Pupil resistance to their schooling experience

The thesis explores the nature of pupil resistance; it investigates what constitutes it and how it can be explained. Various ethnic and national group, male and female working-class resistance if analysed in two secondary schools in Birmingham (England) and one school in Sydney (Australia). It focuses on the pupils’ experience of school. ‘Compressed ethnographies’ (Walford and Miller, 1991) were conducted in each school to examine pupil resistance. The research found that structural societal state factors, regional, community and formal, informal and physical characteristics of each school, together with the teachers and pupils characteristics and background all influence resistance. The class, gender, ethnic and national identity of each pupil shapes resistance. In all three schools that were involved with the research, girls were more likely to exhibit overt, collective forms of resistance, whereas lads were more likely to operate alone. Islander pupils in Sydney and African-Caribbean kids in Birmingham were more likely to display engaged forms of resistance. Girls tended to show more engaged forms compared to their male counterparts across all ethnic and national cultures. Resistance is complex and dynamic, the definition alters depending upon context. Dimensions of resistance are developed; including overt, covert; individual, collective; intentional, unintentional; engaged and detached forms. Resistance operates within a structure and agency framework, the pupils can shape their own schooling experience mediated within the structures of their school, community and society. Some pupils manage their resources and the structures better than others; how the pupil manages and operates within the structures influences their resistance response. Resistance is contradictory and can reinforce the status quo. To fully understand resistance, it must be contextualised.

Southern anthropology - a history of Fison and Howitt's Kamilaroi and Kurnai

From far-flung sites in Australia and the Pacific Islands, Lorimer Fison and A. W. Howitt produced the landmark study Kamilaroi and Kurnai (1880). Their book revealed the complexity of Aboriginal and Pacific Island societies and changed the course of anthropology in the early years of the discipline. Using archival sources and an innovative approach, Southern Anthropology explores the research, writing and reception of Kamilaroi and Kurnai. Historical chapters track Fison and Howitt's collection and analysis of anthropological material in the context of raging debates about the evolution of humans. This narrative is interspersed with an introduction to the kinship and social organisation of Aboriginal and Pacific Island people that highlight the enduring value of Fison and Howitt's methods and the resurgence of their questions in contemporary anthropology. Southern Anthropology is designed to be read across disciplinary boundaries.

The economic feasibility of price discounts to improve diet in Australian Aboriginal remote communities

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the cost-effectiveness of fiscal measures applied in remote community food stores for Aboriginal Australians.

METHODS: Six price discount strategies on fruit, vegetables, diet drinks and water were modelled. Baseline diet was measured as 12 months' actual food sales data in three remote Aboriginal communities. Discount-induced changes in food purchases were based on published price elasticity data while the weight of the daily diet was assumed constant. Dietary change was converted to change in sodium and energy intake, and body mass index (BMI) over a 12-month period. Improved lifetime health outcomes, modelled for the remote population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, were converted to disability adjusted life years (DALYs) saved using a proportional multistate lifetable model populated with diet-related disease risks and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rates of disease.

RESULTS: While dietary change was small, five of the six price discount strategies were estimated as cost-effective, below a $50,000/DALY threshold.

CONCLUSION: Stakeholders are committed to finding ways to reduce important inequalities in health status between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and non-Indigenous Australians. Price discounts offer potential to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. Verification of these results by trial-based research coupled with consideration of factors important to all stakeholders is needed.

Gambling in a remote Aboriginal setting - the good, the bad and the ugly

The effort undertaken by the Ceduna Koonibba Aboriginal Health Service (CKAHS) and Statewide Gambling Therapy Service (SGRS) to investigate the impact of gambling on Aboriginal people living in the region is discussed. The different initiatives undertaken after obtaining additional funding to help stop gambling in the region are highlighted.

Science, research and social change in Indigenous health – evolving ways of knowing

History tells us of the overwhelming destructive influence of exotic culture, politics and knowledge forms upon the worldview and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians. The power of dominant culture to oppress, control and dominate traditional Indigenous ways of knowing and being has been identified as a being a crucial influence on the health status, future hopes and aspirations of Indigenous Australians. Fundamental to this assertion is that the alienating effect of the belief in and application of the scientific method in relation to learning and knowing is a phenomenon that is incompatible with the law and cultural ways of traditional Indigenous people. The establishment of the Centre of Clinical Research Excellence (CCRE) is predicated upon and responds to a deep need in our community today to synthesise the ideological and epistemological premises of an increasing range of cultures and world views. It recognises that clinical research, for example, is important to the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but also that the way such research is designed and carried out is also crucial to its potential to effect change in and improve the state of Indigenous health in Australia. This paper examines knowledge principles and processes associated with research in Indigenous communities, explores emerging research trends in science and proposes an epistemological framework for synthesis of traditional approaches with those of the scientific paradigm.