Child protection, risk assessment and blame ideology

In this article we use qualitative data drawn from a sample of child protection cases 10 demonstrate holV the process of al1ributing blame to parents and carers for child maltreatment is a sign!ficanr influence 011 decisionmaking,
sometimes to the detriment of assessing the flltllre safety of children. We foctls on two cases which both demonstrate how the process of apportioning blame can lead to decisions which might not be considered 10 be in the best interests of the children concerned. We conceptualise blame as an 'ideology' with its roots in the discourse of the 'risk society', pelpetuated and sustained by the technology of risk assessment. The concept of blame ideology is offered as an addition to theOlY which seeks 10 explain the influences on decision making in child protection practice.

The relationship between childhood cruelty to animals and psychological adjustment : a Malaysian study

In Western research, cruelty to animals in childhood has been associated with comorbid conduct problems and with interpersonal violence in later life. However, there is little understanding of the etiology of cruelty to animals, and what in the child's life may require attention if the chain linking animal cruelty and later violence is to be broken. The study reported in this paper investigated the association between parent-reported cruelty to animals, and parent- and self-reported psychological strengths and weaknesses in a sample of 379 elementary school children in an Eastern context, Malaysia. No gender differences were found in relation to cruelty to animals or psychological problems, as assessed with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). However, there were different predictors of cruelty to animals for boys and girls. Regression analyses found that for boys, parent-reported hyperactivity was a unique predictor of Malicious and Total Cruelty to animals. For girls, self-reported conduct problems was a unique predictor of Typical Cruelty to animals. Parent-reported total difficulties were associated with Typical, Malicious, and Total Cruelty to animals. We suggest that routine screening of children with an instrument such as the SDQ may help to detect those children who may need to undergo further assessment and perhaps intervention to break the chain linking childhood cruelty to animals and later conduct problems.

Dancing on a moving floor : lay women and the principalship in Catholic education

Female disadvantage has been the explanation given in previous studies to explain the under-representation of laywomen who achieve principalships in Catholic Education. Women, themselves, have overcome many of the barriers that disadvantage them. These include an apparent inability to cope with financial management and time constraints due to family commitments. The introduction of Equal Opportunity legislation and related programmes has assisted this process, but as my research shows the under-representation of women in principalship in proportion to the numbers of women teachers in Catholic Education still remains. This thesis examines the phenomenon in three dioceses in three Australian states. I have investigated this problem using a feminist research approach which is characterised by an emphasis on the significance of everyday life. Statistical material as to percentages of teachers in comparison with percentages of female principals was collected; dates of formulation and acceptance of relevant policies at diocesan levels were checked and questionnaires compiled. The questionnaires were distributed to appropriate stakeholders. Following the compilation of data from the questionnaires, themes emerged which provided the initial questions for focus groups made up of male and female principals and potential principals. These focus groups were then conducted in all three dioceses. Through all stages I carried out cross-referencing with my own journal sentries (Power, 1993—1999) . The qualitative and quantitative data generated from the focus groups was examined and analysed drawing on feminist concepts. I have found two major features emerging from the materials that I have generated. The first was the unpredictable, ambiguous and often contradictory relations that occur within Catholic Education, and how they were experienced by lay women. This aspect gave rise to the title of my thesis: 'Dancing on a Moving Floor' as many women felt the rules changed the closer they got to achieving principalship. Then both male and female participants highlighted 'male advantage' in terms that have been identified in other education systems, but this factor emerged as being further heightened in Catholic Education and occurring at systemic, organisational and individual levels. I have made a number of policy recommendations that could possibly change attitudes and practices for each of these levels. I conclude with some suggestions for further research.

