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1
Kendall, Garth Edward. "Children in families in communities : a modified conceptual framework and an analytic strategy for identifying patterns of factors associated with developmental health outcomes in childhood." University of Western Australia. School of Paediatrics and Child Health, 2003. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2004.0006.
Full textAbstract:
Mental health reflects an array of causal influences that span biological, psychological, and social circumstances, with resultant underlying causal pathways to poor mental health outcomes in childhood that are complex. Key features of this complexity are reciprocal interactions between person and environment that take place over time. The core of this thesis seeks to attend to the complexity of development to move the field of developmental health forward toward greater explanation, and more successful prediction and prevention. The focal point of the thesis is the psychosocial determinants of childhood mental health, the resource domain of the developing child, and the interplay between characteristics of the individual child, the family, and the community. The eventual goal is to better understand why and how socioeconomic circumstances impact on developmental health. One component of this thesis focuses on the expansion of extant developmental theory. The other component focuses on the development of an analytic strategy that more appropriately reflects the intricacies of this theoretical expansion. In the process, data are analysed, principally as a heuristic strategy, to illustrate the analytical approach needed to support the theoretical framework. The specification of a bioecological conceptual framework suitable to guide research and policy in developmental health is the first principal objective of the thesis. A critical examination of the resource framework proposed by Brooks-Gunn, Brown, Duncan, and Anderson Moore (1995) reveals it to be centred on family and community resources, but otherwise silent with respect to the physical and psychological resources of the child. The quintessential point of this thesis is that theory in developmental health must be able to account for the contribution individuals make to their own development. A modified resource framework is proposed that acknowledges financial, physical, human, and social capital, within the domains of the individual child, the family, and the community. The second principal objective of the thesis, the development of analytical methods that focus on the individual child and the complexity of data generated by this theoretical approach, is then introduced. Theory and method are thus integrated when comprehensive measures of characteristics in multiple domains across developmental periods are modeled using longitudinal data from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study (Newnham, Evans, Michael, Stanley, & Landau, 1993). The mothers of 2,860 children were enrolled at 18 weeks in pregnancy and the children have been followed at birth, one, two, three, five, and eight years of age. Eighty-nine per cent (2,537 /2,860) of families were available for follow-up at eight and 74 per cent (2,126/2,860) of families responded. Extensive demographic, psychological, and developmental data were available for the children and their families and a limited amount of data were available for the communities in which they reside. A measure of mental health morbidity, the Child Behaviour Checklist (Achenbach, 1991), was available for the children at two, five, and eight years of age. In the first instance, dichotomous summary variables are derived for the demographic, psychological, and developmental variables of interest. Variables are then selected for inclusion in one of several explanatory models. To create a mathematical representation of resource characteristics, the information for each child is concatenated as a series of binary strings. Frequency tabulation is then used to aggregate the data and odds ratios are calculated to determine the degree of risk associated with each string of code, or pattern of factors relative to a nominated mental health outcome. The results provided a scaffold from which this theoretical and analytical approach is compared and contrasted with the reviewed literature. Two principal themes of investigation are pursued. The first theme to be examined is the interplay between characteristics of the child, family, and community and the contribution children make to their own development. The specific approach models the interaction between selected characteristics of the child, family and community in each of four developmentally significant time periods. The theoretical position adopted in the present study suggests that the effect of any personal or contextual factor on later development, if a relationship does truly exist, is most likely to be differential. That is, it is a combination of influences that determines developmental outcomes for children, not any single factor acting independently. The modelling process demonstrates that, for the children involved, personal and contextual factors impact mental health differentially depending on various other individual, family and/or community characteristics. The modelling process identifies patterns of factors that impact relatively small, but significant, numbers of children because the models focus on the effect for individual children rather than the effect for the group. For example, one model suggests that the effect of intra-uterine growth restriction for the group as a whole may be minimal, but the impact for some children could be critical depending on the combination of family and community influences, such as the mothers level of education, the family’s experience of significant life stress, and residence in a relatively disadvantaged community. The second theme to be examined is the possibility that the accumulation of resource deficits or risk characteristics, over time, amplifies the likelihood of mental health problems in childhood. The approach models selected characteristics of the child in each of the four periods of development collectively, and it also models selected characteristics spanning each of the four time periods discretely. The results suggest that latency, pathway, and recency effects may operate simultaneously, and that timing and accumulated burden may both be important determinants of risk. For example, with regard to children whose family experienced life stress, these three effects operated in a systematic way to increase the degree of risk of a mental health problem. In summary, the aggregation of data at the individual level is a productive approach in seeking to explain population level social phenomena. While seemingly paradoxical, the identification of the joint, interactive effects between individual, family, and community characteristics, better allows for the quantification of family and community characteristics operating through multiple causal pathways.
2
Burkett, Danny, and danny burkett@deakin edu au. "Nutrient contribution to hyper-eutrophic wetlands in Perth, Western Australia." Deakin University. School of Life and Environmental Sciences, 2005. http://tux.lib.deakin.edu.au./adt-VDU/public/adt-VDU20071115.082506.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis investigates nutrient contribution to six hyper-eutrophic lakes located within close proximity of each other on the Swan Coastal Plain and 20 kilometres south of the Perth Central Business District, Western Australia. The lakes are located within a mixed land use setting and are under the management of a number of state and local government departments and organisations. These are a number of other lakes on the Swan Coastal Plain for which the majority are less than 3 metres in depth and considered as an expression of the groundwater as their base is below the regional groundwater table throughout most of the year. The limited amount of water quality data available for these six lakes and the surface water and groundwater flowing into them has restricted a thorough understanding of the processes influencing the water quality of the lakes. Various private and public companies and organisations have undertaken studies on some of the individual wetlands and there is a wide difference in scientific opinion as to the major source of the nutrients to those wetlands. These previous studies failed to consider regional surface water and groundwater effects on the nutrient fluxes and they predominantly only investigated single wetland systems. This study attempts for the first time to investigate the regional contribution of nutrients to this system of wetlands existing on the Swan Coastal plain. As such, it also includes new research on the nutrient contribution to some of the remaining wetlands. The research findings indicate that the lake sediments represent a considerable store of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus). These sediments in turn control the nutrient status of the lake's water column. Surface water is found to contribute on an event-basis load of nutrients to the lakes whilst the groundwater surprisingly appears to contribute a comparatively low input of nutrients but governs the water depth. Analysis of the regional groundwater shows efficient denitrifying abilities as a result of denitrifying bacteria and the transport is localised. Management recommendations for the remediation of the social and environmental value of the lakes include treatment of the lakes sediments via chemical bonding or atmospheric oxidation; utilising the regional groundwaters denitrifying abilities to treat the surface water via infiltration basins; and investigating the merits of managed or artificial aquifer recharge (MAR).
3
Lymbery, Jennifer Ann Walters. "Giardia and cryptosporidium infection in childcare centres in Western Australia." Murdoch University, 2004. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20070327.94029.
Full textAbstract:
Giardia and Cryptospovidium are both recognised as important causes of infectious diarrhoea in children worldwide, and childcare centres have been shown to be a major site of infection. The incidence of infectious diarrhoea in children attending childcare centres has been estimated at between two to five times greater than in children cared for at home. Both Giardia and Cryptospovidium have a faecal-oral route of transmission that facilitates their spread in childcare environments, but can also be interrupted through the use of efficient hygiene protocols such as handwashing. Despite their importance as causes of infectious diarrhoea, there are no data on the prevalence or transmission dynamics of these parasites in Australian childcare centres.
The present study was designed to determine the prevalence and incidence of both Giardia and Ciyptosporidium in children attending childcare centres in Perth,Western Australia. Data were collected on asymptomatic infection, seasonal trends, the transmission dynamics of the parasites and risk factors for infection. The second part of the study involved the development, implementation and evaluation of a health intervention package designed to interrupt the transmission of causative organisms of infectious diarrhoea in childcare centres. This intervention was based on appropriate and effective handwashing.
