How parental and school responses to choice policies reconfigure a rural education market in Victoria, Australia

Market principles now dominate the education and social policies of many Anglophone countries, including Australia, but articulate differentially within specific contexts. Existing historical legacies, local economic and social conditions, and geographical settings interact with federal and state funding and transport policies to shape the nature of regional education markets and the choices families make in a rural school market in Australia. Through two school case studies, this article explores the effects of policy shifts on parental choice and student movement within a regional Victorian community. Informed by policy sociology, the article views the policy as a dynamic, often ad hoc process with contradictory effects. It indicates how an ensemble of federal and state funding and conveyancing policies enable some schools to develop marketing practices that reconstruct the local education market to their advantage through the introduction of transport and flexi-boarding policies. It demonstrates that education markets are not confined to urban settings and that while choice is not a new phenomenon in this rural area, federal and state funding and transport policies have reconfigured local markets and intensified the market work undertaken by schools and parents with, in this instance, unequal effects on the provision of schooling in a rural region.

Evaluation of an alcohol intervention training program for nurses in rural Australia

Aim: This paper reports on the development, implementation and evaluation of the Alcohol Intervention Training Program (AITP) designed to enhance nurses’ capacity to work with farming men and women who misuse alcohol.

Background: In rural and regional areas where alcohol-related behaviours and problems are relatively elevated, nurses may be the key health professionals dealing with individuals who misuse alcohol. However, they are often ill-equipped to do this, have low confidence in their ability to do so, and perceive numerous barriers. Training is required for these nurses.

Methods: We developed the AITP to enhance nurses’ capacity to work with people with alcohol-related problems. The data were collected during 2010. An intervention group of 15 rural nurses completed the AITP. Nurses’ perceived barriers, attitudes, and perceived performance in working with clients with alcohol problems, and the frequency of engaging with this client group were evaluated. Scores on these measures were compared to those of a control group of 17 nurses’ pre-treatment, post-treatment and at 3-month follow-up.

Results: Participation in the AITP resulted in initial improvements in attitudes to working with alcohol problems, but no change in perceived barriers to doing so. The level of engagement with clients having alcohol-related problems increased, as did perceptions of work performance.

Conclusion: The AITP enhances the ability of rural nurses to address the alcohol and associated health issues of clients in rural and regional areas. However, the program needs refinement and further evaluation.

Re-imaging citizenship in suburban Australia

Formal citizenship focuses on the provision of rights and responsibilities by the nation state. Such an understanding of democratic citizenship, however, is limited in providing social inclusion in everyday life, if cultural practices privilege whiteness. Although this paper draws attention to such practices that mark the ethnic Other, it also demonstrates the potential that exists to shift the boundaries of white privilege and negotiate dominant narratives of citizenship. Using a theoretical and methodological approach that focuses on poststructural and feminist ideas, I argue that the ways in which place is produced through reiterative everyday practices, makes place a site of transformative social change where white privilege can be questioned and difference welcomed. I draw on 54 indepth semi-structured interviews with people who live and/or work in the City of Greater Dandenong, suburban Melbourne, Australia to makes visible these everyday reiterative practices, and illustrate how they can be conceptualised as acts of responsibility, rather than just repetitive acts of hostility and suspicion. From my intersecting and shifting subject positions as a woman, a resident, ethnic, migrant, and Indian, the visibility of such practices makes it possible to re-imagine citizenship in the local neighbourhood, the city as well as the nation.

Bryophytes of urban industrial streetscapes in Victoria, Australia

The bryophyte floristics of industrial/commercial streetscapes of urban Victoria and the importance of various substrata to species richness were explored. Species richness was low compared to healthy natural environments. Thirty mosses from 14 families, and six liverworts, each from different families, were identified. Most species occurred at fewer than 30% of sites, showing the patchy nature of their distribution. Only three species occurred at more than half the sites. Markedly higher species richness occurred on soil than on any other substratum. Epiphytes were extremely few. The low bryodiversity of streetscapes, the patchy nature of the bryophytes and the high number of colonists suggest that the streetscapes have not fulfilled their potential in providing connectivity between urban and non-urban areas. Colonists characteristically occur early in the successional sequence of disturbed areas but, as streetscapes are continually disturbed, colonists effectively are climax species for this habitat. Better management of streetscapes to provide more complex habitat is needed to enable colonisation of these areas by bryophyte species that are more representative of our ever-shrinking natural habitats.

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.

