Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Boyce Worthley Oration. 'Drawing The Line': A Risk Communication Perspective, Rodney J. Croft

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The paper represents a text version of the Australian Radiation Protection Society's Boyce Worthley Oration, which I had the privilege of delivering in 2014. The purpose of the presentation was to address the issue of whether, from a risk communication perspective, enough radiation protection research had been conducted and it was time to 'draw the line'. The paper addresses this issue by focusing on the radiofrequency (RF) risk communication domain, but is also applicable to radiation protection more generally. It fi rst provides a brief overview of both community concern about RF and the relative support from science regarding this …

Art Or Craft: Interest Or Pinterest?, Gai M. Lindsay

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Contradicting the regularly quoted mantra that 'it's the process not the product', calendar events often drive the mass production of identical seasonal products such as footprint reindeers, Valentine cards or paper-plate Easter bunnies.

The Relevance Of Mindfulness Practice For Trauma-Exposed Disaster Researchers, Christine Eriksen, Tamara Ditrich

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This paper aims to raise awareness of vicarious trauma amongst disaster researchers, and suggests ways to prevent vicarious traumatisation from happening and/or reaching incapacitating levels. The paper examines the potential of mindfulness practice, grounded in Buddhist meditation, as a set of contemplation tools through which optimal level of functionality can be maintained or restored. The relevance of the emphasis in mindfulness on understanding suffering, non-attachment, non-judgement, and full participation in the present moment are related to the context of disaster research. The paper demonstrates the potential for increased researcher resilience through acknowledgement and understanding of impermanence, as well as skilful …

Spectacular Shark Encounters: Fanning's Close Shave Reminds Us We Share The Ocean, Leah Maree Gibbs

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In the wake of the spectacular footage of champion surfer Mick Fanning's recent shark encounter in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa, and his good fortune in emerging without physical injury, sharks are back on the radar. Many people are probably scratching their heads wondering how we can avoid such dangerous incidents. Some have suggested that "shark attack" is on the rise, and therefore that risk is increasing. But the risk of dangerous interaction with a shark is incredibly low. In fact, a recent study found that in California shark-related fatalities have decreased significantly since 1950. Collecting statistics on shark incidents is …

Can You Be Allergic To Your Wi-Fi?, Sarah P. Loughran

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Electromagnetic fields are all around us. They are a part of our natural environment, produced by the Earth and the sun. But they are also becoming increasingly prominent with advancements in technology, such that we are surrounded daily by many different sources of electromagnetic energy. Mobile phones, Wi-Fi, personal computers, smart meters, radio, television and even the TV remote control - they all emit this kind of energy. Mobile phone base stations are continually being installed, and Wi-Fi hotspots are increasing all of the time. Cafés and restaurants, libraries, hotels and even some city centres and parks now offer free …

Research Training As Occupational Socialization: Doing Research And Becoming Researchers, Anne Cusick

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Social science research training is de-facto occupational socialisation to researcher-roles. To do research, trainees need to develop and demonstrate advanced scholarship that complies with disciplinary norms and perform tasks to pre-determined standards. Functionalist approaches to occupational socialization underpin the performative and standardised approach to research training common in universities. But there is more to research training than doing research. If truly successful, trainees will become researchers. They will take on the researcher-role and make it their own. Interpretive approaches to occupational socialization help illuminate intra- and inter-personal dimensions of role-taking and role-making, however this approach is rarely used to inform …

Why First-In-Family Uni Students Should Receive More Support, Sarah Elizabeth O'Shea

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Many university students fall into one of the six “equity groups” that receive targeted funding. However, there is one group that has for too long been ignored as a group that needs extra assistance in making it through university.