Over a period of 23 months, 1 172 faecal samples were collected from non-toilet-trained children (n=306) attending 14 childcare centres in Perth, Western Australia. Where possible, family and contacts of infected children were also sampled to determine the dynamics of infection in the community. Information on syrnptomology of infections and risk factors for infection was obtained by the administration of a questionnaire to parents of all the children in the study.
Over all the childcare centres in the study, 7.8% of children were positive for Giardia and 10.8% were positive for Cryptosporidiunz. Of these, 37.5% of the Giardia-positive children returned positive samples on two to four occasions, but not always consecutively, suggesting either continuous or repeated infection with the parasite. Only 12% of children who were Cryptosporidiurn-positive were infected for two consecutive months.
The major findings of this study included a significant seasonal peak in the prevalence of both Giardia and Cryptosporidium, with 50% of Giardia and 73% of Cryptosporidiurn infections occurring during the autumn months of March, April and May, and a high proportion of asymptomatic Giardia infections (45%), compared with only 13.5% of asymptomatic Cryptosporidiurn infections.
There was evidence for the transmission of both Giardia and Cryptosporidium infections to household contacts of infected children. Of the children who were found to be positive, faecal samples were also collected from 28 family members of those children with Giardia and from 14 family members of those with Cryptosporidiunz. Of these, 17.9% family members of the children with Giardia and 28.6% of family members of the Cryptosporidiuin children returned positive faecal samples. The only significant risk factor for Giardia infection was the number of adults living in the household, with infection more likely to occur in children who had a greater number of adults in the household. Significant risk factors for Clyptosporidium infection included the age of the child: the mean age of the positive children (20.6 months) was higher than in the negative children (16.6 months), and the length of time enrolled at the centre. Children who were positive had attended for a longer time than those who were negative (1 1.2 and 7.8 months respectively).
These results have important implications for the control of infection with these organisms, both within and beyond childcare centres. Since these parasites can be readily transmitted by an asymptomatic carrier, the high percentage of asymptomatic cases in this study, particularly of Giardia, strengthens the argument for health interventions which are directed at interrupting the trailsmission of the parasite.
A health intervention programme was developed that focused on handwashing procedures and was targeted at the carers, the children and the parents of the children in the centres. It was designed to be a low-cost programme both financially, and in the time and effort required to implement the programme within the childcare centre, to enhance compliance with the intervention. The success of the programme in changing the knowledge, attitudes and practices of carers was evaluated through a pre- and posttest questionnaire. This showed that the programme successfully improved the knowledge of the carers in the test centres in several important areas of infection control. These included knowledge about specific organisms causing infectious diarrhoea in childcare centres, transmission of these by asymptomatic individuals and increased knowledge about effective handwashing technique. Because it has been repeatedly shown that increased knowledge does not always translate into improved practices, and that interventions are not always successful in maintaining an improvement in the desired practices, a subjective evaluation was also performed. This was designed to determine how effective the intervention was perceived to be by the carers themselves, and whether they would continue to use the intervention over time. The results showed that the majority of the carers (>88%) found the intervention appropriate and useful in teaching both the carers and the children within the centres, the importance of handwashing. Twelve months after the intervention had first been implemented, 57% of the centres in the study were still using the intervention at least once per month and a further 2996, while using it less than this, still continued to use it occasionally. This is important information, since an intervention can only be useful if it is actually being used.
4
Reilly, Lucy. "Progressive modification : how parents deal with home schooling their children with intellectual disabilities." University of Western Australia. Graduate School of Education, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0035.
Full textAbstract:
While home schooling is by no means a new phenomenon, the last three decades have seen an increasing trend in the engagement of this educational alternative. In many countries, including Australia, a growing number of families are opting to remove their children from the traditional schooling system for numerous reasons and educate them at home. In response to the recent home schooling movement a research base in this area of education has emerged. However, the majority of research has been undertaken primarily in the United States of America and the United Kingdom, with very few studies having examined home schooling in Australia. The existing corpus of research is also relatively small and incomplete. Also, certain categories of home schoolers and the processes involved in their undertaking of this modern version of a historically enduring educational alternative have been overlooked. In particular, children with disabilities appear to be one of the home schooling groups that have attracted very little research world wide. This group constituted the focus of the study reported in this thesis. Its particular concern was with generating theory regarding how parents deal with educating their children with intellectual disabilities from a home base over a period of one year. Data gathering was largely carried out through individual, face-to-face semi-structured interviewing and participant observation in the interpretivist qualitative research tradition. However, informal interviews, telephone interviews and documents were also used to gather supplementary data for the study. Data were coded and analysed using the open coding method of the grounded theory model and through the development and testing of propositions. The central research question which guided theory generation was as follows: 'How do parents within the Perth metropolitan area in the state of Western Australia deal with educating their children with intellectual disabilities from a home base over a period of one year?' The central proposition of the theory generated is that parents do so through progressive modification and that this involves them progressing through three stages over a period of one year. The first stage is designated the stage of drawing upon readily-available resources. The second stage is designated the stage of drawing upon support networks in a systematic fashion. The third stage is designated the stage of proceeding with confidence on the basis of having a set of principles for establishing a workable pattern of home schooling individualised for each circumstance. This theory provides a new perspective on how parents deal with the home schooling of their children with intellectual disabilities over a period of one year. A number of implications for further theory development, policy and practice are drawn from it. Several recommendations for further research are also made.
5
au, marnev@cygnus uwa edu, and Neville James Green. "Access, equality and opportunity? : the education of Aboriginal children in Western Australia 1840-1978." Murdoch University, 2004. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20071218.141027.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is a history of schooling for Indigenous children in Western Australia between
the commencement of the first Aboriginal school in Perth in 1840 and 1978. The thesis
represents the view that, for most of this period, and regardless of policy, education for
Indigenous children was directed towards changing their beliefs and behaviours from
being distinctly Aboriginal to recognizably European. Four major policies for Aborigines
provide the framework for the thesis, these being amalgamation (1840-1852),
protection (1886-1951), assimilation (1951-1972) and self-determination (1973- ).
The amalgamation of the Indigenous popuIation with the small colonial society in
Western Australia was a short-lived policy adopted by the British Colonial Office.
Protection, a policy formalised by Western Australian legislation in 1886, 1905 and
1936, dominated Aboriginal affairs for the first half of the 2ofh century. Under this policy
the Indigenous population was regarded as two distinct groups - a diminishing traditional
population to be segregated and protected and an increasing part-Aboriginal population
that was to be trained and made 'useful'. In 1951 Western Australia accepted a policy of
assimilation, coordinated by the Commonwealth government, which anticipated that all
people of Aboriginal descent would eventually be assimilated into the mainstream
Australian society. This policy was replaced in 1973 by one of Aboriginal community
self-determination, an initiative of the Commonwealth government and adopted
throughout Australia.
The attempts at directed cultural change were evident in the 'Native' schools that opened
in Perth, Fremantle and Guildford in the 1840s where it was assumed that the separation
of children from their families and a Christian education would achieve the transition
from a 'savage to civilized' state. For another century the education of Indigenous
children on missions and in government settlements was founded upon similar
assumptions. The thesis acknowledges that the principal change agents, such as the Chief
Protectors of Aborigines, mission administrators and the teachers in direct contact with
the children, seriously underestimated both the enduring nature of Indigenous culture and
the prejudice in Australian society.
Between 1912 and 1941 a few government schools in the southern districts of Western
Australia refused to admit Aboriginal children. The exclusion of these children is
examined against a background of impoverished living conditions, restrictive legislation
and mounting public pressure on the State and Commonwealth governments for a change
in policy. The change did not begin to occur until 1951 when the Commonwealth and
States agreed to a policy of assimilation. In Western Australia this policy extended
education to all Aboriginal children. The thesis explores the provision of government
teachers to Aboriginal schools in remote areas of Western Australia between 1951 and
1978. The final chapter examines Indigenous perceptions of independent community
schools within the fust five years of the policy of self-determination and contrasts the
objectives and management of two schools, Strelley in the Pilbara and Oombulguni in
the Kimberley.
6
Millei, Zsuzsa. "A genealogical study of 'the child' as the subject of pre-compulsory education in Western Australia." Millei, Zsuzsa (2007) A genealogical study of 'the child' as the subject of pre-compulsory education in Western Australia. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2007. http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/203/.
