Youth Studies Australia articles from March 2003

Youth Studies Australia archives from March 2003

Young brains as `works in progress'.(child brain development)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Sometimes our adult expectations of children and young people are literally unreasonable. We try to apply to them our own adult abilities to, for example, perceive danger in a traffic situation or to correctly read a particular emotion in...

What does it mean to be Australian? (Attitudes & opinions).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A survey by a team from the Queensland University of Technology found that for many young people the most important aspects of being Australian are being safe from war and living in a free country. Nine hundred students, aged between 12 and 16,...

Democrats' survey. (Attitudes & opinions).(young adults on sex education, environmental protection, and politics)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The Australian Democrats conducted their eleventh annual survey of young people late in 2002. Across the nation, some 2,400 people aged 15 to 20 took part. The strongest support was shown for publicly funded education, which 90% of respondents...

Child death report. (Child abuse & protection).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Child Death report The annual report of the NSW Child Death Review Team revealed that of 21 children who died from abuse or neglect in 2001, 18 were known to NSW Health, 16 to the Department of Community Services, and 15 to the police. The...

Safety anxieties. (Child abuse & protection).(what the average Australian worries about)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... In a fourth report in its series The Silent Majority, Clemenger BBDO, an advertising agency, compiled results of a survey into what worries contemporary Australians. Protecting children from sex abuse and drugs were respondents' major concerns....

Child protection. (Child abuse & protection).(increase in child welfare cases)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... An Australian Institute of Health and Welfare study has shown that a growing number of Australian children are in care or under protection orders: 20,557 in June 2002, compared with 15,718 five years earlier. The study also found that the...

Foster care. (Child abuse & protection).(improving foster care services)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A report called Towards Better Foster Care: Reducing the Risk suggested that Victorian foster carers lacked confidence in the system, were inadequately reimbursed and received too little support. While 400 out-of-home carers had been recruited...

Child-abuse reports. (Child abuse & protection).
March 1, 2003... The Queensland Families Department's annual report revealed that substantiated child-abuse cases in the state rose by nearly 20% to 10,036 in 2001-02. The department received child-abuse complaints involving more than 19,000 children during...

Abuse linked to crime. (Child abuse & protection).(child abuse and juvenile delinquency risk)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Research by the Australian Institute of Criminology shows a direct link between maltreatment of children and juvenile offending. The study, which considered 41,700 children born in Queensland in 1983, found that by the time the children were 17...

Teenage victims. (Crime & justice).(violent crime statistics)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The Queensland Police Service's 2001-02 statistical review showed that teenagers were the most likely victims of violent crime during that year. More than 4,800 offences, including murder, assault, robbery, rape, and other sexual offences, were...

Autism and difficult births. (Disability).(autism causes pregnancy complications)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A study of almost 4,000 children found that autistic children were more likely to have experienced threatened abortions early in the pregnancies or to have gone into distress during labour. Their mothers were more likely to be older than most,...

Statistics from 2001. (Drugs).(teenage alcohol and drug abuse)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... According to a new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the 2001 National Drug Household Survey: Detailed Findings, cannabis is still the most common illicit drug used in Australia. Results from the AIHW's analysis of...

Cannabis and depression. (Drugs).(marijuana use leads to depression in teens)
March 1, 2003... There is strong new evidence that regular cannabis smoking by teenagers causes depression in them as young adults. Professor George Patton, Professor of Adolescent Health at Melbourne's Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the leader of a...

Comparing twins. (Drugs).(drug abuse and genetics )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A study of Australian twins has found that teenage marijuana smoking may open doors to harder drug abuse because smokers expose themselves to a drug lifestyle. Researchers from Queensland and the United States studied 311 same-sex twins, some...

Comparing brains. (Drugs).(marijuana use causes brain damage similar to that of schizophrenics)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Researchers in New South Wales are using sophisticated brain technology to show how far the changes produced by long-term cannabis use mirror those associated with schizophrenia. Dr Martin Cohen, a senior registrar of psychiatry at the Hunter...

ADHD drugs. (Drugs).(attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)(drug abuse risk among hyperactive children)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Children with an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who take stimulant drugs do not have an increased risk of abusing other drugs later in life, says an American report. On the contrary, the underlying study, carried out by...

Illegal sale of tobacco. (Drugs).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The 2001 National Drug Household Survey (see above at `Statistics from 2001' for details) found that more than 15% of teenagers between 14 and 17 were smokers. An editorial in The Age commented, in part: `Taking the glamour out of smoking has...

