Does better access to contraceptives increase their use? Key policy and methodological issues

The effect of community characteristics, in general, and access to family planning services, in particular, on contraceptive use has received considerable attention for several reasons. First, from a policy perspective, increasing access to contraception is the most direct intervention available for increasing use. Second, from the perspective of the sociology of fertility, community variables affecting access, such as the number of family planning clinics in or near the community, are frequently examined because they are thought to be the means by which group factors influence the behavior of individual members. And, third, economists, who see many decisions as being simultaneously determined, are often in search of independent variables which are not determined by other individual decisions to explain behavior. This paper reviews policy and methodological issues that need to be clarified in order to arrive at answers to policy questions. These policy issues range from whether strong programs are necessary or sufficient for the reduction of fertility to how such programs should be targeted for equity and efficiency objectives and which elements of program input are more cost effective. In this article the authors discuss these issues and draw conclusions about the findings to date and the future agenda for research.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Science Education,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Social Cohesion,Adolescent Health

How access to contraception affects fertility and contraceptive use in Tunisia

To a great extent, fertility decline in Tunisia can be explained by the rise in the age at which women marry, probably because they are better educated and because social legislation has given them more rights. A second major factor in fertility decline was the increased use of contraception. The main focus of this paper is what determines the practice of contraception. The general increase in the use of contraception was the result of a strong family planning program as well as increases in education over time. The family planning program in Tunisia is considered one of the best in the world. There has been a substantial program to improve the access of the rural, poor, and least educated population groups to family planning. Although in the last 10 years contraceptive use increased the most among the least educated women, these groups are still served less well than the more privileged. The results of this paper show the central role of mortality decline and access to contraception. Health facilities, especially clinics, and good water are important in reducing mortality, which in turn increases the motivation to restrict fertility and the likelihood that people will act on that motivation. The structural model used is designed to distinguish such community variables as access to family planning from the channels through which they operate.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Adolescent Health,Reproductive Health,Early Child and Children's Health,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences

Hunting the Collectors: Pacific Collections in Australian Museums, Galleries and Archives

This volume investigates Pacific collections held in Australian - museums, art galleries and archives, and the diverse group of 19th and 20th century collectors responsible for their acquisition. The nineteen essays reveal varied personal and institutional motivations that eventually led to the conservation, preservation and exhibition in Australia of a remarkable archive of Pacific Island material objects, art and crafts, photographs and documents. Hunting the Collectors benchmarks the importance of Pacific Collections in Australia and is a timely contribution to the worldwide renaissance of interest in Oceanic arts and cultures. The essays suggest that the custodial role is not fixed and immutable but fluctuates with the perceived importance of the collection, which in turn fluctuates with the level of national interest in the Pacific neighbourhood. This cyclical rise and fall of Australian interest in the Pacific Islands means many of the valuable early collections in state and later national repositories and institutions have been rarely exhibited or published. But, as the authors note, enthusiastic museum anthropologists, curators, collection managers and university-based scholars across Australia, and worldwide, have persisted with research on material collected in the Pacific

Effect of migrant parents' bodyweight perception on children's body bodyweight:A longitudinal analysis of population cohort study

Children of migrants in Australia are disproportionally affected by overweight/obesity. Their parents, however, are likely to put little effort into lifestyle changes if unable to recognise their children's suboptimal bodyweight. We examined the potential impact of migrant parents' bodyweight perception on their children's bodyweight over time and whether the region-of-birth of parents and acculturation to the host nation's way of life moderated the relationship, as very little is known about these in the Australian context. We analysed a sample of 2046 children of migrant parents drawn from 8 waves of population-based cohort data, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, capturing their lived experience from ages 2 to 17. After controlling for child, parent, family, and neighbourhood factors influencing children's bodyweight, multilevel models showed higher children's bodyweight in subsequent waves if their parents perceived children's bodyweight as lower than their actual bodyweight (i.e., underestimation). However, the rate of increase in children's bodyweight attenuated over time. The effect of migrant parents' underestimation on children's subsequent bodyweight differed by region-of-birth, with higher children's bodyweight in successive waves if their parents were from the Americas, compared to migrant parents from North/West Europe. Parents' acculturation, however, did not have a discernible effect. Although migrant parents' bodyweight perception of their children's bodyweight status influenced children's bodyweight in subsequent waves, this factor was not enough to explain the extent of disparities in children's bodyweight observed in the Australian migrant population. Further research is needed to assess the effects of other types of perception (such as perceptions of healthy weight and physical exercise) on bodyweight disparities in children of migrants

