"Well, now I'm upset": Moral and social orders in the playground

There is much still to learn about how young children’s membership with peers shapes their constructions of moral and social obligations within everyday activities in the school playground. This paper investigates how a small group of girls, aged four to six years, account for their everyday social interactions in the playground. They were video-recorded as they participated in a pretend game of school. Several days later, a video-recorded excerpt of the interaction was shown to them and invited to comment on what was happening in the video. This conversation was audio-recorded. Drawing on a conversation analysis approach, this chapter shows that, despite their discontent and complaining about playing the game of school, the girls’ actions showed their continued orientation to the particular codes of the game, of ‘no going away’ and ‘no telling’. By making relevant these codes, jointly constructed by the girls during the interview, they managed each other’s continued participation within two arenas of action: the pretend, as a player in a pretend game of school; and the real, as a classroom member of a peer group. Through inferences to explicit and implicit codes of conduct, moral obligations were invoked as the girls attempted to socially exclude or build alliances with others, and enforce their own social position. As well, a shared history that the girls re-constructed has moral implications for present and future relationships. The girls oriented to the history as an interactional resource for accounting for their actions in the pretend game. This paper uncovers how children both participate in, and shape, their everyday social worlds through talk and interaction and the consequences a taken-for-granted activity such as playing school has for their moral and social positions in the peer group.

No more Labor heartland?

Growing up, my family worshipped at the altar of unionism. My parents embraced ‘working class’ as an active social position not as a step on the aspirational treadmill. In those days and in the areas where I lived, it was nothing special. It was a given that everyone was in a union and voted Labor, manning factories and building sites and marching or striking when the need arose...

Teaching and assessing ethics and social responsibility in undergraduate science : a position paper

Institutional graduate capabilities and discipline threshold learning outcomes require science students to demonstrate ethical conduct and social responsibility. However, neither the teaching nor the assessment of these concepts is straightforward. Australian chemistry academics participated in a workshop in 2013 to discuss and develop teaching and assessment in these areas and this paper reports on the outcomes of that workshop. Controversial issues discussed included: How broad is the mandate of the teacher, how should the boundaries between personal values and ethics be drawn, and how can ethics be assessed without moral judgement? In this position paper, I argue for a deep engagement with ethics and social justice, achieved through case studies and assessed against criteria that require discussion and debate. Strategies to effectively assess science students’ understanding of ethics and social responsibility are detailed.

Does psychological stress mediate social deprivation in tooth loss?

It is unclear which theoretical dimension of psychological stress affects health status. We hypothesized that both distress and coping mediate the relationship between socio-economic position and tooth loss. Cross-sectional data from 2915 middle-aged adults evaluated retention of < 20 teeth, behaviors, psychological stress, and sociodemographic characteristics. Principal components analysis of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) extracted 'distress' (a = 0.85) and 'coping' (a =0.83) factors, consistent with theory. Hierarchical entry of explanatory variables into age- and sex-adjusted logistic regression models estimated odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals [95% CI] for retention of < 20 teeth. Analysis of the separate contributions of distress and coping revealed a significant main effect of coping (OR = 0.7 [95% CI = 0.7-0.8]), but no effect for distress (OR = 1.0 [95% CI = 0.9-1.1]) or for the interaction of coping and distress. Behavior and psychological stress only modestly attenuated socio-economic inequality in retention of < 20 teeth, providing evidence to support a mediating role of coping.

