How is gender-based violence covered in the sporting news? An account of the Australian Football League sex scandal

Despite the significant amount of feminist and sociological research devoted to the question of sexual harassment and assault in sport, there has been little accompanying exploration of how the media discuss gender-based violence by sportsmen. This study examines the narratives of gendered behaviour that emerge in stories about Australian rules footballers and violence against women in the sport sections of two major Australian newspapers. As the audience for sport news is primarily male, the way that sexual misconduct by footballers is reported in this section of the newspaper provides an important dimension in theorising how media institutions influence public discourse and understandings of gender.

Transmitting music through culture: a way forward to harmonise a discordant world

This paper situates itself in an Australian society that has become increasingly globalised and cosmopolitan. It is concerned with the implementation programs and policies that reflect a context of diversity as one that promotes respect for a multicultural society and one that promotes respect for diversity across the community. Considering the contradictory and ambivalent understandings that underpin these discussions and their implications for the conceptual and material conditions that structure the debate, the authors explore the use of teaching African music at tertiary level as a pathway for change. The authors further reflect whether such a diffusion of intercultural dialogue through music can promote cultural tolerance and diversity in our changing world.

Social, cultural and environmental influences on child activity and eating in Australian migrant communities

Aim: This study set out to examine the socio-cultural, familial and environmental factors influencing health, eating habits and patterns of physical activity contributing to child and adolescent overweight and obesity. Methods: Semi-structured, community-based interviews were conducted with contrasting key informant three-generation families; and generation by generation focus groups of grandparents, parents and children from four cultural communities in the state of Victoria, Australia. Purposive sampling occurred from Turkish, Greek, Indian and Chinese communities that have migrated to Australia within the last three generations (n = 160, eight families, 47 children aged 5–15 years, 29 parents, 42 grandparents). Results: Evidence of two-way influences on eating and physical activity across three generations was evident, with children reporting the greatest cross-cultural diversity. A range of dietary restrictions was reported across all cultural groups. Efforts to foster healthy eating and lifestyle patterns within communities were evident. Parents, as a generation in particular, felt the need for more access to education and support regarding healthy limits for pre-puberty and puberty stages. Conclusion: There is a dynamic influence of culture on many aspects of family lifestyle across three generations. To achieve successful intervention design, childhood obesity researchers need to collaborate with diverse groups and communities. Considering the role and influence of extended family, a multigenerational, whole-of-community approach beyond that of parent and child populations ought to be considered.

Sociology : Australian connections

Sociology offers a way of understanding our lives, from individual experience to public affairs. This third edition of a widely used textbook introduces the major figures in sociological thought and examines key aspects of society.

Girls and computing-still a way to go

Years after the introduction of computing in Australian schools, computer classrooms are still heavily dominated by male students studying subjects which have little appeal to female students, explains the author. This article looks at why girls are less likely to choose computing as a subject to study or to consider computing for a future career.

Diasporic Greek-Australian writing deconstructed : challenging Europe with new voices, new perspectives

Contemporary Europe, culturally, historically and linguistically is filled with contradiction, silences and paradox.

Diasporic creative writers in Australia who are associated, either by virtue of their cultural heritage or through an intellectual engagement with Europe, can in fact provide a radical potential in contemporary European cultural analysis.

Deconstructing and interpreting narratives, prose and poetry of bilingual writers can open up unexplored areas which, up till now, have been either repressed or marginalised. This critical endeavour, drawing on recent post-colonial criticism, is a new way to interpret fiction, stories and even modern fairytales. It appears less threatening and confronting to venture into those cultural, psychological and subliminal areas which contemporary Europe perhaps wishes to forget or renounce. It is however an alternate method which can be used to compel criticism to puzzle over such areas and so open up new perspectives as well as allow for new voices.