Developing Students' Knowledge About Language in the Early Years: A Games-Based Pedagogical Approach

A games-based pedagogical approach to developing students' knowledge about language in the early years of primary schooling is the focus of this study. New perspectives about the potential for teaching and learning about grammar to support students' development as expert users of language have emerged in recent literature and these studies have offered insights into how educators might unlock this potential in their classrooms. Recognising the potential of knowledge about grammar to support language and literature development has been aligned with the use in the classroom of a more functionally-oriented pedagogical grammar, one derived from M.A.K Halliday's systemic functional linguistics. Recent curriculum changes in Anglophone countries, including Australia, have foregrounded explicit functionally-oriented grammar instruction. To enact this aspect of the curriculum effectively, teachers, particularly those working with very young students, need more knowledge about grammar and more pedagogical 'know-how'. To contribute to building this 'know-how', the study presented in this thesis explores the use of games-based pedagogy to teach young students about grammar. Specifically, the affordances of dialogic pedagogy, metalinguistic understanding and multimodality were applied to the design of grammar games to teach Year 1 students about clause structure and the functional parts of the clause. In this single embedded case study, the students were video-recorded as they played the games. This enabled an analysis of the students' use of multiple semiotic resources, including gestural and dialogic interaction, colour and movement, to reveal the complex interplay between interactive mediating tools and interactions in games purposefully designed to support these young students learning about grammar. The study findings suggest that the type of student dialogic interaction that supports learning can emerge when students are engaged in games-based learning activities. Moreover, this kind of student dialogic interaction, scaffolded by multiple semiotic resources, can support young students' gradual development of knowledge about language and their developing metalinguistic understanding. A refined framework for how the young students in this study appeared to develop their metalinguistic understanding is proposed. The thesis suggests that further research into the possibilities afforded by a games-based approach to developing students' knowledge about language is warranted

Non-strategic ignorance: Considering the potential for a paradigm shift in evidence-based mental health

Randomised controlled trials form a central building block within the prevailing evidence-based mental health paradigm. Both methodology and paradigm have been widely problematised since their emergence in the mid-late twentieth century. We draw on the concept of ‘strategic ignorance’ to understand why the paradigm still prevails. We present focus group data gathered from 37 participants (service users, public, carers, general practitioners, commissioners) concerning the way they made sense of a randomised controlled trial of psychotherapy for treatment-resistant depression. Thematic analysis of the findings revealed an overall critique of randomised controlled trial methods which we refer to as ‘non-strategic ignorance’. Specifically, participants problematised the construct of depression, unseating the premise of the randomised controlled trial; they were sceptical about the purpose and highlighted its failure to show how therapy works or who might benefit; the randomised controlled trial was seen as inadequate for informing decisions about how to select a therapy. Participants assumed the treatment would be cost-effective given the client group and nature of the therapy, irrespective of any randomised controlled trial findings. Each area of lay (‘non-strategic’) critique has an analogous form within the methodological expert domain. We argue that ‘expert’ critiques have generally failed to have paradigmatic impact because they represent strategic ignorance. Yet parallel non-strategic critiques have common sense appeal, highlighting the potential power of lay voices. The discussion considers whether the evidence-based mental health paradigm is faced with epistemological problems of such complexity that the conditions exist for a new paradigm in which service user views are central and randomised controlled trials peripheral

Bostonia: The Boston University Alumni Magazine. Volume 9

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs