Thin beats fat yet again: Conceptions of democracy

An earlier version of this paper was presented in Sydney, Australia at the 2005 Australian Society of Legal Philosophy annual conference. The author wishes to thank all those who commented upon and criticized the paper. The author also wishes to thank two anonymous referees from this journal for their helpful suggestions.

Conceptions of health held by Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Papua New Guinea health care students

Health is considered to be a fundamental human right. Concurrently health is assumed to be a global social goal (Bloom, 1987) yet many third-world countries and some sub-populations within developed countries do not enjoy a healthy existence. The research reported in this paper examined the conceptions of health, conceptions of illness and health practices for a group of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Papua New Guinea university students studying health science courses. Results found three conceptions of health and three conceptions of illness that showed these students held traditional/cultural and Western beliefs about health and health practices. These findings may contribute to the development of health care courses that are more specific to how these students understand health. This may also serve to improve the educational status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and potentially improve the health status within these communities (author abstract)

Articulating discursive and materialist conceptions of practice in the logics approach to critical policy analysis

In this article it is argued that while Glynos and Howarth’s logics of critical explanation (LCE) offers an important and promising contribution to critical policy analysis, it, along with other approaches that focus on the meaning of social action, faces a growing challenge in the form of a so-called new materialist turn in social and political theory. The article argues that there is much to be gained for the logics approach in paying closer attention to the materiality of practices in terms not only of lending greater clarity to the conception and role of social practices in the logics approach but also in enabling it fully to deliver on its critical ambition. The article explores an alternative materialist approach to the study of social practices, which hails from the post-actor–networktheory tradition and which has ontological affinities with post-structuralism. The article begins with a brief analysis of the new materialist turn in its various guises. It then critically examines the logics approach, and, in particular its conception of practice. It then explores an alternative materialist and ethnographic reading of practice, focusing on medical and care practices. It concludes with an examination of the implications for a more materialist conception of practices for the LCE’s broad deconstructive, psychoanalytic and onto-political ambitions.

Planning for success : an investigation into the management, organisation and feasibility of teaching modern foreign languages in the primary school.

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