On the governance of public education

Private schools in Australia receive significant public funding, but their determination to concentrate social and cultural capital and consolidate positional advantage ‘denies the possibility of their serving the public interest’. A 1998 study of Victorian private schools has confirmed that they produce above-average academic results and are also concentrated in high socioeconomic geographic areas. The few private schools outside this pattern serve mainly provincial areas or ethnic minority groups. High academic credentials depend at least in part on their scarcity, and ‘the selective function of schools, directed towards establishing a hierarchy of performance, overwhelms the pedagogical function of universal learning and social justice,’ especially at transition points in the education system. The governance procedures of schools typically encourage high academic standards ‘through mechanisms of exclusion’. Private schools in particular, at the secondary level, tend to ‘export failure’ through ‘predatory recruitment and selective dumping practices’, and by arrangements with universities for early placement of high performers into preferred tertiary courses. The broader education system reinforces the competitive processes within schools though competitive examinations. A range of steps can address these equity problems. Curriculum should be made more sensitive to disadvantaged social groups. Secondary schools should be aligned more closely to the social, cultural and economic development of their communities through mechanisms such as VET in schools, linkages with TAFE colleges, and a broadened curriculum that addresses community problems.

A preliminary examination of public opinion in Australia on the use of biometric devices or identifiers in everyday life

Since the September 11,2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, many countries including Australia have been able to justify the use of biometric devices for identification and surveillance of their own citizens and others in the name of national security.

This paper reports on the preliminary findings of a survey that examined Australians' views and experiences with the use of biometric devices in everyday situations in the context of their potential to serve as a 'Panopticon' to keep the nation's citizenry under surveillance. It discusses the adoption of the new communication technology from the point of view of the Justification model that sees technology choice as social
gambling and the pluralist view of technology that sees technology as neutral in itself but as having negative or positive effects on society based on how It is used.

The paper proposes the need for Australian society to balance citizens' right to privacy and civil liberties with the right to stay alive and safe from terrorism and how it may be done with the necessary legal and regulator)' safeguards.

Rhetorical theory of public relations: opening the door to semiotic and pragmatism approaches

The 2001 Handbook of Public Relations edited by Robert Heath contains a prominent article advocating the use of rhetorical theory or ‘rhetorical enactment rational’ as a fruitful way of advancing theoretical understandings of public relations. In 2004 Heath and Dan Millar edited: Responding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication. These are the latest excursions into a perspective on public relations reflecting the extensive study of rhetoric in North America. Other examples are Public Relations Inquiry as Rhetorical Criticism (Elwood, 1995); Rhetorical and Critical Approaches to Public Relations (Toth and Heath, 1992); and a chapter Public Relations? No, Relations with Publics: A Rhetorical-Organisational Approach to Contemporary Corporate Communication (Cheney and Dionisopoulos, in Botan and Hazleton (Eds.) 1989).

The conventional notion of rhetoric is argumentation and persuasion stemming from the ancient Greek sophists, such as Aristotle, and from the Romans, particularly Cicero and Quintillion. Rhetoric became a fundamental plank of the trivium of ancient and medieval education: grammar, logic and rhetoric. Then in the 20th century Kenneth Burke, Stephen Toulmin and Chaim Perelman with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca extended Aristotle’s suggestion that: “Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic” Aristotle (trans. 1991). To use the rhetorical approach to argue that rational discourse cannot describe the world on its own. Instead living, enculturated human beings have to perceive ‘their’ truths. They take a perceptual ‘position’ on reason.

Public relations, is an industry for influencing perceptual ‘positions’. But the study of perception and attempts to influence perception cannot be claimed by rhetorical scholars alone. Semioticians and linguists who take the perspective of linguistic pragmatics also claim this field. This paper takes the example of ‘public relations’ as a focus for the confluence of rhetorical, semiotic and pragmatism approaches to the ‘problematic’ of understanding and truth.