Australian Association for Exercise and Sport Science position stand : optimising cancer outcomes through exercise

Cancer represents a major public health concern in Australia. Causes of cancer are multifactorial with lack of physical activity being considered one of the known risk factors, particularly for breast and colorectal cancers. Participating in exercise has also been associated with benefits during and following treatment for cancer, including improvements in psychosocial and physical outcomes, as well as better compliance with treatment regimens, reduced impact of disease symptoms and treatment-related side effects, and survival benefits for particular cancers. The general exercise prescription for people undertaking or having completed cancer treatment is of low to moderate intensity, regular frequency (3-5 times/week) for at least 20 minutes per session, involving aerobic, resistance or mixed exercise types. Future work needs to push the boundaries of this exercise prescription, so that we can better understand what constitutes optimal, desirable and necessary frequency, duration, intensity and type, and how specific characteristics of the individual (e.g., age, cancer type, treatment, presence of specific symptoms) influence this prescription. What follows is a summary of the cancer and exercise literature, in particular the purpose of exercise following diagnosis of cancer, the potential benefits derived by cancer patients and survivors from participating in exercise programs, and exercise prescription guidelines and contraindications or considerations for exercise prescription with this special population. This report represents the position stand of the Australian Association of Exercise and Sport Science on exercise and cancer recovery and has the purpose of guiding Accredited Exercise Physiologists in their work with cancer patients.

Social inequalities and parent involvement in children’s education in the early years of school

Strengthening cooperation between schools and parents is critical to improving learning outcomes for children. The chapter focuses on parental engagement in their children’s education in the early years of school. It considers issues of social and cultural capital as important to whether, or not, parents are involved in their children’s schooling. Analyses of data from a national representative sample of children and their families who participate in Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children are presented. Results indicated that higher family socio-economic position was associated with higher levels of parental involvement and higher expectations about children’s future level of education.

Socioeconomic position, gender, health behaviours and biomarkers of cardiovascular disease and diabetes

Socio-economic gradients in cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes have been found throughout the developed world and there is some evidence to suggest that these gradients may be steeper for women. Research on social gradients in biological risk factors for CVD and diabetes has received less attention and we do not know the extent to which gradients in biomarkers vary for men and women. We examined the associations between two indicators of socio-economic position (education and household income) and biomarkers of diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) for men and women in a national, population-based study of 11,247 Australian adults. Multi-level linear regression was used to assess associations between education and income and glucose tolerance, dyslipidaemia, blood pressure (BP) and waist circumference before and after adjustment for behaviours (diet, smoking, physical activity, TV viewing time, and alcohol use). Measures of glucose tolerance included fasting plasma glucose and insulin and the results of a glucose tolerance test (2 h glucose) with higher levels of each indicating poorer glucose tolerance. Triglycerides and High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) Cholesterol were used as measures of dyslipidaemia with higher levels of the former and lower levels of the later being associated with CVD risk. Lower education and low income were associated with higher levels of fasting insulin, triglycerides and waist circumference in women. Women with low education had higher systolic and diastolic BP and low income women had higher 2 h glucose and lower HDL cholesterol. With only one exception (low income and systolic BP), all of these estimates were reduced by more than 20% when behavioural risk factors were included. Men with lower education had higher fasting plasma glucose, 2 h glucose, waist circumference and systolic BP and, with the exception of waist circumference, all of these estimates were reduced when health behaviours were included in the models. While low income was associated with higher levels of 2-h glucose and triglycerides it was also associated with better biomarker profiles including lower insulin, waist circumference and diastolic BP. We conclude that low socio-economic position is more consistently associated with a worse profile of biomarkers for CVD and diabetes for women.

The relationship between strategic positioning and perceived value of social networking sites

The use of social networking sites (SNS) by online citizens to share photos, update friends, play games and to connect with the world has exploded, with SNS and blogs now eclipsing email traffic (eMarketer 2009). Just one popular application on one SNS, (Farmville on Facebook) acquired more than 63 million users since its launch in June 2009 (Marketing 2009. The major global social networks are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, with Facebook claiming that it passed 350 million users in November (Marketing 2009). As usage increases and competition intensifies, the major sites must strategically position themselves to develop a competitive advantage in order to maintain or grow their share of the pie. So how do the major SNS position their brands, and do users perceive significant differences among the big players? This presentation answers these questions by reporting the results of an empirical study of SNS usage by Australian adults. Like other brands, aligning brand positioning strategies with user knowledge and perceptions of SNS is an important ingredient to achieving success (Keller 1993). Furthermore we compare the types of value for three different SNS to identify the relationships between the value derived by users and the stated positioning of the site.

