In relation to media policy, children's television is ‘special’ on a number of levels. The ways in which childhood is constructed and defined are complex and often contradictory; the state of children's television can be used as a barometer of the broader media policy climate; and the subject of children's television has mobilised strong, active and ‘successful’ interest groups. The following discussion is based on analysis of the introduction, development and trajectory of children's television policy and production practices in Australia from the 1945 ‘List of Principles to Govern Children's Programs' (radio) to the debates, issues and policy initiatives raised in the Australian Commonwealth Government Productivity Commission Inquiry into Broadcasting in 1999.
This paper contributes to research on geographies of queer rural youth through an analysis of an award-winning young adult novel, The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Danforth (2012a. The Miseducation of Cameron Post. New York: Harper Collins). Three themes from the text are explored in this paper. The first is the well documented heterosexism of rural life. We note that the main protagonist, Cameron Post, experiences rural life on the margins, not only because of her queer identity but also because of her age and gender. A second theme in Danforth's text is that rural spaces can be transgressively queer. In this respect the author subverts conflations of rurality and heterosexuality and urbanity and homosexuality as well as universalising notions of rurality as static, repressive and exclusive. The final theme emerging from a geographical reading of the text is that of placelessness. While highlighting the pervasiveness of this theme, we note that it elicits criticism from readers in relation to the book's ending as it departs from the norms of familiar coming-out-narratives. In conclusion, we emphasise the efficacy of young adult literature as a source for furthering geographic knowledge about young people and sexuality.
This paper examines representations of rural lesbian lives in three young adult novels. The novels analysed are Beauty of the broken by Tawni Waters (2014), Julie Anne Peters (2005) Pretend you love me, and Forgive me if you've heard this one before by Karelia Stetz-Waters (2014). The first of the novels by Waters (2014. Beauty of the broken. New York, NY: Simon Pulse) presents a very negative portrait of rural life for queer youth. Its message is that the only positive queer life is one that is lived in the urban. In contrast, the texts by Peters (2005. Pretend you love me. New York, NY: Little Brown) and Stetz-Waters (2014. Forgive me if you've heard this one before. Portland, OR: Ooligan Press) present rural spaces as potentially both inclusive and exclusive for queer youth. These novels also demonstrate that urban spaces can be equally problematic for queer youth. While we do not discount that Waters (2014. Beauty of the broken. New York, NY: Simon Pulse) description of rural life may be the experience of some queer youth, we argue that the novels by Peters (2005. Pretend you love me. New York, NY: Little Brown) and Stetz-Waters (2014. Forgive me if you've heard this one before. Portland, OR: Ooligan Press) offer a more nuanced and complicated notion of place and its relationship to non-normative sexual subjectivities.
We are writing in response to the above article published in Volume 31:3 of Compare 2001. The author, Geraldine McDonald, focuses on research into the relative performance of the youngest in the year group (often referred to as 'summer-born children') in different countries. Among those in which birth date effects have been noted are Cyprus, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, the USA and the UK. McDonald attempts to explain the persistence of season of birth effects in the UK by referring to the mechanism of 'selective promotion'.We wish to take issue with her argument, as far as her discussion of the UK is concerned. We understand the three main steps in the author's argument to be as follows:· That substantial numbers of children are 'promoted' from their normal grade (i.e. the expected year-group for children born during a particular year) into the one above. · That such promotion is more likely to take place among higher attaining pupils (or those who are considered to be more able). · That this affects summer-born children more than those born at other times of year and that the apparent persistence of season of birth effects in the UK results from a misunderstanding of this mechanism, rather than a real effect. Age-related organisation in English and Welsh schoolsIn our paper on the persistence of season of birth effects (Hutchison & Sharp, 1999) we present evidence on the reading performance of a sample of children born at different times of year. The paper states that: 'In this country [i.e. England] … almost all children are educated within their expected age-group.' We stand by this statement and therefore reject the main argument put forward by McDonald.To be speci c, let us con ne our discussion to England and Wales (Scotland has a different education system). In England and Wales, very few children are either promoted or 'held back' to join a year-group other than the one usually occupied by pupils born in a particular academic year. Although some promotion and retention does take place in English and Welsh schools, this is very rare.In the study mentioned above (Hutchison & Sharp, 1999), which was based in one English local education authority, there were 2,129 pupils in Cohort 1 (eight-year-olds) with complete information on age and reading score. In this cohort, we excluded the
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