Angela Higginson

Adult Learning in Australia: Predictors and Outcomes

As industrial societies increasingly evolve into knowledge-based economies, the importance of education as a lifelong process is greater than ever. This comprehensive book provides a state-of-the-art analysis of adult learning across the world and within varying institutional contexts. The expert contributors examine the structures of formal and non-formal adult learning in different countries, and investigate the levels of success those countries have experienced in encouraging participation and skill formation

The spatial concentration of bias: an examination of the community factors that influence residents' perceptions of bias crime

Emerging scholarship indicates that bias crimes are concentrated in particular types of places. Currently, only a small number of studies consider the ecological factors that influence official reports of bias crime. Results from these studies indicate that the community processes and structures associated with the occurrence of non-bias crime may operate differently for bias crime. We use administrative and survey data from approximately 4000 residents living across 148 communities in Brisbane, Queensland to examine the ecological drivers of bias crime. Using multi-level logistic regression, we examine the community and household factors associated with residents’ perceptions of bias crime. Here, we focus not only on the structural demographics of the community, but also on the degree to which community cohesion influences whether or not residents perceive bias crime as a problem in their community. We find that poverty and ethnic diversity are positively associated with residents’ perceptions of bias crime. Further, residents living in communities with higher levels of community cohesion are less likely to perceive bias crime as a problem in their community. The level of community cohesion fully mediates the impact of ethnic diversity and partially mediates the effect of poverty on residents’ perceptions of bias crime.

“Seeing” Hate Crime in the Community Do Resident Perceptions of Hate Crime Align With Self-Reported Victimization?

Hate crimes undermine tolerance and social inclusion by conveying an “outsider” status of the victim and other group members to the broader community. Yet, limited research considers whether non-victims recognize hate crime incidents when they occur. Using census and survey data for 4,000 residents living in 145 communities, we ask whether local residents “see” hate crime when it happens in their neighborhood and whether the neighborhood context influences the association between residents’ perceptions of hate crime and self-reported hate victimization. We find that residents’ perceptions are positively related to victim self-reports; however, this relationship weakens in ethnically diverse and disadvantaged areas. This suggests that residents’ perceptions of hate crime may be more dependent upon the community context than non-hate crimes.

Systematic Review of Australian Policing Interventions to Reduce Alcohol–Related Violence – A Maxillofacial Perspective

Alcohol-related violence remains to be a health concern, and the oral and maxillofacial surgeons are routinely exposed to its impact on the victims and the healthcare system. At a community level, various policing interventions have been implemented to address this violent crime in and around licensed premises. Current study sought to examine the effectiveness of these interventions in Australia. Ten eligible studies, that evaluated the impact of 15 Australian policing interventions on reducing alcohol-related violence in the night-time economy, were included in this systematic review. Due to the heterogeneity of the study designs and the insufficiency of the reported data, quantitative meta-analysis of the findings was precluded. Instead, a critical narrative approach was used. Police-recorded assault rate was the primary outcome measured to assess the level of alcohol-related violence, which was influenced by the level of police duties implemented during the intervention period. The overall evidence base to support Australian policing interventions was found to be poor and was limited by the low-quality study design observed in the majority of the included studies. However, there is some evidence to suggest interventions involving proactive policing to be more effective than traditional reactive policing. There was also an increased emphasis on developing policing interventions in collaborative partnerships, demonstrating the synergistic benefits in crime prevention through community partnerships, where communities were encouraged to take ownerships of their own problems and develop targeted responses to alcohol-related violence rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Further research is required to define their effectiveness with the use of more appropriate and robust methodologies.