41 research outputs found
Pakeha students and a pro-Treaty analysis: Teaching issues in a diploma of clinical psychology programme
We ran Treaty/biculturalism workshops for the Diploma on an ad hoc basis in 1990, 1991, and 1992. This year we have contracted for a fuller package which involves work with first and second years and staff. Next year this will continue with third year students. We believe biculturalism training for non-Maori has two major aspects and, although they overlap in various ways we think that it is useful to separate them: the first one is awareness of Maori cultural practices, values, etc, which can perhaps be called ācultural sensitivity trainingā. This needs to be under the control of Maori and have major input from Maori. The second aspect is where our focus is, and that is awareness of the effect on the Maori world of the loss of sovereignty by Maori; of their marginalisation over the last one hundred and fifty years by Pakeha; of their oppressed status; loss of economic base, and the implications for change that flow from those events. We believe that, at least initially, Pakeha have the responsibility for educating themselves and other pakeha in this area
Tauiwi general practitioners explanations of Maori health: Colonial relations in primary healthcare in Aotearoa/New Zealand?
This paper reports initial findings from qualitative research investigating how general practitioners talk about Maori health. Transcripts of semi-structured interviews with 25 general practitioners from urban Auckland were subjected to critical discursive analyses. Through this process of intensive, analytic reading, interpretative repertoires ā patterns of words and images about a particular topic ā were identified. This paper presents the main features of one such repertoire, termed Maori Morbidity, that the general practitioners used in accounting for poor Maori health status. Our participants were drawing upon a circumscribed pool of ideas and explaining the inequalities in health between Maori and Tauiwi in ways that gave primacy to characteristics of Maori and their culture. We discuss the implications of this conclusion for relations between Maori patients and Tauiwi doctors in primary healthcare settings
Resiliency, Connectivity and Environments: Their roles in theorizing approaches to the promoting the wellbeing of young people
Early theory and findings in the area of resilience among young people emphasised individual differences and personality characteristics to explain different reactions to stress and risk. The āmodernā resiliency literature views the possible explanatory variables for different outcomes in broader contexts such as family, schools and community. Despite this change over time the individualising, problem focused orientation of resilience approaches continues to obscure the environment, leaving it an under-interrogated factor in youth wellbeing. The importance of this rests on its impact on policy and practice in the fields of youth development and health promotion. In this paper we argue that contemporary resiliency theory and research continue to fall short of the paradigm shift called for by those orienting to environmentally-based public health measures to improve population level wellbeing among young people
Maori family culture: a context of youth development in Counties/Manukau
This paper reports on a study designed to bring the voices of young people directly into the social science literature on environmental influences on wellbeing. We analyse accounts from young Maori about their families and the roles they play in their lives in order to focus on strengths and positive resources for the promotion of youth wellbeing.
Interview data were gathered from 12 females and 15 males, aged between 12 and 25 years, resident in the Counties/Manukau region. Participants who were managing satisfactorily in their lives were purposively selected for diversity of background and circumstances. Our ālifestoryā approach sought narrative accounts of both everyday experience and the highs and lows of life; data were transcribed verbatim and analysed using discursive methods.
Clusters of themes relating to family environments including relationships with parents, siblings and extended kin groups emerged. Participants provided detailed and nuanced accounts of family cultures, reporting on conflict, caring, gender issues, sensitivity, discipline, levels of guidance and forms of support
Towards promoting youth mental health in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Holistic "houses" of health
A study of the literature on mental health promotion suggests that to a far greater extent than āphysicalā health concerns, mental health seems to be dominated by the illness focus of established clinical perspectives and practices. In Aotearoa/New Zealand this leaves little in the way of conceptual space or fiscal resources for the development of new preventative possibilities of population-oriented measures focussed on enhancing social and physical environments. Outflanking this unfortunate impasse, indigenous Maori and Samoan (Pacific) conceptual frameworks for health offer holistic theoretical foundations upon which we can work for health through positive development. This paper examines these frameworks and the youth development paradigm to draw out parameters of what might count as healthy youth development in this country
Media, racism and public health psychology
A growing literature has established that racism contributes to ill-health of migrants, minority group members and indigenous peoples. Racial discrimination has been shown to act at personal, institutional and societal levels, negatively affecting physical health as evidenced by heart disease and other stress related conditions and generally negating wellbeing, signalled by psychological and psychiatric disorders including depression.
In our highly mediatized world, mass communications in diverse forms are decisive for peopleās knowledge and understandings of the world and their place in it. From critical studies we know that the media consistently marginalize, denigrate and neglect particular ethnic and cultural groups. Where media do focus on such groups much of the reporting is negative and stereotyping. Achievements are ignored or minimized while representations of those groups as problems for and threats to the dominant are highlighted.
In this paper we consider the particular case of media representations of the indigenous Maori of Aotearoa New Zealand. We review extant studies to argue that detailed and systematic study is necessary for the development of critical, local media scholarship. Such scholarship is necessary if the current media impact on Maori health and wellbeing is to be mitigated. While such considerations may not have been traditional concerns of health psychology we, following George Albee (2003), argue for them as affirming the need for critical public health psychology
Creating intoxigenic environments: Marketing alcohol to young people in Aotearoa New Zealand
Alcohol consumption among young people in New Zealand is on the rise. Given
the broad array of acute and chronic harms that arise from this trend, it is a major
cause for alarm and it is imperative that we improve our knowledge of key drivers
of youth drinking. Changes wrought by the neoliberal political climate of
deregulation that characterised the last two decades in many countries including
Aotearoa New Zealand have transformed the availability of alcohol to young
people. Commercial development of youth alcohol markets has seen the
emergence of new environments, cultures and practices around drinking and
intoxication but the ways in which these changes are interpreted and taken up is
not well understood.