Australian elite athlete development : an organisational perpective

The purpose of this paper is to examine and map the process of Australian elite athlete development from an organisational perspective, that of 35 national sporting organisations (NSOs). Research on elite development has focused on the significance of economic and cultural factors (macro-level studies) and the role of sport science and athletes’ close environment (micro-level studies) in fostering success. In an effort to depict elite athlete development processes in a more inclusive way, this paper offers an evaluation of the ways elite athletes are nurtured from an Australian NSOs perspective adopting a meso-level approach (e.g., programs). The study is based on a document analysis examining 74 annual reports from 35 NSOs over a period of four years, before and after the Sydney Olympic Games and offers a generic framework of the Australian elite athlete development process. The resulting framework shows that various interested groups are involved with nurturing elite athletes through either initiating or implementing specially designed programs or other strategies that cultivate success, and helps broaden the definition of elite development. The implications of successful elite athlete development include increased finances and public profile for sports as well as the creation of pathways to increase interest in sport.

Towards ecological management of Australian powerline corridor vegetation

Powerline corridor management in Australia has traditionally focused on the complete removal of vegetation using short rotation times due to the perceived fire hazard associated with corridor vegetation. This study assessed vegetation recovery in a powerline corridor, following management, at three sites spanning corridor and forest habitat. Forest and corridor vegetation communities differed significantly between sites and over time. As vegetation recovered, the corridor community became a mix of plants common in the surrounding forest and open areas, changing within the 3-year study from a grass–fern to shrub–sedge community encroached by midstorey species. The current short rotations between management events unnecessarily maintain the corridor in a cycle of degradation, remove resources for native species and may allow introduced grasses and saplings to proliferate in the corridor. Maintaining a shrub layer would help avoid loss of species richness, encourage native species and limit colonisation opportunities of introduced species. Spot spraying emergent saplings and problem plants and mosaic slashing, would keep fire risk low and maintain biodiversity without increasing biomass to dangerous levels.

New world orders and the dystopian turn : transforming visions of territoriality and belonging in recent Australian children's fiction

Through the 1990s and into the new millennium, Australian children's literature responded to a conservative turn epitomised by the Howard government and to new world order imperatives of democracy, the market economy, globalisation, and the IT revolution. These responses are evidenced in the ways that children's fiction speaks to the problematics of representation and cultural identity and to possible outcomes of devastating historical and recent catastrophes. Consequently, Australian children's fiction in recent years has been marked by a dystopian turn. Through an examination of a selection of Australian children's fiction published between 1995 and 2003, this paper interrogates the ways in which hope and warning are reworked in narratives that address notions of memory and forgetting, place and belonging. We argue that these tales serve cautionary purposes, opening the way for social critique, and that they incorporate utopian traces of a transformed vision for a future Australia. The focus texts for this discussion are: Secrets of Walden Rising (Allan Baillie, 1996), Red Heart (Victor Kelleher, 2001), Deucalian (Brian Caswell, 1995), and Boys of Blood and BOlle (David Metzenthen, 2003).

Australian public sector adoption of EDRMS : a preliminary survey

Governments around the world are placing increasing emphasis on effective corporate recordkeeping within both private and public sector organisations, with some governments mandating such approaches: for example, The State Government of South Australia has required all its agencies to have 'an adequate records management program' in place by the end of 2009 (State Records of South Australia 2007). These demands are often met through the implementation of centralised electronic records management solutions – frequently, Electronic Document and Records Management Systems (EDRMS) – but not all implementing organisations adopt an EDRMS solution in the most optimal way; and many such systems fail to meet organisational needs, or gain acceptance form all (or even most) users. This paper reports on a Web-based survey of Australian public sector EDRMS implementation at three levels (federal, state and local government) and forms the first component of a multi-part investigation of Australian public sector records management. This preliminary survey was designed to identify the EDRMS solutions adopted by government agencies, as well as any guidelines or frameworks used in designing and implementing those solutions.

