Search

This study examines a child's personal experiences with peer relationship building in the classroom and is guided by Vygotsky's cultural historical concepts of the social situation of development and cultural tools and Hedegaard's (2012) model for learning and development. Hedegaard's (2012) dialectical—interactive approach was adopted to analyse the data for this study which was gathered using digital video observations of a grade one classroom within the western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia over a five week period. This paper explores the strategies used by children that enables them to balance their desire for peer relationships while remaining within what is considered acceptable behaviours by their teachers within the classroom. It is argued that it is important for schools to continue to strive to find the balance between institutional demands while creating social situations that foster peer relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advancement of inclusive education policies worldwide has given greater weight to social justice practices in educational settings. However, inclusion in preschools has received less attention from researchers. This article examines a 4-year-old child's participation in a mainstream preschool in Australia from a cultural-historical perspective. In particular, this study used the concept of secondary disability to analyse the data, and in this process identified a contradiction between the teacher's perceptions of the child's abilities and the teacher's reported understanding of the parent's perceptions of the child's abilities, which 'clouded' the child's position within the preschool setting. Eight hours of video data were gathered across eight months. The findings indicate that understanding the child's personality and potential can operate as a 'pedagogical password' for the teacher to enter on to the child's unique developmental trajectory. This paper argues that identifying the unique developmental pathway of the child is essential to reduce secondary disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose Collective motives for alcohol consumption represent a nascent field, with individual-level attributes, peer pressure and broad-level environmental elements being at the forefront of research. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of friendships in the context of alcohol consumption and determine what group-level motives exist for alcohol consumption.Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 participants aged 18–30, these discussed the role the participant's friendship group played in alcohol consumption and helped to elucidate what collective and group-level motives existed.Findings Group-level motives can steer a collective's alcohol consumption by either endorsing it or degrading it, the findings revealed four group-level motives: these were, competition, conformity, hedonism, with opportunity cost receptiveness acting as a buffer.Research limitations/implications The small sample and qualitative nature of the study means external validity still needs to be established to generalize the research to other audiences.Practical implications By unpacking group-level motives researchers can develop group-level strategies and match specialized interventions with the right priority group.Originality/value This paper is the first to address group-level motives for alcohol consumption and makes an important contribution to understanding how group-level factors can impact individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robots are increasingly appearing as a potential answer to the 'care crisis' facing a number of countries. Although it is anticipated that many positives will flow from the application of these technologies, they are also likely to generate unexpected consequences and risks. This paper explores the use of robots within disability and aged care settings in the Australian and New Zealand contexts. Informed by thirty-five semi-structured interviews with a range of stakeholders, the paper explores why this area is so difficult to govern examining areas identified as generating tensions around the use of robots in care settings. In each of these areas some respondents saw the introduction of robots to be relatively straightforward applications that do not require extensive structures of governance. Others, however, viewed these applications as having potentially greater implications and the need to govern for these over the longer term. The three areas of tension that we explore in this paper relate to independence and surveillance, the re-shaping of human interaction and who can care. These tensions illustrate some of the problems involved in governing robots in a care service context and some of the potentially difficult issues that governments will need to resolve if these technologies are to be effective. We conclude the paper arguing what is needed is a responsive regulation approach to help resolve some of the complexities and tensions in overseeing these technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of New Public Management (NPM)‐inspired reforms in the public sector in the 1990s saw a big leap in public–private outsourcing partnerships in public service delivery; however, many of these have failed, resulting in backsourcing. Although effective governance of the ongoing relationship between outsourcing partners is arguably key to a successful partnership, the findings as to the optimal type of relationship between two main governance mechanisms – contractual and relational – remain inconclusive. Adopting Huber et al.'s dynamic perspective of governance mechanism interplay as a research framework, this paper empirically investigates the interplay in two problematic outsourcing public–private partnerships, that is the delivery of services has been backsourced or considered to be backsourced. Our data confirm the existence of a dynamic interplay between contractual and relational governance. The findings, however, do not represent a perfect fit with Huber et al.'s conceptualizations, signalling the significance of our research as to a more diverse and complicated group of interactions. Our analysis also reveals the potential interference of additional contextual factors in the interplay. Further research that explores and tests these contextual factors is warranted. The optimal relationship between the two main governance mechanisms: contractual and relational, remains inconclusive. This research, adopting Huber et al.'s (2001) dynamic perspective of governance mechanism interplay, examines the pattern and nature of the interplay between contractual and relational governance in Australia healthcare public‐private partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary & Nonprofit Organizations is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Tourism Review is the property of Emerald