Full textAbstract:
The study produces a genealogy of 'the child' as the shifting subject constituted by the confluence of discourses that are utilized by, and surround, Western Australian precompulsory education. The analysis is approached as a genealogy of governmentality building on the work of Foucault and Rose, which enables the consideration of the research question that guides this study: How has 'the child' come to be constituted as a subject of regimes of practices of pre-compulsory education in Western Australia?
This study does not explore how the historical discourses changed in relation to 'the child' as a universal subject of early education, but it examines the multiple ways 'the child' was constituted by these discourses as the subject at which government is to be aimed, and whose characteristics government must harness and instrumentalize. Besides addressing the research question, the study also develops a set of intertwining arguments. In these the author contends that 'the child' is invented through historically contingent ideas about the individual and that the way in which 'the child' is constituted in pre-compulsory education shifts in concert with the changing problematizations about the government of the population and individuals. Further, the study demonstrates the necessity to understand the provision of pre-compulsory education as a political practice.
Looking at pre-compulsory education as a political practice de-stabilizes the takenfor-granted constitutions of 'the child' embedded in present theories, practices and research with children in the field of early childhood education. It also enables the de- and reconstruction of the notions of children's 'participation', 'empowerment' and 'citizenship'. The continuous de- and reconstruction of these notions and the destabilization of the constitutions of 'the child' creates a framework in which improvement is possible, rather than a utopian, wholesale and, thus revolutionary, transformation in early education (Branson and Miller, 1991, p. 187). This study also contributes to the critiques of classroom discipline approaches by reconceptualizing them as technologies of government in order to reveal the power relations they silently wield.
7
Nicholson, Lindsay P. "Educational productivity of an open learning environment within the vocational education and training sector in Western Australia." Curtin University of Technology, Faculty of Education, 1997. http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=11060.
Full textAbstract:
Rapid reform in the vocational education and training sector within Australia has driven the need for a more flexible approach to the delivery of education and training. One facet of such flexibility is Open Learning. Currently there is little research on Open Learning within the training sector on which planning decisions can be based.A model of educational productivity (Walberg,1981) has been proposed in the research literature to investigate relationships between key factors such a student antecedents, learning environments and learning outcomes. The Walberg model has been employed in this current study to explore how these factors may be studied in an Open Learning environment and a more Traditional Learning environment within the vocational education and training sector. The research design is a comparative description, utilising techniques from both quantitative and qualitative paradigms.A major aspect of this current study has been to investigate the constructs proposed by Walberg's Productivity Model and source appropriate instruments to measure these constructs. Where the appropriate instruments were not available, a process of instrument development and validation was conducted.The research has identified Walberg's model as being a valid frame of reference within the Vocational Education and Training sector. As expected, significant differences between the Open Learning environment and the Traditional Learning environment were apparent for the measures of Classroom Environment. Of interest, however, was that the productivity factor of Quantity, for students studying in both learning environments, was shown to have a negative relationship with achievement. While small differences were apparent for other factors, generally, the relationship between productivity factors and educational achievement was seen to be similar for both the Open Learning and the ++Traditional Learning environments.The findings of the study should be of significance to a range of people involved in the Open Learning environment, including decision makers in the areas of educational policy, curriculum design and implementation, administration and teaching.
8
Poulter, Rachel. "Investigating the role of soil constraints on the water balance of some annual and perennial systems in a Mediterranean environment." University of Western Australia. Faculty of Agriculture, 2006. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2006.0018.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis compares the in situ water balance of common annual production systems (wheat, lupin, subclover and serradella) with a grazed perennial system (lucerne) at a site in the Avon Catchment, Western Australia. Using a physically-based water balance approach the value of a plant based solution in redressing the hydrological imbalance that has become a feature of much of the dryland agricultural region of Western Australia is investigated. The effectiveness of lucerne in providing greater available storage for buffering large rainfall events, as compared to the annual systems, is illustrated. Continued transpiration following out-of-season rainfall events maintains a larger available storage capacity. In contrast, the annual systems that are fallow over summer only withdrew a small fraction of water by soil evaporation between rainfall events. Under annual systems, the profile moisture store was sequentially increased to the extent that additional increments of rainfall could potentially contribute to deep drainage. A particular focus of this study has been to investigate the presence of soil constraints to root growth, and to assess how these constraints affect the water balance. A site survey indicated the soil penetration resistance was sufficient to impose a physical constraint to root growth. Published literature on the site shows soil acidity is also at a level imposing chemical constraints to root growth. A root growth model “Rootmodel”, for predicting root growth with and without soil constraints is examined in detail as a method for providing root growth parameters for inclusion into the numerical water balance model, SWIM based on Richard’s equation. Functions developed from “Rootmodel” adequately describe the effect of profile limitations to root growth, such as soil strength, moisture availability and temperature. Recommendations are made for inclusion of a growth suppressing function in “rootmodel” based on the chemical limitation of low pH. The effects of soil acidity on the root growth of several species is investigated experimentally and the resultant root data provided a reference point by which the simplified prediction of root growth built into SWIM could be adjusted using a linear reduction function. A similar linear reduction function is also employed to impose a physical constraint in the form of high penetration resistance.
9
Freemantle, Cecily Jane. "Indicators of infant and childhood mortality for indigenous and non-indigenous infants and children born in Western Australia from 1980 to 1997 inclusive." University of Western Australia. School of Paediatrics and Child Health, 2003. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2003.0020.
Full textAbstract:
[Truncated abstract. Please see pdf format for complete text.] Background : The excess burden of mortality born by young Indigenous Australians and the disparity in infant and childhood mortality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians have been well documented. The accuracy and completeness of national data describing the health of Indigenous Australians is inconsistent. The Western Australia (WA) Maternal and Child Health Research Database (MCHRDB), is a linked total population database that includes perinatal maternal and infant data, and infant and childhood morbidity and mortality data. Overall, these data are more than 99% complete, with a similar high level of completeness and validity for Indigenous Western Australians. Aim : The aim of this thesis is to measure Indigenous infant (0 to <1 year) and childhood (>=1 to <19 years) mortality and the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous infants and children in WA for birth cohorts from 1980 to 1997 inclusive. To achieve this aim a number of secondary aims were identified, including the measurement of certain maternal and infant variables, and the age-specific, all-cause and cause-specific mortality for WA infants and children. Method : The study comprises a longitudinal birth cohort study, the primary data source being the MCHRDB. Data included on the MCHRDB are complete for all births in WA from 1980 onwards, with new birth cohorts linked on an annual basis. Maternal and infant variables and the geographical location of the residence and the time of birth and death were included in the descriptive and multivariate analyses. Each infant and childhood death was coded using a three-digit code developed primarily for research purposes. The descriptive analyses of mortality referred to the probability of dying in infancy and in childhood as the cumulative mortality risk (CMR), for various diseases and various population subgroups. Age-specific childhood rates were also calculated. The results of multivariate analyses included the fitting of Cox and Poisson regression models, and estimates of effect were represented as hazard ratios (Cox regression) and relative rates (Poisson regression). Results : Between 1980 and 1997, births to Indigenous mothers accounted for 6% of total WA births. Approximately 46% of Indigenous births were to mothers living in a remote location compared to 9% of non-Indigenous births. Indigenous mothers gave birth at an earlier age (30% of births were to teenage mothers compared to 6% of non-Indigenous births), and were more likely to be single than non-Indigenous mothers (40% Indigenous, 9% non-Indigenous). Indigenous infants had more siblings, were born at an earlier gestation and with a lower birth weight and percentage of expected birth weight. The CMR for Indigenous infants was 22 per 1000 live births compared with 6.7 for non- Indigenous infants, a relative risk (RR) of 3.3 (95%CI 3.0, 3.6). While there was a decrease in the CMR over the birth year groups for both populations, the disparity between the rate of Indigenous and non-Indigenous infant mortality increased. The Indigenous postneonatal (>28 to 365 days) mortality rate (11.7 per 1,000 neonatal survivors) was higher than the neonatal (0 to 28 days) mortality rate (10.3 per 1,000 live births). This profile differed from that for non-Indigenous infants, where the neonatal mortality rate (4.3 per 1,000 live births) was nearly twice that of the postneonatal mortality rate (2.4 per 1,000 neonatal survivors). The main causes of infant mortality among Indigenous infants were potentially preventable. These causes were infection followed by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), which differed from the main causes for non-Indigenous infants, sequelae of prematurity and birth defects. The CMR attributable to SIDS increased over the years amongst Indigenous infants and decreased significantly over the years in the non-Indigenous population. Furthermore, the disparity in mortality between the two populations increased and, in 1995 to 1997, was over seven times higher amongst Indigenous infants. The CMR was highest amongst infants living in remote locations for all causes of death except for Indigenous deaths attributable to SIDS, where the risk of death was highest amongst infants living in metropolitan locations. With the exception of infection, there was no difference in cause-specific mortality amongst Indigenous infants according to geographical location. Indigenous infants living in a remote location were at a significantly increased risk of death due to infection compared with their peers living in a rural or metropolitan location. The risk of death for Indigenous children was more than three times higher than for non-Indigenous children. This risk was significantly increased when most of the perinatal maternal and infant variables were considered.