Children with special health care needs : social and learning competence in the early years

The number of children with special health care needs surviving infancy and attending school has been increasing. Due to their health status, these children may be at risk of low social-emotional and learning competencies (e.g., Lightfoot, Mukherjee, & Sloper, 2000; Zehnder, Landolt, Prchal, & Vollrath, 2006). Early social problems have been linked to low levels of academic achievement (Ladd, 2005), inappropriate behaviours at school (Shiu, 2001) and strained teacher-child relationships (Blumberg, Carle, O‘Connor, Moore, & Lippmann, 2008). Early learning difficulties have been associated with mental health problems (Maughan, Rowe, Loeber, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 2003), increased behaviour issues (Arnold, 1997), delinquency (Loeber & Dishion, 1983) and later academic failure (Epstein, 2008). Considering the importance of these areas, the limited research on special health care needs in social-emotional and learning domains is a factor driving this research. The purpose of the current research is to investigate social-emotional and learning competence in the early years for Australian children who have special health care needs. The data which informed this thesis was from Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. This is a national, longitudinal study being conducted by the Commonwealth Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. The study has a national representative sample, with data collection occurring biennially, in 2004 (Wave 1), 2006 (Wave 2) and 2008 (Wave 3). Growing up in Australia uses a cross-sequential research design involving two cohorts, an Infant Cohort (0-1 at recruitment) and a Kindergarten Cohort (4-5 at recruitment). This study uses the Kindergarten Cohort, for which there were 4,983 children at recruitment. Three studies were conducted to address the objectives of this thesis. Study 1 used Wave 1 data to identify and describe Australian children with special health care needs. Children who identified as having special health care needs through the special health care needs screener were selected. From this, descriptive analyses were run. The results indicate that boys, children with low birth weight and children from families with low levels of maternal education are likely to be in the population of children with special health care needs. Further, these children are likely to be using prescription medications, have poor general health and are likely to have specific condition diagnoses. Study 2 used Wave 1 data to examine differences between children with special health care needs and their peers in social-emotional competence and learning competence prior to school. Children identified by the special health care needs screener were chosen for the case group (n = 650). A matched case control group of peers (n = 650), matched on sex, cultural and linguistic diversity, family socioeconomic position and age, were the comparison group. Social-emotional competence was measured through Social/Emotional Domain scores taken from the Growing up in Australia Outcome Index, with learning competence measured through Learning Domain scores. Results suggest statistically significant differences in scores between the two groups. Children with special health care needs have lower levels of social-emotional and learning competence prior to school compared to their peers. Study 3 used Wave 1 and Wave 2 data to examine the relationship between special health care needs at Wave 1 and social-emotional competence and learning competence at Wave 2, as children started school. The sample for this study consisted of children in the Kindergarten Cohort who had teacher data at Wave 2. Results from multiple regression models indicate that special health care needs prior to school (Wave 1) significantly predicts social-emotional competence and learning competence in the early years of school (Wave 2). These results indicate that having special health care needs prior to school is a risk factor for the social-emotional and learning domains in the early years of school. The results from these studies give valuable insight into Australian children with special health care needs and their social-emotional and learning competence in the early years. The Australia population of children with special health care needs were primarily male children, from families with low maternal education, were likely to be of poor health and taking prescription medications. It was found that children with special health care needs were likely to have lower social-emotional competence and learning competence prior to school compared to their peers. Results indicate that special health care needs prior to school were predictive of lower social-emotional and learning competencies in the early years of school. More research is required into this unique population and their competencies over time. However, the current research provides valuable insight into an under researched 'at risk' population.