Publishing Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Isolating the impact of policy, demographic shifts, and market volatility on changes in income inequality is of great interest to policymakers. However, such estimation can be difficult due to the complex interactions and evolutions in the social and economic environment. Through an extended decomposition framework, this paper estimates the effect of four main components (policy, demography, market income and other factors) on the year‐over‐year changes in income inequality in Australia between 2002 and 2016. This was a period marked by substantial policy, population, and economic shifts due to factors such as the mining boom, the global financial crisis and increasing immigration. The framework also incorporates a flexible non‐parametric market income model which captures demand‐side shock better than a standard parametric model. Our results suggest that market income was the primary driver of income inequality for all segments of the income distribution in Australia over the past 15 years. Policy factors, moreover, have had the largest net impact on reducing inequality overall, especially for lower income earners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to bridge the psychological and physical divide between different groups, researchers have harnessed the positive elements of the Internet to improve intergroup contact. One new and effective Internet strategy is Electronic- or E-contact. Unlike other contact approaches, E-contact is an experimental intergroup intervention that uniquely accommodates Allport's contact theory and recategorisation processes, to create a structured, cooperative, synchronous and goal-directed online text interaction between members from different groups. E-contact has been found to successfully improve intergroup relations between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and Muslims and Catholics in Australia; and reduce bias against lesbian women and gay men, people with schizophrenia, Indigenous Australians, and transgender individuals. This paper discusses the unique engineering and advantages of E-contact interventions in comparison to existing contact strategies, identifies the theories that guide E-contact interventions, provides meta-analytic evidence of its effects, and discusses the strengths, limitations and future directions for E-contact research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbourhoods are important spaces of interaction for children. This paper explores the perceptions of residents from seven suburbs in the inner area of Newcastle, Australia concerning what makes a good neighbourhood for children. Key factors identified by residents include the types of dwellings found in the neighbourhood (with detached houses being seen as preferable for children) and the quality of neighbourhood resources. Another important feature was social interactions within the neighbourhood, including interactions between children and adults and interactions between groups of children. The paper examines how different features of neighbourhoods interact to create adult perceptions about whether a neighbourhood is appropriate for children. The paper also points to the ways that children are seen to actively produce the neighbourhood in which they live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An improved understanding of both community attitudes toward tourism and host–guest interaction is vital for the sustainable development of tourism. However, there are significant research deficiencies and gaps in these two related research areas. This conceptual paper looks into these glaring research gaps through a review of literature and attempts to provide solutions suggested by an ongoing research project being conducted in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. In particular, while this paper addresses the impacts of personality and ethnicity on community attitudes toward tourism and points to the urgent need for a well-established theoretical framework in order to understand and predict host–guest interaction, it also highlights the above issues in the context of the urban–rural fringe, the bordering region connecting neat ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how prominent private schools in Australia are performing in a market context according to the tenets of performativity. From a discourse analysis of promotional materials that include prospectuses, advertisements, and school publications, it considers the "value-addedness" that these schools purport to offer. In this regard, ideas such as building self-esteem and emotional intelligence are not only being used for market advantage but are also being nicely conflated with religious principles to produce the "whole" child with market edge. This paper draws on a recent research study of 30 elite Australian schools. As new practices of identity formation and self-presentation are investigated, questions are raised about issues of fabrication in performativity-inspired practices of marketisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research provides an overview of the lived experiences of women golfers at regional Australian golf clubs, a cohort of sports participants who are often advantaged in their access to leisure time, but also often disadvantaged by the intersection of both (women) gender and (older) age. Specifically, this study provides a critical examination of the experiences of 53 women (purposively and snowball sampled) survey participants from 13 different golf clubs in regional Australia. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyse data received from the open-ended survey questions. This study explores the simultaneous shared lived experiences of these women golfers as they relate to both oppression and empowerment. These empowering experiences range from creating friendships, camaraderie and engaging in a variety of social interactions, while oppressive experiences relate to a range of structural and cultural barriers that women golfers face. These shared simultaneous experiences are explored using a third-wave feminist lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's population is ageing, and a key question is how can people remain socially active as they grow older? To answer this question, this paper offers a critical review of the literature looking at the mechanisms through which an urban neighbourhood environment can influence social life, an important component of social health. The aim of this review is to develop a general framework that can be applied to the studies on the social health of the elderly. The framework illustrates the main elements that potentially promote social life, namely: a safe, accessible, walkable and relatively dense neighbourhood in addition to green spaces, third places, soft edges and streets. This framework is then applied to a small case study, looking particularly at the social life of