10
Jewell, Trevor. "Martu tjitji pakani : Martu child rearing and its implications for the child welfare system." University of Western Australia. Social Work and Social Policy Discipline Group, 2009. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2009.0147.
Full textAbstract:
In this research, I explore my belief that one the reasons for the continuing poor outcomes for Indigenous people was that State-wide and national programs ignored unique local Indigenous culture and did not actively involve local Indigenous people in the development of programs for their area. I chose to examine this perception through investigation of the tension between Indigenous culture and worldview and the dominant White values of the child welfare system (broadly defined), through description of Martu child rearing practices and beliefs in the remote Western Australian town of Wiluna. The Martu live in a remote environment of material poverty, high levels of unemployment, low levels of educational achievement and poor health outcomes. The research sponsored by the Ngangganawili Aboriginal Health Service and located in its Early Childhood Centre, uses an Indigenous research approach based on Brayboy's (2005) TribalCrit to explore Martu child rearing practices, beliefs and values. It uses the stories told by the Martu in Wiluna about the way they and their families were brought up and observations of Martu families to answer research questions around Martu definitions of children and families, their concerns for their children, ways of ensuring the well being of their children, and whether there is a Martu child welfare approach. The research then considers the implications of these Martu practices for the broadly defined child welfare system. The stories told by the Martu show that they have a unique way of bringing up their children that is different to those in the dominant White culture. This uniqueness is derived from a combination of the recent colonisation of the Martu, their culture and their post colonisation experiences. The implications of Martu child rearing for the child welfare system are based on the assumption that Martu are wholly dependent on poorly designed and targeted government provided or funded services, and the current ways of delivering these services is failing the Martu. The research concludes that the key to improving outcomes for Martu children and their families is for the agencies delivering these services to form close working relationships with the Martu; operate within, understand, appreciate, and respect Martu Law and culture; understand their (personal and agency) and Martu post colonisation histories; and allow for Martu control, definition of priorities and development of strategies to address the problems.
11
Davis, Jane. "Longing or belonging? : responses to a 'new' land in southern Western Australia 1829-1907." University of Western Australia. History Discipline Group, 2009. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2009.0137.
Full textAbstract:
While it is now well established that many Europeans were delighted with the landscapes they encountered in colonial Australia, the pioneer narrative that portrays colonists as threatened and alienated by a harsh environment and constantly engaged in battles with the land is still powerful in both scholarly and popular writing. This thesis challenges this dominant narrative and demonstrates that in a remarkably short period of time some colonists developed strong connections with, and even affection for, their 'new' place in Western Australia. Using archival materials for twenty-one colonists who settled in five regions across southern Western Australia from the 1830s to the early 1900s, here this complex process of belonging is unravelled and several key questions are posed: what lenses did the colonists utilise to view the land? How did they use and manage the land? How were issues of class, domesticity and gender roles negotiated in their 'new' environment? What connections did they make with the land? And ultimately, to what extent did they feel a sense of belonging in the Colony? I argue that although utilitarian approaches to the land are evident, this was not the only way colonists viewed the land; for example, they often used the picturesque to express delight and charm. Gender roles and ideas of class were modified as men, as well as women, worked in the home and planted flower gardens, and both men and women carried out tasks that in their households in England and Ireland, would have been done by servants. Thus, the demarcation of activities that were traditionally for men, women and servants became less distinct and amplified their connection to place. Boundaries between the colonists' domestic space and the wider environments also became more permeable as women ventured beyond their houses and gardens to explore and journey through the landscapes. The selected colonists had romantic ideas of nature and wilderness, that in the British middle and upper-middle class were associated with being removed from the land, but in colonial Western Australia many of them were intimately engaged with it. Through their interactions with the land and connections they made with their social networks, most of these colonists developed an attachment for their 'new' place and called it home; they belonged there.
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au, Zsuzsanna Millei@newcastle edu, and Zsuzsa Millei. "A genealogical study of the child as the subject of pre-compulsory education in Western Australia." Murdoch University, 2007. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20081002.80627.
Full textAbstract:
The study produces a genealogy of the child as the shifting subject constituted by the confluence of discourses that are utilized by, and surround, Western Australian precompulsory education. The analysis is approached as a genealogy of governmentality building on the work of Foucault and Rose, which enables the consideration of the research question that guides this study: How has the child come to be constituted as a subject of regimes of practices of pre-compulsory education in Western Australia?
This study does not explore how the historical discourses changed in relation to the child as a universal subject of early education, but it examines the multiple ways the child was constituted by these discourses as the subject at which government is to be aimed, and whose characteristics government must harness and instrumentalize. Besides addressing the research question, the study also develops a set of intertwining arguments. In these the author contends that the child is invented through historically contingent ideas about the individual and that the way in which the child is constituted in pre-compulsory education shifts in concert with the changing problematizations about the government of the population and individuals. Further, the study demonstrates the necessity to understand the provision of pre-compulsory education as a political practice.
Looking at pre-compulsory education as a political practice de-stabilizes the takenfor-granted constitutions of the child embedded in present theories, practices and research with children in the field of early childhood education. It also enables the de- and reconstruction of the notions of childrens participation, empowerment and citizenship. The continuous de- and reconstruction of these notions and the destabilization of the constitutions of the child creates a framework in which improvement is possible, rather than a utopian, wholesale and, thus revolutionary, transformation in early education (Branson & Miller, 1991, p. 187). This study also contributes to the critiques of classroom discipline approaches by reconceptualizing them as technologies of government in order to reveal the power relations they silently wield.
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Danaher, Patrick Alan, and danaher@usq edu au. "Learning on the Run: Traveller Education for Itinerant Show Children in Coastal and Western Queensland." Central Queensland University. Education and Innovation, 2001. http://library-resources.cqu.edu.au./thesis/adt-QCQU/public/adt-QCQU20060830.110820.
Full textAbstract:
Learning on the Run refers to the educational experiences of the primary
school children travelling along the agricultural show circuits in coastal and
western Queensland. This thesis examines those educational experiences by
drawing on the voices of the show children, their parents, their home tutors
and their teachers from the Brisbane School of Distance Education, which
from 1989 to 1999 implemented a specialised program of Traveller education
for these children (in 2000 a separate school was established for them).
The thesis focusses on the interplay among marginalisation, resistance
and transformation in the spaces of the show peoples itinerancy. It deploys
Michel de Certeaus (1984, 1986) concept of tactics of consumption and
Mikhail Bakhtins (1986a) notions of outsiddness and creative understanding
to interrogate the show peoples engagement with their absence of
place, the construction of their otherness and forms of seemingly
unproblematic knowledge about their schooling. Data gathering techniques
included semi-structured interviews with forty-two people between 1992 and
2000 in seven sites in Queensland - Mackay, Bundaberg (over two years),
Emerald, Brisbane, Rockhampton and Yeppoon - and document collection.
