Search

This paper offers a study of the specialist field of the sociology of health and medicine, and examines its institutional development in Australia. A thesis is developed about the relationship between the field and the parent discipline of sociology. The formation of the discipline and the specialist field are proposed to have occurred in stages: the formative years, a period of inter-disciplinarity and collaboration, a stage of intensification and organisation, the years of institutional growth and specialisation, the decade of consolidation and fragmentation, and, its most recent phase, a time of 'new' internationalisation. Moreover, the institutionalisation of the sociology of health and medicine has closely followed the developmental trajectory of its parent discipline, even though its disciplinary boundaries have been, and continue to be, less rigid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the commodification of healthcare in general and of private health in particular, it is difficult not to acknowledge the growing influence of competition and 'the market' in shaping the way that nurses' work is managed by private hospitals and by nurses themselves. This paper explores the discourses shaping nurses' work in private healthcare, drawing upon data from an ethnographic study conducted in one Australian acute care private hospital. The framework for analysis relies on an exploration of the mentalities and governance of nurses' work in such a setting. The study shows how marketing and performance measures are believed to ensure the viability of the enterprise while simultaneously commodifying nurses' caring work. It is this work that remains invisible to the healthcare system and the hospitals where they work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nurse practitioners were introduced into Australia in 1990 to improve access to health care in isolated communities where medical doctors are scarce. The slow uptake of nurse practitioners in these areas has largely been the result of legislation not affording them access to provider numbers through the Medicare Australia Act 1973. This has denied nurse practitioners the opportunity to become primary care providers because they cannot prescribe medications and order diagnostic tests at rebated costs. Recently this Act changed, making provision for nurse practitioners. Ironically the enactment of the new legislation still prevents nurse practitioners from practicing effectively. This paper describes the discursive practices in legislation, driven by traditional power brokers, which perpetuate the traditional role of nurses as care givers and fails to support the evolution of nurse practitioners as care providers. These continued practices effectively prevent nurse practitioners from working to their potential, despite government reassurance under recent health care reform in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2003, avian influenza has recently spread around the world sparking fears of a potential pandemic. As a result of this, a range of explanations and expectations surrounding the phenomenon were generated. Such social representations of disease depict the issue under discussion and frame reactions to the event. This paper explores the social representations surrounding avian influenza in Australia. Methodologically, a textual analysis of media and government documents was conducted in order to uncover the social representations implicit in these accounts. This demonstrated a symbolic framing of avian influenza with reference to the Spanish Influenza pandemic (1918). Analytically, the study draws upon the concepts of social representations from Durkheim and of risk and symbolic risk in the work of Beck. Overall, it is argued that the framing of avian influenza as a risk, mediated through the collective memory of Spanish Influenza, characterised the nature of the social representations surrounding the phenomenon. This resulted in the production of symbolic solutions to the threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Western societies focus considerable policy and media attention on the 'epidemic of childhood obesity'. In this paper we examine the mobilisation of notions of responsibility and consumption in these discussions, and consider the implications they have for women as mothers. In particular, we are interested to explore the potential conflicts mothers face as care providers and nurturers when responsible care is framed as withholding or managing the food consumption of children. We argue that the competing discursive frameworks around mothers' food provision invite further theorisation that explicitly addresses nourishment and consumption as elements of maternal practice and care. We draw on the work of Neysmith and Reitsma-Street (2005) regarding 'provisioning' to undertake a critical examination of the discourses in the 'childhood obesity' epidemic, with particular attention to Australian media and policy discussions. According to Neysmith and Reitsma-Street, mothers are central to social 'provisioning', that is, the labour that secures the necessities of life. This provisioning framework captures paid market work and unpaid caring labour, policy settings and social locations, allowing for a rich conceptualisation of the conditions mothers negotiate as they provide for their children. Taking up the possibilities of this framework, we argue that, insofar as health risks and responsibilities are largely individualised, mothering is framed as primarily about giving, and childhood obesity is considered a disease of affluence and over-consumption, imperatives for maternal provisioning and nurture are potentially in conflict with critiques of consumption and excess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During an Australian qualitative and empirical study looking at lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender client's experiences of