the elderly and how it can be supported by the physical urban neighbourhood environment. Data are collected by conducting in-depth interviews with 19 elderly residents (aged 65 years and over) in a neighbourhood located in the city of Gold Coast, Queensland. The results from this study demonstrate the importance of neighbourhood design in the social life of the elderly, interviewed. The study also identifies some of the key barriers to the elderly's social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the association between neighbourhood land use features and informal social control. More specifically, we examine the extent to which such features in combination with the socio-demographic context of the neighbourhood facilitate or impede collective efficacy and local civic actions. We achieve this through spatially integrating data from the census, topographic databases and a 2012 survey of 4132 residents from 148 neighbourhoods in Brisbane, Australia. The study creates a new classification of a neighbourhood’s physical environment by creating novel categories of land use features that depict social conduits, social holes and social wedges. Social conduits are features of the neighbourhood that facilitate interaction between individuals, social holes are land uses that create situations where there is no occupancy, and social wedges are features that carve up neighbourhoods. We find some evidence to suggest that residents’ reports of collective efficacy are higher in neighbourhoods with a greater density of social conduits. Density of social conduits is also positively associated with local civic action. However, in neighbourhoods with more greenspace, residents are less likely to engage in local civic actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In emergency management organisations, the drive to use research to inform practice has been growing for some time. This paper discusses findings from a survey used to investigate perceived effectiveness of a number of important processes in research utilisation. In 2016, a survey was completed by 266 respondents in 29 fire and emergency services agencies. Questions sought answers on perceived effectiveness in disseminating research within agencies, assessing and evaluating the impacts on agency practice of the research, implementing agency changes that may be needed, monitoring processes to track changes and communicate outcomes of changes made as a result of research. The study found that there were differences in levels of perceived effectiveness between those in senior management and front-line service positions. The differences suggest that front-line services personnel have lower levels of perceived effectiveness in how research is disseminated. The study also found agencies had different approaches to keep up-to-date with research advances. An examination of the activities identified four developmental levels of research utilisation maturity. The findings suggest more work is needed to better understand the enablers and constraints to utilising research to support development of evidence-informed practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explored the psychological mechanisms by which leisure enhances well-being by using sentence-by-sentence coding of the best-possible-selves text produced by 112 participants. Of the 1097 sentences, 41% were coded as leisure indicating that leisure is an important component of optimal well-being. The data showed that Australians have significantly less leisure in their daily lives than our sample desired; older and wealthier individuals placed a greater emphasis on leisure but there were no significant differences based on gender. Application of the Detachment-Recovery, Autonomy, Mastery, Meaning, Affiliation (DRAMMA) framework showed the following allocation of sentences to psychological mechanisms: Detachment-Recovery-21%, Autonomy-23%, Mastery-12%, Meaning-11% and Affiliation-33%. In their ideal future, participants imagined that they have the time and money to do what they want, particularly, to travel. We showed leisure is not solely associated with ‘having fun’; 59% of participants wanted to use their leisure time to learn, improve, or contribute to society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A key factor in conceptualising ethnicity is the notion of territory or geographic boundary. In the context of globalisation boundaries are becoming more porous and the world is shrinking in terms of time and place. Ethnicity often relies on the notion of common origin which is often linked with both geography and history (real or imagined). Geographic icons possess symbolic attributes and become significant in attachment and evoke emotions, sentiments and longing to be in a particular location. Notions of territory are also linked up with concepts of place. Place is a complex phenomena and implies people's connections to locales. Places enable association between lived experiences, personal stories, myths, images, memories which present legacies that carry meaning to individuals and communities. In exploring ethnic identity it is useful to draw upon both the notions of place which we are all born into and the notion of space which is more abstract and provides for consideration of social interaction and the construction of social identity based on hierarchy and power. While it is acknowledged that there is a strong inter-relationship between space and place, the distinction enables exploration of issues of identity construction in the context of transnational migration and communities in the diaspora who may not have the same links to space in the new country of settlement. This paper will explore the complexities of identity formation amongst ethnic communities in Australia. The dimensions of space and place in the construction of ethnic identity will be investigated. The paper will examine the approaches by ethnic communities to the notion of ‘homeland’, sense of belonging and identity formation in the context of migration. The paper will draw upon research conducted with different ethnic communities and contrast the approaches to identity, sense of belonging, space and place across different groups. The paper will also explore the issues relating to identity formation in the context of mainstream Australian identity which is often constructed in a way that excludes ethnic minorities and renders them as the ‘other’. It will be argued that ethnic communities construct their identities in based on issues of space (relationships, regimes of power, events in their country of origin, racism, equality and social justice issues) and the main focus is on recognition of their identity in the public space rather than on focus on homeland territory. The paper will also delve into the relationship to place (i.e. the Australian geographic landscape) by ethnic communities in their identity formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from