Seeking continuity: Educational strategy in and for mobile ADF families

This report shares findings and insights from an interview study conducted in 2009, with 34 ADF families. These families were identified in the communities of primary schools in both state and Catholic systems with high ADF family enrolments in 3 towns across 2 states, with the assistance of the DCO and their embedded Defence School Transition Aides (DSTAs). In the interviews the parents were invited to describe their history of ADF relocations, and how they managed transitions for each member in terms of school choice, child care arrangements, spouse employment, and educational transitions. Parallel interviews were conducted with 12 teachers and 6 DSTAs across the identified schools to describe how schools cater for mobile ADF families flowing through their classes. Parents were invited to tell the story of their family’s sequence of moves and how each member made the transition, then reflect more generally on what advice they’d give other mobile families. Teachers were asked to describe how they respond to the mobile families in their school community, and to illustrate some of the issues and challenges from the institutional perspective. By offering perspectives from both parents and teachers, the report hopes to facilitate a dialogue between parties to address their common goal – promoting productive continuities in education for children in mobile families.

Social processes of health and physical education teachers’ identity formation: Reproducing and changing culture

This paper examines Initial Teacher Education students’ experiences of participation in health and physical education (HPE) subject department offices and the impact on their understandings and identity formation. Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, and practice along with Wenger’s communities of practice form the theoretical frame used in the paper. Data were collected using surveys and interviews with student‐teachers following their teaching practicum and analysed using coding and constant comparison. Emergent themes revealed students’ participation in masculine‐dominated sports, gendered body constructions, and repertoires of masculine domination. Findings are discussed in relation to their impact on student‐teachers’ learning, identity formation, and marginalizing practices in the department offices. Implications for teacher education and HPE are explored.

Dressing up Tinderella: Interrogating authenticity claims on the mobile dating app Tinder

Mobile dating applications (‘apps’) have increased in popularity over recent years, with Tinder among the first to break into the mainstream heterosexual market. Since mobile dating intensifies the need to confirm that potential dates are not misrepresenting themselves and are safe to meet in person, Tinder’s success indicates that it has allayed these concerns regarding the authenticity of its users. This article combines Giddens’ conceptualization of authenticity, as the ability to reference a coherent biographical narrative, with Callon’s sociology of translation to investigate Tinder’s framing of authenticity within mobile dating. Applying a walkthrough method that interrogates Tinder’s technological architecture, promotional materials, and related media, this hybrid theoretical framework is used to identify how Tinder configures an actor-network that establishes its app as the solution to users’ concerns, enrols individuals in using its features in authenticity claims, and popularizes Tinder’s framing across public discourse. This network of human and non-human actors frames authenticity as being established through one’s Facebook profile and adherence to normative standards relating to age, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. However, user discourses on other social media identify and challenge negative outcomes of this framing, with normativity fostering discrimination and Facebook verification failing to prevent abusive behavior. This case study of Tinder paves the way for future investigation into user responses to its framing. Further, it demonstrates the efficacy and broader applicability of this theoretical approach for identifying both human and technological influences on the construction of authenticity with digital media.

Image, Political

Political communication scholars, journalists, and political actors alike, argue that the political process, and deliberative democracy (democracy founded on informed discussion inclusive of citizens), have lost their rational authenticity in that image and media spectacle have become more central to public opinion formation and electoral outcomes than policy. This entry examines the validity of that perception, and the extent to which “image” has emerged as a more significant factor in the political process. And if image is so important in political culture, what the impacts might be on the functioning of democratic processes.

Decision-making in a death investigation: Emotions, families and the coroner

The role of the coroner in common law countries such as Australia, England, Canada and New Zealand is to preside over death investigations where there is uncertainty as to the manner of death, a need to identify the deceased, a death of unknown cause, or a violent or unnatural death. The vast majority of these deaths are not suspicious and thus require coroners to engage with grieving families who have been thrust into a legal process through the misfortune of a loved one's sudden or unexpected death. In this research, 10 experienced coroners discussed how they negotiated the grief and trauma evident in a death investigation. In doing so, they articulated two distinct ways in which legal officers engaged with emotions, which are also evident in the literature. The first engages the script of judicial dispassion, articulating a hierarchical relationship between reason and emotion, while the second introduces an ethic of care via the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence, and thus offers a challenge to the role of emotion in the personae of the professional judicial officer. By using Hochschild's work on the sociology of emotions, this article discusses the various ways in which coroners manage the emotion of a death investigation through emotion work. While emotional distance may be an understandable response by coroners to the grief and trauma experienced by families and directed at cleaner coronial decision-making, the article concludes that coroners may be better served by offering emotions such as sympathy, consideration and compassion directly to the family in those situations where families are struggling to accept, or are resistant to, coroners' decisions.

Why we should design smart cities for getting lost

If smart cities run on big data and algorithms that channel only 'relevant' information and opinions to us, how do we maintain the diversity of ideas and possibilities that drives truly smart cities?

Morality in 21st century pedagogies [Guest Editorial]

The set of papers in this focal issue draw on sociological and philosophic theory to explore the historical conjuncture and interplay between public moralities and schooling in the increasingly diverse and vexed settings of the 21st century...

Three-dimensional structure of heat shock protein 90 from Plasmodium falciparum: molecular modelling approach to rational drug design against malaria

We have recently implicated heat shock protein 90 from Plasmodium falciparum (PfHsp90) as a potential drug target against malaria. Using inhibitors specific to the nucleotide binding domain of Hsp90, we have shown potent growth inhibitory effects on development of malarial parasite in human erythrocytes. To gain better understanding of the vital role played by PfHsp90 in parasite growth, we have modeled its three dimensional structure using recently described full length structure of yeast Hsp90. Sequence similarity found between PfHsp90 and yeast Hsp90 allowed us to model the core structure with high confidence. The superimposition of the predicted structure with that of the template yeast Hsp90 structure reveals an RMSD of 3.31 angstrom. The N-terminal and middle domains showed the least RMSD (1.76 angstrom) while the more divergent C-terminus showed a greater RMSD (2.84 angstrom) with respect to the template. The structure shows overall conservation of domains involved in nucleotide binding, ATPase activity, co-chaperone binding as well as inter-subunit interactions. Important co-chaperones known to modulate Hsp90 function in other eukaryotes are conserved in malarial parasite as well. An acidic stretch of amino acids found in the linker region, which is uniquely extended in PfHsp90 could not be modeled in this structure suggesting a flexible conformation. Our results provide a basis to compare the overall structure and functional pathways dependent on PfHsp90 in malarial parasite. Further analysis of differences found between human and parasite Hsp90 may make it possible to design inhibitors targeted specifically against malaria.