counseling, and counselor's experiences of working with minority clients, a large body of unsolicited data emerged related to experiences of religious-based homophobia. Analysis of the data suggests that a lifelong process of posttraumatic recovery for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people follows prior experiences of religious-based homophobia. This paper discusses the sociological debate related to how counselors find themselves at the crossroad between a healthy lifestyle model of homosexuality based in well established contemporary professional ethics versus long standing religious-based attitudes and constraints toward homosexuality. This intersection of conflicting beliefs generates a controversial social and political environment in which counselors must make a basic decision to either support minority clients according to ethical guidelines or to side with socially conservative constructs that, rightly or wrongly, rely largely on Western religious traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through interviews with users and providers of anti-ageing medicine in Australia as well as the analysis of various internet sites, anti-ageing clinics, journals and magazines dealing with anti-ageing medicine, this paper will argue that the anti-ageing industry in Australia is an example of how ‘mediascapes’ operate, seeking in this case to replicate the American model while developing a more localized practice meeting local needs, cultural orientations and regulatory frameworks. The products being studied here include some which have been on the market for many years in the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) industry, but have only recently been rebranded as ‘anti-ageing’. These include vitamins, anti-oxidants, supplements such as beta-carotene, selenium and coenzyme Q10, homeopathic products, exercise and diet programs. Other products that have been recently labelled as ‘anti-ageing’ and are included in this study are hormone therapies, testosterone, melatonin, Human Growth Hormone (HGH), and Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). These products have been previously trialled and used in the treatment of medical problems such as heart disease, sexual dysfunction, cognitive and memory loss problems, and hormonal deficiency. Current medical research on stem cells, particularly embryonic stem cells, has also fallen within the realm of anti-ageing treatments developed from this research area and available primarily in countries with limited regulation and control over the use and availability of embryonic stem cells in the context of the private anti-ageing clinic. The differences and similarities between the practice of anti-ageing medicine in Australia and in America highlight current tensions and correspondences in the manner in which ageing is being constructed, managed and experienced. They are indicative of the impact that social policy directions, regulatory frameworks and economic policies have on the way in which ageing individuals and society at large approach the experience of old age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, fluoridation was first endorsed as an effective, safe and equitable means of improving population oral health over fifty years ago. However, recent opposition to attempts to introduce the measure in several regional Victorian towns has demonstrated that it remains a highly controversial health policy. This paper investigates the history of the Victorian fluoridation debate within a national and international context. It finds that although the evidence concerning fluoridation has advanced considerably, the essential arguments put forward by proponents and opponents have remained largely unchanged over that time. Protagonists incorporate the same scientific evidence yet come to polarised and unshakeable conclusions. I argue that the concept of deep structure ideation is a useful means to understand how this occurs. Furthermore, analysis of the ideas and social processes that determine a partisan position in the fluoridation debate makes this an important case study for approaching other durable scientific controversies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grain & Graze was an innovative, multi-scale, multi-organisational, inter-disciplinary and triple bottom line research, development and extension (RD&E) program conducted to investigate and improve mixed-farming systems in Australia from 2003 to 2008. This paper reports on a sociological evaluation of the program’s institutional arrangements that was undertaken as one of a small number of social research projects within the program. Based on discourse analysis and investigation of participant experiences, it found the program was characterised by two competing views of what the program was or ought to be. Weaving across the program's formal and informal elements and national and regional scales of management, these 'narratives' reflect the program's coexisting 'revolutionary' aspirations and 'organisational' aspirations. Attention to the coexistence of these narratives and the way they were expressed within the program provides insight into the values, complexity and challenges of agricultural RD&E programs. It points to the significance the broader philosophical and governance context has for contemporary agricultural RD&E programs and other public science and sustainable development initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing recognition that investment by governments on children in their early years is an important part of social policy. However there is currently little information either about how much governments invest on children of different ages, or about what the optimum investment in the early years would look like. Using currently available Australian datasets, this article explores two approaches to estimate the adequacy of investment in early childhood; comparing government