The thesiss major finding is that the show peoples resistance and
transformation of their marginalising experiences have enabled them to initiate
and implement a significant counternarrative to the traditional narrative (and
associated stereotypes) attending their itinerancy. This counternarrative has
underpinned a fundamental change in their schooling provision, from a
structure that worked to marginalise and disempower them to a specialised
form of Traveller education. This change contributes crucially to understanding
and theorising the spaces of itinerancy, and highlights the broader
significance of the Queensland show peoples learning on the run.
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Dahari, Zainurin. "The effect of price and health information in shifting young children [sic] preference towards healthier food." UWA Business School, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0011.
Full textAbstract:
Young children have becoming an important target by marketers. Marketers have used many strategies to influence their food choices including advertising and free gifts. According to literature, young children, are cognitively vulnerable and may make unhealthy decisions about their food choices that could lead to serious problems associated with being overweight and obese. This thesis examines whether price and health claim information can shift young childrens' choices towards healthier foods. Most of the previous published research literature has focused on adults. Those findings, using surveys and experiments, suggest that adults' food preferences and choices can be influenced by setting price and by providing health information. These findings suggest that these strategies may have a potential effect in young children decision making. The literature on Children Socialization and Information Processing Theory in consumer behaviour suggests that most young children under 8 are not cognitively skilled to use price and health claim information for their decision making. Nonetheless, most 5 to 8 year olds are making purchases of food at their school canteen several times a week. In order to test for the effects of price and nutrition information, several experiments that used discrete choice modelling were conducted to determine their choices, the reliability of their choices and the between their experimental choice behaviour and their choice in the market place. More than one hundred young children, aged from five to eight years old, completed the discrete choice experiments conducted in two primary schools in the suburbs of Perth. The choice experiments on subjects that had previous experience with the food items, but did not know their relative nutritional value, showed a strong positive effect of price. In other words, higher priced options were often in more demand. Although this may appear a poor response to price by an observer, children have little knowledge of food costs, so they may use price as a surrogate for quality. Price level was also a main effect in reducing the share of unhealthy choices. The results of the analyses also show that young children can provide reliable choice decisions within 5 months of experiment. However, their experimental choices were not associated with their later choices in the canteen. These findings provide evidence of the effectiveness of price and health claim information in changing young childrens' preference toward healthy choices, and the potential usefulness of using discrete choice techniques to shift children to more healthy food options.
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McGowan, Wayne S. "Thinking about the responsible parent : freedom and educating the child in Western Australia." University of Western Australia. Graduate School of Education, 2004. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2005.0014.
Full textAbstract:
This study is concerned with how educational legislation shapes and uses freedom for the purpose of governing the parent. The key question guiding the study was: How does the Act constitute the ‘parent’ as a subject position responsible for schooling the child? Central to the work is an examination of the School Education Act 1999 (the Act) using Foucault’s thinking on governmentality. This is prefaced by historical accounts that bring together freedom and childhood as contrived styles of conduct that provide the governmental logic behind the Act. The study reveals how the Act shapes and uses the truth of freedom/childhood to construct the responsible parent as a style of conduct pegged to a neo-liberal political rationality of government. It is this political rationality that provides the node or point of encounter between the technologies of power and the self within the Act which forms the ‘responsible’ identity of the parent as an active self-governing entrepreneur made more visible by the political construction of ‘others.’ This is a legal-political subjectivity centred on the truth of freedom/childhood and a neo-liberal rationality of government that believes that any change to our current ethical way of being in relation to educating the child would ruin the very freedoms upon which our civilised lifestyle depends. In essence, the Act relies on the production of ‘others’ as the poor, Aboriginal and radical who must be regulated and made autonomous to constitute the ‘parent’ as an active consumer whose autonomous educational choices are an expression of responsibility in relation to schooling the child
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Cordin, Robin M. "Psychopathic-like-traits and aggression in suspended mainstream school children and adolescents." University of Western Australia. Graduate School of Education, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0100.
Full textAbstract:
[Truncated abstract] The overall aim of the research reported in this thesis was to explore the viability and utility of the construct of psychopathy and aggression in children and adolescents. Specifically, by taking a developmentally informed approach it sought to develop new instrumentation which measured psychopathic-like-traits, and verbal proactive and reactive aggression in non-referred mainstream school children and adolescents. To achieve this, four separate yet interrelated studies were conducted. Study One comprised three phases relating to the development and validation of two new instruments. In Phase One the instruments currently used to measure psychopathy were reviewed and items relevant to young persons were selected for inclusion in a draft version of the new psychopathy screening instrument. Phase Two, which sought to further explore the construct of psychopathy in children and adolescents, comprised a series of interviews with school principals, deputy principals, psychologists, and education officers at the main juvenile detention centre in Perth, Western Australia. These interviews provided information relating to the behaviour and characteristics of children and adolescents who present with psychopathic-like-traits. As a consequence of the feedback from the Phase Two data, Phase Three reviewed the instrumentation currently used to measure aggression in children and adolescents. From this items were selected for possible inclusion in an aggression questionnaire. The data gathered over these three phases resulted in 117 psychopathy related items being generated for the new instrument, which were subsequently reduced to 56 when duplicated items were identified and the extant knowledge of the construct applied. The 56 items were retained in a draft version of the newly developed instrument, which was named the Child and Adolescent Psychopathy Screening Instrument (CAPSI). The Study One data revealed the instrumentation used to date provided few measures of physical and verbal aggression - a characteristic of psychopathic-like behaviour. Thus, a review of instrumentation together with the information from the interviews resulted in 63 aggression items being generated. ... Study Four utilised information from the CAPSI and the CASA in conjunction with in-depth interviews to generate case studies to further elucidate the characteristics of children and adolescents with psychopathic-like-traits and extreme aggression. Case studies were undertaken with seven male students ranging in age from 8 to 15 years who had been suspended from mainstream schools. All boys scored very highly on the new instruments. All presented with extreme aggression, with some exhibiting proactive or premeditated aggression combined with a superficially engaging personality, insincere charm, lack of remorse, and lack of empathy. The findings from all four research studies are discussed in the light of the literature reviewed and the aims of the research. Implications are then drawn for researchers and clinicians, and directions for further research are suggested.
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Learnihan, Vincent B. "The physical environment as an influence of walking in the neighbourhood : objective measurement and validation." University of Western Australia. School of Population Health, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0033.
Full textAbstract:
Over the last decade, there has been rapid growth in research into the influence of the physical environment on physical activity. Previously, individual and social factors dominated research into the influences of physical activity. This new area of study has been built on the understanding that the physical environment may create an opportunity or a barrier to engagement in physical activity behaviours (Sallis & Owen, 1997). This research develops objectively measured features of the physical environment in order to investigate relationships with walking behaviour. Public health research of this nature is still at a preliminary stage, although research expertise outside of public health including transportation, urban planning and geographic information science has much to contribute to this emerging field. This study investigated walking in the neighbourhood in a sample of adults residing in Perth, Western Australia. Objective measurement of the physical environment using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was conducted including measurement of street connectivity, residential density, land use mix and retail floor area ratio at three different geographic scales (suburb, census collection district, 15 minute walk from a survey participants home). These measures were then combined into an index known as a walkability index and validated against survey participant reported data on walking within the neighbourhood using binary logistic regression. Among other findings, the evidence presented shows that depending on which geographic scale the physical environment is measured at and what type of walking in the neighbourhood is reported, the strength of relationship varies between an objectively measured walkability index and walking behaviour in the neighbourhood. These findings highlight the need to differentiate between walking for transport and walking for recreation, health and exercise when investigating the relationship between physical activity and the environment. These findings also show the importance of geographic scale of measurement in the relationship between physical activity and the physical environment, and the need for current high quality geographic data in this type of research.
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Macdonald, Winifred L. "English speaking migrant children in educational and cultural transition." Curtin University of Technology, Faculty of Education, 1998. http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=10503.
