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PurposeThe initial aim of this multiagency, multigenerational record linkage study is to identify childhood profiles of developmental vulnerability and resilience, and to identify the determinants of these profiles. The eventual aim is to identify risk and protective factors for later childhood-onset and adolescent-onset mental health problems, and other adverse social outcomes, using subsequent waves of record linkage. The research will assist in informing the development of public policy and intervention guidelines to help prevent or mitigate adverse long-term health and social outcomes.ParticipantsThe study comprises a population cohort of 87 026 children in the Australian State of New South Wales (NSW). The cohort was defined by entry into the first year of full-time schooling in NSW in 2009, at which time class teachers completed the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) on each child (with 99.7% coverage in NSW). The AEDC data have been linked to the children's birth, health, school and child protection records for the period from birth to school entry, and to the health and criminal records of their parents, as well as mortality databases.Findings to dateDescriptive data summarising sex, geographic and socioeconomic distributions, and linkage rates for the various administrative databases are presented. Child data are summarised, and the mental health and criminal records data of the children's parents are provided.Future plansIn 2015, at age 11 years, a self-report mental health survey was administered to the cohort in collaboration with government, independent and Catholic primary school sectors. A second record linkage, spanning birth to age 11 years, will be undertaken to link this survey data with the aforementioned administrative databases. This will enable a further identification of putative risk and protective factors for adverse mental health and other outcomes in adolescence, which can then be tested in subsequent record linkages.

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S There is a long history of concern in the study of literacy with readership. Readership refers to the use of reading as a form of communication and is assumed to be important to individual development (Guthrie & Seifert, 1984). Readership involves adults' uses of a variety of print contents to serve different purposes which are assumed to result in distinct outcomes for individuals, including improved literacy proficiency. This study examined readership in terms of adults' reading practices and the association of these practices with prose, document, and quantitative (PDQ) literacy proficiencies, as assessed by the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). A nationally representative sample of adults, ages 16 and older, participated in the NALS, which was conducted in 1992. Five age cohorts were compared in the study reported here: 19–24, 25–39, 40–54, 55–64, and 65 years of age and older. The purpose was to make cross‐age comparisons in reading practices involving five print contents: newspapers, magazines, books, and six types of personal and work documents. Respondents frequency of use of these contents. Reading practices involving books and work documents were shown to bear strong relationships to literacy proficiencies on three scales measuring somewhat different literacy abilities: prose, document, and quantitative literacy. Age group differences in reading the five print contents were also found, consistent with previous readership surveys. Younger adults were more likely to read brief documents for work, while older adults were more avid newspaper readers. Additional analyses of the reading practices data suggest that extensive reading practice may be beneficial to older adults' literacy abilities. Older adults who read multiple print contents performed comparably to younger adults who read only a single content. Although age is confounded with educational attainment, a series of regression analyses determined that reading practices contribute significantly to PDQ proficiencies even after education is controlled. Engaging in a diversity of reading practices is indicative of reading maturity and appears to have important consequences in terms of literacy abilities, regardless of age. EL INTERÉS por el estudio de la alfabetización y la condición de lector tiene una larga historia. La condición de lector se refiere al uso de la lectura como una forma de comunicación y ha sido considerada importante para el desarollo individual (Guthrie & Seifert, 1984). La condición de lector implica los usos adultos de una variedad de contenidos impresos que sirven a diferentes propósitos y que resultan en diferentes consecuencias para los individuos, incluyendo mayores competencias en lectoescritura. Este estudio examinó la condición de lector en términos de las prácticas de lectura de adultos y la asociación de estas prácticas con las competencias para prosa, documentos y competencias cuantitativas (PDQ), tal como son evaluadas por el Estudio Nacional de Alfabetización de Adultos (NALS). Una muestra de adultos repr...

This study explored how British gay men make sense of their appearance and clothing practices, and the pressures and concerns they attend to in discursively negotiating their visual identities. A convenience sample of 20 mostly young, White and middle class selfidentified gay men responded to a qualitative survey on dress and appearance. The participants clearly understood the rules of compulsory heterosexuality and the risks of looking 'too gay'. In the data, there was both a strong resistance to the notion of gay as a 'master status' and an orientation to the 'coming out' imperative in gay communities.Analysis revealed the overriding importance of discourses of authentic individuality for making sense of visual identity and the reported cultivation of appearance and clothing practices that communicate the message that: 'I'm not hiding (too closeted), I'm not shouting (too gay), I'm just me (an authentic individual who just happens to be gay)'.