expenditure between countries, and analysing one country (in this case Australia) in terms of expenditure over time on children of different ages. We find that, overall, Australia spends more than the average of OECD countries on the early years, but that a much higher proportion of this expenditure is spent on cash transfers to parents rather than on early care and education. Furthermore, spending on the early years has grown proportionately to spending on older children over the past several years. The paper ends with a number of suggestions for further research which will refine the analysis of investment in the early years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to debate in Australia about sexuality-based restrictions on access to Assisted Reproduction Services, particularly sperm donation by gay and bi-sexual men. It utilises content analysis of print-media and reveals that the public image of sperm donation is saturated with concern about risk, particularly risk to heterosexual donors and their property, from claims made by recipient women and their children. In contrast, a detailed analysis of the profiles of men who register to donate sperm through the Australian Sperm Donor Registry reveals that most donors are open to identity disclosure. However a marked difference is evident between heterosexual and gay/bisexual donors with the latter being significantly more likely to desire contact with children born of their donations. It appears sperm donation offers gay and bi/sexual men an opportunity for family formation and parenting which is denied by Australian laws and clinical practices that exclude them from Assisted Reproduction Services and adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between the prominent aetiological frameworks for mental illness in Australian psychiatry, and ideas and strategies for preventing mental illness. Data is drawn from the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry for the period 1967-2005, and textbooks used to teach the psychiatric component of the medical degree at six Australian universities since 1950. Content analysis of the journal demonstrates that social aetiological models dominated Australian psychiatry until 1985 and the rise of biological models. This represented a shift in the focus of mental health prevention from the social environment to the individual, and the re-location of psychopathology from social relationships to social and biological risk factors. A consequence of this new focus has been the re-targeting of mental health strategies toward individuals and their exposure to social and biological risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concern over the reliability of conventional poverty studies has focused attention on the need to demonstrate that those identified as poor are actually experiencing hardship. This paper takes a step in this direction by examining poverty using a living standards approach derived from the literature on deprivation and social exclusion. Deprivation - defined as an enforced lack of socially perceived necessities - has emerged as a way of identifying who is missing out on what the community regards as the necessities (or essentials) of life. Social exclusion - which exists when individuals do not participate in key activities in society - has opened up new areas of inquiry relating to a lack of connectedness between individuals, the communities in which they live, and key economic and social processes. The findings indicate that many Australians face deprivation and exclusion in numerous aspects of their lives, and that those defined as poor in income terms are different from those who are deprived or excluded. The low overlap between the three indicators implies that they all have a role to play in documenting the extent of social disadvantage and helping to identify the factors that contribute to its various manifestations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops discourse analysis of Australian press representations of dying during the operation of the Northern Territory of Australia's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995 (McInerney 2006). Operating in tandem, the discourses of aesthetics and embodiment constructed contemporary dying as an intolerable corporeal state. The body in disarray is attractive to media imperatives of drama and crisis, and dominated press reports during the analysed period. Such images functioned as absolute justification for a medicallyinduced requested death. Modern equating of physical integrity and personal dignity supports such responses to dying. The requested death interventions of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide were depicted as halting the physical deteriorations associated with terminal illness and thereby redeeming the dying person, by providing them with the opportunity to reclaim the social status lost via their progressive corporeal decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian sociologists have barely engaged with the resurgence of economic sociology in the USA and Europe. It might be argued that this lack of engagement arises from a robust local agenda, immune from metropolitan fashions This article argues that this is not the case. Rather, it arises from the enduring residualism of Australian sociology vis-a-vis economics In turn, this residualism is grounded in sociology's late beginnings in Australia, the dominant framework at the time of its institutionalization in the 1950s and 1960s, and the limited challenge presented by critical approaches from the 1970s. The article identifies four major lines of inquiry in the resurgence of economic sociology: network analysis, comparative political economy, field theory and performativity theory Notwithstanding their differences, these approaches direct attention to the social construction of markets. In turn, they challenge both mainstream economics and sociology. The