The six targeted equity groups include those:

• from lower socioeconomic backgrounds: currently measured by permanent home postcode

• from rural and isolated areas: measured by permanent postcode, population density data and proximity to cities

• with a disability (self-identified on enrolment)

• from a non-English-speaking background (those born overseas and who speak a language other than English)

• women in non-traditional areas of study; and …

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Powerful Parenting And Enabling Contexts: Lessons To Support Academic Success, Amy Conley Wright

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Book review of: Social class and educational inequality: the impact of parents and schools, by Iram Siraj and Aziza Mayo, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2014, 330 pp., £65 (hardback), ISBN 9781107018051

A Community To Call Home: An Analysis Of The Southern Youth And Family Services' (Syfs) Approaches To Reducing Youth Homelessness And Disadvantage, Lynne M. Keevers

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The NSW government's stated approach to the reduction and prevention of homelessness is focused on ensuring service approaches are evidenced-based and funding is needs-based (NSW Department of Family & Community Services, 2012). Despite the recognition of homelessness in the research and policy agenda, relatively little has been published about the practices effective in assisting young people to avoid or exit homelessness. The findings from this study build on previous research and inform this developing policy and research area by contributing to the evidence on what works well in supporting young people who are homeless or at risk ofhomelessness

Understanding The Effects Of Crime On Women: Fear And Well-Being In The Context Of Diverse Relationships, Natalia K. Hanley, Leah Ruppanner

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The risk-fear paradox, whereby people who experience the least criminal victimisation report the greatest fear of crime, has been established in the extant literature. That this paradox is gendered, notably that women report greater fear yet are less likely to experience crime, has also been consistently identified. However, there remains a largely unanswered call to explore further the distinctive experiences of women and men. There are likely to be substantial within-group differences as well as between-group differences in experiences of crime and reported fear of crime. For instance, women may experience fear differently by relationship type. Specifically, women in non-traditional …

Sadly, This Doesn't Change Very Much, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Book review of Naomi Klein's latest book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Simon & Schuster, 2014).

Desire, Belonging And Absence In Rural Places, John Scott, Anthony Lyons, Catherine L. Mac Phail

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

One of the more popular and enduring characters introduced by the British sketch comedy Little Britain (2003-2006) was Daffyd Thomas, a 25-year-old gay man living in the fictional village of Llandewi Breffi, Wales. The comedy played to Daffyd's claim to be 'the only gay in the village' (shown to be blatantly untrue), his apparent homophobia and his attention-seeking behaviour, as evident in his over-the-top dress sense. Yet, what made the comedy 'work' was the setting, a traditional pub in rural Wales. As with much comedy, Daffyd presented as 'matter out of place', to borrow a phrase from Mary Douglas (1992); …

Health Promotion Practice, Research Ethics And Publishing In The Health Promotion Journal Of Australia, Stacy M. Carter, Annette J. Braunack-Mayer, Jonine Jancey

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This special issue of the HPJA focuses on ethics in the context of health promotion practice. This editorial takes a narrower focus: the issue of Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) approval for health promotion research, evaluation and quality assurance (QA). We will focus on three papers in the special issue: each argue that those working in health promotion should consider ethics from the very beginning of their research, evaluation and/or QA activities. The first paper, by Ainsley Newson and Wendy Lipworth, is entitled ‘Why should ethics approval be required before publication of health promotion research?’ In it they argue that …

The Ethics Of Menu Labelling, Stacy M. Carter

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In this commentary, I explore the ethically relevant dimensions of menu labelling. The evidence that menu labelling changes purchasing or consumption behaviour is contentious and inconclusive; there is some suggestion that menu labelling may preferentially influence the behaviour of healthier and wealthier citizens. Some suggest that menu labelling is unjust, as it fails to direct resources towards those who most need them. An alternative is to see menu labels as just one of a set of strategies that can increase people's real opportunities to be healthy. Complementing strategies will be necessary to ensure that all citizens can consider and value …

Which Public And Why Deliberate? - A Scoping Review Of Public Deliberation In Public Health And Health Policy Research, Christopher J. Degeling, Stacy M. Carter, Lucie Rychetnik

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Deliberative methods are of increasing interest to public health researchers and policymakers. We systematically searched the peer-reviewed literature to identify public health and health policy research involving deliberative methods and report how deliberative methods have been used. We applied a taxonomy developed with reference to health policy and science and technology studies literatures to distinguish how deliberative methods engage different publics: citizens (ordinary people who are unfamiliar with the issues), consumers (those with relevant personal experience e.g. of illness) and advocates (those with technical expertise or partisan interests). We searched four databases for empirical studies in English published 1996-2013. This …

Reggio Emilia As A Metaphorical Homeland: An Account Of Professional 'Becoming', Gai M. Lindsay

