Socio-economic explanators of mental morbidity differences between Australian men and women

This study aimed to investigate differences in reporting rates for mental morbidity between Australian men and women aged 25-54. Data for the study was obtained from the 1983 Australian Health Survey.

Influence of gender and pair-type on preschool children's learning in computing context

The thesis examined early differences between girls and boys in their attitudes and social behaviour which might help explain why girls and women continue to reject computing. The behaviour of preschool children playing freely for three supervised sessions in either same-gender or mixed-gender pairs with a computerised robot was studied, and then their individual programming performance was measured. Conclusions were that social interaction and computer programming performance were not differentiated by gender. Mixed-gender pairs had a significant effect on both children's style of social interaction and their performance, an impact that was particularly negative for girls.

Surgical sterilisation : medical power, women's knowledge

An exploration of women's experience of tubal ligation and the social context in which their contraceptive decision making occurs. This study gives priority to women's knowledge about their own bodies and investigates how women negotiate contraceptive risks, the information provision process, the outcome of tubal ligation in terms of side-effects and the medical responses to women's reporting of their problems. It makes recommendations about the information women should have to meet the requirement of an informed consent when accepting contraceptive surgery.

Old age in a new world

Five hundred early settlers of Victoria's Western District were studied in their old age. Findings about the place of the elderly in community formation, and about the many elderly who belonged to three generations of families all present early in white settlement, have added to existing knowledge of colonial society.

Taking neuroleptic medications as embodied experience : a hermeneutic phenomenological study

This hermeneutic phenomenological study focuses on the question: What is it like to take neuroleptic medications for schizophrenia, and what is the meaning of this experience?

New orthodoxes in vocational educational in Australia

The thesis argues that the "top down" approach which has been a recent feature of vocational provision in Australia has largely excluded vocational teachers and students from being involved in curriculum and policy formation. The emphasis of the current system on "training" to meet economic ends has resulted in a demise of "education" in the vocational arena. Such policy fails to recognise the complexities of learning and work in a rapidly changing society.

"We've got a problem!" women and prenatal diagnosis

This feminist qualitative research addresses the lack of women's voices in the ethical debates surrounding prenatal diagnosis (PD). The conclusions reached challenge current ethical debates around PD programmes which, through the exclusion of groups intimately affected by PD, remain partial and inadequate.

Narrative analysis of female student 'resistance' in a Japanese private university

The thesis points to the emergence of a series of distinctive tensions which were informed by the author's position as a Western male researcher living in Japan, and the changing perceptions of what occured as notions of 'empowerment' and 'voice' touched the 'grounded' data. It argues that the generative narrative(s) constitutes a form of ongoing 'conversation' which succeed in producing an unstructured reading or pedagogy. Although the research does not achieve tangible liberatory outcomes, the generative narrative(s) provides the lens through which to view the student 'resistance' and, as such, permits the examination of an instance of student 'resistance' in Japan.