The commitment of public sector Sweden to codes of ethics

This article examines the results of a study conducted of the top 100 public sector units in Sweden. These units are comprised of entities of government, municipalities, and county councils. The aim of the study was to examine and describe the commitment to codes of ethics in these Swedish public sector units. This article reports on the responses of those public sector units that possessed a code of ethics. The construct of commitment was measured by a consideration of the inputs, objectives and outputs of the code across six areas. The commitment to codes of ethics has an interest for those involved in the public sector in Sweden and society in general. Most public sector units are in the early stages of development and assimilation into overall ethics policies in code artefacts. On a specific level there are customized codes of ethics that are not always documented in a generic artefact. Theoretical and managerial implications are provided. Furthermore, suggestions for further research are proposed.

The costs of a community-based intervention to promote maternal health

The costs of community-level interventions are rarely reported, although such insights are needed if intervention research is to be useful to practitioners seeking to understand what might be involved in replicating interventions in different contexts. We report the costs of a 2-year community-based intervention to promote the health of recent mothers in Victoria, Australia. Program of Resources, Information and Support for Mothers was an integrated programme of primary care and community-based strategies. It had health care professional training, health education and community development components as well as an emphasis on creating ‘mother-friendly’ environments. Costs included the programme costs [primarily the salaries of the community development officers (CDO) in the field] and also ‘induced’ costs that relate to the CDOs' successes in attracting additional resources to the intervention from the local community. The total cost averaged A$272 490 per rural community and A$313 900 per urban community, equivalent to A$172.40 and A$128.70 per mother, respectively. For every A$10 of public funds initially invested in the project, the CDOs were able to attract a further A$1–2 worth of local resources, predominantly in the form of volunteer time or donated services.

Children's perceptions of the use of public open spaces for active free-play

Activity performed by children in their free-time may have a significant impact on overall physical activity levels, however, very little is known about the influences on children's active free-play. To examine the role and use of public open spaces, 132 children (6-12 years) from a selection of primary schools participated in small focus group interviews. Children reported that their use of public open spaces was influenced by a combination of intrapersonal, social and environmental factors including; the play equipment and facilities at local parks, lack of independent mobility, urban design features, presence of friends, and personal motivation.

Implementation, communication and benefits of public sector codes of ethics : a longitudinal study of Sweden

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the implementation, communication and benefits of codes of ethics in the public sector of Sweden.

Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a longitudinal approach. It examines the ethos of codes of ethics in the largest public sector organizations of Sweden in 2001-2002 and 2005-2006.

Findings – Only a few of the largest public sector organizations in Sweden have indicated that they possess codes of ethics. This finding may be explained by the current judicial legislation that governs Swedish society. The public codes of ethics have been established both recently and, in part, years ago.

Research limitations/implications – A suggestion for further research would be to examine the implementation, communication and perceived benefits of public sector codes of ethics in other countries. Another area of further research would be to replicate the reported surveys in the future to examine the existence of potential trends.

Practical implications – When it comes to the perceived benefits of public sector codes of ethics there appears to be only minor acknowledgement of the code being used to resolve ethical problems in society. However, there is a strong conviction that the code of ethics positively influences the operations of public sector organizations.

Originality/value – The paper examines the ethical implementation, communication and benefits put in place by private companies to embed codes of ethics into their organizations.

Features of public open spaces and physical activity among children : findings from the CLAN study