Ocean currents influence the genetic structure of an intertidal mollusc in southeastern Australia – implications for predicting the movement of passive dispersers across a marine biogeographic barrier

Major disjunctions among marine communities in southeastern Australia have been well documented, although explanations for biogeographic structuring remain uncertain. Converging ocean currents, environmental gradients, and habitat discontinuities have been hypothesized as likely drivers of structuring in many species, although the extent to which species are affected appears largely dependent on specific life histories and ecologies. Understanding these relationships is critical to the management of native and invasive species, and the preservation of evolutionary processes that shape biodiversity in this region. In this study we test the direct influence of ocean currents on the genetic structure of a passive disperser across a major biogeographic barrier. Donax deltoides (Veneroida: Donacidae) is an intertidal, soft-sediment mollusc and an ideal surrogate for testing this relationship, given its lack of habitat constraints in this region, and its immense dispersal potential driven by year-long spawning and long-lived planktonic larvae. We assessed allele frequencies at 10 polymorphic microsatellite loci across 11 sample locations spanning the barrier region and identified genetic structure consistent with the major ocean currents of southeastern Australia. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequence data indicated no evidence of genetic structuring, but signatures of a species range expansion corresponding with historical inundations of the Bassian Isthmus. Our results indicate that ocean currents are likely to be the most influential factor affecting the genetic structure of D. deltoides and a likely physical barrier for passive dispersing marine fauna generally in southeastern Australia.

Cambodian migrant women's postpartum experiences in Victoria, Australia

Objective: to explore the postpartum experiences of Cambodian born migrant women who gave birth for the first time in Victoria, Australia between 2000 and 2010. Design: an ethnographic study with 35 women using semi-structured and unstructured interviews and participant observation; this paper draws on interviews with 20 women who fit the criteria of first time mothers who gave birth in an Australian public hospital. Setting: the City of Greater Dandenong, Victoria Australia. Participants: twenty Cambodian born migrant women aged 23-30 years who gave birth for the first time in a public hospital in Victoria, Australia. Findings: after one or two home visits by midwives in the first 10 day postpartum women did not see a health professional until 4-6 weeks postpartum when they presented to the MCH centre. Women were home alone, experienced loneliness and anxiety and struggled with breast feeding and infant care while they attempted to follow traditional Khmer postpartum practices. Implications for practice: results of this study indicate that Cambodian migrant women who are first time mothers in a new country with no female kin support in the postpartum period experience significant emotional stress, loneliness and social isolation and are at risk of developing postnatal depression. These women would benefit from the introduction of a midwife-led model of care, from antenatal through to postpartum, where midwives provide high-intensity home visits, supported by interpreters, and when required refer women to professionals and community services such as Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies (Victoria Department of Health, 2011) for up to 6 weeks postpartum

Alcohol consumption and body composition in a population-based sample of elderly Australian men

Background: Alcohol is calorie dense, and impacts activity, appetite and lipid processing. The aim of this study was to therefore investigate the association between alcohol consumption and components of body composition including bone, fat and lean tissue.

Methods: Participants were recruited from a randomly selected, population-based sample of 534 men aged 65 years and older enrolled in the Geelong Osteoporosis Study. Alcohol intake was ascertained using a food frequency questionnaire and the sample categorised as nondrinkers or alcohol users who consumed B2, 3–4 or C5 standard drinks on a usual drinking day. Bone mineral density (BMD), lean body mass and body fat mass were measured using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry; overall adiposity (%body fat), central adiposity (%truncal fat) and body mass index (BMI) were calculated. Bone quality was determined by quantitative heel ultrasound (QUS).

Results: There were 90 current non-drinkers (16.9 %), 266 (49.8 %) consumed 1–2 drinks/day, 104 (19.5 %) 3–4 drinks/day and 74 (13.8 %) C5 drinks/day. Those consuming C5 drinks/day had greater BMI (?4.8 %), fat mass index (?20.1 %), waist circumference (?5.0 %), %body fat (?15.2 %) and proportion of trunk fat (?5.3 %) and lower lean mass (-5.0 %) than non-drinkers after adjustment for demographic and lifestyle factors. Furthermore, they were more likely to be obese than non-drinkers according to criteria based on BMI (OR = 2.83, 95 %CI 1.10–7.29) or waist circumference (OR = 3.36, 95 %CI 1.32–8.54). There was an inverse relationship between alcohol consumption and QUS parameters and BMD at the mid forearm site; no differences were detected for BMD at other skeletal sites.

Conclusion: Higher alcohol intake was associated with greater total and central adiposity and reduced bone quality.