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The purpose of the research was to investigate whether cultural dissonance was experienced by a group of migrant students during educational and cultural transition to new education systems which shared cultural markers of language and ethnicity. Cultural dissonance is defined in this study as:A sense of discord or disharmony, experienced by participants in cultural change where cultural differences are found to occur which are unexpected, unexplained and therefore difficult to negotiate and which inhibit behavioural adaptation.The study utilised case histories of children from forty-seven families. The respondents in the research were the children's parents. The families had emigrated from the United Kingdom to Western Australia during the period 1985-1995.The families reported receiving little information about education systems in Western Australia prior to migration. In the post-migration period, little official information was provided at system or at school level. Because placing the children in schools was a priority for the families, encounters with Western Australian education systems took place within a few weeks of their arrival as migrants.This lack of prior information meant that cultural differences in educational provision were unexpected and unexplained. In particular, families encountered unexpected problems in the appropriate placement of their children in Western Australian schools. Accented English and differences in word usage led to unexpected rejection and teasing. The perceived failure on the part of schools to address these and other differences caused confrontations between parents and many schools and disrupted the children's educational progress. These discordant experiences and difficulties led to what, in this study, is characterised as cultural dissonance.The implications for the study are discussed on two levels. With particular ++reference to Western Australian education systems, the lack of induction policies for English-speaking migrant children was apparent. There appeared to be no system or school level guidelines which mandated the use of printed matter, provided at State system level to address these difficulties. The schools were not seen to make good use of the information parents provided about the children's educational stages. The intervention of teachers at classroom level to discourage teasing was seen as ineffective and in two cases teachers contributed to the problems being encountered.On a more general level, the study has implications for attitudinal change within Australian society towards the reception of skilled and financially secure migrant new criteria for entry to Australia have implications for the socio-economic status of potential migrants. The self-identity of these families is influenced by their status in the social hierarchies of their country-of origin. Skilled and professional families are likely to resist policies for their children's induction being seen as a low priority in Western Australian schools simply because of the child's migrant status.The research findings gave rise to recommendations that:Information of education systems in Western Australia should be made available to all intending migrant families with children.Induction policies for all migrant children should be in place and be utilised in Western Australian schools.The formulation of policy takes account of the effects of changes to migrant socio- economic status, brought about by the changes to the criteria for entry to Australia.The study concluded that shared markers of language and ethnicity were not sufficient to ensure that the cultural differences in education systems were not experienced by the families. A lack of prior information on those differences and a lack of induction ++
policies for the children led to difficulties and to experiences of cultural dissonance for the families.
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Brown, Sarah. "Imagining 'environment' in Australian suburbia : an environmental history of the suburban landscapes of Canberra and Perth, 1946-1996." University of Western Australia. School of Humanities, 2009. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2009.0094.
Full textAbstract:
Australia is a suburban nation. Today, with increasing concern regarding the sustainability of cities, an appreciation of the complexities of Australian suburbia is critical to the debate about urban futures. As a built environment and a cultural phenomenon, the Australian suburbs have inspired considerable scholarly literature. Yet to date, such scholarly work has largely overlooked the changing environmental values and visions of those shaping and residing within suburban landscapes, and the practices through which such values and visions are materialised in the processes of suburban development. Focusing on the post-war suburban landscapes of Canberra and Perth, this thesis centralises the environmental, political and economic forces that have shaped human action to construct suburban spaces, paying particular attention to the extent to which individual understandings and visions of 'environment' have determined the shape and nature of suburban development. Specifically, it examines how those operating within Australias suburbs, including planners, developers, builders, landscape designers and residents have imagined the 'environment', and how such imaginaries have shifted in response to varying spatial, temporal and ideological contexts. Tracing the shifting nature of environmental concern throughout the mid-to-late twentieth century, it argues that despite the somewhat unsustainable nature of Australia's suburban landscapes, the planning and development of such landscapes has long been influenced by and has responded to differing understandings of 'environment', which themselves are the product of changing social, political and economic concerns. In doing so, this thesis challenges a number of perceptions concerning Australian suburbs, environmental awareness and sustainability. In particular, it contests the assumption that environmental concern for Australia's suburban development emerged with the urban consolidation debates of the 1980s and 1990s, and analyses a range of environmental sensibilities not often acknowledged in current histories of Australian environmentalism. By examining, for example, how the deterministic and economic concerns of differing planning bodies, along with the aesthetic and ecological concerns of various planners, are intertwined with the housing and domestic lifestyle preferences of suburban homeowners, this history brings to the fore the often conflicting environmental ideas and practices that arise in the course of suburban development, and provides a more nuanced history of the diversity of environmental sensibilities. In sum, this thesis enhances our understandings of the changing nature of environmental concern and illuminates the complex, still largely misunderstood, environmental ideas and practices that arise in the processes of suburban development.
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Price, Gary Norman. "Assessing the growth performance of European olive (Olea europea L.) on Mount Weld pastoral station." Curtin University of Technology, Department of Environmental Biology, 2006. http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=17424.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis describes the growth of European olive (Olea europaea L.) at three different trial sites located near Laverton, in the north-eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia. The local region comprises part ofthe rangelands area of Australia and has a semi-arid climate. The initial reason for planting olives was indirectly related to the rapid decrease in the local population and the economic downturn that resulted within that community during the late 1990's. This prompted an investigation into other possibilities for economic diversity for remote communities such as Laverton, which are located in the rangelands area of Australia. In Australia, much of the southern and eastern areas of the country have similar climate to traditional olive growing areas in Europe. [n the rangelands however, the environment is different to most other areas in the world where olive trees are grown and there is a notable absence of a commercial olive industry. Whilst locally, individual trees were also observed to be growing well and fruiting abundantly, it is not known whether it is possible to grow olive trees successfully on a commercial scale. Two preliminary trials were established in an ad-hoc manner, to examine whether olive trees could be grown successfully in the rangelands environment. Eighty-eight trees of 5 different cultivars were planted on a shallow, clay soil profile at the first trial site. Ninety-eight trees of 11 different cultivar were planted on a deep sand soil profile at the second site. Higher mortality rate occurred at the first site, with most tree deaths being recorded in the first two years. Peak growth of branch tips occurred during the spring-summer seasons at both sites. Differences in trial design and timing of planting prevented statistical comparison of growth performance between sites however.A third olive trial, consisting of 3 olive groves was established according to randomised design. In the north and middle groves, 54 trees of 3 different cultivar were planted on a deep alluvial soil profile. In the south grove, 53 trees of 3 different cultivar were planted on a shallow clay soil profile. High mortality rates were recorded at all 3 groves during the first year, as a result of high salinity levels in irrigation water during the establishment period. Overall, most tree mortality was recorded at the south grove. Significantly higher growth performance occurred within the deeper alluvial soil profile at the north and middle groves, compared to the shallow clay soil profile in the south grove. Negligible olive fruit production occurred at the first site. At the second site, small quantities of olive fruit were produced during some seasons only. No olive fruit production occurred at any grove at the randomized site. Successful fruit formation appears directly related to tree health, as a function of water supply. Ripening of olive fruit occurred earlier than at other more temperate olive growing areas of Australia. Similar major and trace element deficiencies occurred at all sites, interpreted to be a function of universal alkaline ground-water conditions.
This study failed to confirm conclusively, whether European olive could be grown successfully in the semi-arid climate, typical of much of the rangelands area of Australia. As a result of the study however, successful growth in this environment is confirmed to be highly dependent on three factors. Firstly, availability of reliable irrigation waters of sufficient quality. Secondly, choice of suitable soil types. Thirdly, selection of suitable cultivars. Quality of olive oil produced from fruit appears to be influenced by local climatic factors The study also highlighted the issues of land tenure, current management attitudes and level of support within the local community as having a direct and significant impact on the trial.
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Strange, Cecily. "The relationship of psycho-social factors to swimming competency and attendance at swimming programs among year seven students." University of Western Australia. School of Human Movement and Exercise Science, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0041.