papers in this Special Edition of the Journal of Sociology build upon these lines of inquiry in the Australian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Involvement of employees and unions in workplace decision-making has a long history in Australian industrial relations. The mechanism for employee involvement in workplace change was originally set out in the Termination Change and Redundancy (TCR) clause in Australian awards in 1984. It continues to operate under Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBAs), along with other negotiated terms and conditions. EBAs thus represent a source of organizational policy and provide a starting-point to examine institutional processes for employee involvement in workplace change. The higher education sector has undergone significant change over the past two decades, and some have claimed that collegiality has been replaced by an increasing managerialist focus on productivity and efficiency. This paper reports on a longitudinal analysis examining the extent to which the TCR clause has evolved in Australian universities and its implications for change management policy for the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rapid developments in life-prolonging technologies and increases in average life expectancy, euthanasia has become an increasingly topical issue. This paper contributes to the euthanasia debate an analysis of Australian attitudes to assisted suicide, active non-voluntary as well as passive non-voluntary euthanasia. Between 1993 and 2002, Australians supported access to voluntary euthanasia of the terminally ill, but had reservations when death was not imminent. The age of patients was relatively unimportant in these considerations. Non-voluntary euthanasia of babies and adults received widespread approval only when particular situations could be defined as 'letting die' rather than 'killing'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New national and international economic and social forces have reshaped national geographies in general and the characteristics of cities in particular, resulting in a range of diverse social and spatial outcomes. These outcomes, which include greater differentiation across, within and between cities has become a feature of the economic and social forces associated with post-Fordist social structures. Taking localities across Australia's metropolitan regions, this paper develops a typology of advantage and disadvantage using a model-based approach with clustering of data represented by a parameterised Gaussian mixture model and confidence intervals of the means providing a measure of differences between the clusters. The analysis finds seven clusters of localities that represent different aspects of the socio-spatial structure of the metropolitan regions studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of social capital has acquired some currency amongst policy analysts to refer to the social norms, networks and trust that facilitate co-operation and provision of mutual support within or between groups. As yet there is no agreed definition of the concept; however influential Australian policy bodies are developing measures to track changes in social capital and relate these to policy changes. Most research is concerned with exploration of the concept in locality-based communities and its application to developing societies. This paper reviews research undertaken in Australia and overseas to determine the elements of social capital that may have importance in relation to policy development in response to an ageing population. It concludes that the concept could be of considerable value in understanding the determinants of policy success or failure, but that further research is required to understand the nature of social capital as it relates to older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, permanent residents in caravan parks were often absent from discussions about homelessness and housing in the Australian context. When permanent residency was recognised and legislated for in the 1980s, efforts were made to ensure scope for standard community infrastructure such as roads, sewerage and community gathering places. Although the number of long term caravan parks in Australia has recently decreased, on the edge of Melbourne some parks are expanding to cater for a growing clientele reflecting a new and partly de-institutionalised society. This society is characterised by mobile, temporary and casualised work and changing, volatile family relationships; each trend creating a need for different forms of housing. In this paper, preliminary interviews with ten caravan park managers from the outskirts of Melbourne reveal their role in the complex relationship between space, community formation and social solidarity: a relationship which directly impacts on the health and well-being of caravan park residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genetic discrimination, defined as the differential treatment of individuals or their relatives on the basis of actual or presumed genetic differences, is an emerging issue of interest in academic, clinical, social and legal contexts. While its potential significance has been discussed widely, verified empirical data are scarce. Genetic discrimination is a complex phenomenon to describe and investigate, as evidenced by the recent Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry in Australia. The authors research project, which commenced in 2002, aims to document the multiple perspectives and experiences regarding genetic discrimination in Australia and inform future policy development and law reform. Data are being collected from consumers, employers, insurers and the legal system. Attempted verification of alleged accounts of genetic discrimination will be a novel feature of the research. This paper overviews the early stages of the research, including conceptual challenges and