Gender differences in personal, social and environmental influences on active travel to and from school for Australian adolescents

Active travel (walking or cycling for transport) is an important contributor to adolescents overall physical activity (PA). This study examines associations between personal, social and environmental variables and active travel to and from school using data from a large observational study to examine active travel in 2961 year 6 and 8 students (48.7% male), aged 10–14 years (M = 11.4, SD = 0.8 yrs) from 231 schools. Participants completed an on-line survey and all reported living within 2 km of school. Data collected included mode of travel to and from school, self-reported health, and PA variables. Social environmental variables included having playgrounds, parks or gyms close by, feeling safe to walk alone, barriers to walking in the neighbourhood (e.g. traffic, no footpaths), peer and family support for PA, existence of sports teams/scout groups, community disorder and perceived neighbourhood safety. Results showed that while more girls (44.3%) than boys (37.4%) walked to school, lower proportions rode bikes (8.3% vs 22.4%) and hence fewer were active travellers overall. Logistic regression models, adjusted for age, location and socio-economic status were conducted for active travel to/from school, separately for boys and girls. Predictors for boys and girls being ‘active travellers’ to/from school included recreational facilities close to home, higher perceived safety of the neighbourhood and higher community disorder. For boys, social support from friends, scout groups available and higher enjoyment of physical activity was also important. These findings suggest areas for future research and may be used to guide strategies to increase active travel to and from school.

Motivations for seeking treatment for ED: the woman's perspective

There is increasing evidence that partners have a major role in treatment-seeking behavior for men with ED. This study investigated the motivations of 100 females for seeking medical treatment for their partner's ED. Semi-structured interviews focused on reasons for seeking treatment from the female's perspective. The themes that emerged from the data centered on the importance of sex in the relationship, with closeness and intimacy frequently being seen as more important than sex. The second major theme related to hopes that females had in relation to the medication, particularly in relation to increasing their partner's confidence and reducing his sexual frustration. Enhancement of the relationship as well as improving the female's own feelings of self-doubt and sexual frustration were also mentioned. The results of this study show the multi-faceted nature of the motivations that females express in terms of seeking help for their partner's ED.

Global education : travel and new imaginaries for teachers' work

This workshop reports on Learning across Latitude - a trans-national collaborative project that joined teacher education students from Australia, Denmark and Malaysia. The project offered a unique opportunity for students to explore concepts and dialogue with their teacher education peers in three countries. Over a two week period, 116 students in 13 forums posted 365 messages into a forum space hosted by Deakin University. 
During week 1, students introduced themselves to each other and discussed their reasons to become teachers, qualities of a good teacher and the issues facing teaching in their country. Because many students life experiences are local in experience such a project expands notions of being a teacher in a global world. Student’s responses to qualities of a good teacher were analysed to build knowledge of global teacher identities.
During week 2 students discussed what it means to be a good citizen in their country. How is citizenship as a concept explained across three countries? In the virtual discussions for Malaysian and Danish students, English was a second language. These forums opened new awareness for all students of the challenges of conversing with English as second language students.
This project illustrated that the changing contexts of education and globalisation means new opportunities and challenges for teacher education at local and global levels. Implications from Learning across Latitudes suggest possibilities for teacher education to build global citizenship, and teacher identities as technology enables such possibilities.

Shifting constructs of global education : the role of travel in meeting new challenges for teachers

Globalisation is driving the impetus for change by teachers, and in classrooms, schools and education in countries across the world. This phenomenon has bought global education from the fringes to prominence in the curriculum. Although global education is a fixture in education discourse today, it has not always occupied such a position. This paper reviews global education from its early beginnings to the present in the United Kingdom, USA and Australia and reports on research that focuses on how teachers' travel experiences further their confidence to teach global education.
Approaches to global education have moved from primarily content approaches to include an emphasis on teachers as agents of implementation. With global education positioned centrally within schools and curriculum policy, teachers' knowledge and skills to implement global education are called into question. This paper reports on research that focuscs on how teachers' travel experiences further their confidence to
teach global education. The implications from this research suggest that teachers should emphasise their lived travel experience in global education.