This paper reports findings from a qualitative research project investigating the
meaning-making practices of young people in New Zealand in response to alcohol
marketing. Research data included group interviews with a range of Maori and
Pakeha young people at three time periods. Thematic analyses of the youth data
on usages of marketing materials indicate naturalisation of tropes of alcohol
intoxication. We show how marketing is used and enjoyed in youth discourses
creating and maintaining what we refer to as intoxigenic social environments. The
implications are considered in light of the growing exposure of young people to
alcohol marketing in a discussion of strategies to manage and mitigate its impacts
on behaviour and consumption
Consuming identities: alcohol marketing and the commodification of youth experience
Marketing has successfully used the postmodern turn in conceptualisations of the human subject and incorporated contemporary theorising of identities and self into its understanding of the key drivers of consumption. Such developments clearly converge in alcohol marketing practices that target young people where commercialized youth identities available for consumption and engagement are a significant element. This paper reports data from young people that reflect the uptake of such identities and considers the challenges that these developments represent for public health and the wellbeing of young people
Linking Health, Place and Healthy Communities
This paper poses the question of what comprises a healthy community. In addressing the question, we explore the common ground lying between the subdiscipline of health geography and the philosophies of health promotion. Building on the ideas of Maori academic Mason Durie, we propose a framework for conceptualising healthy communities. We provide some context to the New Zealand origins of our thinking, then illustrate the essentially integrative character of the framework through offering a case study drawn from our research in New Zealand dealing with suburban parenting. We conclude that the challenge to researchers, planners and policy makers is to find ways to translate the holism of such frameworks from policy into practice. Notwithstanding this challenge, we contend that there is merit in seeking to reaggregate, rather than disaggregate, the diverse influences upon healthy communities
Flaunting it on Facebook: Young adults, drinking cultures and the cult of celebrity
Copyright Ā© Antonia Lyons; Tim McCreanor; Fiona Hutton; Ian
Goodwin; Helen Moewaka Barnes; Christine Griffin; Kerryellen
Vroman; Acushla Dee OāCarroll; Patricia Niland; Lina Samu
Print publication available from: http://www.drinkingcultures.info/Young adults in Aotearoa/New Zealand (NZ) regularly engage
in heavy drinking episodes with groups of friends within
a collective culture of intoxication to āhave funā and ābe
sociableā. This population has also rapidly increased their use
of new social networking technologies (e.g. mobile camera/
video phones; Facebook and YouTube) and are said to be
obsessed with identity, image and celebrity. This research
project explored the ways in which new technologies are
being used by a range of young people (and others, including
marketers) in drinking practices and drinking cultures in
Aotearoa/NZ. It also explored how these technologies
impact on young adultsā behaviours and identities, and how
this varies across young adults of diverse ethnicities (Maori
[indigenous people of NZ], Pasifika [people descended
from the Pacific Islands] and Pakeha [people of European
descent]), social classes and genders.
We collected data from a large and diverse sample of young
adults aged 18-25 years employing novel and innovative
methodologies across three data collection stages. In total
141 participants took part in 34 friendship focus group
discussions (12 Pakeha, 12 Maori and 10 Pasifika groups)
while 23 young adults showed and discussed their Facebook
pages during an individual interview that involved screencapture
software and video recordings. Popular online
material regarding drinking alcohol was also collected (via
groups, interviews, and web searches), providing a database
of 487 links to relevant material (including websites, apps,
and games). Critical and in-depth qualitative analyses across
these multimodal datasets were undertaken.
Key findings demonstrated that social technologies play a
crucial role in young adultsā drinking cultures and processes
of identity construction. Consuming alcohol to a point of
intoxication was a commonplace leisure-time activity for
most of the young adult participants, and social network
technologies were fully integrated into their drinking cultures.
Facebook was employed by all participants and was used
before, during and following drinking episodes. Uploading
and sharing photos on Facebook was particularly central to
young peopleās drinking cultures and the ongoing creation of
their identities. This involved a great deal of Facebook āworkā
to ensure appropriate identity displays such as tagging (the
addition of explanatory or identifying labels) and untagging
photos.
Being visible online was crucial for many young adults,
and they put significant amounts of time and energy into
updating and maintaining Facebook pages, particularly with
material regarding drinking practices and events. However
this was not consistent across the sample, and our findings
revealed nuanced and complex ways in which people from
different ethnicities, genders and social classes engaged
with drinking cultures and new technologies in different
ways, reflecting their positioning within the social structure.
Pakeha shared their drinking practices online with relatively
little reflection, while Pasifika and Maori participants were
more likely to discuss avoiding online displays of drinking
and demonstrated greater reflexive self-surveillance. Females
spoke of being more aware of normative expectations around
gender than males, and described particular forms of online
identity displays (e.g. moderated intake, controlled selfdetermination).
Participants from upper socio-economic
groups expressed less concern than others about both
drinking and posting material online. Celebrity culture
was actively engaged with, in part at least, as a means of
expressing what it is to be a young adult in contemporary
society, and reinforcing the need for young people to engage
in their own everyday practices of ācelebritisingā themselves
through drinking cultures online.
Alcohol companies employed social media to market
their products to young people in sophisticated ways that
meant the campaigns and actions were rarely perceived as
marketing. Online alcohol marketing initiatives were actively
appropriated by young people and reproduced within their
Facebook pages to present tastes and preferences, facilitate
social interaction, construct identities, and more generally
develop cultural capital. These commercial activities
within the commercial platforms that constitute social
networking systems contribute heavily to a general āculture
of intoxicationā while simultaneously allowing young people
to ācreateā and āproduceā themselves online via the sharing of
consumption āchoicesā, online interactions and activities