Young people, pleasure, and the normalization of pornography: sexual health and well-being in a time of proliferation?

It has been argued that pornography is the most prominent sex educator for young people today (Flood, M. (2010). Young men using pornography. In E. Boyle (Ed.), Everyday Pornography (pp. 164–178). Oxford: Routledge). Research indicates that first exposure to pornography can be as young as 11 years of age. There is evidence that exposure to pornography is shaping young people’s sexual expectations and practices (H€aggstro ̈ m-Nordin et al. 2005). Many young people are learning what sex looks like from what they – or their partner or peers – observe in pornography. Significantly,pornography is normalizing sex acts that most women do not enjoy and may experience as degrading, painful, or violating. This raises serious implications for young people’s capacity to develop a sexuality that incorporates mutual pleasure, respect, and negotiation of free and full consent.While the results are complex and nuanced, research into the effects of pornography consumption provides reliable evidence that exposure to pornography increases aggressive attitudes and behavior towards women for some viewers (Malamuth et al. Annual Review of Sex Research 11, 26–91, 2000). Pornography consumption also has been found to be associated with sexual health risk taking and can impact negatively on body image and sense of self (Dean, L. (2007). Young Men, Pornography and Sexual Health Promotion, MA Research, Brighton University, Brighton, in possession of the author), and as such is a serious health and well-being issue, particularly for young women.This chapter explores preservice teachers’ reactions to pornography education using two examples from teaching of an elective Teaching Sexuality in the Middle Years, in 2011. These examples explore the complex emotions such teaching can generate and the challenges faced by preservice teachers when they are encouraged to confront the gendered and violent consequences of the normalization of pornography in a coeducational setting.

Stepping out of our comfort zones: pre-service teachers' responses to a critical analysis of gender/power relations in sexuality education

This paper discusses pre-service teachers' responses to a critical analysis of gender/power relations using examples from a final assessment for an intensive elective unit called Teaching Sexuality in the Middle Years. This unit critically examines gender/ power relations, the production of difference, heteronormativity and pleasure and desire, employing a feminist post-structural framework. Despite the focus on critical thinking, reflection and interrogating structural inequalities in this unit some students were resistant or unable to engage with this approach in their assessments, although appearing to do so in workshops. We consider the broad range of sexuality education discourses mobilised by this unit to try to make sense of what looks like resistance but may be something more complex and difficult to negotiate. The paper ends with a consideration of some of the implications of this approach for practice.

Protocol-directed sedation versus non-protocol-directed sedation to reduce duration of mechanical ventilation in mechanically ventilated intensive care patients (review)

Background : The sedation needs of critically ill patients have been recognized as a core component of critical care and meeting these is vital to assist recovery and ensure humane treatment. There is growing evidence to suggest that sedation requirements are not always optimally managed. Sub-optimal sedation incorporates both under- and over-sedation and has been linked to both short-term (e.g. length of stay) and long-term (e.g. psychological recovery) outcomes. Various strategies have been proposed to improve sedation management and address aspects of assessment as well as delivery of sedation.

Objectives : To assess the effects of protocol-directed sedation management on the duration of mechanical ventilation and other relevant patient outcomes in mechanically ventilated intensive care unit (ICU) patients. We looked at various outcomes and examined the role of bias in order to examine the level of evidence for this intervention.

Search methods : We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled trials (CENTRAL) (2013; Issue 11), MEDLINE (OvidSP) (1990 to November 2013), EMBASE (OvidSP) (1990 to November 2013), CINAHL (BIREME host) (1990 to November 2013), Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) (1990 to November 2013), LILACS (1990 to November 2013), Current Controlled Trials and US National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Studies (1990 to November 2013), and reference lists of articles. We re-ran the search in October 2014. We will deal with any studies of interest when we update the review.

Selection criteria : We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted in adult ICUs comparing management with and without protocol-directed sedation.

