model of management. In the light of these changes, many rural health services have struggled to reinvent themselves by establishing a range of service models such as Multi-purpose Service (MPS) and Health Streams, while maintaining traditional models (i.e. bush nursing centres, nursing homes and aged-care facilities). These changes are about survival. This paper analyses one such case in south-west Victoria, the Macarthur and District Community Outreach Service, and compares the outcomes with other similar Victorian rural health research projects. Particular attention is paid to the nature of the health services, the management of change and the proposed health outcomes for the local rural communities. In conclusion, it is argued that this study adds to the body of knowledge surrounding the construction of models of community health and development programming, These models impact upon future rural and remote area initiatives throughout Australia.

Just 'good and bad news'? Disciplinary imaginaries of head teachers in Australian and English print media

Australian and English print media are actively engaged in producing reports that claim to find the 'best schools', the 'real state of education', and 'star head teachers'. This article considers the production of knights and dames, maverick heads and struggling schools. It argues that some of these stories are clearly the products of departmental press bureau activities and policy agendas. It shows, however, that even those stories intended to critique government policy support paradoxically a notion of the singular importance of the headship and the virtues of heroic leadership. It is suggested that the simulacrum of the heroic head works as a normative disciplinary device for performative and market practices and is singularly off-putting to both serving and aspirant school leaders.

Driven to abstraction: doctoral supervision and writing pedagogies

The writing of academic abstracts is more than a tiresome necessity of scholarly life. It is a practice that goes beyond genre and technique to questions of writing and identity. In this article we deconstruct a series of abstracts from a variety of refereed journals to 'read' for the representation of data, argument, methodology and significance. We describe one strategy for writing abstracts, developed as part of a long-term project on postgraduate writing pedagogies. We propose that the art of writing abstracts is neglected in the academy, is given scant attention by journal editors, and has produced a motley and often bland array of conventions and genres. We suggest that abstract art should be an important aspect of supervision if graduate students and novice researchers are to stake a claim in the academy.

Unpacking the issues : researching the shortage of school principals in two states in Australia

An investigation into the declining supply of principals in two states in Australia revealed that a mosaic of issues surrounds the overall trend towards fewer applications for vacant positions. Looking beyond systemic factors influencing this trend – factors such as the increasing workload of principals – this study discovered why some schools are more affected by a shortage of applicants than others. It was found that one of four categories of deterrents was generally involved with declining numbers of applications: location, the size of school, the presence of an incumbent, or difficulties arising from local educational politics. It was also found that smaller numbers of applicants for vacant positions do not necessarily indicate a decline in interest in school leadership: interest in the principalship remains relatively high but principal aspirants have become increasingly strategic in their applications. Whilst drawing attention, in this paper, to the research finding that numerical interpretations of principal supply have serious limitations, the authors are keen to acknowledge, briefly, the research data that refers to (a) social and generational changes (b) demographic information, (c) teacher resistance to the modern principalship and how these data explain declining numbers. They also include information about recent changes that go counter to the trend.

Principal selection: homosocialibility, the search for security and the production of normalized principal identities

Researchers investigating the decline of potential applicants for principalships have demonstrated that teachers perceive there to be a significant problem in current selection procedures. This article reports an investigation in two Australian states into principal selection. Drawing on a corpus of interviews, two case studies and administrative guidelines, we highlight five key problems in the interview process: (1) the dependence of selection panels on a written application; (2) the dilemma of experience versus potential; (3) the covert rule about the appointment of preferred applicants; (4) the quandary of panel competency; and (5) the evidence of inconsistency of decisions. We argue that the selection process amounts to a reproductive technology which, in the quest for certainty and safety, results in particular kinds of people being successful. This amounts we suggest, whether the selection process is managed by progressive or conservative personnel, to a form of homosociability the tendency to select people just like oneself.

High stakes principalship-sleepless nights, heart attacks and sudden death accountabilities: reading media representations of the United States principal shortage

The possible shortage of applicants for principal positions is news in both Australia and abroad. We subject a corpus of predominantly United states (US) news articles to deconstructive narrative analysis and find that the dominant media representation of principals' work is one of long hours Iow salary high stress and sudden death from high stakes accountabilities. However, reported US policy interventions focus predominantly on professional development for aspirants. We note that this will be insufficient to reverse the lack of applications and suggest that the dominant media picture of completely unattractive principals work, meant to leverage a policy solution, will perhaps paradoxically perpetuate the problem. The dominant media picture is also curiously at odds with research that reports high job satisfaction among principals. We suggest that there is a binary of victim and saviour principal in both media and policy which prevents some strategic re-thinking about how the principalship might be different.

Whale distribution in relation to prey abundance and oceanographic processes in the shelf waters of the Western Antarctic Peninsula

The Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is a biologically rich area supporting large standing stocks of krill and top predators (including whales, seals and seabirds). Physical forcing greatly affects productivity, recruitment, survival and distribution of krill in this area. In turn, such interactions are likely to affect the distribution of baleen whales. The Southern Ocean GLOBEC research program aims to explore the relationships and interactions between the environment, krill and predators around Marguerite Bay (WAP) in autumn 2001 and 2002. Bathymetric and environmental variables including acoustic backscattering as an indicator of prey abundance were used to model whale distribution patterns. We used an iterative approach employing (1) classification and regression tree (CART) models to identify oceanographic and ecological variables contributing to variability in humpback Megaptera novaeangliae and minke Balaenoptera acutorstrata whale distribution, and (2) generalized additive models (GAMs) to elucidate functional ecological relationships between these variables and whale distribution. The CART models indicated that the cetacean distribution was tightly coupled with zooplankton acoustic volume backscatter in the upper (25 to 100 m), and middle (100 to 300 m) portions of the water column. Whale distribution was also related to distance from the ice edge and bathymetric slope. The GAMs indicated a persistent, strong, positive relationship between increasing zooplankton volume and whale relative abundance. Furthermore, there was a lower limit for averaged acoustic volume backscatter of zooplankton below which the relationship between whales and prey was not significant. The GAMs also supported an annual relationship between whale distribution, distance from the ice edge and bathymetric slope, suggesting that these are important features for aggregating prey. Our results demonstrate that during the 2 yr study, whales were consistently and predictably associated with the distribution of zooplankton. Thus, humpback and minke whales may be able to locate physical features and oceanographic processes that enhance prey aggregation.

Beyond the power of one : redesigning the work of school principals

There is mounting international research evidence that the work of school principals is increasingly difficult, time consuming and more unattractive to prospective applicants. We suggest that the solution to this situation lies in redesigning the work that principals do. Using the New London Group’s (1996) definition of design as both process and product and as a hybrid of existing resources, we offer five cases of redesign: distributed pedagogical leadership, co-principalship, shared principalship, multi-campus principalship, and community-based principalship. We argue that these examples show that redesigns that focus on the school, rather than on the work of the principal, have more far-reaching effects, but are also much more vulnerable to context. We propose three emerging principles for redesign viz. developing a strong warrant for redesign, attending to infrastructure and building organic relations between school and community.