Gender inequality and education : changing local/global relations in a ‘post colonial’ world and the implications for feminist research

This article explores the relationship between education reform and gender equity, both within and between nation states. Utilising feminist critical policy analysis and post-colonial theory, it examines how education reform over the past decade has impacted on gender equity, and how educational reform is itself gendered. It considers the nature of gender restructuring; maps significant shifts in gender equity policy in the wider context of educational and social inequality debates; and through an analysis of recent research on gender identity, schooling and leadership argues that gender can no longer be privileged when identifying and responding to educational inequality. Key assumptions underpinning how social change and education reform delivers equity are questioned, concluding with feminist theorising about how social justice may inform equity policy and practice in culturally diverse educational contexts.

Working around a contested diagnosis : borderline personality disorder in adolescence

This discourse analytic study sits at the intersection of everyday communications with young people in mental health settings and the enduring sociological critique of diagnoses in psychiatry. The diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is both contested and stigmatized, in mental health and general health settings. Its legitimacy is further contested within the specialist adolescent mental health setting. In this setting, clinicians face a quandary regarding the application of adult diagnostic criteria to an adolescent population, aged less than 18 years. This article presents an analysis of interviews undertaken with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) clinicians in two publicly funded Australian services, about their use of the BPD diagnosis. In contrast with notions of primacy of diagnosis or of transparency in communications, doctors, nurses and allied health clinicians resisted and subverted a diagnosis of BPD in their work with adolescents. We delineate specific social and discursive strategies that clinicians displayed and reflected on, including: team rules which discouraged diagnostic disclosure; the lexical strategy of hedging when using the diagnosis; the prohibition and utility of informal ‘borderline talk’ among clinicians; and reframing the diagnosis with young people. For clinicians, these strategies legitimated their scepticism and enabled them to work with diagnostic uncertainty, in a population identified as vulnerable. For adolescent identities, these strategies served to forestall a BPD trajectory, allowing room for troubled adolescents to move and grow. These findings illuminate how the contest surrounding this diagnosis in principle is expressed in everyday clinical practice.

Power relations in IS projects – a critical review and a new research agenda

This paper seeks to review and examine the major theoretical underpinnings of research into power relations in IS projects. In order to keep the review manageable and to furnish a reasonable explanation of the ideas and papers referenced, the review is restricted to the ideas of Foucault, Giddens and Clegg. Partly, this restriction was due to the wish of the authors to deal seriously with the ideas presented, and not to produce an exhaustive but terse and taxonomic style review. Partly, the selection of the above theorists is due to the fact that the major IS papers on power relations have drawn on their work. This paper concludes with the presentation of a new theory of power and social influence from social psychology suitable for use in IS research. The ideas of this theory have not yet been examined empirically. Thus, IS researchers are challenged to employ these ideas in their empirical research.

The impact of smoking in adolescence on early adult anxiety symptoms and the relationship between infant vulnerability factors for anxiety and early adult anxiety symptoms : The TOPP Study

Cigarette smoking is increased in people with trait anxiety and anxiety disorders, however no longitudinal data exist illuminating whether smoking in adolescence can influence the developmental trajectory of anxiety symptoms from early vulnerability in infancy to adult anxiety expression. Using The Tracing Opportunities and Problems in Childhood and Adolescence (TOPP) Study, a community-based cohort of children and adolescents from Norway who were observed from the age of 18months to age 18–19years, we explored the relationship between adolescent smoking, early vulnerability for anxiety in infancy (e.g. shyness, internalizing behaviors, emotional temperaments) and reported early adult anxiety.

Structural equation modeling demonstrated that adolescent active smoking was positively associated with increased early adulthood anxiety (β = 0.17, p<0.05), after controlling for maternal education (proxy for socioeconomic status). Adolescent anxiety did not predict early adult smoking. Adolescent active smoking was a significant effect modifier in the relationship between some infant vulnerability factors and later anxiety; smoking during adolescence moderated the relationship between infant internalizing behaviors (total sample: active smokers: β = 0.85,p<0.01, non-active smokers: ns) and highly emotional temperament (total sample: active smokers: β = 0.55,p<0.01,non-active smokers: ns), but not shyness, and anxiety in early adulthood. The results support a model where smoking acts as an exogenous risk factor in the development of anxiety, and smoking may alter the developmental trajectory of anxiety from infant vulnerability to early adult anxiety symptom expression. Although alternative non-mutually exclusive models may explain these findings, the results suggest that adolescent smoking may be a risk factor for adult anxiety, potentially by influencing anxiety developmental trajectories. Given the known adverse health effects of cigarette smoking and significant health burden imposed by anxiety disorders, this study supports the importance of smoking prevention and cessation programs targeting children and adolescence.

Programs to improve interpersonal safety in Indigenous communities: evidence and issues

There is now a substantial amount of published literature describing the range of programs and interventions that have been implemented in an attempt to improve aspects of community safety. Only a small body of this work, however, has examined the outcomes of those programs delivered to Indigenous Australians or, indeed, the communities in which they live. This Issues paper provides an overview of those programs that were identified in a systematic search of relevant research databases. 

The politics of boganism and public relations in contemporary Australia

What is meant by the term ‘bogan’ and how does its popular usage distinguish a new public occupying a particular class position and social presence in Australian society. Examining a number of media texts, this paper explores the bogan phenomenon and asks if it normatively repositions Marxist ideas of class within the contemporary construct of lifestyle politics and classless capitalism (Beck). Challenging the idea the term is politically benign, the paper argues that the rise ‘boganism’ and its stigmatic associations has implications for public relations. In particular, it argues successful framing techniques designate a group of people occupying social risk positions and that are dis-empowered by eco-discourses and targeted for social control. These marginalised publics lack the sociocultural resources required for participation in the public sphere and as such are malleable and highly receptive to intrinsic and extrinsic forms of public relations.

Self-esteem mediates the associations among negative affect, body disturbances, and interpersonal problems in treatment-seeking obese individuals

Background: This study investigated the relationship among negative affect, body image disturbances (BID), and interpersonal problems, and the mediating effect of self-esteem in a group of treatment-seeking obese individuals. Methods: Four hundred twenty-two obese patients (85 males and 337 females) completed standardised measures that assessed negative affect, BID, self-esteem, and interpersonal problems. Results: Structural equation modelling showed that obese individuals with greater negative affect and BID reported higher interpersonal problems and that self-esteem mediated the relationships among negative affect, BID, and interpersonal problems. Conclusions: The mediating role of self-esteem in the relationship between interpersonal functioning and psychological distress needs to be considered when selecting psychologically based interventions that aim to improve the well-being of treatment-seeking obese patients. © 2014 The Australian Psychological Society.