The geometric modelling of social frames and contexts

How do humans respond to their social context? This question is becoming increasingly urgent in a society where democracy requires that the citizens of a country help to decide upon its policy directions, and yet those citizens frequently have very little knowledge of the complex issues that these policies seek to address. Frequently, we find that humans make their decisions more with reference to their social setting, than to the arguments of scientists, academics, and policy makers. It is broadly anticipated that the agent based modelling (ABM) of human behaviour will make it possible to treat such social effects, but we take the position here that a more sophisticated treatment of context will be required in many such models. While notions such as historical context (where the past history of an agent might affect its later actions) and situational context (where the agent will choose a different action in a different situation) abound in ABM scenarios, we will discuss a case of a potentially changing context, where social effects can have a strong influence upon the perceptions of a group of subjects. In particular, we shall discuss a recently reported case where a biased worm in an election debate led to significant distortions in the reports given by participants as to who won the debate (Davis et al 2011). Thus, participants in a different social context drew different conclusions about the perceived winner of the same debate, with associated significant differences among the two groups as to who they would vote for in the coming election. We extend this example to the problem of modelling the likely electoral responses of agents in the context of the climate change debate, and discuss the notion of interference between related questions that might be asked of an agent in a social simulation that was intended to simulate their likely responses. A modelling technology which could account for such strong social contextual effects would benefit regulatory bodies which need to navigate between multiple interests and concerns, and we shall present one viable avenue for constructing such a technology. A geometric approach will be presented, where the internal state of an agent is represented in a vector space, and their social context is naturally modelled as a set of basis states that are chosen with reference to the problem space.

Behavioural evidence for social preferences

A central topic in economics is the existence of social preferences. Behavioural economics in general has approached the issue from several angles. Controlled experimental settings, surveys, and field experiments are able to show that in a number of economic environments, people usually care about immaterial things such as fairness or equity of allocations. Findings from experimental economics specifically have lead to large increase in theories addressing social preferences. Most (pro)social phenomena are well understood in the experimental settings but very difficult to observe 'in the wild'. One criticism in this regard is that many findings are bound by the artificial environment of the computer lab or survey method used. A further criticism is that the traditional methods also fail to directly attribute the observed behaviour to the mental constructs that are expected to stand behind them. This thesis will first examine the usefulness of sports data to test social preference models in a field environment, thus overcoming limitations of the lab with regards to applicability to other - non-artificial - environments. The second major contribution of this research establishes a new neuroscientific tool - the measurement of the heart rate variability - to observe participants' emotional reactions in a traditional experimental setup.

Nonprofit organisations face a restructuring state : the case of local social services in the Hunter region of New South Wales

This paper is concerned with certain of the characteristics of local social services, and their role in a restructuring Australian welfare state. I am particularly concerned with the distinctive gender characteristics of these organisations, because in comparison with most other organisations they have a feminised quality. This partly mirrors women's traditional role of undertaking the major part of the caring labour of society. However, simultaneously work in these organisation deviates from more traditional patterns where employed women occupy subordinate positions. In many community organisations, women occupy leadership roles. The analysis here is concerned with the apparently paradoxical nature of these organisations in their capacity to entrench traditional gender roles and to challenge these by allowing women to fill management positions. It is also concerned to examine whether changes that have been occurring in the community services sector over the last two decades are likely to enhance women's general position in the society, or diminish the power exercised by women. The paper draws in a preliminary way on a study of local services in the Hunter Region of NSW undertaken in the latter half of 1992. These preliminary findings are set against the broader picture of developments in the contemporary welfare state.

Associations between socioeconomic position, food insecurity and BMI

Introduction: Food insecurity is a social determinant of health and is defined as limited ability to access sufficient amounts of nutritionally adequate or safe food for a healthy and active life. Food insecurity is associated with poor health status and the exacerbation of other health inequalities. This study examined whether an association existed between 1) socioeconomic position (SEP) and food insecurity and 2) food insecurity and weight status. Methods: Data from the 1995 National Nutrition Survey was analysed. A random sample of households (n = 13 858) were asked about dietary habits and food choices. Information about gender, age, BMI, waist circumference, household income and whether the household had run out of money to purchase food in the previous 12 months was obtained and analysed using chi-square and logistic regression. Results: Income was significantly associated with food insecurity; households with lower income were at higher risk of food insecurity. Lower income males were nine times more likely to experience food insecurity and lower income females were three times more likely to experience food insecurity than their higher income counterparts. Food insecurity was significantly associated with body mass index (BMI) among women but not men. Women experiencing food insecurity were at higher risk of overweight/obesity according to BMI and waist circumference measures. Conclusion: Evidence suggests that low income households are at higher risk of food insecurity and women who are food insecure are at higher risk of being overweight or obese. Food insecurity may mediate the association between SEP and BMI.

