The middle-school years (Year 7 to Year 9) is a particular challenge for socially disadvantaged populations, with high proportions of children either repeating school years or dropping out of school. In Australia, a group of particular concern is First Nations children for whom there is a collective effort by all governments to improve education…

The co-occurrence of social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties (SEBD), maltreatment, and language disorders (LD) is recognized in school-age children; however, the nature of the interaction between them remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to explore associations between LD and SEBD in children with and without suspected…

Exposure to domestic violence in childhood can have long-term negative impacts on the social and emotional functioning and educational outcomes of children and adolescents. This study is the first known Australian research to examine teachers' experiences of supporting students exposed to domestic violence. Interviews with eleven primary and…

Child abuse and neglect, particularly child sexual abuse, is a pastoral care issue that deeply concerns all education professionals. The literature strongly supports specific training for pre-service teachers about child sexual abuse and its mandatory reporting, although few studies identify how such training should be academically structured.…

The past four decades have seen increasing public and professional awareness of child sexual abuse. Congruent with public health approaches to prevention, efforts to eliminate child sexual abuse have inspired the emergence of prevention initiatives which can be provided to all children as part of their standard school curriculum. However,…

This study examined elementary school teachers' knowledge of their legislative and policy-based reporting duties with respect to child sexual abuse. Data were collected from 470 elementary school teachers from urban and rural government and nongovernment schools in 3 Australian states, which at the time of the study had 3 different legislative…

Teacher-educators need ways of assessing the adequacy of university curriculum and the extent to which student-teachers meet learning objectives. One potentially useful tool is Anderson and Krathwohl's (Addison Wesley Longman, New York, 2001) theoretical framework, which can be applied to assess student-teachers' knowledge types and their…

This report presents a snapshot of the academic performance of children on guardianship/custody orders from 2003 to 2006, and changes in their performance over this period. This concludes a two-stage pilot study, the first of its kind in Australia. A considerable proportion of children on guardianship/custody orders are not meeting the national…

This study aims to understand how primary school teachers, as mandatory reporters of child sexual abuse, are responding to child sexual abuse and its mandatory reporting, even though many teachers do not receive a compulsory course in Child Protection and its legal requirements in their pre-service university training. A cohort of 81 Australian…

Objective: To identify the influence of multiple case, teacher and school characteristics on Australian primary school teachers' propensity to detect and report child physical abuse and neglect using vignettes as short hypothetical cases. Methods: A sample of 254 teachers completed a self-report questionnaire. They responded to a series of 32…

Background: In the Australian state of Queensland, many Department of Education Policies include behavioural directives for school teachers, whereby "the teacher must..." behave in a certain manner. The introduction of an education policy, such as the mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse by teachers, has significant and wide-ranging…

Teachers in many schools have only recently gained a new role to fulfil as mandatory reporters of child sexual abuse. However, little is known, and little literature has been found, on the preparation they receive, as student-teachers, for this significant role. This study examines a final-semester cohort of 81 Bachelor of Education (Primary…

In 2000 ACEI began an exploration of the potential role that a code of professional ethics might have in the Association. The Public Affairs Committee recommended that the Executive Board appoint an ad hoc Ethics Committee. That committee, under the leadership of Nita Barbour, accepted its charge to provide guidance to colleagues who struggle to…

This report provides a snapshot of the academic performance, as assessed by literacy and numeracy test scores, of children on guardianship or custody orders in 2003. The educational performance of these children are compared with all children sitting these tests, and differences in academic performance between particular subgroups of children on…

This paper argues the importance of moving beyond the state of affairs that makes victims "either" of children "or" of teachers by exploring the conditions of possibility for the idea of a victimless school. The argument is developed drawing data from a study being conducted by the authors into the impact of risk management on…