Kurdungurlu got to drive Toyota : differential colonizing process among the Warlpiri

This thesis is based on fieldwork I carried out between December 1987 and June 1989 while living with the residents of a small Warlpiri Outstation Community situated ca. 75 km north-west of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia. Colonialism is a process whereby incommensurate gender regimes impact differently on women and men and this is reflected in the indigenous response which affects the socialization of Western things. The notion of the indigenous KIRDA-KURDUNGURLU reciprocity is shown to be consistent with a gender system and to articulate all exchange relations as pro-creative social relationships. This contrasts with the Western capitalist system of production and social reproduction of gendered individuals in that it does not ascribe gender to biological differences between women and men but is derived from a land based social division between Sister-Brother. Social relationships are put under great strain in an effort to socialize Western things for Warlpiri internal use, I argue that the colonization of Aboriginal societies is an ongoing process. Despite the historical shift from a physical all-male frontier to the present day cross-cultural negotiations between Aborigines and Non-Aborigines, men still privilege men. The negotiation process for ownership of a Community Toyota is the most recent phenomenon where this can be observed. Male privilege is established by linking control over the access to the Community Toyota with traditional rights to land. However, the Toyota as Western object has a Western gender identity as well. By pitting women against men it engages people in social conflict which is brought into existence through an organisation of Western concepts based on an alien gender regime. But Western things, especially the Community Toyota, resist socialization because the Warlpiri do not produce these things. Warlpiri people know this and, to satisfy their need for Western things, they engage them in a process of social differentiation. By this process they can be seen actively to maintain the Western system in an effort to maintain themselves as Warlpiri and to secure the production of Western things. This investigation of the cultural response to Western influences shows that indigenous gender relations are only maintained through a socially stressful process of socializing Western things.

Reliability and validity of the system for observing children's activity and relationships during play (SOCARP)

Background: Children frequently engage in diverse activities that are broadly defined as play, but little research has documented children’s activity levels during play and how they are influenced by social contexts. Assessing potentially modifiable conditions that influence play behavior is needed to design optimal physical activity interventions.

Methods: System for Observing Children’s Activity and Relationships during Play (SOCARP) was developed to simultaneously assess children’s physical activity, social group sizes, activity type, and social behavior during play. One hundred and fourteen children (48 boys, 66 girls; 42% overweight) from 8 elementary schools were observed during recess over 24 days, with 12 days videotaped for reliability purposes. Ninety-nine children wore a uni-axial accelerometer during their observation period.

Results: Estimated energy expenditure rates from SOCARP observations and mean accelerometer counts were significantly correlated (r = .67; P < .01), and interobserver reliabilities (ie, percentage agreement) for activity level (89%), group size (88%), activity type (90%) and interactions (88%) met acceptable criteria. Both physical activity and social interactions were influenced by group size, activity type, and child gender and body weight status.

Conclusions: SOCARP is a valid and reliable observation system for assessing physical activity and play behavior in a recess context.

Communication strategies : an interplay between proficiency and gender

This paper is intended to investigate the interplay between proficiency and gender in the use of communication strategies. Sixty Iranian university male and female subjects studying English took part in the experiment and performed two tasks: word recognition and picture-story narration. The results indicate that proficiency had a more perceptible effect on the frequency and types of communication strategies. Tasks also had a strong effect on the number and type of strategies chosen. Gender did not yield any significant results except in the case of low proficiency level of female participants. The reason was attributed to the subject of study and formal educational system.

'A gender for change'

Women’s imprisonment campaigns gathered momentum in Victoria, Australia from the late 1970s onwards. Advocates and activists, operating from feminist and often prison abolition principles, used direct action, public education, lobbying and legal tools to create pressure for change in the women’s prison system. Campaigns focused on challenging various harmful and dangerous practices and conditions affecting women in prison, including forced sterilization and the use of prescription drugs for control; lack of access to children and family; excessive strip-searching; the punitive transfer of women to men’s high-security prisons and more (Carnaby, 1998; Cerveri et al., 2005; Cotter, 2008; George, 1993, 1995; Hampton, 1993; Hancock, 1982; Hannon, 2006). Whilst some of these practices have ceased over the past few decades, many of the issues persist, albeit in different forms, and new problems have emerged for anti-prison activists. This paper offers a reflection on some of the complexities present in anti-prison activism focused on ameliorating some of the immediate harms imprisoned women face and the necessary negotiations with the penal state.

The relationship between divorce and the psychological well‐being of children with ADHD: differences in age, gender, and subtype

It is generally accepted that Attention‐Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) results from a dysfunction of the central nervous system, which has led to a commonly held belief that environmental factors play little role in the behavioural problems of children identified as having ADHD. Therefore, the two studies reported in this article investigated the relationship between parental divorce and the psychological well‐being of children with ADHD. Subjects, aged 6 to 18 years, were diagnosed with either the inattentive or combined subtype of the disorder. Firstly, differences in children's behaviour between divorced and non‐divorced families were examined, and subtype, age, and gender differences were evaluated in terms of symptom severity and comorbid conditions. Secondly, parents' perceptions of the impact of their children's behaviour on marital status and family/parental functioning were examined. Parental divorce was associated with greater symptom severity, more externalizing/ internalizing behaviours, and poorer social functioning, but less with academic underachievement. Further, parental divorce was related to adjustment differences in ADHD subtypes, age, and gender. However, the correlation between behaviour problems of children with ADHD and marital/family dysfunction was weak. It may be concluded that parental divorce was associated with the psychological well‐being in children with ADHD, and there is some suggestion that ADHD should be viewed as a bio‐psychosocial disorder.