Factors affecting the engagement of experienced teachers in schools

With the changing age profile of teachers in Australian schools, considerable numbers of experienced teachers need to feature as educational leaders, before their workplace knowledge and expertise will be lost to schools with retirement. Stereotypes of veteran teachers depict individuals, wearied by decades of work experiences, entering professional decline when educational systems need these experienced practitioners to remain connected, communicative and motivated in their work. This thesis explores the careers and contemporary professional lives of experienced practitioners — predominantly classroom teachers — currently working in a school with a long standing commitment to student-centred education. The research identified the factors that influenced their career pathways and affected their engagement with their work. Critical incidents in the teachers’ careers and professional lives are discussed in relation to the theories of motivation and the nature of Professional Learning Communities. The study showed that necessary factors for engagement were: mutual alignment with a well-articulated and practised ethos; supportive leadership; experiencing professional influence; opportunities for learning; and variety in work. Disillusion resulted if school actions were contrary to the espoused ethos. Severely negative experiences of performance management were survived by withdrawing, and enduring management tenures but these remain very poignant memories. The teachers had few career regrets yet reflection revealed the arbitrary nature of their career progression. The research identified a need to recognise the global and societal factors influencing the nature of teachers’ work. It is argued that schools and systems need to have a greater alignment between these external forces and their internal goals whilst recapturing the moral purpose of education. Furthermore, it is asserted that educational systems need to provide better human resource management for the teaching workforce through emphasising life-balance and well-being. Additionally, professional appraisal and staff management would benefit from strong recognition and deployment of the workplace knowledge and expertise of experienced teachers. A serendipitous outcome of the research was the benefit participants gained from reflecting on their careers which proved extremely affirming, and contributed to enhanced professional identities and changed career plans.

Technology and music in the early years of schooling

An investigation of junior primary school children's use of computer-based music technology found that, with active support from teachers, young children were able to participate effectively in relatively complex musical processes, with particular regard to listening, performing and composing, thus extending the traditional scope of young children's music education.

Evaluation of the Asthma Friendly Schools program

This thesis examined what makes schools want to embrace the Asthma Friendly Schools program. It also investigated the limitations and barriers of the Asthma Friendly Schools program and explored it's uptake by schools and the implications of the findings for the redesign of the program.

Subjective Wellbeing as an affective construct

This thesis quantifies the normative characteristics of Subjective Wellbeing amongst Australian high-school age students using the Personal Wellbeing Index adapted for school children. No previous study has undertaken this task. The results confirm the homeostatic model and corroborate previous research suggesting that Subjective Wellbeing is a construct driven primarily by Core Affect.

Woman principal : what's being feminist got to do with it?

This investigation of the experience and standpoint of women principals of Catholic schools revealed that dominant masculinist views of educational administration are neither popular, nor go unchallenged. It revealed that the unique achievements of women educators are largely ignored in a culture that still dismisses women's values and commitments.

Catching gender-Identity production in flight : making the commonplace visible

The purpose of this article is to develop and illustrate an approach for making the commonplace visible in a natural, as opposed to manipulated, social setting. The key research task was to find a way of capturing the ongoing production or enactment of the self that provides some insight into the way in which it is produced in a routine, matter of fact way. The article takes a number of steps to develop a research approach to the task. First, gender-identity was selected as a more specific aspect of self-production. Second, the concept of “flashpoints” was used to refer to a particular moment in the routine which achieves some significance or salience as a result of the participants seizing upon some otherwise unremarkable action or statement and twisting it to their purpose. In this study, the purpose was gender-identity creation. Primary school children in the classroom and their teachers were the participants of the study. Through the use of flashpoints, the article demonstrates how gender-identity production of these children can be caught in flight. The article concludes that this approach can be added to the researcher’s toolkit.

A framework for re-thinking learning in science from recent cognitive science perspectives

Recent accounts by cognitive scientists of factors affecting cognition imply the need to reconsider current dominant conceptual theories about science learning. These new accounts emphasize the role of context, embodied practices and narrative-based representation rather than learners’ cognitive constructs. In this paper we analyze data from a longitudinal study of primary school children’s learning to outline a framework based on these contemporary accounts, and to delineate key points of difference from conceptual change perspectives. The findings suggest this framework provides strong theoretical and practical insights into how children learn and the key role of representational negotiation in this learning. We argue that the nature and process of conceptual change can be re-interpreted in terms of the development of students’ representational resources.

A population-based study of preschoolers' food neophobia and its associations with food preferences

Objective: This cross-sectional study was designed to investigate the relationships between food preferences, food neophobia, and children’s characteristics among a population-based sample of preschoolers.

Design: A parent-report questionnaire.

Setting: Child-care centers, kindergartens, playgroups, day nurseries, and swimming centers.

Subjects: 371 two- to five-year-old Australian children.

Outcome Measures: Associations between food neophobia and the food preferences and characteristics.

Analysis: Analysis of variance, analysis of covariance, Pearson product-moment correlations, and Fisher z test were used to estimate and compare the associations between these variables.