a study that explored how international students experience cross-cultural transitions after living and studying in Melbourne for a few years, this paper, in particular, examines the participants' experiences with culture shock, social interaction, and friendship development. The findings include narratives of their personal stories and perspectives on social engagement and friendship ties with a particular focus on variables including cultural similarity, intercultural communication competence, intercultural friendship, and relational identity to influence their experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With more and more political candidates using social media for campaigning, researchers are looking at measuring the effectiveness of this medium. Most research, however, concentrates on the bare count of likes (or twitter mentions) in an attempt to correlate social media presence and winning. In this paper, we propose a novel method, Interaction Strength Plot (IntS) to measure the passive interactions between a candidate’s posts on Facebook and the users (liking the posts). Using this method on original Malaysian General Election (MGE13) and Australian Federal Elections (AFE13) Facebook Pages (FP) campaign data, we label an FP as performing well if both the posting frequency and the likes gathered are above average. Our method shows that over 60% of the MGE13 candidates and 85% of the AFE13 candidates studied in this paper had under-performing FP. Some of these FP owners would have been identified as popular based on bare count. Thus our performance chart is a vital step forward in measuring the effectiveness of online campaigning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Social disorganization states that neighborhood social ties and shared expectations for informal social control are necessary for the exercise of informal social control actions. Yet this association is largely assumed rather than empirically examined in the literature. This paper examines the relationship between neighborhood social ties, shared expectations for informal social control and actual parochial and public informal social control actions taken by residents in response to big neighborhood problems. Methods: Using multi-level logistic regression models, we integrate Australian Bureau of Statistics census data with the Australian Community Capacity Study survey data of 1310 residents reporting 2614 significant neighborhood problems across 148 neighborhoods to examine specific informal social control actions taken by residents when faced with neighborhood problems. Results: We do not find a relationship between shared expectations for informal social control and residents' informal social control actions. Individual social ties, however, do lead to an increase in informal social control actions in response to 'big' neighborhood problems. Residents with strong ties are more likely to engage in public and parochial informal social control actions than those individuals who lack social ties. Yet individuals living in neighborhoods with high levels of social ties are only moderately more likely to engage in parochial informal social control action than those living in areas where these ties are not present. Shared expectations for informal social control are not associated with the likelihood that residents engage in informal social control actions when faced with a significant neighborhood problem. Conclusion: Neighborhood social ties and shared expectations for informal social control are not unilaterally necessary for the exercise of informal social control actions. Our results challenge contemporary articulations of social disorganization theory that assume that the availability of neighborhood social ties or expectations for action are associated with residents actually doing something to exercise of informal social control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mineral resources sector is critical to Australia's economic and social well-being. Minerals and energy have a value of $30 billion in export revenues, providing 50 percent of Australia's merchandise exports. The industry is characterized by substantial capital investment and very long lead times for project developments and a very competitive international market. The future direction and location of the industry is inextricably linked to long term exploration activities. The industry is faced with a far more complex set of environments than most. The paper identifies the range of complex issues and the wide variety of players using a stakeholder analysis. By monitoring such interactions, and knowing the objective set of the parties, a guide could be established to define moral and ethical frameworks for each interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to determine whether a fine-grained analysis of variation in the macropod motif across the Sydney region demonstrates similar or different patterns when compared with previous stylistic studies of the area. Here we discuss the figurative representation of the macropod motif. We discuss the syntax of the rock art using concepts of conventions, language and symbols to interpret macropod stylistic representation. We show how a fine-grained assessment of both frequencies of design elements and measurements of shape complements previous regional stylistic studies by demonstrating how stylistic regions are multilayered and not definite. The paper suggests new stylistic zones that future work can test, and demonstrates that these zones do not correspond simply with one widely used reconstruction of language distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a range of archival and published sources including field notes, photographs and drawings, this paper investigates the social relationships formed between Ngaanyatjarra families and a small group of scientists in the presence of cameras during a 3-week ethnographic research expedition to the Warburton Range in 1935. The impression left by the ethno-historical record is that, despite disparate norms around looking behaviours, a degree of familiarity was quickly established that enabled intimate acts of filming and photography. And yet the inter-subjectivity that facilitated such photography was deliberately obscured when the images produced were subsequently disseminated to outside audiences, in effect reinstating social distance and turning Aboriginal familiars back into strangers. Recent reconsiderations of the figure of 'the stranger' (Simmel 1999; Marotta 2012) and an extensive literature on the relationship between anthropological knowledge and photography (Edwards 1992, 2001) help to unpack what this sociality reveals about belonging, identity and the representative reach of photographic mediums. A series of crayon drawings by the expedition's young Aboriginal guide points to the limits of the social categories assumed for Ngaanyatjarra people by these