"I will start treatment when I think the time is right":HIV-positive gay men talk about their decision not to access antiretroviral therapy.

In a qualitative study, 20 HIV-infected Australian gay men were interviewed about their decision not to access antiretroviral drug therapy. The main reasons given for the decision were fear of side effects; fear of long-term damage to body organs; the inconvenience of the treatment regimens; belief that the regimen's demands would be a threat to morale; and belief that there was no reason to start therapy in the absence of AIDS-related symptoms. Actions taken by the men to monitor and maintain their health included seeing a doctor regularly; having regular T-cell and viral load tests; and trying to maintain a positive outlook by not letting HIV/AIDS 'take over' their lives. Almost half the men considered they had been subjected to unreasonable pressure to access therapy and there was considerable pride at having resisted this pressure. The findings suggest that the men disagreed with the biomedical model for managing HIV/AIDS only on the question of if and when to access therapy. They also suggest that underlying the men's dissent from the biomedical model was a different mode of thinking than is required by the model: while the model demands thinking that is abstract, the men focused strongly on factors close to the 'here and now' of immediate experience. The practical implications of the findings are explored.

Representing the mind: adult talk to speech-delayed preschoolers

There is evidence from a range of studies that adult input influences a young child's language development Of interest is how adult input contributes to emotional and cognitive understandings. Children with special needs in mainstream schools are expected to develop social skills which entails the understanding of a situation from the perspective of other participants. The question is whether children with a speech delay hear adult language that helps them develop a theory of mind. The study of the acquisition of a theory of mind has focused on children who have been asked to carry out tasks demonstrating their understanding of what another person might be thinking. Tager-Flusberg et al. (2001) have found that children who perform better on theory of mind tasks are children who talk about thoughts and feelings. The present study looks at mental state language input provided to children that might help them learn to talk about thoughts and feelings. Activities involving children and their mothers, and activities in a preschool program were studied for cognitive and emotional content in the adult input. The input provided to normally developing children would be more supportive of the development of their talk about thoughts and feelings.

Differences in how english and german speakers talk and reason about CAUSE

This research identifies how English and German speakers differ in the range of situations they describe as causal and how these difference may influence causal reasoning. In Experiments 1 and 2, English and German speakers described 3D animations of complex events using CAUSE verbs (cause, get) and ENABLE verbs (let, enable). As predicted, English speakers used CAUSE verbs to describe a wider range of events than German speakers. In Experiment 3, English and German speakers viewed 3D animations of CAUSE and ENABLE events and then estimated the likelihood of the effect (E) in the presence of the affector (A), p(E|A), in hypothetical situations similar to the one they just saw. Given the results of Experiments 1 and 2, we predicted that German speakers’ estimates of p(E|A) would be higher than English speakers’ estimates of p(E|A) for ENABLE events, but not necessarily for CAUSE events. The results were as predicted. The findings suggest that English and German speakers differ in the range of situations they describe as causal and that these differences in linguistic coding may lead to differences in causal reasoning.

School mathematics and ICT: are we doing enough? - The talk

The author discusses how to improve the use of ICT in mathematics education. A number of measures are recommended including the need to conduct an ICT-and-mathematics audit across the curriculum. The author points out that ICT is changing traditional understandings of literacy and numeracy and how it is taught. ICT approaches may help to teach things in slightly different ways, but will not necessarily do this any better than old ways. The author highlights that teaching is changing from face-to-face oral discussion to virtual talk, with ICT just the latest technology in a long line of technological innovations that have transformed teaching since the nineteenth century.

Educational research in a global economy of knowledge production : what troubles a traveling textworker?

The first (and most specific) postcolonial intersection to which this paper refers was constituted initially by an Australian-South African institutional links project (funded by the Australian federal government) and subsequent collaborations and partnerships between Australian and South African academics arising (directly or indirectly) from this project. In this paper I will focus on activities that were intended to enhance research capacity in educational leadership and in environmental education, with particular reference to appropriate methodologies and supervision practices. Other postcolonial intersections to which this paper will refer include those that have been formed as a result of international students from various locations in Africa and Asia studying at Deakin (either on-campus or by distance modes). My purposes in the paper are (i) to examine, through cases and examples, some ways in which difference (with particular reference to race, ethnicity, language and location) might be linked to individual and/or community dispositions to take up (or to reject) specific research methodologies and epistemologies, and (ii) to consider the implications of such differences and dispositions for academic practices directed towards developing 'communities of understanding' at postcolonial intersections.

Happy to talk.... to a point : bereaved young men and emotional disclosure

This study focuses upon the social experiences of bereaved young men, with particular emphasis on the social costs of bereavement-related personal disclosure. Participants' experiences of regulating their social behaviour were suggestive of the persistence of 'traditional' notions of masculine identity (e.g. hegemonic masculinity). While this study cautions that opportunities for emotional disclosure should not be viewed as the only form of social support for bereaved young men, its principal assertion is the necessity for emotional disclosure to be socially recognised as a legitimate form of male social expression.