Long term benefits of visitor monitoring : an Australian experience

Abstract - Parks Victoria manages Victoria's (Australia) national, state and urban parks. These parks make up approximately 17% of the state's area and annually receive 45.3 million visits. Parks Victoria has been dedicated to the development of scientifically sound methods for monitoring visitors and the community since 1994. The three main ongoing monitoring streams are: visit quantities, community perceptions of management and visitor experience (Visitor Satisfaction Monitor). Accumulated research data from the Visitor Satisfaction Monitor (VSM) has been used to profile and refine the organisation's understanding of its various park visitors. After 10 years that data has matured to produce a comprehensive visitor-product market segmentation. Over 11,000 interviews at 34 major parks (including 68 visitor sites) between 2000 and 2004 were used to group park visitors into seven segments. The segments are Nature Admirers, Urban Socials Trail Users, Passives and Other Users, Activity Centrics, Access Made Easy and Country Vacationers. Each park visitor segment, or group, had substantial differences from the other groups, while the individuals within each segment had much more in common; Nature Admirers visit in small groups for a short spectacular scenic experience whereas Urban Socials visit in large groups for half-day social interactions such as birthday parties and picnics. Further analyses have been conducted to identify individual sub-segments within each of the major segments. These sub-segments provide detailed information that can be used for the future development of parks and associated services. Subsequent analysis using Structural Equation Modelling provides evidence that the relationships between services and satisfaction are better understood when considering segments. Parks Victoria has been using segments in park management applications such as wild fire recovery plans, tourism strategy formulation, park management planning and visitor risk management. It has proved to be an efficient and effective systematic way of meeting visitor needs.

Instrumentalism and the 'helping' discourse : Australian indigenous performing arts and policy

Indigenous arts are significant to the way Australia is represented to the world. Since the early 19705 Indigenous cultural policies, at both federal and state levels, have helped to shape the development of Indigenous performing arts in Australia. Over this period, cultural policies, in confluence with the aims of Indigenous artists and civil rights activists, have produced and reproduced instrumentalist rationales for the support of Indigenous arts. In particular, the sector has deployed <helping' rationales for cultural policies which focus on social and economic outcomes. This article addresses current debates around the instrumentalist purposes of cultural policy and the participation of Indigenous practitioners in reproducing the 'helping' discourse. The article, however, finds evidence of a recent break in the consensus which sees some Indigenous artists resisting the historical imperative for their arts practice to be exclusively focused on instrumentalist outcomes.

Why are we still teaching the way we were taught in the 1980s?

The article discusses project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council which is designed to establish excellence in science learning and teaching in Australian universities. Six universities across the country were chosen for the initial implementation of the project. According to the article, during the duration of the project, leaders will undergo leadership training to equip them with skills necessary to foster change in classroom practices.

The meaning of anger for Australian Indigenous offenders : the significance of context

The problem of overrepresentation of Indigenous offenders in Australian prisons highlights the need for effective tertiary intervention programs within correctional settings as a way of reducing Indigenous reincarceration. This study seeks to explore meanings of anger within an Indigenous context that might inform the development of more acceptable and potentially more effective rehabilitation programs. A methodology that acknowledges the importance of narrative, context, and culture was devised to explore how anger as an emotion is understood and experienced by a group of Indigenous men in a South Australian prison. Although some of the major themes reflected experiences of anger common to many offenders, it was evident that for these Indigenous men, anger was experienced within a broad social and political context that imbued the experience of anger with layers of culturally specific meaning. It is suggested that these layers of meaning constitute sufficient difference to warrant further exploration.

School innovation in science: improving science teaching and learning in Australian schools

School Innovation in Science is a major Victorian Government initiative that developed and validated a model whereby schools can improve their  science teaching and learning. The initiative was developed and rolled out to more than 400 schools over the period 2000-2004. A research team worked with 200+ primary and secondary schools over three years, supporting them in developing new initiatives in science, and monitoring the impact on school and classroom practice, and student outcomes. The research effort underpinning the development phase included the development and validation of a set of components describing effective teaching, the refinement of a school and teacher change strategy, the development of instruments to monitor teacher classroom practice and a variety of student outcomes, and the development of insights into the change process using questionnaires, observations, and interviews across four years. This paper describes the project and its major outcomes, and raises a number of issues concerning the nature of school and teacher change, pedagogy, school and community, and student learning, and the way these interact. A number of research issues are raised by the size and developmental nature of the project, the range of research methods, and the different audiences served by the research. The issue of sustainability of such system-wide change initiatives is discussed.