Full textAbstract:
Children in upper primary school who have not made progress along the Swimming and Water Safety Continuum may be at a greater risk in an aquatic environment because they have not developed the swimming competency, endurance and skills needed for survival in threatening aquatic situations. Three groups representing different socio-economic and geographical areas were selected to explore the relationships between psycho-social factors and the development of swimming ability among year seven students. Two groups from lower socio-economic areas were chosen. The first group was directly on the coast with easy access to the beach, while the second group was inland in the foothills of Perth. As higher socio-economic areas in Perth are generally not far from the coast only one group from a higher socio-economic coastal area was chosen. The participants were 540 year seven students, 282 of whom were males and 258 of whom were females. The primary variable of interest was the current swimming stage of year seven participants, and the differences between genders and/or locality groups. The primary research questions investigated differences between locality groups and/or genders for; a) perceived athletic competence and global self-worth, b) perceived swimming competency, confidence in deep water and importance placed on learning to swim well. c) perceived social support for sport and swimming activities and d) attendance at Interm, Vacswim and other swimming programs and aquatic venue experience. Relationships between swimming stage and the above variables were analysed. The secondary research questions investigated the most frequent reasons given by the students for not attending or discontinuing participation inVacswim, and whether there were differences between locality groups or genders. Findings indicated that the lower socio-economic groups had a significantly lower swimming stage and lower perceived self-worth than the higher socioeconomic group. Students from the lower socio-economic inland area had the lowest mean swimming stage as well as lower perceived social support for sport and swimming than either of the other two groups in the study. The two lower socioeconomic groups also attended less swimming instruction and placed less emphasis on the importance of learning to swim well than the higher socio-economic group. Despite these findings, the lower socio-economic groups did not view themselves as any less able in terms of athletic and swimming competence. However, as the two lower socio-economic groups have not progressed along the Swimming and Water Safety Continuum to the 'desirable standards' of the RLSSA (1999), these groups could be viewed as at-risk in an aquatic environment. At the same time, there was evidence that attendance at Interm along with attendance at another swimming program enabled participants to reach the 'desirable standards' of the RLSSA (1999). Girls generally had a higher swimming stage than boys in the lower socio-economic areas, attended year seven Interm and Vacswim more than boys, reported more social support for sport and swimming, and placed more emphasis on the importance of learning to swim well than boys. While many of these relationships between swimming stage and psycho-social factors have been intuitively accepted within the swimming teaching industry, we now have a better understanding of the strength and direction of these relationships.
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Prow, Natalie A. "Epidemiology of Ross River virus in the south-west of Western Australia and an assessment of genotype involvement in Ross River virus pathogenesis." University of Western Australia. Microbiology and Immunology Discipline Group, 2006. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2006.0132.
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[Truncated abstract] Ross River virus (RRV) causes the most common arboviral disease in Australia, with approximately 5000 new cases reported each year, making this virus a major public health concern. The aim of this thesis was to link results from virological, pathogenesis and epidemiological studies to further define RRV disease in the south-west (SW) of Western Australia (WA), a region of endemic and epizootic RRV activity. A crosssectional seroprevalence study was used to show that 7.8 percent of SW communities were seropositive to RRV, comparable to other regions of Australia with similar temperate climates to the SW . . . RRV-specific IgM antibodies were found to persist for at least two years following RRV infection. A murine model was used to conclusively show differences in pathogenesis between RRV genotypes, the SW and northern-eastern (NE) genotypes, which are known to circulate throughout Australia. The SW genotype, unique to the SW of WA induced only poor neutralising antibody production and nonneutralising antibodies after the acute phase of infection. In comparison, the NE genotype which currently predominates in mosquito populations in the SW of WA, induced the most efficient neutralising antibody response and consequently produced the mildest disease in the mouse. These data in the mouse suggest that the infecting genotype will mostly likely influence disease outcome in humans and could at least partially explain why more severe and persistent disease has been reported from the SW of WA. Collectively, results from this thesis provide an important benchmark against which future investigations into BFV and RRV diseases can be measured.
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White, Philippa Anne Reynolds. "Representations of children in a monopoly print medium." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0104.
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This research explores the representation of children and young people in a newspaper. The objective was to develop a 'case study' profile of representations in a monopoly daily newspaper in a geographically-isolated Australian capital city. News content with a primary focus on people aged zero to eighteen years was collected for a 12-month period, and analysed from a constructionist perspective, using agenda-setting, news source, media framing and critical linguistics media analysis techniques. Distinctive features of the research design include the combination of these four analytic techniques and the breadth of the age cohort in the research sample. A large body of research literature is used to 'benchmark' the primary analysis of data, and to inform the analyses of age, 'race' and gender. These data are consolidated in three thematic frames: the Promotional Child, Victim Child and Deviant Child, which underpin the aggregated profile of representations developed in this research. Numerous images are reproduced from the research sample and appear throughout the thesis, embedded in relevant discussions. The concluding chapter of the thesis foregrounds a perception of children as voiceless, vulnerable and violent characters, featured in a discourse on social control. Key observations highlighted in this research include disparities in the degree of overt vernacular criticism applied to children and other minority population groups; and the over-representation of marginalised cohorts in compromising newspaper images. The extensive use of children in promotional contexts appears to be partially obscured by the altruistic function of non-commercial promotions and advocacy campaigns. 'Collisions' between altruistic values and news values were found to be predictive of outcomes coinciding with the interests of a target audience; negative outcomes for socially disadvantaged children; and consistent 'collateral benefits' for the news medium seemingly regardless of outcomes experienced by other stakeholders.
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Marshall, Anne. "Ngaparti-ngaparti ecologies of performance in Central Australia : comparative studies in the ecologies of Aboriginal-Australian and European-Australian performances with specific focus on the relationship of context, place, physical environment, and personal experience. /." View thesis, 2001. http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/public/adt-NUWS20040804.155726/index.html.
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Carstens, Carin. "Youth culture and discipline at a school in the Western Cape." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/80048.
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Thesis (MEd)--Stellenbosch University, 2013.Bibliography
Internationally, contemporary youth struggle to make sense or meaning of their lives. That is so because they live in a world where they daily witness unsolvable problems of struggling economies, poverty, HIV, and religious and national conflict, and where they are generally treated with ambivalence and a threat to the existing social order. Youth also struggle because within the public imagination they exist on the fringe of society. Giroux (2012: 2) argues that youth are given few spaces where “they can recognise themselves outside of the needs, values, and desires preferred by the marketplace” and are mostly subjected to punitive and zero tolerance approaches when they behave in unacceptable ways. In South Africa presently, it is generally claimed that “discipline problems” amongst youth have become the most endemic problem in South African schools, with policy makers and educators daily complaining about the disciplinary problems within schools that affect how learners engage with learning. Equally, discipline as punitive coercion has been shown to be an unsuccessful educational method in dealing with youth (Porteus & Vally 1999). With the above schooling challenge in mind, this qualitative study explored the views of thirteen young learners at Avondale High School in the Western Cape on school discipline. Via semi-structured interviews, the youth were asked about their understandings of the rules, disciplinary structures, forms of authority and order at the school, how they interpreted the role of discipline, and how they thought this would influence the futures awaiting them. The goal of the study was to provide a multi-dimensional view of what youth regarded as discipline at one school, and to explore whether different learners adopted different meanings of ‘discipline’ according to the context of their individual lives. I show in the study - utilising the views of Emile Durkheim, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu - that school discipline needs to be thought of as more than punishment or structures of ordering per se if it is to play a productive role in the functioning of schools. Along with Yang (2009: 49) I suggest that only when schools recognise that discipline has multiple meanings and (limited) roles within their daily functioning, will the emancipatory and transformative possibilities of school discipline be unlocked. For that to happen, the voices and views of youth in schools have to be taken account of, and meaningful relationships developed between learners, educators, and school management.
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Biddulph, Thomas Benjamin. "Mechanisms of dormancy, preharvest sprouting tolerance and how they are influenced by the environment during grain filling and maturation in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)." University of Western Australia. School of Plant Biology, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2007.0168.