scientists. In their place is found complex contemporary Aboriginal identities that were simultaneously modern and traditional, embedded in evolving intergenerational social frameworks that have endured until today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounts of turn-taking in much of the CA literature have largely focused on talk which progresses with minimal gaps between turns at talk, longer gaps being found to be symptomatic of, for example, engagement in non-talk activities, or as indicators of some kind of trouble in the interaction. In this paper we present an account of turn-taking in conversations between Indigenous Australians where longer gaps are frequent and regular. We show that in sequences of such slow-paced conversation, gaps are not always treated as problematic, nor are they associated with non-talk activities that might inhibit talk. In such contexts we argue that there is less orientation to gap minimization, reflecting a lack of pressure for continuous talk. We also discuss qualitative differences in the nature of the gaps between turns in which there is a selection of next speaker, and those where no next speaker has been selected. Finally we consider whether such talk is a feature of Indigenous Australian conversation, or a more widespread practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The development of technology in dementia care has largely been without consultation with carers, and has primarily focused on safety, monitoring devices, and supporting activities of daily living. Further, while involving end-users in the design of technology has been recommended, this is yet to become common practice. Method: We conducted a mixed methods study with the aim of investigating carers' values and priorities for technology development, including prior experiences, barriers to use, and what they would like technology to do. Importantly, we asked carers for their design ideas and bespoke technology solutions for future development. Results: Carers of people living with dementia (N = 127), including both unpaid (n = 102) and paid carers (n = 25) residing in Australia, completed an online survey. In addition, a subsample of carers (n = 23) participated in semi-structured interviews. Findings demonstrate that carers want technology to be person-centred, customisable, and to increase opportunities for meaningful social connection. Findings also demonstrate the ability of carers to generate creative design solutions for dementia care. Conclusions: These findings and implications will be discussed in relation to the importance of co-design with carers and engineers during the design phase of assistive technology. Also, the importance of technology to enhance, not replace, human-to-human social interactions is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development and validation of an item bank designed for students to assess their own achievements across an undergraduate-degree programme in seven generic competences (i.e., problem-solving skills, critical-thinking skills, creative-thinking skills, ethical decision-making skills, effective communication skills, social interaction skills and global perspective). The Rasch modelling approach was adopted for instrument development and validation. A total of 425 items were developed. The content validity of these items was examined via six focus group interviews with target students, and the construct validity was verified against data collected from a large student sample (N = 1151). A matrix design was adopted to assemble the items in 26 test forms, which were distributed at random in each administration session. The results demonstrated that the item bank had high reliability and good construct validity. Cross-sectional comparisons of Years 1–4 students revealed patterns of changes over the years. Correlation analyses shed light on the relationships between the constructs. Implications are drawn to inform future efforts to develop the instrument, and suggestions are made regarding ways to use the instrument to enhance the teaching and learning of generic skills. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Methodological Horizons / Metodički Obzori is the property of Juraj Dobrila University of Pula and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution of conversation as an element of interaction that occurs in a hairdressing service encounter with the aim of seeking to understand variations in conversation between "short" and "long-term" clients; how conversation contributes to the development of "commercial friendships"; and how relationships develop through conversation. Design/methodology/approach – Quota sampling is used to select eight hairdressing service encounters in one Australian salon for recording and subsequent interviews with clients. Quotas address gender and duration of continued patronage. Conversations and interviews were analysed thematically and using conversation analysis. Findings – The progress and evolution of conversations varied between short and long-term customers; topics also varied by this classification as well as gender. Conversation played an important function with respect to building friendship with the service provider; conversation also assisted in the development of long-term relationships. Research limitations/implications – Apart from the small sample, the study was highly contextualised because it investigated encounters in a single hairdressing salon and explored perceptions of the service conversation from the perspective of only one party to the conversation, the client. Practical implications – The findings point out the important role non-task conversation can play in retaining customers in people-processing services. Service providers perhaps can achieve more to improve the service experience and satisfaction of customers by placing less emphasis on the need for physical resources or promotion, instead focussing on the intangible of improving the conversation skills of their providers. More non-task conversation and less task-related talk may also facilitate a closer relationship between hairdresser and client. Further research on the nature and role of conversation during service encounters should offer guidance for improving the conversation skills of service providers and in improving customer retention. Originality/value – This study specifically focuses on the role and nature of non-task conversation as a specific aspect contributing to a customer's service encounter experience in a people processing service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview and a synthesis of the findings of a large, multifaceted study investigating outcomes from paediatric cochlear implantation. The study included children implanted at several Australian implant clinics and attending a variety of early intervention and educational settings across a range of locations in eastern Australia. It investigated three major