A comparison of the socio-cultural influences on body size perceptions and values among European Australian and Indigenous Fijian adolescent girls

Western women are experiencing increases in the prevalence of overweight and obesity despite valuing slimness as ideal and equating thinness with attractiveness and beauty. Pacific populations are also experiencing high prevalence rates of overweight and obesity. A lage body size, however, has many positive connotations among pacific populations that stem from rich cultural practices such as feasts and deliberate fattening of women. There appears to be many sociocultural factors however, such as images of the slim ideal portrayed in Western media, influencing body image concerns that are shared between the two groups. A qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews was conducted to examine and compare the sociocultural influences on body size perceptionsand values. Participants include 16 European Australian and 16 Indigenous Fijian adolescent girls aged between 15 and 17 years. Inductive thematic analysis and analytical induction were qualitativemethods employed to facilitate interpretation of the findings. Preliminary findings suggest that Fijian adolescent girls experience greater conflict than European Australian girls about the desired body size endorsed in their community. Results also suggest that Indigenous Fijian girls place less importance than Australian girls on manipulating their body to achieve a specific ideal. Specific results of this study are reviewed and recommendations for future research are discussed.

School and local environmental knowledge, what are the links? A case study among indigenous adolescents in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Understanding environmental learning is the first step to constructing successful environmental education programs. Little research has addressed the relation between the environmental knowledge learned inside and outside schools. Environmental educators and ethnobiologists have worked independently, without assessing how school and local environmental knowledge relate to each other. This research examines school and local environmental knowledge acquisition of 95 Mexican indigenous adolescents. Multivariate regression analysis was used to assess (1) school and local environmental knowledge overlap and (2) the association between individual environmental knowledge and socio-demographic characteristics. Data show that school and local environmental knowledge are not associated in a statistically significant way. A possible explanation for the finding is that the two forms of knowledge are complementary because they exist in parallel. Adolescents’ school and local environmental knowledge is associated with their level of schooling, but not with parental occupation in community forestry. The use of traditional pedagogical practices at school and the loss of traditional culture at home might hamper indigenous adolescents’ environmental learning.

Approaching responsivity : The Victorian Department of Justice and indigenous offenders

Effective rehabilitation involves consideration of offender's cognitive behavioural characteristics and appropriate program delivery - approach by the Victorian Department of Justice in relation to Aboriginal offenders - interviews with staff members show approach is more complex than addressing behavioural characteristics - involves interaction extending beyond the Department and offenders to include indigenous communities.

Teaching like an artist : the pedagogic identities and practices of artists in schools

This article reports findings from an ethnographic study of the arts curriculum and pedagogy in a British primary school. The policy context for the study is the school's involvement in promoting creative partnerships between teachers and artists. The pedagogies of three different artist-led projects are analysed, using a Bernsteinian framework, and are characterised in relation to notions of 'competence' and 'performance' pedagogies. These characterisations are then used to consider the impact of the artists' pedagogies on teachers in the school, and the extent to which the different pedagogies promote inclusion. Broad conclusions are drawn about the relative difficulty of adopting competence pedagogies in the current educational culture of British schools; more specific conclusions are drawn about the importance of time, text, discourse and interpretation in arts pedagogies.

The evolution and conservation of Taiwan's aboriginal art heritage

This thesis synthesises perspectives from heritage, museum studies, anthropology and contemporary art to provide a dynamic account of the role of art among the Aboriginal peoples of Taiwan. It proposes that the continuing practice of contemporary Aboriginal art in Taiwan is an important instrument for maintaining Aboriginal groups' cultural vitality.

Cross talk : collaborative indigenous life writing in Australia and Canada

This thesis argues that the critical reading of Indigenous life writing needs to move beyond its concern for power relations operating between the narrators and editors of collaboratively produced texts. It discusses the role of Indigenous families and communities in both the production and the reading of Indigenous texts.

Thirnda ngurkarnda ityrnda : ontologies in indigenous tertiary education

When Indigenous knowledge production is shifted through critical work in curriculum, Indigenous employment and authority underpinned by stronger Indigenous philosophies and cultures, resistance emerges. A storied descriptive and reflexive approach from within Arabana philosophy and ontologies - Yalka - brings understanding for a new old way in tertiary education and life.

Exploitation of the Indigenous dot

This thesis argues that commercial and artistic appropriation of the Indigenous 'dot' motif from the Central and Western Desert amounts to exploitation of Indigenous sacred paintings. The author produced a suite of paintings that are discussed in relation to the above concerns, highlighting areas where it is suggested that changes in discourse should occur.

Escape artists

The figure of the female visual artist within literature has attracted a great deal of attention from feminists. In this thesis, the author examines the idea of a feminist gaze located in the female protagonists within fiction that insists on the sense of touch to alter the principle of vision.

Role of new media in Indigenous cultural micro-enterprises

This study examines the use of new media by organisations which represent the oldest culltures on earth, finding that new media have transformed the practices of Indigenous cultural micro-enterprises, by providing an inexpensive channel for global cultural profile, increasing efficiency and viability, and reducing social and geographic discrimination.