A community college's performance of 'organisation' : it's a drag!

Noting the ever-increasing encroachment of discourses and practices from the private sector on public education providers, this paper argues that such organizations exist within competing sets of differences that seek to define and fix the meaning of 'education' and 'business'. We report on fieldwork conducted in an adult education college in Sydney. In the Australian context these colleges are referred to as community colleges and their history is one based in a strong liberal tradition. Utilising Judith Butler's idea of 'drag' we consider the effects of changing modes of governance in the college with specific reference to the stories told to us about it. Our discussion suggests that the organisation was caught between identifying itself with a masculinised discourse of business and a discourse of community cast as its feminised other. In navigating between these, the college was seen to perform as a 'drag king' — an organisation performing the masculine but in so doing, undoing its gendered status. This leads us to suggest that the incorporation of business and market-based discourse into the management of community education is something that is actively resisted and undermined through such forms of gendered transgression. We conclude by proposing that this organization's capacity to perform drag is a contributing factor to its overall success, and particularly in an economic climate where many not-for-profit organisations are floundering

Improving risk assessment in schizophrenia: epidemiological investigation of criminal history factors

Background : Violence risk assessment in schizophrenia relies heavily on criminal history factors.

Aims : To investigate which criminal history factors are most strongly associated with violent crime in schizophrenia.

Method : A total of 13 806 individuals (8891 men and 4915 women) with two or more hospital admissions for schizophrenia were followed up for violent convictions. Multivariate hazard ratios for 15 criminal history factors included in different risk assessment tools were calculated. The incremental predictive validity of these factors was estimated using tests of discrimination, calibration and reclassification.

Results : Over a mean follow-up of 12.0 years, 17.3% of men (n = 1535) and 5.7% of women (n = 281) were convicted of a violent offence. Criminal history factors most strongly associated with subsequent violence for both men and women were a previous conviction for a violent offence; for assault, illegal threats and/or intimidation; and imprisonment. However, only a previous conviction for a violent offence was associated with incremental predictive validity in both genders following adjustment for young age and comorbid substance use disorder.

Conclusions : Clinical and actuarial approaches to assess violence risk can be improved if included risk factors are tested using multiple measures of performance.

'A chart for further exploration and a kind of rallying call': James Moffett and english curriculum history in Victoria

Both James Britton and James Moffett were keynote speakers at the Sydney International Federation for the Teaching of English conference in 1980 - a fact reflective of the wide recognition and acceptance of their work and influence throughout Australia by that time. In Victoria, Moffett's writings became known initially through teacher education, in particular at the University of Melbourne and the State College of Victoria, Rusden, then through the visits and writing of figures from the London Institute and others, and through the State and national English teaching association, the Australian Association for the Teaching of English. In the 1970s, Moffett's influence in Victoria came rather through the mix of his vision and writing, both theoretical and practical, in conjunction with others in Australia and elsewhere. This paper takes two separate but related sites or moments in English education in the 1970s in the Australian city of Melbourne, Victoria, as instances of the permeating influence of Moffett's work - in conjunction with leading figures from the London School associated with the 'New' English' - on education discourses and practice in that State's English curriculum history. It concludes with a consideration of the ways in which Moffett's work might still act as a 'rallying call' today.

The roots of punitive damages at common law: a longer history

This Article aims to revisit the historical development of the doctrine ofexemplary or punitive damages. Punitive damages are anomalous in that they lie in both tort and crime, a matter that has led to much criticism by modern commentators. Yet, a definitive history of punitive damages does not exist to explain this anomaly. The main contribution of this Article, then, is to begin such a history by way of a meta-narrative. It identifies and links the historically significant moments that led to punitive damages, beginning with the background period of classical Roman law, its renewed reception in Western Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that coincided with the emergence of the English common law,the English statutes of the late thirteenth century, to the court cases of Wilkes v. Wood and Huckle v. Money in the eighteenth century that heralded the "first explicit articulation" of the legal principle of punitive damages. This Article argues that this history is not linear in nature but historically contingent. This is a corrective to present scholarship, which fails to adequately connect or contextualize these historical moments, or over-simplifies this development over time.