aspects of childhood cochlear implantation: (1) parental expectations of their children's implantation, (2) families' decisionmaking processes, and (3) the communication, social, and educational outcomes of cochlear implantation for deaf children. It employed a mixed-methods approach in which quantitative survey data were gathered from 247 parents and 151 teachers, and qualitative data from semistructured interviews with 27 parents, 15 teachers, and 11 children and adolescents with cochlear implants. The summarised findings highlight several areas where challenges remain for implant clinics, parents, and educators if children with cochlear implants are to reach their full potential personally, educationally, and socially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particular places may function as resources for older people in their efforts to actively maintain independence. In Australia, a place of this type is the licensed or ‘registered’ club which provides leisure facilities, restaurant and bar services and opportunities for informal social interaction. This paper draws on the findings of an ethnographic study which sought to understand the nature, meaning and role of registered club participation for members of one club in Sydney, Australia, to describe the role of club participation in maintaining independence for older people. Participant observation and in-depth interviewing over a four and half year period yielded qualitative data which were analysed using thematic, narrative and key-words-in-context methods of analysis. Club-use facilitated independence—conceptualised as self-reliance—by being an accessible resource utilised by older club-goers to manage daily living and to maintain ‘everyday competence’. Independence—conceptualised as self-direction—was facilitated by the availability of a range of options enabling the exercise of choice and balanced reciprocity in relationships. Additionally, club-going was symbolic, for some, of continuing independence. The findings provide a valuable insight into a means by which older people manage later life’s challenges, highlighting the active nature of these efforts and the role of local contexts that function as a resource for independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is intended to examine how the Japanese living overseas identify with their homeland. Since Australia hosts one of the largest Japanese communities, this paper reports the findings from a qualitative study of Japanese expatriates in Australia and presents some characteristics of the overseas Japanese mentality. The results revealed that the Japanese do not change their way of life even when living abroad. Although the influence of the host society and/or culture is apparent, their Japanese outlook remains the same. They show a similar attitude towards Japanese politics, stay updated through the Internet and other sources of information, and maintain their rules for social interaction. However, the results of this small-scale study cannot be generalised to the broader population, i.e. the entire overseas Japanese community. A further examination of other Japanese communities as well as media contents they are exposed to is required for a complete picture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Young children engage in a constant process of negotiating and constructing rules, utilizing these rules as cultural resources to manage their social interactions. This paper examines how young children make sense of, and also construct, rules within one early childhood classroom. This paper draws on a recent study conducted in Australia, in which video-recorded episodes of young children''s talk-in-interaction were examined. Analysis revealed four interactional practices that the children used, including manipulating materials and places to claim ownership of resources within the play space; developing or using pre-existing rules and social orders to control the interactions of their peers; strategically using language to regulate the actions of those around them; and creating and using membership categories such as ‘car owner’ or ‘team member’ to include or exclude others and also to control and participate in the unfolding interaction. While the classroom setting was framed within adult conceptions and regulations, analysis of the children''s interaction demonstrated their co-constructions of social order and imposition of their own forms of rules. Young children negotiated both adult constructed social order and also their own peer constructed social order, drawing upon various rules within both social orders as cultural resources by which they managed their interaction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Master planned communities are becoming the dominant form of new large-scale housing development in Australia. A characteristic of these developments is the focus on community as a major promotional feature. This resonates well with buyers in a climate in which community (and social capital) has become a catch-cry of governments and the private sector for a whole range of benefits. However, the case-study master planned community considered in this research has been the focus of considerable effort by the developer to facilitate community processes beyond the political or marketing level. The research reported in this paper looks at the outcomes of these efforts and shows that while high levels of attachment to place and sense of community are reported by residents, actual social interaction within the master planned community is not generally extensive. While these findings can be seen as being in accord with current notions of changing community form, they have significant implications for developers wishing to facilitate community development in terms of increased social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban parks are an important resource for young people, providing spaces to explore and develop their social and individual identities. However, planning open spaces for adolescents is often challenging due to the perceived inconsistencies in their need for and use of space. Young girls in particular have been shown to be less visible in parks due to issues such as low self-esteem, perceived lack of safety, and the presence of young males (James, 1995). In order to optimize the use of urban parks to support the developmental needs of adolescent girls, park professionals must first understand the role of these spaces in their lives and how this role evolves as girls make the transition through adolescence to adulthood. This paper reports findings from a study that examined the role of local neighborhood parks in the lives of 11 teenage girls aged 14 to 18 years, living in Brisbane, Australia. An analysis of qualitative data revealed that parks supported two of the main developmental processes of adolescence: "social-relatedness" and "individuation." Parks were important settings