Data collection and analysis : Two authors screened the titles and abstracts and then the full-text reports identified from our electronic search. We assessed seven domains of potential risk of bias for the included studies. We examined the clinical, methodological and statistical heterogeneity and used the random-effects model for meta-analysis where we considered it appropriate. We calculated the mean difference (MD) for duration of mechanical ventilation and risk ratio (RR) for mortality across studies, with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Main results : We identified two eligible studies with 633 participants. Both included studies compared the use of protocol-directed sedation, specifically protocols delivered by nurses, with usual care. We rated the risk of selection bias due to random sequence generation low for one study and unclear for one study. The risk of selection bias related to allocation concealment was low for both studies. We also assessed detection and attrition bias as low for both studies while we considered performance bias high due to the inability to blind participants and clinicians in both studies. Risk due to other sources of bias, such as potential for contamination between groups and reporting bias, was considered unclear. There was no clear evidence of differences in duration of mechanical ventilation (MD -5.74 hours, 95% CI -62.01 to 50.53, low quality evidence), ICU length of stay (MD -0.62 days, 95% CI -2.97 to 1.73) and hospital length of stay (MD -3.78 days, 95% CI -8.54 to 0.97) between people being managed with protocol-directed sedation versus usual care. Similarly, there was no clear evidence of difference in hospital mortality between the two groups (RR 0.96, 95% CI 0.71 to 1.31, low quality evidence). ICU mortality was only reported in one study preventing pooling of data. There was no clear evidence of difference in the incidence of tracheostomy (RR 0.77, 95% CI 0.31 to 1.89). The studies reported few adverse event outcomes; one study reported self extubation while the other study reported re-intubation; given this difference in outcomes, pooling of data was not possible. There was significant heterogeneity between studies for duration of mechanical ventilation (I2 = 86%, P value = 0.008), ICU length of stay (I2 = 82%, P value = 0.02) and incidence of tracheostomy (I2 = 76%, P value = 0.04), with one study finding a reduction in duration of mechanical ventilation and incidence of tracheostomy and the other study finding no difference.

Authors' conclusions : There is currently insufficient evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of protocol-directed sedation. Results from the two RCTs were conflicting, resulting in the quality of the body of evidence as a whole being assessed as low. Further studies, taking into account contextual and clinician characteristics in different ICU environments, are necessary to inform future practice. Methodological strategies to reduce the risk of bias need to be considered in future studies.

Accommodating taboo language in English language teaching: issues of appropriacy and authenticity

Culturally specific language practices related to vernacular uses of taboo language such as swearing represent a socially communicative minefield for learners of English. The role of classroom learning experiences to prepare learners for negotiation of taboo language use in social interactions is correspondingly complicated and ignored in much of the language teaching research literature. English language teachers confront not only obstacles to effective development of sociolinguistic and cultural knowledge in classroom instruction, and failure of course-books to address taboo language, but also uncertainties they themselves have about addressing such obstacles and omissions. In this paper, we draw on interview data from three experienced teachers of English as an additional language, to explore their perceptions and classroom practices in relation to taboo language. In particular, we explore the situational appropriateness of mild taboo swearing using the lexical item, bloody, which has a strong positioning in Australian language culture. Dilemmas surrounding this potentially troublesome item of Australian English are foregrounded in relation to the extent to which often neglected, but widely used taboo language is actually ‘taboo’ in the classroom.

Supporting culturally and linguistically diverse students during clinical placement: strategies from both sides of the table

Background: Increasing proportions of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) students within health professional courses at universities creates challenges in delivering inclusive training and education. Clinical placements are a core component of most health care degrees as they allow for applied learning opportunities. A research gap has been identified in regard to understanding challenges and strategies for CALD students in health professional placements.

Methods: A key stakeholder approach was used to examine barriers and enablers experienced by CALD students in clinical placement. Semi-structured focus groups with healthcare students (n = 13) and clinical placement supervisors (n = 12) were employed. The focus groups were analysed using open coding and thematic analysis.

Results: Three main barrier areas were identified: placement planning and preparation; teaching, assessment and feedback; and cultural and language issues. Potential solutions included addressing placement planning and preparation barriers, appropriate student placement preparation, pre-placement identification of higher risk CALD students, and diversity training for supervisors. For the barrier of teaching, assessment & feedback, addressing strategies were to: adapt student caseloads, encourage regular casual supervisor-student conversations, develop supportive placement delivery modes and structures, set expectations early, model the constructive feedback process, use visual aids, and tailor the learning environment to individual student needs. The enablers for cultural & language issues were to: build language and practical approaches for communication, raise awareness of the healthcare system (how it interacts with healthcare professions and how patients access it), and initiate mentoring programs.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that teaching and learning strategies should be student-centred, aiming to promote awareness of difference and its impacts then develop appropriate responses by both student and teacher. Universities and partnering agencies, such as clinical training providers, need to provide an inclusive learning environment for students from multiple cultural backgrounds.

Ships, planes and automobiles – the perils and pluses of place - making in an outer Melbourne suburb

Building a new suburb is increasingly seen as creating a “place” as well as a set of houses and neighbourhoods. Developers view “place-making” as a way to differentiate one estate from another and to capture a market segment; planners see the practice as the basis of good master planning. Local governments too support the concept to give residents a sense of pride and identity. While usually seen as a contemporary exercise, imprinted on the blank slate of greenfield sites, the experience of at least one outer suburb suggests that place-making is as much historical as contemporary and may be both a welcome element of a community and a focus of disaffection. The example of Point Cook in Melbourne’s west offers a range of iconic “places” – historical and contemporary markers of identity and difference – which have formed both the basis of local pride but also tension. Thus the RAAF base, Point Cook Homestead and Werribee Mansion long pre-dated the expansion of the city but they have been embraced as centres of pride, historical achievement and as tourist attractions. In contrast, a massive pirate-ship playground built in the centre of a park by a developer as a marker of difference and centre of community attraction was widely appreciated before being burned to the ground! This paper will report on a sample of resident experiences of place-making in outer suburban Melbourne which highlights some of the local complexities of place-making.