Full textAbstract:
[Truncated abstract] Wheat is the main crop in Australia and there are stringent quality requirements. Preharvest sprouting induced by rainfall between maturity and harvest lowers grain quality from premium to feed grades and reduces yield. Wheat production has expanded into the southern Western Australian region where preharvest sprouting occurs in ~1 in 4 seasons and development of more preharvest sprouting tolerant genotypes is required. The main mechanism for improving preharvest sprouting tolerance is grain dormancy. There is genetic variation for dormancy based in the embryo and seed coat but dormancy is complex and is influenced by environmental conditions during grain filling and maturation. Screening and selecting for preharvest sprouting tolerance is problematic and the level of tolerance needed for regions which differ in the level of dormancy they impose, requires clarification. The research presented here aims to answer the underlying question for breeders of how much dormancy is required for preharvest sprouting tolerance in contrasting target environments of the central and coastal wheat belt regions of Western Australia. In the central and coastal wheat belt regions, field trials with modified environments were used to determine the environmental influence on dormancy. Water supply (without directly wetting the grain) and air temperature were modified during grain development in a range of genotypes with different mechanisms of dormancy to determine the influence of environment on dormancy. ... Genotypes with embryo dormancy were consistently the most preharvest sprouting tolerant, even though this dormancy was influenced by the environmental conditions in the different seasons. Pyramiding the embryo component with the specific seed coat component and/or awnless head trait removed some of the environmental variation in preharvest sprouting tolerance, but this was generally considered excessive to the environmental requirements. The methods developed here, of field imposed stresses may provide a valuable tool to further understand the influence of environment on the regulation of dormancy, as different phenotypes can be made with the same genotype. Moisture stress, sudden changes in water supply or high temperatures during the late dough stages influenced dormancy phenotype and should be considered and avoided if possible when selecting locations and running trials for screening for genetic differences in preharvest sprouting tolerance. In the Western Australian context, the embryo component of dormancy appeared to be sufficient and should be adopted as the most important trait for breeding for preharvest sprouting tolerance.
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Deverell, Marie. "Risk factors for persistent asthma in adolescents : a community based longitudinal birth cohort." University of Western Australia. School of Paediatrics and Child Health, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2007.0171.
Full textAbstract:
[Truncated abstract] Asthma is a chronic and complex disorder and despite our increase in the understanding of the genetics, pathology and mechanisms underlying asthma a gold standard definition of asthma does not exist. A criterion for recognising and diagnosing asthma in epidemiological studies is crucial in order to determine risk factors for disease. Prospective longitudinal birth cohort studies have increased our understanding of the natural history and risk factors for asthma, yet we are still not able to accurately predict which children will go on to have asthma as adults. It is during the transition from childhood to adolescence where factors underlying asthma change and the prevalence of asthma shifts between the sexes. There are inconsistencies regarding risk factors for the development and persistence of disease during this transitional period. Risk factors predicting the development and persistence of asthma and intermediate phenotypes (BHR, airway inflammation and atopy) may be influenced by gender and risk factors predicting disease may differ between childhood and adolescence. Aims 1. To identify risk factors for Asthma, BHR and Atopy at 14yrs of age. 2. To determine risk factors for persistence of asthma between 6 and 14 years. 3. To examine the influence of gender on risk factors during adolescence. Method The West Australian Pregnancy Cohort is a longitudinal birth cohort. The cohort initially consisted of 2868 live births with follow-ups at 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10 and 14 years of V age. ... Strong associations were seen with BHR and new diagnosis of wheeze and asthma in VI teenagers. Interestingly having either a cat or dog inside was protective for persistence of disease; in particular stronger associations were seen in teenage girls not in boys. During this transitional period the risk factors for asthma and intermediate phenotypes differ between the sexes. Different mechanisms are likely to be involved in determining asthma in boys and girls during adolescence and shed new light on the recognised switch in the gender balance in asthma prevalence from the male predominance in childhood to the female predominance in adult life. Our understanding of the natural course of disease from the prenatal period to adulthood and the identification of the various asthma phenotypes has the potential to change prognosis and planning of therapeutic strategies. Identifying those at high risk for persistence of disease in the early stages of life will allow therapeutic interventions to be more appropriately targeted.
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Parker, Fazia. "The individual mindset behind violence in schools specific to the Western Cape." Diss., 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/25537.
Full textAbstract:
Text in EnglishThe study aimed at exploring the “mindset” of learners, teachers and principals behind the violence in schools. “Mindset” is a person's general attitude with which he/she approaches a situation and the way they think about things, their experiemces and opinions. The data in the current study was gathered from three schools on the Cape Flats in the Western Cape. The Cape Flats is home to South Africa’s most violent gangs, perpetuated by the socio-economic issues created by apartheid. A provincial breakdown of crime statistics ranks the Western Cape second highest in South Africa. The researcher adopted Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Framework to delineate the risk factors which impact on the community, family, individual, peer group and school environment. Participants’ selection was effected through a non-probability method of purposive sampling. Participants’ in a non-probability sample are selected based on their accessibility or by the purposive personal judgment of the researcher. The downside of the non-probability sampling method is that an unknown proportion of the entire population was not sampled. From the preceding results, it is evident that learners are exposed to many forms of violence. Too many children are reared in dysfunctional families, poorly managed schools and neighbourhoods caught in the grip of violence and poverty. If this malady is not addressed and managed, South Africa can expect another generation of youth who resort to violence as a means of conflict resolution. The rich and in-depth information around participants’ unique opinions, experiences and realities contribute towards a better understanding of school violence, dysfunctional behaviour and towards the improvement of school violence interventions. It is also argued that additional insights from the study would add value to the organisational incapacity management process of schools.
Psychology
M.A. (Psychology)
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Mankowitz, Debra J. "The African philosophical concept of Ubuntu as applied to the Emotional Intelligence of adolescents : challenging the appropriateness of Western-derived concepts." Diss., 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/25555.
Full textAbstract:
The study assessed the Emotional Intelligence/Ubuntu understanding in sixteen learners aged 11-14 from both the Low SES and High SES levels, which includes the peri- urban/disadvantaged/informal settlements and the urban/privileged areas.
The research motivated towards the conception that an inclusive Eurocentric and African approach towards education could benefit South African adolescent learners emotionally, socially and academically. Notwithstanding, providing an Emotional Intelligence framework that includes tenets of the African Philosophical paradigm of Ubuntu could enable adolescent learners to feel more empowered when confronting their socio- economic challenges. Hence, the purpose of this study was to ascertain whether the lack of formal EI/Ubuntu skills training in schools leaves learners without the competences to surmount the many challenges adolescents face during the turbulent phase of early adolescence. The aim of this study was to assess the levels of EI in a sample of adolescents from both SES levels. Qualitative methods were used in order to ascertain the impact of Western and Ubuntu epistemologies/worldviews on the adolescent learners’ Emotional Intelligence. This study also sought to determine the impact of education and role models on this sample of adolescent learners' EI/Ubuntu levels. This research also investigated how the merged EI/Ubuntu concepts can be incorporated into a life skills programme aimed at enhancing EI/Ubuntu in South African adolescent learners. In this study both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using the convergent parallel mixed method study and the paradigms that informed the study includes pragmatism, interpretivism, positivism and post-positivism. The objectives of this study includes identifying the emotional needs and EI status of adolescent learners and to investigate to what extent these are being met in the current educational system in South Africa.
The research noted the contextual factors that influence EI in adolescent learners. The research explored how adolescents align their behaviour with the values and virtues of EI and Ubuntu. The following tools were used to accomplish the aforementioned objectives; a short introduction to Ubuntu, the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire - Adolescent Short Form (TEIQue-ASF) questionnaire was utilised to obtain a measure of the individual learner’s EI. A biographical questionnaire was given to all learners in order to establish what contextual factors impact on EI/Ubuntu consciousness. An Ubuntu style
10-item questionnaire to obtain insight into individual learners’ conceptualisation of EI. A short paragraph of approximately 300 words allowed for the narrative of each learner to be explored and a 22-item semi-structured parent/teacher interview from both SES groups. Role-playing scenarios were enacted to assess the depth of EI through the identification and understanding that took place between the players and draw a person diagrams (DAP) were utilised and assessed for EI aspects such as self-esteem, levels of confidence and awareness of self. The most pertinent aspects that were revealed by this study was that Low SES learners, especially those that lived in corrugated housing felt a sense of helplessness, fear and social alienation when challenged by their extreme living conditions. The study also revealed that the High SES group struggled at forming meaningful relationships and felt panicked and stressed regarding their academic responsibilities and outcomes. Hence as both groups struggled socially, they relied on technology and Western materialism to fill the void.Psychology
M.A. (Psychology)