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

An invitation in the August 2014 edition of 'The Challenge' to reflect on how the Reggio Emilia educational project has influenced me professionally and personally immediately provoked memories from throughout my teaching career. Encounters with the ideas underpinning pedagogy in Reggio Emilia have repeatedly reignited my passion as an early childhood teacher and have provoked me to advocacy, debate, research in practice, leadership and now doctoral studies and university teaching. Much of the credit I give to the project in Reggio Emilia for my ongoing growth as an educator has been documented in previous editions of 'The Challenge' (Lindsay 2008a, …

Does Using Active Learning In Thermodynamics Lectures Improve Students' Conceptual Understanding And Learning Experiences?, Helen Georgiou, Manjula Sharma

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Encouraging 'active learning' in the large lecture theatre emerges as a credible recommendation for improving university courses, with reports often showing significant improvements in learning outcomes. However, the recommendations are based predominantly on studies undertaken in mechanics. We set out to examine those claims in the thermodynamics module of a large first year physics course with an established technique, called interactive lecture demonstrations (ILDs). The study took place at University of Sydney, where four parallel streams of the thermodynamics module were divided into two streams that experienced the ILDs and two streams that did not. The programme was first implemented …

Flexible Respite For Carers Of People With Dementia, Lyn Phillipson

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the 30th International Conference of Alzheimer's Disease International, 15 - 18 April 2015, Perth, Australia

An Examination Of Pre-Service Teachers' Attributions For Students With Specific Learning Difficulties, Stuart Woodcock, Wilma Vialle

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

One of the most important factors in the successful inclusion of students with specific learning difficulties in mainstream classrooms is the teacher. Despite strong support for inclusion, mainstream teachers still demonstrate mixed responses to the inclusion of certain students in the classrooms. Further, their attitudes towards inclusion seem to be formed during their initial training. The purpose of this research was to examine the attitudes of pre-service teachers towards students with specific learning difficulties by analyzing their attributional responses to hypothetical students. Participants included 205 pre-service teachers, and the results demonstrated that the pre-service teachers' attributional responses differed according to …

Geography And Global Change Science: Relationships Necessary, Absent, And Possible, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Initiated by geoscientists, the growing debate about the Anthropocene, 'planetary boundaries' and global 'tipping points' is a significant opportunity for geographers to reconfigure two things: one is the internal relationships among their discipline's many and varied perspectives (topical, philosophical, and methodological) on the real; the other the discipline's actual and perceived contributions to important issues in the wider society. Yet, without concerted effort and struggle, the opportunity is likely to be used in a 'safe' and rather predictable way by only a sub-set of human-environment geographers. The socio-environmental challenges of a post-Holocene world invite old narratives about Geography's holistic intellectual …

Exploring The Interactions Underlying Flow States: A Connecting Analysis Of Flow Occurrence In European Tour Golfers, Christian F. Swann, David Piggott, Lee Crust, Richard J. Keegan, Brian Hemmings

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objectives: Research to date has identified a range of factors suggested to facilitate flow states in sport. However, less attention has focused on how exactly those facilitating factors influence the occurrence of flow. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the specific ways in which such facilitators influenced flow occurrence in European Tour golfers. Design: Qualitative design. Method: Ten full-time golfers from the European Tour (M age=37; SD=13.08) participated in semi-structured interviews investigating the occurrence of their flow states. Data were interpreted using an iterative process of thematic and connecting analyses. Results: Ten facilitators of flow were identified, of which commitment …

An Inductive Exploration Into The Flow Experiences Of European Tour Golfers, Christian F. Swann, Lee Crust, Richard J. Keegan, David Piggott, Brian Hemmings

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This study explored perceptions regarding the experience of flow in elite golf; a sport which is different to those studied previously due to its self-paced, stop-start nature. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 European Tour golfers. Whereas the majority of previous studies have deductively coded data into Csikszentmihalyi's dimensions, the data in this study were analysed inductively. Thirteen categories were generated which described the flow experiences of these golfers, and these were compared with the original flow dimensions after analysis. In contrast to previous understanding, these golfers reported being aware that they were in flow as it occurred, and …

Defining Elite Athletes: Issues In The Study Of Expert Performance In Sport Psychology, Christian F. Swann, Aidan Moran, David Piggott

