Learner discipline: An Australian perspective
Australian schools by and large are safe schools. Nonetheless discipline problems do exist – including bullying behaviour. For this kind of problem schools should have management policies in place. As traditional behaviour-management practices – including corporal punishment – are largely prohibited in Australian schools, contemporary practices centre on management through supportive school programmes, including appropriate curricula and school-support structures. This article supports the belief that measures such as the exclusion of misbehaving learners should be treated with caution. Measures such as this might not reflect accepted international principles and practices and should only be exercised in the most extreme circumstances. The article also supports the view that it is part of the school’s role to ensure that all learners are aware of the reality that while they have rights, they also have corresponding responsibilities. This awareness is more likely to be achieved in a supportive school culture where each learner is recognised as having unique qualities that can mature and grow in an appropriate learning environment.
Suicide Explained: The Australian Experience
More and more young Australians die from suicide each year. In fact the rate for suicide in young males specifically has increased four-fold from 6.8 per 100 000 population in 1960 to a 1994 level of 26.8 per 100 000 [ I ] . Traditionally, suicide is a phenomenon that rises in rate with increasing age; however, Australia and its closest neighbour New Zealand may be unique among the world nations in having suicide rates in young adults that are significantly higher than middle and older age groups 121. This book, which is one of the first Australian texts in this field for many years, reflects the author’s long standing research in the field of the sociology of suicide in Australia. This book aims to provide clinicians in the fields of sociology. psychology, social work, nursing, law and medicine, as well as the general reader, with a very good and broad introduction to suicide in Australia. The author, a Professor of Sociology at Flinders University, South Australia, was previously a member of the National Health and Medical Research Council Working Party on suicide prevention and has written extensively on the subject. What makes this book on suicide somewhat unique is the fact that it has definite Australian character and contains many valuable tables of Australian data. although some of those are somewhat dated. This being said, it may well reflect the difficulty in accessing up-to-date data on the topic of suicide in Australia. There is no doubt that the content of this book will be invaluable to many professionals and non-professionals alike. The book covers the problem of suicide in Australia, and its definition, as well as the trends over the last 100 or so years. Variations in gender. age and demographics, as well as the aetiology of suicide, are also discussed in detail. Finally. a brief chapter on suicide prevention is included. Although Suicide e.xplained: the Austrrrliari experience identifies and describes the social correlates of suicide, it does not explain why people complete suicide. While such description is useful in the sense of establishing an empirical benchmark, it is limited in terms of providing further theoretical and aetiological insight into the phenomenon of suicide. Indeed, the section concerned with aetiology does not appear clear until Chapter 12 of the 14 chapters contained within the text. Moreover, the theoretical component of the book is limited and is little more than a cursory examination of Durkheimian theory and other psychological and biological perspectives. The core of the book comprises the chapters outlining the various correlates of suicide and these are, generally. comprehensive, interesting and very relevant to the Australian context. The major weakness of the book, however, is in its overly empiricist approach. This is not of itself a problem; indeed. it is the stated aim of the book: ‘The study which follows constitutes an attempt to contribute to the ‘empirical sources’ which would advance our understanding of the suicide phenomenon and possibly contribute towards the development of more cross-culturally and cross-nationally valid and relevant theoretical propositions’. The limitation in this context is that in the absence of a clearly stated theoretical and substantive problem, which is not outlined, such an empirical description leaves the reader none the wiser as to the causal mechanisms underlying suicide. As the author states, ‘Explaining suicide and suicide rates must involve explaining why people commit it. To achieve this, one needs to examine not only external social factors but also social factors which are internal to suicidal individuals’. This implies, therefore, an integrated psychological and sociological approach and method: the book fails to provide one. Overall, Suicide e.xplaiiied: the Ausrralian e,xperie w e contributes to our empirical understanding of the prevalence and correlates of suicidal behaviour. It does not, however, advance our theoretical understanding of why such behaviour occurs. Although this book has some limitations, one should remember that considering it is more or less the first work of its kind in Australia, it would have been an extremely difficult and demanding task and should therefore be applauded. In general. this book is both timely, in that it provides a very valuable starting point for those wanting to explore suicide in Australia and provides a broad-base approach to the study of suicide. with many useful references for any reader wishing to study this field in greater depth.
Historias de mi barrio: contemporary art in a community at high risk of social exclusion
Abstract Historias de mi barrio is a piece of pedagogic research aimed at highlighting the way art can articulate the relationship between the educational context and a neighbourhood at high risk of social exclusion. The starting point for this study was to ask whether this type of research, centred around the arts, was suitable in complex contexts and whether it might eventually lead to pedagogic improvement. The results gathered, and indeed the work carried out by the artists and university lecturers involved, together with pupils 6–12 years old and their instructors in a state school, provide evidence of a positive answer – and notably of the necessity of knowing about the socio-economic reality of the student cohort when planning learning projects and of the importance of the arts as a crucial element in education.