Marian Tulloch

Parental fear of crime A discursive analysis

This article explores an alternative way of conceptualizing the relation between quantitative data on fear of crime derived from closed questions and subsequent elaborated responses to open-ended prompts. Parents were asked to rate their worry about their children as victims of crime. In line with previous research on ‘altruistic fear of crime’, levels of worry reported by parents were generally high and a function of parental age, personal worry about victimization and perception of rising crime rates. In responding to general fear of crime questions, parents position themselves in relation to broad social issues. Subsequent analysis of the elaborations on these responses indicates more complex and contradictory positions as parents engage with discourses around competing goals of parenthood: child safety, nurturance and positive independence. It is thus concluded that closed responses to broad fear of crime questions are better understood as self positioning within a particular social and interactive context, rather than as measures of fixed underlying variables.

Combining classificatory and discursive methods: Consistency and variability in responses to the threat of crime

This paper explores the implications for social psychology of an integration of classificatory and discursive methodologies through quantitative and qualitative analysis of responses to questions about the threat of violent crime. A total of 133 adults completed a set of standard questions followed by open-ended prompts enabling elaboration on their responses. Cluster analysis of a set of fear of crime measures distinguished four groups of respondents. Interview transcripts were analysed to identify discourses around crime deployed within each cluster in order to justify risk/anxiety judgments. Four participant positions emerge: the well-protected position, the vigilant position, the tactical risk manager and the besieged position. Further analysis of inconsistency and variability within interviews reveals the interactional discursive processes involved in the construction of criminal threat. Despite the diversity of participant positions available in constructing criminal threat and managing anxiety, discourses revolve centrally around issues of agency and uncontrollability.

Gender Differences in Bullying Experiences and Attitudes to Social Relationships in High School Students

The study examines gender differences in the self reports of students as bullies or victims and their attitudes to social relationships within the school. Students were drawn from Year 8 in seven New South Wales rural high schools. Differences were found in the overall level of bullying behaviour of males and females and in the type of bullying and in the gender of the victim targeted by boys and girls. Differences in the patterns of reports between bullies and victims were greater for cross-gender than same-gender bullying. Attitudes to bullying and social confidence varied between bullies, victims and other students. Female and male bullies differed from non-bullies in their attitudes to bullying whereas victims, especially males, were marked by a particularly strong rejection of bullying and a low level of social acceptance and confidence. The implications of these findings for classroom and whole school policy are examined.

Evaluating Aggression: School Students' Responses to Television Portrayals of Institutionalized Violence.

The study set out to examine the responses of children and adolescents to six televised excerpts selected from different genres but all raising questions about the appropriateness of violence within the context of various social institutions. Students ranging in age from 9 to 16 years each saw one 20-minute excerpt. Their attitudes to aggression were assessed from their choice of appropriate situational responses when presented with sets of behavioral options to scenarios created in the programs. No single pattern of age, social class or gender differences was found. Younger subjects were more likely than older subjects to endorse authority positions whether these were accepting or rejecting of violence. Middle-class and female subjects were generally more rejecting of violence, but this pattern was reversed in response to the portrayal of violence during an industrial dispute. The findings supported a subcultural and context-dependent interpretation of audience evaluation of televised violence.

Student feedback: a learning and teaching performance indicator

Purpose – The paper aims to disseminate solutions to common problems in student evaluation processes. It proposes that student evaluation can be applied to quality assurance and improving learning and teaching. The paper presents solutions in the areas of: presenting outcomes as performance indicators, constructing appropriate surveys, improving response rates, reporting student feedback to students and student engagement as a feature of university quality assurance. Design/methodology/approach – The research approach of this paper is comparative case study, allowing in-depth exploration of multiple perspectives and practices at seven Australian universities. Process and outcome data were rigorously collected, analysed, compared and contrasted. Findings – The paper provides empirical evidence for student evaluation as an instrument of learning and teaching data analysis for quality improvement. It suggests that collecting data about student engagement and the student experience will yield more useful data...

Tales of Outrage and the Everyday: Fear of Crime and Bodies at Risk

A couple of years ago, in the small community of Snowtown in South Australia, police announced the discovery in a disused bank vault of a number of bodies decomposing in drums of acid. The find created great media and public interest, particularly as further bodies were located, in what was rapidly labelled Australia’s worst serial killing. Yet, despite the rather ghoulish fascination, the response to the case evinced none of the wave of emotion, indignation and demand for public action that accompanied the massacre at Port Arthur, Tasmania, some years earlier. It appears not all bodies are equal, nor do their deaths generate the same level of fear and anxiety about the risk of violent crime. These two multiple killings present contrasting moral tales, each disclosing the frames through which the media and the public interpret and react to violence. The chapter uses the concept of outrage to explore how bodies, and in particular female bodies, are constructed as sites of risk and to suggest how such representations can be challenged.

The consumer experience of higher education: the rise of capsule education

Taylor and Francis Ltd CHER_A_406967.sgm 10.1080/072943 0903067948 High Educatio Re earch & Development 0729-4360 (pri t)/1469-8366 (online) Book Reviews 2 0 & Francis 8 4 0002 09 t e ineRaw catherin .r @tandf.com.au Whose university is it, anyway? Power and privilege on gendered terrain, edited by Anne Wagner, Sandra Acker and Kimine Mayuzumi, Toronto, Ontario, Sumach Press, 2008, 232 pp., C

Fear of crime

28.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-894549-75-2