for "social interaction" when the girls were in early adolescence but were used more often as sites for "retreat" in middle and late adolescence. At this time the girls sought to escape from the increasing structure in their lives. Far from avoiding local parks, the girls' stories showed that they were active users of these spaces throughout adolescence. Certain characteristics made parks more attractive and accessible to teenage girls: social safety, sociability, and nature. It is recommended that further research on the needs and preferences of teenage girls in relation to open space during this life phase is conducted. This information can then be articulated more clearly in the processes of park planning, design, and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical incidents (CIs) are the elements that bring about an alert or wake up call for clinicians in hospital wards. They are considered critical because the safety of patients, staff or visitors is at risk. Not all CIs result in dire consequences, nor do they require Root Cause Analysis (RCA). Nonetheless, incidents affect patients and involve clinicians' interactions with each other. This paper describes the complexities embedded in two CIs in a major paediatric hospital in Australia. An anthropological ethnographic research approach enabled the researcher to observe, document, interpret and make sense of the activities of clinicians in two different clinical areas of the hospital, i.e., the Rehabilitation Unit and the Neonatal Unit (NU). Ethnographic research significantly exposes and highlights hospital dramas and shows the effects on clinicians' everyday lives. We suggest that CIs have two dimensions: a medical and a social. The medical dimension encompasses factors in the treatment and care of the patient. The social dimension encompasses the social relationships and the socio-affectivity (emotional responses and labour) of treating clinicians. Our main argument is that foregrounding of the socio-cultural dimensions of CIs informs and impacts on the medical dimensions. Our conclusions demonstrate that the social dimensions of CIs have important ramifications for clinical interactions in everyday practices and these impact on the positive learning of clinicians after a CI has occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Play school is an icon of Australian children's television and an important part of Australian life - this programme, perhaps more than any other, has taken and continues to take centre stage in our living rooms and social worlds as young children. Play school is invested with an enormous amount of cultural capital and hence plays a significant role in the way that children engage and learn about social interaction, life and values in Australian culture. Aimed at preschoolers under the age of five, everything in the programme is done to relate as closely as possible to the social world and developmental level of the child and thereby assist their social, psychological and cognitive development. Through a combination of songs and dances, stories, dress up games and moments to 'look through the window' into the real world outside Play school, children are presented with a variety of sounds and images to engage with social concepts. In this paper we explore discourses of race, otherness and Indigeneity on Play school by deconstructing Aboriginalist images and representations featured on the programme and in doing so ask questions about the types of 'race making' that this programme engages in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses a sociological lens on what two early years Australian school boys labelled as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and an early years teacher have to say about social relations within informal play environments. The boys participated in separate semi-structured interviews where they predicted the likely outcomes of social interactions within informal play environments for a toy puppy that was exhibiting ADHD-like behaviours. The students forewarned that the puppy should be 'staying in class so no one can get to him', and that 'his friends will be cruel and tease him', making him into a 'bad' puppy. A follow-up interview with one early years teacher confirmed that the boys' predictions reflected their lived experiences as students labelled as ADHD in institutional play environments. A theoretical framework based on concepts of social power and control is used to analyse the boys' and teacher's interview talk to explain how particular social discourses have the potential to trap students labelled as ADHD into this category and the difficulties one socially aware teacher faced as she tried to disrupt these dominant disabling discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the creation of a distinctly Polish place by Polish migrants and their children, in Sydney, Australia. I explore the use of place as a means of maintaining distinct ethno-cultural identity in diaspora by evaluating how different groups of Polish people contextualise their diasporic identity, attribute meaning to place, and how these meanings change through time. Differing generational cohorts and waves of migration within Sydney's Polish diaspora (re)create Bielany as a place for maintaining Polish identity by reproducing a familiar and homely place and by centring Bielany as a main venue for recreation and social functions. Notions of place attachment, expressed through participation in activities, ownership and maintenance of a communal Polish place, and emotional linkages to that place, evince their preference for and their connection to a shared and distinctly Polish place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The walkability of urban neighbourhoods has emerged as a strong component in policy and design models for active, liveable communities. This paper examines the proposition that more walkable neighbourhoods encourage local social interaction, a sense of community, informal social control and social cohesion; and that the relationship is explained by walking for transport or for recreation. Multilevel analyses of data from an Australian sample showed a modest association between the walkability of a neighbourhood and sense of community only. Walking for transport, but not recreation, mediated this relationship although the effect was small. These results support contentions that 'walkability' is more complex than usually defined and that factors influencing neighbourhood sociability extend beyond issues of urban form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to develop the notion of the 'intercultural' suggested in Caging the Rainbow (Merlan 1998), a book which dealt with the situation of Aboriginal people in a north Australian town. I explore possible implications for this notion of work done in the name of structural history; of some of the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu; and of