Results: Food neophobia was associated with reduced preferences for all food groups, but especially for vegetables (r = −0.60; P < .001). It was also associated with liking fewer food types (r = −0.55; P < .001), disliking more food types (r = 0.42; P < .001), the number of untried food types (r = 0.25; P < .001), a less varied range of food preferences (r = −0.59; P < .001), and less healthful food preferences overall (r = −0.55; P < .001). No significant relationships (P < .01) were observed between food neophobia and a child’s age, sex, or history of breast-feeding.

Conclusions: The study confirms and extends results obtained in experimental research and population-based intake studies of food neophobia to children’s everyday food preferences. The findings suggest that preschool children’s everyday food preferences are strongly associated with food neophobia but not with children’s age, sex, or history of breast-feeding. When aiming to influence children’s food preferences, the effects of food neophobia and strategies to reduce it should be considered.

'Go Grrrl!' : constructions of femininity in the textual practices of elite girls' schooling

In this paper I consider the utility of discourses of ‘girl power’ for understanding, and complicating, the way youthful femininities are produced in schooling. The paper is concerned with expanding the possibilities for how queer theoretical resources might be utilized within studies of girls and schooling. Existing studies have drawn upon Judith Butler’s notion of a ‘heterosexual matrix’ for understanding, and attending to, the way normative discourses of heterosexuality underpin the school-based production of youthful femininities. The term ‘heterofemininities’ has been used in order to label these school-produced intersections of sex/gender/sexuality. Drawing on discourses of ‘girl power’ that gather around ‘voice’ and responsibility, I propose that the production of ‘hetero-femininities’ within educational contexts might be further explored, and thus complicated, when the significance of discourses of ‘girl power’ is considered. I analyse young women’s discussions of key ‘girl power’ icons in popular culture, generated through fieldwork in an elite girls’ school in Australia. In this analysis I explore the intersections of gender/sexuality/girl power that are produced in the young women’s textual practices.

Parental influence and obesity prevention in pre-schoolers : a systematic review of interventions

Obesity is difficult to reverse in older children and adults and calls have been made to implement obesity prevention strategies during the formative pre-school years. Childhood obesity experts suggest that prevention of overweight in the pre-school years should focus on parents, because parental beliefs, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours appear to contribute to children’s development of excessive weight gain. While evidence suggests that parental variables may be instrumental in the development of obesity, there has been no systematic evaluation of whether intervening to change such variables will positively influence the development of excess adiposity during the pre-school years. This paper is a conceptual and methodological review of the literature on the parental variables targeted in interventions designed to modify risk factors for obesity by promoting healthy eating and/or physical activity and/or reducing sedentary behaviours in families of children aged 2–6 years. There were significant methodological limitations of existing studies and the scientific study of this area is in its infancy. However, the results suggest that the modification of parental variables known to be associated with obesity-promoting behaviours in pre-school children may show promise as an obesity prevention strategy; further research is needed.

Asthma among schoolchildren in the Barwon region of Victoria

Objectives: To determine (i) the relationship between asthma management and socioeconomic status; (ii) whether recent estimates from the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) conducted in Melbourne apply to a broader cross-section of Victorian children; and (iii) age-related trends in asthma prevalence.

Design: A questionnaire survey, based on the ISAAC protocol.

Participants and setting: Subjects were children aged 4–13 years from a random sample of primary schools in the Barwon region of Victoria. The survey was conducted between March and September 2005.

Main outcome measures: Parent-reported wheeze and wheeze-related use of health resources during the preceding 12 months.

Results: Questionnaires were returned by 7813/9258 students (84%). Lower socioeconomic status was associated with increased frequency of regular asthma reviews (P < 0.01 for trend), but not of emergency department visits (P = 0.19). The prevalence of wheeze among 6- and 7-year-old children in the Barwon region was similar to that in Melbourne children (20.2% v 20.0%, respectively).There was an age-related increase in the proportion of children with ≥ 12 episodes of wheeze (P = 0.01); but an age-related decrease in emergency department visits (P = 0.02).

Conclusions: Disadvantaged children have good access to regular asthma reviews and are no more likely to attend an emergency department with an episode of acute wheeze. Asthma prevalence in 6- and 7-year-old children in the Barwon region is similar to that in Melbourne. The prevalence of children with very frequent wheeze increases with age, but their use of health resources decreases.