Analyzing international travelers' profile with self-organizing maps

It is generally agreed that knowledge is the most valuable asset to an organization. Knowledge enables a business to effectively compete with its competitors. In the tourism context, an in-depth knowledge of the profile of international travelers to a destination has become a crucial factor for decision makers to formulate their business strategies and better serve their customers. In this research, a self-organizing map (SOM) network was used for segmenting international travelers to Hong Kong, a major travel destination in Asia. An association rules discovery algorithm is then utilized to automatically characterize the profile of each segment. The resulting maps serve as a visual analysis tool for tourism managers to better understand the characteristics, motivations, and behaviors of international travelers.

Identifying changes and trends in Hong Kong outbound tourism

Despite the numerous research endeavors aimed at investigating tourists' preferences and motivations, it remains very difficult for practitioners to utilize the results of traditional association rule mining methods in tourism management. This research presents a new approach that extends the capability of the association rules technique to contrast targeted association rules with the aim of capturing the changes and trends in outbound tourism. Using datasets collected from five large-scale domestic tourism surveys of Hong Kong residents on outbound pleasure travel, both positive and negative contrasts are identified, thus enabling practitioners and policymakers to make appropriate decisions and develop more appropriate tourism products.

Assessing female sexual offenders' motivations and cognitions : an exploratory study

Semi-structured interviews eliciting cognitions and motivations were carried out with 15 incarcerated female child sexual abusers (nearly 50% of the current UK female sexual offender prison population). Qualitative analysis indicated that four of the five motivational schemas (implicit theories) suggested by Ward (Ward, 2000; Ward & Keenan, 1999) to underlie male sexual offenders' cognitions could be clearly identified in women, these were: Uncontrollability (UN, identified in 87% of participants), Dangerous world (DW, 53%), Children as sexual objects (CSO, 47%) and Nature of harm (NH, 20%). Entitlement, the final implicit theory (IT), commonly found in males, was not identified in any participants in the sample. Further analysis indicated that there were four main motivational types of offender based on combinations of these ITs. These were: (1) presence of DW/CSO, indicating sexual motivation and cognitions with fear of violence; (2) presence of DW/no CSO, indicating fear of violence with no sexual cognition or motivation; (3) presence of CSO/no DW, indicating sexual motivation and cognition; the NH IT also strongly featured in this group; and (4) presence of UN/no DW or CSO, indicating lack of control, sometimes with sense of protection for the victim. Suggestions are made on how the results can inform theoretical developments in the field as well as policy and practice.

The identification of sexual and violent motivations in men who assault women : implication for treatment

A qualitative analysis of interview data with 41 rapists determined that five implicit theories (ITs) underlie rapists’ offense supportive beliefs/feelings/motives: (a) dangerous world (DW)—where men have feelings of generalized anger and/or resentment toward others; (b) women are dangerous—where men hold a set of attitudes that are hostile toward women; (c) women as sexual objects (WSO)—where women are seen as primarily sexual objects; (d) male sex drive is uncontrollable—where sexual urges are seen all consuming; (e) entitlement—where men feel that they can do exactly what they want. Consideration of whether DW or WSO ITs were present or absent indicated that three main groups could be identified: Group 1: violently motivated—presence of DW and/or absence of WSO; Group 2: sexually motivated—presence of WSO and/or absence of DW; Group 3: sadistically motivated—presence of DW and WSO. These results are discussed in terms of treatment needs of rapists.

All-female travel : what do women really want?

This paper examines the importance of the all-female element to women travellers and the possible benefits that can be gained from this type of travel. A self-administered mail survey questionnaire was completed by past clients of an Australian all-female travel company, to measure their satisfaction with previous travel and to find out perceived benefits of all-female travel, personal plans for future travel and demographic information. Both quantitative and qualitative information was collected. The participants in the study were women over the age of 40, predominantly in the 50-69 age group. They were experienced travellers as 89% had travelled previously and 64% had travelled four or more times. The information collected allowed a comparison of the importance of certain criteria pre and post the tour. Confidence in tour leader, destination and its culture and not being a 'mass tourist' were seen as important both before and after the tour. Travelling with 'all female company', ' being cared for and pampered', and the 'sharing accommodation' increased in importance after the tour. There were a number of benefits identified in all-female travel. These included a more relaxed, congenial and intimate atmosphere in the group, sharing similar interests and absence of competition and tensions.