Objective : To examine associations between features of public open spaces, and children's physical activity.
Participants : 163 children aged 8–9 years and 334 adolescents aged 13–15 years from Melbourne, Australia participated in 2004.
Methods : A Geographic Information System was used to identify all public open spaces (POS) within 800 m of participants' homes and their closest POS. The features of all POS identified were audited in 2004/5. Accelerometers measured moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) after school and on weekends. Linear regression analyses examined associations between features of the closest POS and participants' MVPA.
Results : Most participants had a POS within 800 m of their home. The presence of playgrounds was positively associated with younger boys' weekend MVPA (B = 24.9 min/day; p ≤ 0.05), and lighting along paths was inversely associated with weekend MVPA (B = − 54.9 min/day; p ≤ 0.05). The number of recreational facilities was inversely associated with younger girls' MVPA after school (B = − 2.6 min/day; p ≤ 0.05) and on the weekend (B = − 8.7 min/day; p ≤ 0.05). The presence of trees providing shade (5.8 min/day, p ≤ 0.01) and signage regarding dogs (B = 6.8 min/day, p ≤ 0.05) were positively associated with adolescent girls' MVPA after school.
Conclusion : Certain features of POS were associated with participants' MVPA, although mixed associations were evident. Further research is required to clarify these complex relationships.

Do features of public open spaces vary according to neighbourhood socio-economic status?

This study examined the relations between neighbourhood socio-economic status and features of public open spaces (POS) hypothesised to influence children's physical activity. Data were from the first follow-up of the Children Living in Active Neighbourhoods (CLAN) Study, which involved 540 families of 5–6 and 10–12-year-old children in Melbourne, Australia. The Socio-Economic Index for Areas Index (SEIFA) of Relative Socio-economic Advantage/Disadvantage was used to assign a socioeconomic index score to each child's neighbourhood, based on postcode. Participant addresses were geocoded using a Geographic Information System. The Open Space 2002 spatial data set was used to identify all POS within an 800 m radius of each participant's home. The features of each of these POS (1497) were audited. Variability of POS features was examined across quintiles of neighbourhood SEIFA. Compared with POS in lower socioeconomic neighbourhoods, POS in the highest socioeconomic neighbourhoods had more amenities (e.g. picnic tables and drink fountains) and were more likely to have trees that provided shade, a water feature (e.g. pond, creek), walking and cycling paths, lighting, signage regarding dog access and signage restricting other activities. There were no differences across neighbourhoods in the number of playgrounds or the number of recreation facilities (e.g. number of sports catered for on courts and ovals, the presence of other facilities such as athletics tracks, skateboarding facility and swimming pool). This study suggests that POS in high socioeconomic neighbourhoods possess more features that are likely to promote physical activity amongst children.

Folate fortification : a case study of public health policy-making

Introducing Evidence Based Health Policy: Problems and Possibilities, Section 1: What is the Problem?, 1: Competing Rationalities: Evidence based Health Policy, 2: Beyond Two Communities, Section 2: What does Evidence Mean?, 3: Evidence based Medicine - The Medical Profession and Health Policy, 4: Mind The Gap: Assessing the Quality of Evidence for Public Health Problems, 5: Health Policy and Normative Analysis: Ethics, Evidence and Politics, 6: What is New in Health Information? Evidence for Health Consumers and Policy Making, 7: From Evidence based Medicine to Evidence based Public Health, Section 3: Policy Case Studies, 8: The Viagra Affair: Evidence as the Terrain for Competing Partners, 9: Folate Fortification: A Case Study of Public Health Policy-Making in a Food Regulation Setting, 10: The Supply and Safety of Blood and Blood Products - Evidence, Risk and Policy, 11: The Development of Nurse Practitioner Policy, 12: Creating Healthy Public Policy for Oral Health: How was the Evidence Used?, 13: Regulation of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Victoria, 14: The Victorian Primary Health Care Reforms: A Case Study of Evidence-based Policy Making, 15: Evidence-based Practice in the Australian Drug Policy Community, 16: Challenging the Evidence - Women's Health Policy in Australia, 17: Evidence and Aboriginal Health Policy, 18: The Limits to Technical Rationality in the Health Inequalities Policy Process, 19: Evidence-based policy: A Technocratic Wish in a Political World, Section 4: Is the transfer of evidence into policy possible?, 20: The Community Model of Research Transfer, 21: Getting Research Transfer into Policy and Practice in Maternity Care, 22: Improving the Research and Policy Partnership: An Agenda for Research Transfer and Governance, 23: Framing and Taming 'Wicked' Problems