NSW gets tough. (Drugs).(New South Wales)(new youth smoking and tobacco advertising laws)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Under new legislation passed by the New South Wales parliament, police are allowed to confiscate cigarettes and other smoking products from children caught smoking in public places. Also, anyone over the age of 18 who buys cigarettes on behalf...

New light on alcohol. (Drugs).(physical and psychological aspects of juvenile alcoholism)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A draft discussion paper compiled for the American Medical Association summarises two decades of research on health and lifestyle consequences for teenagers who drink alcohol. It suggests that drinking is far more dangerous to young people than...

Street survey. (Drugs).(teenage alcohol consumption)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A street survey of 187 teenagers, conducted for the Australian Drug Foundation, found that some teenagers were spending more than a third of their income on alcohol. Almost 40% of the 13-17-year olds responding to the survey said they bought...

Nations ranked. (Education).(educational assessment)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A League Table on Educational Disadvantage in Rich Nations is the title of a UNICEF report on a project that aimed to examine how well education systems in the world's 24 richest nations were functioning. It drew on data from five separate...

Calculators. (Education).(preventing students' over-use of calculators)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The Australian Association of Mathematical Teachers has a policy on school students' use of calculators: it suggests that scientific calculators should be used by students in their early secondary schooling. But at a recent AAMT conference Mike...

Drop-out predictions. (Education).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... According to a study commissioned by the Business Council of Australia, about 80,000 teenagers are likely to drop out of school in the next decade without completing Year 12 or its equivalent and without significant prospects of further...

Not going to uni. (Education).(low numbers of lower class college students)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A federally funded study examined the number of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds going to university. Professor Richard James, of the University of Melbourne, surveyed 7,000 secondary students from New South Wales, Victoria and...

Education funding. (Education).(higher education funded from private sources)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A 382-page report called Education at a Glance, OECD Indicators 2002, produced by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, shows that Australia has significantly increased its reliance on private funding to pay for secondary...

Fewer skilled workers. (Employment).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Between the 1996 and 2001 censuses, the number of people aged between 15 and 24 working as tradespeople declined from 53,000 to 50,000. In the same period, the number of older tradespeople, aged from 45 to 64, grew from 60,000 to 70,000. ...

Full nesters. (Families).(more adult children live with their parents)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Young people in their 20s are staying on at home with their parents in growing numbers, according to a study reported by the Australian Council for Educational Research. Becoming an Adult: Leaving Home, Relationships and Home Ownership among...

Boys in ACT. (Gender issues).(Australian Capital Territory)(varied teaching methods engage all students)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... In December 2002, the Australian Capital Territory's Department of Education, Youth and Family Services released Improving the Educational Outcomes of Boys, a report prepared by a Sydney academic, Dr James Martin. The report drew on surveys of...

Indicators worse. (Health & safety).(trends in child health status indicators )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... On being named as the Australian of the Year, Professor Fiona Stanley, head of the department of paediatrics at the University of Western Australia, warned of a looming health crisis for young people, especially in mental health. She said...

Meningococcal C. (Health & safety).(free vaccine for children)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The federal Health Minister, Senator Kay Patterson, announced that more than one million extra children will be offered free immunisation against meningococcal C in 2003. There had been a worldwide shortage of vaccine, restricting supplies in...

Bed-wetting. (Health & safety).(teenagers who wet their beds)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Although bed-wetting is commonly supposed to be a problem of early childhood, it can continue to plague sufferers into adolescence. The Continence Foundation of Australia has figures showing that about one child in 15 regularly wets their bed...

Walking to school. (Health & safety).(exercise and child safety)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Bill Loveday, the president of Bicycle Queensland, suggests that encouraging children to walk or cycle to school--or at least to take public transport--could save lives. He points out the daily dangers caused by adult drivers delivering or...

State strategies. (Housing & homelessness).(public housing for the homeless)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Shelter WA, a housing research body, surveyed over 100 agencies in September 2002 as part of an effort to get a picture of the changing needs and composition of Western Australia's homeless population. Shelter reported that 30% of homeless...

Family costs. (Incomes & expenditures).(average cost of raising a child)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The average cost of raising a child in Australia is about $260,000 over the first 20 years, according to calculations commissioned by AMP from the National Centre for Economic and Social Modelling at the University of Canberra. Two children...

