In spite of advances in recognising that girls and boys, and women and men, do not have to be bounded by traditional roles, gender stereotypes persist in education and beyond. Children and youth are affected by gender stereotypes from the early ages, with parental, school, teacher and peer factors influencing the way students internalise their…

Participation in physical activity (PA) tends to decline between childhood and adolescence, and in Australia the bulk of this decline has been shown to occur in the domain of non-organised PA (e.g. active play, informal sports). A better understanding of the reasons for the decline in non-organised PA may support strategies to counter barriers and…

Children hold strong ingroup biases from a young age, liking ingroup over outgroup members and preferring them as social learning models. Simultaneously, children are also highly prosocial--both in their own helping behaviors and their avoidance of those who behave antisocially. This study explores how children of 2 age groups (4-5 and 7-8 years)…

This study examined an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB), incorporating additional social influences, for predicting parents' and carers' decisions to visit the library with their young children. At Time 1, participants (N = 212) completed a paper-based questionnaire measuring the TPB constructs as well as group norm, parental role…

Many Pacific Islanders living in Australia have a high regard for education and have high expectations of the capacity of the school system to provide the learning experiences needed for their children to achieve successful education outcomes. However, there are some challenges to achieving this goal; socio-cultural, financial and physical factors…

Objective: The growing costs to the community of excessive alcohol consumption have resulted in pressure for governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to develop strategies to address this problem, but they do so in a highly constrained resource environment. To provide evidence of health education approaches that may be effective…

Aliteracy, the state in which the skill to read has been acquired, but not the will, is a growing concern in research on adolescence internationally. The West Australian Study in Adolescent Book Reading (WASABR) aimed to discover current attitudes toward and levels of engagement in recreational book reading among 520 adolescent students from 20…

This paper considers the pedagogical properties and subsequent impact of sport-for-development programs across a variety of sites in Australia. Moreover, this research adopts a socio-personal account of learning in an attempt to examine the contributions of the social and physical worlds related to surfing programs as well as the individuals' role…

As a nation built from the migration of peoples from every continent in the world, modern Australia developed a unique culture based on an egalitarian ethos. Recent research, however, suggests that social inequality is increasing and, in particular, social mobility is in decline. In this paper, I examine one aspect of social inequality that has…

Exploring the diverse nature of students' interpretations of their reading experiences, this study moves beyond broad generalizations about boys and girls to consider complexities inherent in the social processes that influence students' engagement in reading. While the study aimed to develop understandings about the ways notions of masculinity…

This paper contributes to studies on sociology and the body by exploring my bodily experiences as an Australian elite swimmer in an autoethnographic framework. More specifically, it focuses on the relationship between the regulatory practices of others on my body and my development of self-regulatory practices. The stories in this paper reveal…

The original purpose of this study was to test several types of anti-cannabis messages. Analysis of the results led to a second, post hoc purpose: to explain why pre-intervention substance usage rates varied so greatly between the sampled schools. Participants were Australian ninth-grade students at a state government high school and a…

This paper outlines early findings from the Tasmanian-based Social Norms Analysis Project (SNAP). The Social Norms model is presented as a theoretically informed, evidence-based model for reducing alcohol-related harm in youthful populations by utilising the complex and often positive contributions peer groups make to adolescent health and…

Religious communities have an obvious interest in passing on their beliefs and practices to future generations. Many traditional churches, however, report major difficulties in retaining the interest and involvement of adolescents. This paper seeks to explore some of the beliefs and values of Australian core Catholic youth (14- to 15-years-old).…

In this study, the portrayal of tanned skin and sun protection in magazines, television programs, and movies popular with Australian adolescents were analyzed. Images of models in magazines (n = 1,791), regular/supporting characters in television programs (n = 867), and regular/supporting characters in cinema movies (n = 2,836) for the 12-month…