their methodological implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital and community capacity have become key concepts in social policy responses to marginalised individuals and communities. Policy making has occurred in the context of heated debate about the roles of government and business institutions in strengthening community capacities. In this paper, we wilt explore theoretical positions about the role that these institutions play in building local social capital. We argue that the dominant conceptions of social capital in Australia fail to recognise the potential for non-local institutions to strengthen local community capacity. Drawing on a study of four geographically diverse communities we show that a substantial proportion of community members were disconnected from non-local government and business institutions. We conclude with some initial suggestions for extending the social capital discourse to recognise and build the role of non-local institutions in strengthening local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses several debates surrounding the reproduction of socio-economic inequality: (i) the persistent inequality thesis, which maintains that despite the increases in educational participation socio-economic inequalities in education have not declined; (ii) the related thesis of maximally maintained inequality, which proposes that socio-economic inequalities decline only when participation levels for the most privileged socio-economic group approach saturation levels; (iii) the meritocracy debate on the importance of ability vis-à-vis socio-economic background and changes in its influence over time; and (iv) the effect of policy changes on socio-economic inequalities in education. These issues are addressed using data from six Australian youth cohorts born between 1961 and the mid-1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the issues facing young Vietnamese who have a sibling with an illicit drug addiction and the coping strategies that they and their families employ. This paper concentrated on the results from interviews/focus groups of Vietnamese parents and young people. There were some areas of commonality between the responses of the parent and youth cohorts. Issues of shame, guilt, grief and lack of support were raised by both groups. The reactions of parents and siblings change over time, as the negative impact of the user's behaviour intensified and family systems become strained. There were significant differences in the responses of the two cohorts in relation to parental behaviour. The youth cohort generally was critical of parental behaviour towards both children who are using illicit drugs and their non-using siblings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of US hate crime legislation reveals a significant overall trend involving: (1) the inclusion of a notion of hate motivation on the part of the offender; (2) the provision for enhanced penalties; and (3) the identification of particular victimized groups who are listed in state and federal hate crime statutes. Whether or not a person is recognized as a hate crime victim in US statutes has been shown to be heavily influenced by the strength of social movements based on politicized identities. It is argued that this alignment problematizes the position of victims who are the targets of hate crimes yet who fail to organize on the basis of identity politics, lack political clout, have insufficient moral status, or who see hate crime legislation as an ineffective way of dealing with their particular concerns. This paper examines the barriers to achieving hate crime victim status for persons who are targeted because of their occupations or sexual orientation. The specific examples I will use are doctors and other workers in abortion clinics, sex workers and paedophiles. These widely disparate groups have been selected as examples to highlight some of the moral status, politicized identity and social movement and lobbying strength issues that are currently involved in being recognized as a victim of hate in the US. It is argued that Australia should not proceed down the track of introducing hate crime legislation. Hate crime legislation is the source of serious social disquiet and acrimony in the US. There are inequities built into the alignment between proving hate intent and the enhanced penalty approach that involve giving higher symbolic status to some bodies and not others. As the experience in the US shows, this has a dangerous potential to undermine social cohesion and community faith in equality before the law as well as creating a breeding ground of resentment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a brief overview of Stephen Crook's scholarly and professional work as a prelude to the articles by Malcolm Waters and Jan Pakulski. His scholarly work particularly focused on the theorization of social differentiation and social order in studies of everyday life. The TASA 2003 Presidential Address is dedicated to the life-work of Stephen Crook. Steve was a prominent figure in Australian sociology and made a significant contribution to the profession over many years. In order to gain a fuller appreciation of Steve's scholarly work, there are no two people better placed to comment than his close friends and colleagues Malcolm Waters and Jan Pakulski. At one stage, all three were in the Department of Sociology at the University of Tasmania, where they co-edited TASA's "Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology" and co-authored the internationally acclaimed book "Postmodernization." Another paper, by Waters, traces the pathway of Steve's intellectual development through three life phases, from Steve's early days in York, to Hobart and then finally to Townsville, explaining the development of his post-foundational approach and highlighting the great promise of Steve's later work on social differentiation and "orderings."