Education agreement. (Indigenous youth).(educational services for indigenous youth)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... In the Australian Capital Territory, an agreement was drawn up between the government school system and the local Indigenous community. The intention is to tackle the disparity between the school achievements of Indigenous and non-Indigenous...

Health issues. (Indigenous youth).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics painted a bleak picture of health amongst Indigenous Australians, including children and adolescents. The 61,000 Indigenous children aged under seven were significantly less likely than...

Dangerous driving. (Risk-taking).(teen drivers and traffic safety)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The University of Western Sydney and the NRMA (a motorists' organisation) are researching why young people tend to drive more dangerously than others. Over 400 people aged 25 and under died in motor accidents in Australia between January and...

Rural deaths. (Rural & isolated).(death statistics higher for rural children )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A study of the deaths of young people and children in New South Wales during 2001-02 found that rural youngsters were at greater risk of dying in transport accidents, or from drowning or from abuse and neglect than urban children. The...

Circuit breaker. (Services).(family services)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Mission Australia is testing a mobile crisis counselling service in Queensland, to try to reduce the number of people needing the protection of the Families Department. Called `Project Circuit Breaker', the new service sends counsellors to...

STDs on the rise. (Sexuality).(increase of sexually transmitted diseases among youth)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Sexually transmitted infections in Australia have doubled in five years as young people ignore calls for them to abstain or practise safe sex, according to Sexual Health and Family Planning Australia. Roberto Rojas-Morales, national director of...

Records analysed. (Suicide).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... An analysis of teenage suicide in New South Wales, commissioned by the state government from its Child Death Review Team, examined records of 111 adolescent suicides and 76 other deaths that had resulted from deliberately risky behaviour such...

Unrealistic expectations. (Suicide).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Writing in the Social Science and Medicine Journal, Richard Eckersley, of the Australian National University's National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, and a colleague, Keith Dear, argued that the nature of Western culture...

Digital divide. (Technology).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The New Economy Revisited, a report compiled by The Smith Family (a charity organisation), suggests that access to computers and the Internet is critical to ensuring a young person's success at school, and children from disadvantaged...

IQ: `use it or lose it'. (Technology).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Some recent research suggests that computer games, the Internet and even television have become factors in boosting children's IQ to levels not reached by previous generations. Contemporary young people are achieving IQ scores about 25 points...

The first job: experiences of young Australians starting full-time work. (Peer Reviewed Paper).
March 1, 2003... School-to-work transition is an area of great policy interest at all levels of Australian government as evidenced in the expansion of vocational education and training in schools; however, increasingly the focus is shifting to broader issues...

How many homeless youth in 2001? (Peer Reviewed Paper).
March 1, 2003... In the December 2002 issue of Youth Studies Australia, David MacKenzie and Chris Chamberlain presented the main findings from the second national census of homeless school students. In this follow-up paper, they investigate whether youth...

Reflections on youth violence.
March 1, 2003... Young people are not the perpetrators of many violent acts; however, the amount of violence experienced by young people, either as perpetrators or victims, needs to be reduced. To do so, Howard Sercombe argues, requires the redefinition of...

Danger on the roads! Masculinity, the car, and safety.
March 1, 2003... Malcolm Vick argues that road safety campaigns that attempt to get young men to act rationally on the roads have limited success because they overlook powerful cultural constructions of masculinity that underpin and shape young men's actions....

Adolescent brain development.
March 1, 2003... In 2001, the male death rate in the 15-19 years age group in Australia was over three times higher than the female death rate (Deaths, Australia, Publication no.3302.0,ABS 2002). Malcolm Vick, in the preceding paper, has suggested that breaking...

Substance use & adolescent brain development: an overview of recent findings with a focus on alcohol.
March 1, 2003... One of the major researchers in the area of adolescent brain development is Aaron White from Duke University in the USA whose work was outlined by Sedro Spano in the previous article in this issue. This paper describes in more detail Aaron...

Impact youth crime prevention. (Programs And Practice).
March 1, 2003... `Impact: youth organisations reducing crime' is based in Toowong, Queensland and develops activity-based youth crime prevention projects for at-risk young people. These partnership projects incorporate a variety of crime prevention and general...

National Youth Week.
March 1, 2003... The need for young people to feel a sense of belonging is an essential element of National Youth Week (NYW). Studies have shown that young people suffer from a range of problems as a result of feelings of disconnection from their communities....

Electronic information for the youth field. (Get It).
March 1, 2003... Trends in policy for ICT in Education www.dest.gov.au/highered/otherpub/towards_the_connected.pdf `Towards the Connected Learning Society: An international overview of trends in policy for information and communication technology in...