Accounting for uncertainty in volumes of seabed change measured with repeat multibeam sonar surveys

Seafloors of unconsolidated sediment are highly dynamic features; eroding or accumulating under the action of tides, waves and currents. Assessing which areas of the seafloor experienced change and measuring the corresponding volumes involved provide insights into these important active sedimentation processes. Computing the difference between Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) obtained from repeat Multibeam Echosounders (MBES) surveys has become a common technique to identify these areas, but the uncertainty in these datasets considerably affects the estimation of the volumes displaced. The two main techniques used to take into account uncertainty in volume estimations are the limitation of calculations to areas experiencing a change in depth beyond a chosen threshold, and the computation of volumetric confidence intervals. However, these techniques are still in their infancy and, as a result, are often crude, seldom used or poorly understood. In this article, we explored a number of possible methodological advances to address this issue, including: (1) using the uncertainty information provided by the MBES data processing algorithm CUBE, (2) adapting fluvial geomorphology techniques for volume calculations using spatially variable thresholds and (3) volumetric histograms. The nearshore seabed off Warrnambool harbour - located in the highly energetic southwest Victorian coast, Australia - was used as a test site. Four consecutive MBES surveys were carried out over a four-months period. The difference between consecutive DEMs revealed an area near the beach experiencing large sediment transfers - mostly erosion - and an area of reef experiencing increasing deposition from the advance of a nearby sediment sheet. The volumes of sediment displaced in these two areas were calculated using the techniques described above, both traditionally and using the suggested improvements. We compared the results and discussed the applicability of the new methodological improvements. We found that the spatially variable uncertainty derived from the CUBE algorithm provided the best results (i.e. smaller confidence intervals), but that similar results can be obtained using as a fixed uncertainty value derived from a reference area under a number of operational conditions.

Bisexuality and family: narratives of silence, solace, and strength

This article examines the constellation of factors that come to bear in the family domain for bisexually desiring, behaving, or identifying individuals. Specifically, it interrogates the prevailing conditions that hinder or encourage disclosure of bisexuality and the consequences of such action. It argues that the family is uniquely situated at the interface of private and public domains of sociality, and, thus, negotiation of sexuality is herein constructed through the articulation of the "the family closet." Analysis draws on doctoral research that investigated the sociological nexus of sex, gender, and bisexuality in an Australian sample. Data collected via 47 in-depth interviews comprised a sex-/gender-diverse cohort including men and women, as well as transgender, cross-dressing, genderqueer, and intersex individuals. From this diversity of narratives the family environ emerged as a primary locus of personal and social challenge. Case studies taken from the data demonstrate how disclosure of bisexuality to family of origin was a selective process predicated by a range of sociocultural considerations such as religion, geographical location, and dominant discourses of gender and sexuality. These narratives foreground a spectrum of family responses spanning total estrangement, silence and/or denial, tentative acknowledgement, or complete acceptance and support. Whether encountered as sites of negative resistance or positive acceptance, respondents' stories illuminate the capacity to forge strategies of coping, resilience, and empowerment. A theoretical framework informed by the nomadic philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari is deployed in order to explain these findings.

Uncertainty and reluctance in teaching taboo language: a case study of an experienced teacher of English as an additional language

Despite its ubiquitous employment by users of English to achieve authentic communicative goals, taboo language has received little attention in the education literature. Even less focus has been placed on such language in English language teaching - specifically, in teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL). Given the multiplicity of communicative struggles experienced by EAL learners surrounding the use of taboo language in authentic communication, meaningful consideration of this aspect can be seen as crucial in EAL instruction. Classroom learning could prepare learners for navigation and negotiation of taboo language use they will inevitably encounter in social interactions in target language communities of practice. However, EAL teachers' uncertainty or reluctance to introduce taboo language in classroom instruction is a key impediment in developing learners' sociocultural knowledge regarding such language use. We foreground one case of such uncertainty and reluctance surrounding the introduction of taboo language in EAL instruction derived as interview data from an experienced EAL teacher.

Neojihadism and Muslim–Christian relations in the Mindanao Resistance Movement: a study of Facebook digital narratives

Religion is surely not the most important factor in explaining the conflict in the Southern Philippines. Economic, political and criminal issues also contribute to explaining the violence in the country. Yet the religious narrative influences the narration of the conflict, impacting on its frame of understanding both within the country and from the perspective of global audiences. This study presents the results of field research on three Facebook pages in English (and therefore addressed to global audiences) related to resistance movements in Southern Philippines, notably BIFF and MNLF, which openly include neojihadist symbols and contents in their narratives. How do these narratives depict and affect Christian–Muslim relations within the local movement and the local society in Mindanao? And how does the local version of the global neojihadist narrative contribute to shaping Christian–Muslim relations in the global Muslim public sphere? This article shows the potential impact of the neojihadist ideology on the narration of the resistance movement, highlighting the consequences for the negotiation of Christian and Muslim identities.