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objectives: There has been considerable inconsistency and confusion in the definition of elite/expert athletes in sport psychology research, which has implications for studies conducted in this area and for the field as a whole. This study aimed to: (i) critically evaluate the ways in which recent research in sport psychology has defined elite/expert athletes; (ii) explore the rationale for using such athletes; and (iii) evaluate the conclusions that research in this field draws about the nature of expertise. Design: Conventional systematic review principles were employed to conduct a rigorous search and synthesise findings. Methods: A comprehensive literature search of SPORTDiscus, …

Opinion: The Case For Free Universal Childcare In Australia, Edward Melhuish

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Many countries, such as the UK, are providing free universal childcare for children aged 3 and up. They have done so because they recognise that improving child development for the whole population will be important for future economic development. Should Australia follow their lead?

Activating Primary Care Copd Patients With Multi-Morbidity (Apcom) Pilot Project: Study Protocol, Sameera Ansari, Hassan Hosseinzadeh, Sarah Dennis, Nicholas Arnold Zwar

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Poster presented at the 2015 Primary Health Care Research Conference, 29-31 July 2015, Adelaide, Australia.

Ethnography And Filmmaking For Indigenous Anti Tobacco Social Marketing, Kishan A. Kariippanon, Datjarranga Garrawirtja, Kate Senior, Paul Kalfadellis, Vidad Narayan, Bryce Mccoy

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The smoking rates of 82% in Aboriginal communities of North East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia are the highest in the country (Robertson et al. 2013). Macassan traders introduced tobacco as a trading commodity (Berndt, 1954) in Aboriginal communities in the 18th century and has since become part of culture. The influence of the Methodist Mission (Cole 1979) has also had a profound effect on tobacco consumption. Anti tobacco social marketing that is sensitive to Indigenous culture and history supports a more complex and gradual approach to reducing uptake amongst young people. The limitations of the Health …

'[I Learnt] How To Look At Ads Differently...': Lessons From An Australian Alcohol Media Literacy Program, Chloe Gordon, Sandra C. Jones, Lisa K. Kervin, Jeong Kyu Lee

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at The Inaugural Early Start Conference, 28-30 September 2015, Wollongong, Australia

Are Cannabis Expectancies Related To Subjective Drug Experiences And Schizotypy?, Emma Barkus, Tahlia Muddle, John Stirling, Shon Lewis

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective: There is an established literature on cannabis expectancies and how these relate to patterns of cannabis use and clinical outcomes. However increasingly we are becoming interested in how cannabis expectancies shape the subjective experiences people have during drug use, and vice versa. Here we present data reporting how cannabis expectancies relate to subjective experiences after cannabis. Additionally we will determine whether an index of psychosis proneness (schizotypy) is related to cannabis expectancies. Method: A sample of recreational cannabis users (n=137) completed the brief Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire, the Cannabis Experiences Questionnaire and the Marijuana Effects Expectancy Questionnaire. Results: Cannabis expectancies …

Examining The Interpretations Children Share From Their Reading Of An Almost Wordless Picture Book During Independent Reading Time, Jessica Mantei, Lisa K. Kervin

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This paper shares findings from part of a larger project exploring students' interpretations of children's literature during independent reading time. Examined in this paper are interpretations by students in Grade 4 (aged 9-10 years) about the messages conveyed in the almost wordless picture book 'Mirror' by author and artist Jeannie Baker. 'Mirror' shares a multicultural perspective on life through its portrayal through collage of the lives of two families living in different countries. Data were collected as semi-structured interviews and observations recorded as field notes. Chambers' (1994) 'Tell Me' framework informed the question schedule of the semi-structured interviews, which were …

Conceptualizing Metalinguistic Understanding In Writing | Conceptualización De La Competencia Metalingüística En La Escritura, Debra Myhill, Susan M. Jones

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This paper will present a theoretical analysis of research on metalinguistic understanding, illustrating how current research does not yet adequately address metalinguistic development in writing. Existing research on metalinguistic understanding has focused more on language acquisition, oral development and bilingual learners. Research on metalinguistic understanding in writing has tended to look more closely at young learners developing writing skills in spelling, transcription and orthography. Thus, theoretical accounts of metalinguistic understanding are currently insufficient to explain developing metalinguistic mastery of composing text and the relationships between declarative and procedural metalinguistic knowledge in writing. If we are to understand better the nature …