Young People Now. (Newsletter and magazines).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... 22-28 January, n.168, Haymarket Professional Publications Ltd in partnership with the National Youth Agency, ISSN 0956-2842, 2003, 36pp. Young People Now used to be the flagship monthly publication of the National Youth Agency of Britain....

Resources for Planning No.6: Body Image. (Kits and resources).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Public Health Group, Department of Human Services, Victoria, 2003. The Victorian Department of Human Services (DHS) has developed a series of kits on a range of public health issues including adolescent health. The sixth kit in the series,...

Stand up for your rights. (Kits and resources).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... YAPA, 2003. `Stand up for your rights' is a kit produced by Youth Action and Policy Association (YAPA) that includes a poster outlining a number of principles that pertain to young people's rights; a series of fact sheets on topics related...

On the Edge! (Kits and resources).(adolescent health services)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Streetwize Communications in conjunction with South Sydney Youth Services, ISBN 1876226471, 2002, 12pp. This full-colour comic is designed to highlight the problems faced by young people with dual diagnosis (mental illness and drug issues),...

Realising Australia's Commitment to Young People: Scope, benefits, cost, evaluation and implementation. (Reports).
March 1, 2003... Applied Economics, Dusseldorp Skills Forum, ISBN 095776913X, 2002, 76pp. Honouring Our Commitment: A policy paper about `Realising Australia's Commitment to Young People' Dusseldorp Skills Forum, ISBN 0957769180, 2002, 16pp. In...

Pathways from child maltreatment to juvenile offending. (Reports).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... A. Stewart, S. Dennison & A. Waterson, n.241, Trends and Issues, Australian Institute of Criminology, ISSN 0817-8542, ISBN 0642 242828, Oct., 2002, 6pp. Recent research in Queensland has revealed that approximately 10% of the 41,700...

Rural Partnerships in the Promotion of Mental Health and Wellbeing. (Reports).
March 1, 2003... Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, n.d., 94pp. The Mental Health Promotion Plan 1999-2002 was developed by the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) to provide a framework for research and program activity over a three-year...

Arson: exploring motives and possible solutions. (Reports).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... R.N. Kocsis, n.236, Trends and Issues, Australian Institute of Criminology, ISSN 0817-8542, ISBN 0642 242763, Aug., 2002, 6pp. There is a paucity of research on arsonists in Australia despite the fact that the number of recorded arsons in...

Anti-homosexual homicides most often perpetrated by young males. (Reports).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... No. 36, Crime Facts Info, Australian Institute of Criminology, ISSN 1445-7288, Oct. 2002, 1p. The Australian Institute of Criminology has released a report on anti-homosexual crimes that is based on evidence from a study of 74 murders of men...

Creating the future: welcoming, sustaining, enterprising. (Reports).
March 1, 2003... The Jigsaw 2020 Project, 2002, 36pp. The Central Coast Child and Youth Strategy, which is titled `The Jigsaw Project--putting the pieces together', was established by the Central Coast Regional Coordination Management Group. This group...

Rural and regional comorbidity workshops. (Reports).
March 1, 2003... L. Jenner, Australian National Council on Drugs, ISBN 1877018058, 2002, 24pp. In response to an increased awareness of the problems associated with the interaction between mental health and substance use disorders, the Australian National...

A sense of the future: evaluating Mission Australia youth services. (Reports).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... K. Everett, Mission Australia, 2002, 18pp. Mission Australia, which has a long history of providing a wide range of youth services, is now moving towards `a more systematic approach to its youth initiatives, which focuses on the interactive...

The Cost of Dropping Out: the economic impact of early school leaving. (Reports).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Business Council of Australia, 2003, 12pp. In 2002, the Business Council of Australia commissioned a range of research to elucidate the trends associated with young people leaving school early, the economic impact of these trends and the...

Young Offenders.
March 1, 2003... J. Healey, v. 177, The Spinney Press, ISBN 1876811862, 2003, 44pp. Young Offenders is one of the latest titles in the Issues in Society series of educational resource books published by The Spinney Press. The series is designed to provide...

Goth: Identity, style and subculture.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... P. Hodkinson, Berg, ISBN 185973606X, 2002, 220pp. Although the goth scene is one of the most enduring subcultures of recent times, Hodkinson is the first person to undertake a full-scale ethnographic study of the subculture. His research as...