The professionalisation of Australian women's cricket: new times and new opportunities

When the Australian Women’s Cricket Team defeated the West Indies in 2013, to win their 5th World Cup from eight attempts, they reaffirmed their status as one of Australia’s most successful international teams. Victory in the 2015 Ashes series, in England, further reinforced their pre-eminent world status. During this time, significant changes also occurred off the field. Cricket Australia introduced pay increases of up to 150% for international and state level players. The sustained success of the national team is attributed to the rapid growth of participation in women’s cricket (up 18% 2013 - 2014), a trend that has resulted in females making up almost 25% of all cricket participants across Australia. On face value, the burgeoning profile of women’s cricket across Australia is cause for celebration. It is against this backdrop that Cricket Australia faces a range of enduring and emerging issues in the provision and promotion of the women’s game. With so many changes and adaptations occurring across the game, we chose to limit the focus of this research to the elite level. Among the enduring issues that are understood at this level are persistently high attrition rates amongst elite and aspiring players and large age differences across teams and squads. A further point of difference in the men’s and women’s games is that female teams are largely supervised by male coaches and support staff.

‘Fixing’ student deficit in contexts of diversity: another cautionary tale for pre-service teacher education

This article presents one teacher’s perspective on issues of student difference. ‘Elissa’s’ account begins with her views as a pre-service teacher and continues through to her early career teaching. Elissa’s overwhelming tendency to construct students of difference as deficit alongside her efforts to ‘fix’ these deficits to align with an Anglo-Australian middle class ideal strongly resonate with concerns long expressed in the literature about teacher–student cultural discontinuity; teachers’ ill-preparedness for addressing student diversity; and the failure of universities to support pre-service teachers in this respect. Amid broader climates of unprecedented diversity where equity for marginalised groups is a mandated schooling goal, Elissa’s story is another cautionary tale. It further illuminates the gap between the kinds of teachers currently being produced and the kinds of teachers likely to realise social justice through education. As such it provides further warrant for rethinking how best to support teachers to productively address student diversity.

Difference-form persuasion contests

We explore the equilibrium properties of two types of "difference-form" persuasion contest functions derived in Skaperdas and Vaidya in which contestants spend resources to persuade an audience. We find that both types of functions generate interior pure strategy Nash equilibria unlike Baik and Che and Gale with characteristics different to existing literature. For one type of function, we find that the reaction function of each player is "flat" and nonresponsive to the level of resources devoted by the rival so that the "preemption effect" as defined by Che and Gale is absent. Further, the equilibrium is invariant to the sequencing of moves. For the second type of function, which applies when there is asymmetry among contestants with regard to the quality of evidence, we find that the reaction functions of the stronger and weaker players have gradients with opposite signs relative to Dixit and therefore their incentive to precommit expenditures in a sequential move game is also different. For both types of functions, the extent of rent dissipation is partial. From the equilibrium analysis, we are also able to establish the potential effects of some specific factors affecting persuasion such as evidence potency, the degree of truth, and bias on aggregate resource expenditures and welfare.

New voice, same story? Social entrepreneurship and active social capital formation

The development of the third sector in Australia has involved the negotiation of varying forms of state and market regulatory mechanisms. In the course of these settlements, ground-up initiatives have often found that authenticity is only the starting point on journeys that end in incorporation. Social entrepreneurship is an emerging set of ideas which attempts to hold on to the authentic and unique elements generated by grassroots actions. What are its chances of success? This article sets out to answer this question through a discussion of regulation and social capital. A four-fold model of social cap ita I formation is advanced which outlines 'defensive', 'consolidative', 'inclusive' and 'regulated' social capital. It is concluded that while social entrepreneurship has the potential to shift social capital formation from reactive to active forms, it is likely to become increasingly standardised and regulated.

Tracing young children's scientific reasoning

This paper explores the scientific reasoning of 14 children across their first two years of primary school. Children's view of experimentation, their approach to exploration, and their negotiation of competing knowledge claims, are interpreted in terms of categories of epistemological reasoning. Children's epistemological reasoning is distinguished from their ability to control variables. While individual children differ substantially, they show a relatively steady growth in their reasoning, with some contextual variation. A number of these children are reasoning at a level well in advance of curriculum expectations, and it is argued that current recommended practice in primary science needs to be rethought. The data is used to explore the relationship between reasoning and knowledge, and to argue that the generation and exploration of ideas must be the key driver of scientific activity in the primary school.