Investing in arts and culture positively changes communities: an impact study of RADF supported arts projects in Western Queensland

Regional Australia is undergoing change. Communities within regional locations are under varying degrees of pressure from: threats to local and regional economies; socio-economic disadvantage; population migration to urban centres; environmental degradation; and aging populations. This process of change is exacerbated by globalisation which has direct detrimental impacts on the micro-economies of small communities, resulting in economic hardship and disadvantage. Academic research here in Australia and internationally suggests that community arts participation can make significant contributions to community wellbeing. Yet the arts sector in Australia remains relatively silent in respect to the active role it could play in changing the perception of policy makers regarding the contribution community arts participation could make to support regional communities undergoing change. While community arts are one of a number of developmental activities policy makers have available to fund, little is known about the impacts of this government investment on regional Australian communities. Responding to this lack of knowledge about regional Australian arts and cultural participation, this research explores and describes community arts impacts at the community level. The knowledge generated in this study will inform government planning, and provide an empirical evidence base to direct policy decisions toward developing arts and cultural strategies ensuring the ongoing resiliency of regional communities. This study benefits Federal, State, and Local Government arts funding policy makers who seek to support regional community development, prosperity, and resilience. This study uses a qualitative methodology to describe community arts impact and draw out the processes driving this change. A case study approach is used to explore impacts made by the Queensland Regional Arts Development Fund initiative, which is a partnership program between state and local government. An examination of in-depth evidence gathered from key stakeholders and archival documents from the Western Downs Region is investigated. The results of this study establish that community arts engagement is a powerful tool to direct collective agency towards changing community development trajectories and resiliency. Four impact themes including developing arts and culture, wellbeing, social connectedness, and capacity building were identified through the study. Community arts impacts have multiple dimensions that aggregate across four levels of a community in a process that is cumulative over time. These cumulative impacts demonstrate links to a community capacity building process and the development of seven community capitals activated by participation. Evidence from this research reveals that, over time, the sum of multiple community arts impacts can make significant contributions to the wellbeing and resiliency of regional Queensland communities through building community capacity, developing community capitals, and facilitating the communication of community culture. The three new frameworks developed in this study contribute to knowledge about community arts practice, community development, and Social Science theory. This study adds to what is known about community arts impacts in regional Australia, and provides a robust evidence base for informing policy maker decisions and community arts practitioners arguing for greater arts funding for the regions

Attitudes towards prisoner-to-prisoner bullying and the association with prison environments: Examining the components.

Purpose: The research aims to examine attitudes towards prisoner-to-prisoner bullying, further considering the association between attitudes and characteristics of the prison environment thought to promote prisoner bullying. Methodology: Questionnaires were administered to 423 adult male prisoners and 195 correctional officers from three prisons in Canada. Participants completed the Prison Bullying Scale (PBS) and the Prison Environmental Scale (PES). Findings: Convergence in attitudes between prisoners and officers were noted although staff were more likely to consider bullies to be skilled, whereas prisoners were more likely than officers to feel that victims of bullying should be supported. Associations between attitudes supportive of bullying and environmental characteristics likely to promote prison bullying were found primarily among prisoners; the strongest predictors of such attitudes were poor relationships (e.g. prisoner to officer; prisoner to prisoner). Research implications: The study highlights the importance of the social aspect of the prison environment. It further provides an outline of two measures that could have utility in evaluating interventions designed to reduce prisoner-to-prisoner bullying. Originality/value: The study is the first to examine attitudes in a combined sample of prisoners and officers and focuses on the role of the wider prison environment. It also utilises a sample from three prisons as opposed to focusing on a single establishment

Eating the afterbirth: An exploration of the myth of motherhood

Faculty of Humanities School of Language and literature 0005333p [email protected] research report consists of two parts: a theoretical introduction and a creative project. In the theoretical introduction I have examined various pregnancy and child-care manuals together with popular literature in an attempt to explore some of the representations of motherhood. The areas I touched on include: pregnancy, labour pain, natural birth, breastfeeding, postnatal depression, working mothers and child care. The creative project incorporates all these different facets of motherhood and consists of two chapters of a novel written in the popular form referred to as “chick lit”

Professional Learning on Twitter: A content analysis of professional learning conversations among self-organized groups of educators

This study explores the nature of professional learning conversations taking place in an online microblogging platform known as Twitter, through the lens of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000). The CoI framework offers an approach to further understand elements of cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence found in constructivist learning environments among educators. A content analysis was conducted on three distinct participant-driven educational Twitter chats demonstrating each chat to contain elements of cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. This finding led to a deeper understanding about the use of questioning techniques and facilitation skills in order to allow for productive conversations online among educators. The findings have important implications for professionals who are responsible for the design and organization of educators\u27 professional learning programs. Implications for positive social change include increasing educators\u27 effective use of social media to improve self-directed learning opportunities

A Hybrid Sequencing Approach Completes the Genome Sequence of Thermoanaerobacter ethanolicus JW 200

Thermoanaerobacter ethanolicus JW 200 has been identified as a potential sustainable biofuel producer due to its ability to readily ferment carbohydrates to ethanol. A hybrid sequencing approach, combining Oxford Nanopore and Illumina DNA sequence reads, was applied to produce a single contiguous genome sequence of 2,911,280 bp

Professional Development Needs for Educators Working with Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders in Inclusive School Environments

The primary objective of this mixed methods study was to identify educators’ professional development needs to determine how best to support them in providing quality programming for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) within an inclusive educational system. Information was collected through focus groups with key school board informants (n = 33) and a survey of educators (n = 225). The results indicate that educators have found it difficult to meet the wide-ranging and varying needs of children with ASD within a strictly defined model of inclusive education. Educators consistently emphasized the need for multileveled and multipronged professional development that is accessible in a timely fashion and available as needs arise. The need for educational programs that work for children with ASD being taught within inclusive education settings is highlighted