Youth Affairs Council of Victoria (YACVic). (From the peaks: peak youth organisations report on their recent activities).
March 1, 2003... Media: The issue of young people and media has been a big one over the past months at YACVic. Our forum `In the Spotlight' (19 February) brought together a range of media representatives, including representatives from the Herald Sun and The...

Youth Affairs Network of Queensland (YANQ). (From the peaks: peak youth organisations report on their recent activities).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The Youth Affairs Network of Queensland (YANQ) is conducting the bi-annual State Youth Affairs Conference from 14-16 April 2003 at the Mackay Entertainment Centre. The theme of the conference is Changing Times--choices and challenges in...

Prosocial behaviours of young adolescents: a focus group study. (Behaviour).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... C. Bergin, S. Talley & L. Hamer, Journal of Adolescence, v.26, n.1, 2003, pp. 13-32. Research on prosocial behaviour has usually focused on a few behaviours such as sharing, helping or volunteering. This qualitative study used eight focus...

Challenges for Deaf students in postsecondary education. (Disabilities).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... T. Pearce, Access, v.4, n.5, 2002, pp.19-20. Deaf children acquire English language literacy through formal and structured learning, without the constant reinforcement of hearing English spoken. If Deaf children use Auslan to communicate,...

Taking up binge drinking in college: the influences of person, social group, and environment. (Drugs & alcohol).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... E.R. Weitzaman, T.F. Nelson & H. Wechsler, Journal of Adolescent Health, v. 32, n.1, 2003, pp.26-35. A random sample of 119 full-time undergraduate students at an American college was asked to complete a questionnaire about their alcohol...

Body piercing, tattooing, self-esteem, and body investment in adolescent girls. (Mental health).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... L. Carroll & R. Anderson, Adolescence, v. 37, n.147, 2002, pp.627-37. It has been suggested that piercing and tattooing represent a search for self, a search for peer acceptance or a form of self-mutilation. However, studies of this...

Generative metaphor, problem setting in policy and the discovery of youth at risk. (Research methodology theory).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... J. Bessant, Youth and Policy, n.77, Autumn, 2002, pp.33-46. The author argues that certain constituents within academia define various components of youth studies more effectively than others by the way they organise knowledge and their use...

Changes over time in teenage sexual relationships: comparing the high school classes of 1950, 1975, and 2000. (Sexuality, sexual health).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... S.L. Caron & E.G. Moskey, Adolescence, v. 37, n.147, 2002, pp.515-26. Students (N=242) who graduated from the same high school in northeast USA in 1950, 1975 and 2000 completed a survey about their sexual attitudes and experiences while in...

Escaping or connecting? Characteristics of youth who form close online relationships. (Technology, the future).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... J. Wolak, K.J. Mitchell, D. Finkelhor, Journal of Adolescence, v.26, n.1, 2003, pp.105-19. Data from a USA national sample of Internet users aged between 10 and 17 (N=1,501) were used to explore the characteristics of subjects who had...

Close online relationships in a national sample of adolescents. (Technology, the future).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... J. Wolak, K.J. Mitchell & D. Finkelhor, Adolescence, v. 37, n.147, 2002, pp.441-55. The Youth Internet Safety Survey gathered information from 1,501 young Americans aged 10 to 17. Analysis of data from the survey revealed that 14% of...

Teenage brain: a work in progress. (Research in Focus).
March 1, 2003... National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Fact Sheet, NIH Publication No. 01-4929. New imaging studies are Revealing--for the first time--patterns of brain development that extend into the teenage years. Although scientists don't know yet...

Deciphering the adolescent brain. (Research in Focus).
March 1, 2003... Misia Landau, edited version, reprinted with permission from Focus, 21 April 2000, Harvard Medical School (HMS). Findings are toppling old views, stoking old controversies about brain's coming of age Brain researchers have wondered why...

Adolescent alcohol dependence may damage brain function. (Research in Focus).
March 1, 2003... National Institutes of Health News Release, 14 February 2000. University of California at San Diego and VA Researchers Report First Findings A study in the February 2000 Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (v.24, n.2)...

Youth Affairs Peak Organisations.
March 1, 2003... Government Commonwealth Youth Bureau (Policy and Promotions Branch) Department of Family & Community Services Box 7788, Canberra Mail Centre ACT 2610 Ph: (02) 6212 39117 Fax: (02) 6212 9577 Email: renata.rustowskiOfacs.gov, au Web:...