Pedagogical work and the 'cult of the body': Considering the role of HPE in the context of the 'new public health'

Physical education, now often explicitly identified with health in contemporary school curricula, continues to be implicated in the (re)production of the 'cult of the body'. We argue that HPE is a form of health promotion that attempts to 'make' healthy citizens of young people in the context of the 'risk society'. In our view there is still work to be done in understanding how and why physical education (as HPE) continues to be implicated in the reproduction of values associated with the cult of body. We are keen to understand why HPE continues to be ineffective in helping young people gain some measure of analytic and embodied 'distance' from the problematic aspects of the cult of the body. This paper offers an analysis of this enduring issue by using some contemporary analytic discourses including 'governmentality', 'risk society' and the 'new public health'.

The effects of Australian tall poppy attitudes on American value based leadership theory

A survey study of twenty-two Australian CEOs and their subordinates assessed relationships between Australian leader motives, Australian value based leader behaviour, subordinate tall poppy attitudes and subordinate commitment, effectiveness, motivation and satisfaction (CEMS). On the whole, the results showed general support for value based leadership processes. Subsequent regression analyses of the second main component of Value Based Leadership Theory, value based leader behaviour, revealed that the collectivistic, inspirational, integrity and visionary behaviour sub-scales of the construct were positively related with subordinate CEMS. Although the hypothesis that subordinate tall poppy attitudes would moderate value based leadership processes was not clearly supported, subsequent regression analyses found that subordinate tall poppy attitudes were negatively related with perceptions of value based leader behaviour and CEMS. These findings suggest complex relationships between the three constructs, and the proposed model for the Australian context is accordingly amended. Overall, the research supports the need to consider cultural-specific attitudes in management development.

Studies of Cognition and Emotion in Organisations: Attribution, Affective Events, Emotional Intelligence and Perception of Emotion

This article details the author’s attempts to improve understanding of organisational behaviour through investigation of the cognitive and affective processes that underlie attitudes and behaviour. To this end, the paper describes the author’s earlier work on the attribution theory of leadership and, more recently, in three areas of emotion research: affective events theory, emotional intelligence, and the effect of supervisors’ facial expression on employees’ perceptions of leader-member exchange quality. The paper summarises the author’s research on these topics, shows how they have contributed to furthering our understanding of organisational behaviour, suggests where research in these areas are going, and draws some conclusions for management practice.

Equal pay for equal work

Truck from Jackson Pty Ltd with banner for equal pay for equal work during the 1965 May Day march, in Roma Street, Brisbane, Australia. Truck also has Queensland Trades and Labour Council of Queensland and affiliated unions banner. Facade of buildings including Vetoy and Foley Bros can be seen in the background.

Birds in an Australian rainforest: Their attraction for visitors and visitors' ecological impacts

Lamington National Park in Queensland, Australia is noted for its rainforest and is part of the World Heritage listed property but prior to this work, no systematic study has been done of the importance of birds to its visitors. This study is based on data from survey forms handed to visitors at an important site in the park and completed by visitors following their visit. It yielded 622 useable responses. These enabled us to establish the comparative importance of birds as an attraction to this site for this sample of visitors. Furthermore, logit regression is used to target analysis and to identify factors that increase the likelihood of a visitor saying that birds are an important attraction. In addition, the relative importance to visitors of various attributes of birds at this site is established. These attributes include hearing birds, diversity of birds, seeing lots of birds, presence of rare birds, presence of brightly coloured birds and physical contact with birds. Logit regression analysis is used to isolate independent variables that increase or decrease the likelihood that visitors find diversity of birds, brightly coloured birds or physical contact with birds at this site to be important. For example, factors such as the level of education of visitors, their gender, knowledge of birds and conservation attitudes and statistically significant influences. As a result of the analysis potential conflicts between different types of park visitors in relation to human interaction with birds are identified. Some potential ecological implications of human interactions with birds are modelled and discussed, and their economic conservation and biodiversity consequences are considered

Glow worms as a tourist attraction in Springbrook National Park: Visitor attitudes and economic issues

nsect-based tourism mainly caters to a niche market, but its popularity has been growing in recent years. Despite its popularity this form of tourism has remained under-researched and in a sense its contribution to the tourism industry has gone mostly unnoticed. This paper reports the results of a study undertaken on one form of popular insect-based tourism, namely glow worms. The study was undertaken in Springbrook National Park (Natural Bridge section) southeast Queensland, which has one of the largest glow worm colonies in Australia that attracts thousands of visitors each year. A study of this form of tourism is important and useful for several reasons. It is important to understand this hitherto under-studied tourism activity to determine the type of visitors, their socio-economic attributes, economic benefits to the local economy, visitors’ knowledge of glow worms, education imparted, visitor satisfaction of glow worm viewing and visitor attitudes for the introduction of a user fee system to view glow worms. An understanding of these issues could not only help to better manage this valuable biological resource, but can be used to develop the industry to cater to a growing number of visitors. Tourism in glow worms can potentially be used not only to educate the public on the threats affecting glow worms and their colonies, but could also be used to conserve them. Lessons learnt from glow worms as an attraction to Springbrook National Park can be used to better manage and further develop other existing and new glow worm sites in Australia and elsewhere for tourism. Furthermore, it could provide some guidance for the management and development of other forms of current insect-based tourism activities (eg. butterflies) and develop new tourism ventures based on species such as stick insects and jewel beetles for which Australia is well known (Reader’s Digest, 1997)