Children, young people and their social and spatial citizenship rights

The use of public space by children and young people is a contentious issue in a number of developed and developing countries and a range of measures are frequently deployed to control the public space which usually deny the rights of children and young people to claim the space for their use. Child and youth curfews, oppressive camera surveillance and the unwarranted attentions of police and private security personnel as control measures in public space undermine attempts to secure greater participation by children and young people in constructing positive strategies to address concerns that impact on them and others in a local area. Evidence from research in Scotland undertaken by Article 12 (2000) suggests that young people felt strongly that they did not count in local community matters and decision making and the imposition on them of a curfew by the adult world of the local area created resentment both at the harshness of the measure and disappointment at an opportunity lost to be consulted and involved in dealing with perceived problems of the locality. This is an important cluster of linked issues as Brown (1998:116) argues that young people are ‘selectively constructed as “problem” and “other” with their concerns marginalised, their lifestyles problematised and their voices subdued’, and this flows into their use of public space as their claims to its use as an aspect of social citizenship are usually cast as inferior or rejected as they ‘stand outside the formal polity’ as ‘non persons’. This has major implications for the ways in which young people view their position in a community as many report a feeling of not being wanted, valued or tolerated. The ‘youth question’ according to Davis (1990) acts as a form of ‘screen’ on which observers and analysts project hopes and fears about the state of society, while in the view of Loader (1996:89) the ‘question of young people’ sits within a discourse comprising two elements, the one being youth, particularly young males, as the ‘harbinger of often unwelcome social change and threat’ and the other element ‘constructs young people as vulnerable’. This discourse of threat is further exemplified in the separation of children from teenagers as Valentine (1996) suggests, the treatment of younger children using public space is often dramatically different to that of older children and the most feared stage of all, 'youth'

Neighbourhood disadvantage, individual-level socioeconomic position, and self-reported chronic arthritis : a cross-sectional multilevel study

Objective: To examine the association between individual- and neighborhood-level disadvantage and self-reported arthritis. Methods: We used data from a population-based cross-sectional study conducted in 2007 among 10,757 men and women ages 40–65 years, selected from 200 neighborhoods in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia using a stratified 2-stage cluster design. Data were collected using a mail survey (68.5% response). Neighborhood disadvantage was measured using a census-based composite index, and individual disadvantage was measured using self-reported education, household income, and occupation. Arthritis was indicated by self-report. Data were analyzed using multilevel modeling. Results: The overall rate of self-reported arthritis was 23% (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 22–24). After adjustment for sociodemographic factors, arthritis prevalence was greatest for women (odds ratio [OR] 1.5, 95% CI 1.4–1.7) and in those ages 60–65 years (OR 4.4, 95% CI 3.7–5.2), those with a diploma/associate diploma (OR 1.3, 95% CI 1.1–1.6), those who were permanently unable to work (OR 4.0, 95% CI 3.1–5.3), and those with a household income <$25,999 (OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.7–2.6). Independent of individual-level factors, residents of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods were 42% (OR 1.4, 95% CI 1.2–1.7) more likely than those in the least disadvantaged neighborhoods to self-report arthritis. Cross-level interactions between neighborhood disadvantage and education, occupation, and household income were not significant. Conclusion: Arthritis prevalence is greater in more socially disadvantaged neighborhoods. These are the first multilevel data to examine the relationship between individual- and neighborhood-level disadvantage upon arthritis and have important implications for policy, health promotion, and other intervention strategies designed to reduce the rates of arthritis, indicating that intervention efforts may need to focus on both people and places.