V.N. Voloshinov (and/or M.M. Bakhtin). All these approaches were developed against the background of structuralism, and all struggle with problems of conceptualizing process and the dynamics of interaction. I suggest that especially Voloshinovian notions of the fundamentally dialogical aspects of interaction offer some interesting perspectives for our treatment of central issues of difference, boundedness and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Australian university campuses are reflecting increased cultural diversity at a time when group work is emphasised as an effective student-centered approach to learning. This paper reports an investigation of differences in rates of verbal interaction by 72 first year male undergraduate engineering students from two ethnic cohorts (Australian-born Anglo-European and overseas-born South East Asian students) during a collaborative group activity. A quantitative methodology was employed. Verbal interactions were recorded under two conditions: mono-ethnic groups containing four students from one ethnic cohort; and bi-ethnic groups made up of two students from each ethnic cohort. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed highly significant differences for the main effects of both Ethnicity and Group Type and also their Interaction. The key finding of this study suggests that the South East Asian students were inhibited in terms of their verbal participation when with Australian students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have investigated how older people themselves conceptualize and talk about what they do with their time. Even fewer have addressed such issues from the perspective of older people whose living arrangements and lifestyles diverge from majority, middle-class pathways. This paper draws on in-depth interview data from the Ageing Men's Health Project, a three-year ethnographic study of the health, housing, and service use of low income, single, non-homeowning men aged 50 years and over, living in the inner city of Sydney, Australia. Among other topics, the men were asked to describe an average day and otherwise elaborate on the everyday circumstances of their lives. Findings highlight the extent to which the men's everyday lives are constrained and curtailed by economic disadvantage and health deficits. At the same time, the men invest their activities with a range of sociocultural meanings that do not always match professionally constructed categories and understandings. In particular, social relationships with other men appear to be central to the meanings they confer on everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that recruitment and promotion within the Australian Public Service (APS) have historically exemplified the practice of 'social closure'. Three periods of AP'S staff selection that correspond to what Halligan and Power identify as the bureaucratist/technicist, administrationist and political management models of executive branch regime are identified. Social closure in each instance was based on educational credentials or lack thereof. These practices have been justified in terms of various 'ideologies of promotion'. Such ideologies tend to reflect the ideal or material interests of social groups rather than the skill requirements of administrative work. The current form of social closure based on economics degrees illustrates this phenomenon. Accordingly, greater recognition of the value of non-economics degrees is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research demonstrates that powerful factors are involved in growing young girls' STEM understandings. The development of a girl's STEM identity relies on interaction with significant adults/others and the availability of a positive STEM learning environment. Undertaking research into bush kinders across 2015–2020, our data highlighted the learning that was occurring for young children four to five years of age. The children's play dynamic was facilitating girls' STEM identities and enabling STEM learning. Applying ethnography to this longitudinal study, data includes researcher observations of children and educators, interviews with educators and educators' noticing. Using vignettes that demonstrate the STEM disciplines the girls were experiencing, we consider the opportunities that exist for girls' development of a STEM identity in this context in Australian early years' education. We argue that Australian bush kinder settings in Australia allow young girls to develop STEM identities through social interactions and that bush kinders act as enablers of STEM learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses findings from a recent survey (n = 297) of teachers' views of both their own and their students' experiences during the 2021 enforced emergency remote schooling period occurring in New South Wales Australia, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The quantitative analysis reported here explores teachers' views regarding teaching and learning during this challenging period. It identifies three latent constructs, learning, assessment, and interaction, and then uses structural equation modelling to identify the perceived impact of these constructs on student and teacher wellbeing. The remote schooling period had a significant negative impact for teachers and their students across a range of elements of teaching and learning, as well as wellbeing. Student learning experiences and their peer interactions were found to be strong predictors of students' wellbeing outcomes. Assessment design and teachers' feedback to students were significant in predicting levels of teacher wellbeing. Future research directions are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During times of prolonged drought and other significant threats to farming viability, the Australian Government provides farm exit support grants which are intended to enable farmers to leave farms that are economically non-viable. This paper focuses on some of the discourses that circulate within farming communities that constitute farmers' decisions to accept exit packages as a moral event. Moral discourses in everyday social interaction and mundane conversation constitute what Lambek (2010) refers to as ‘ordinary ethics’. In farmer narratives, ordinary ethics are enacted through communicative labour to invoke blame about what constitutes a ‘bad’ farmer. Blame is situated as a transgression of rural values and ideals of the ‘respectable’ farmer and the moral standards mobilised for rural citizenship and land husbandry. Understanding these normative discourses and attributions can provide insight into the social and discursive dynamics in rural communities that shape loss of self-worth and provide the conditions for the possibility for distress among farmers who are in the process of deciding to exit farming or who have accepted an exit package. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]