Surveying support for child and youth political participation in Australia and New Zealand

Recent decades have witnessed increased empirical and policy interest in children’s citizenship, particularly since the ratification of the United Nations Declaration of Children’s Rights. However, support for children’s active citizenship is often hindered by the pervasiveness of discourses that characterise children as innocent, developing, and free from responsibility. Public and governmental decision-making largely excludes children’s consultation and contributions, often determined by age alone. To quantifiably assess the amount of public support for children’s political participation, we commissioned a Likert scale survey question on degrees of support for children and youth (across four age groups between 3 and 18 year olds) having the opportunity to influence government decisions, in the Australian and New Zealand 2016 versions of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). Analysis of responses to this question in relation to demographic survey data indicate variation in preferences for different age groups, and that age, gender, and political party preference of respondents were variables of significance for both nations. These variables point to potential predictors of attitudes toward political participation of children and youth which have relevance for policymakers and educators in relation to provision of programmes that will increase the engagement of children and youth in government decision-making.     

Museum Outreach Programs to Promote Community Engagement in Local Environmental Issues

Ideas of ‘community’ and ‘community voice’ have been mobilised in collaborative programs developed between the National Museum of Australia and the Murray‐Darling Basin Commission since 1992. This collaboration is set within a broader context of changing ideas and practice around governance, community and environmental issues. The recent Murray‐Darling Outreach Project (MDOP), a series of museum outreach projects with regional communities aiming to increase community engagement in local environmental issues in the Murray‐Darling Basin, is specifically examined. Evaluation research on the MDOP found that the approach to program development significantly shaped the types of voices, range of issues presented and the nature of the communicative forums established. The potential impacts on online audiences are discussed along with broader implications for government agencies involved in community partnerships.     

Deceptive behaviour and instrumental violence among psychopathic and non-psychopathic violent forensic psychiatric patients

Deceptive behaviour and instrumental violence are well-known psychopathic features and as such play important roles in the assessment of psychopathy. This study examined first, the nature of the violence committed by offenders that have been admitted to forensic psychiatric care and whether scores on the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV), Part 1, were associated with the instrumentality of violence. Second, we examined the proneness of offenders to re-frame the instrumentality in their past violent crimes, and whether this was associated with scores on the PCL:SV. The results show that the PCL:SV, Part 1 (interpersonal/affective features), was positively related to the officially coded instrumentality of the violent crimes. As expected, this association disappeared when the instrumentality was self-reported. However, the majority of the patients tended to exaggerate the reactivity of their violent crimes when it was self-reported, indicating that most offenders, independently of level of psychopathy, used deception when questioned about the characteristics of their past violent crimes. The reasons for, and implications of, the use of deception are discussed.     

Transgendering Mother's Day: blogging as citizens' media,reproductive rights and intimate citizenship

Citizenship is fast emerging as a central concern for transgender politics. This article approaches the topic of transgender citizenship by investigating empirically how the practice of blogging has served as a way of claiming, or practicing, intimate citizenship for transgendered people. Theorization of intimate citizenship helps us to further our understanding of the ways in which our most private decisions and practices are inextricably linked with public institutions, law and state policies. Significantly, this development is also tied up with other characteristically late modern technological advancements, ranging from new reproductive technologies to new Information and Communication Technologies. In the case of transgender politics, such interlacings become particularly perspicacious, not only due to modern discourses concerning diagnosis and treatment, but also because the presence of social media resources affords new possibilities for the sharing of personal and political narratives about ‘being transgendered’. In this article, I investigate an event in the Swedish blogosphere, namely the way in which the national celebration of Swedish Mother's Day became a site for the contestation of the current limitations of the reproductive legal rights for transgendered people, providing an opening for a more general debate on transgender reproductive rights.     

National study comparing the characteristics of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia who committed homicide vs. those who died by suicide

Associations between serious mental disorder and violence are well-documented, but there is little epidemiological evidence linking these disorders and homicide risk. The reported study compares socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of people diagnosed with schizophrenia who committed homicide vs. those who died by suicide. The study is a national case series of male patients in England & Wales diagnosed with schizophrenia and convicted of homicide during 1997–2012 (n = 168), and a randomly selected comparison group of male patients with schizophrenia who died by suicide and who were matched to the homicide case series by age (n = 777). There are different patterns of behaviour in people with schizophrenia preceding homicide and suicide. Homicide perpetrators have frequently disengaged with services whilst patients who die by suicide are often in recent contact. This is important knowledge for clinical services as it indicates a different preventive emphasis despite the existence of other shared characteristics.     

“Harden Up and Face Reality:” Exploring Underlying Bullying Beliefs in New Zealand

A growing body of research illustrating the detrimental consequences of bullying has led to many antibullying interventions being developed. Despite good intentions, evidence suggests that such programs vary considerably in their efficacy. The current study examines the social discourse around bullying in the New Zealand environment in order to see whether underlying beliefs may undermine or influence approaches to mitigate bullying. The study employed an exploratory, qualitative approach of social discourses in the media. Using 31 online media articles, and 501 related online comments, methods of applied thematic analysis revealed three main themes which captured the beliefs that (a) victims of bullying are weak, (b) perpetrators of bullying are evil, and (c) bullying is a normal and, in some ways, acceptable behavior. Such findings illustrate the role that societal beliefs play in shaping the environment in which bullying occurs, and have important implications for future bullying research and interventions.