http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/services/Feed ${session.getAttribute("locale")} 5 http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:12555 Aim: This paper is a report of a study of sexually active young women's experiences of negotiating condom use both before and after diagnosis of a sexually transmitted infection. Background: The male condom is the most efficient method in preventing and reducing the transmission of sexually transmitted infections. However, condom use can be hindered by factors including societal norms and gender roles, which can create difficulties for women in initiating and negotiating condom use in heterosexual partnerships. Methodology: A feminist narrative approach was used, and ten women's stories were collected via online interviews in 2007. Findings: None of the women initiated or negotiated use of the male condom for various reasons. Some relied on their male partners to initiate condom use, some were unable to practise safer sex due to the abuse and unequal gender dynamics that existed in their sexual relationships, and some thought that condom use was not necessary because of a belief that they were in safe and monogamous relationships. Even following diagnosis of a sexually transmitted infection, some women said that they were not empowered enough to initiate condom use with subsequent sexual partners, resulting in continued high-risk sexual behaviour. Conclusion: Successful condom promotion relies on the recognition of the gender factors that impede young women's condom negotiation and use. Strategies that overcome gender dynamics and empower women to negotiate condom use have the ability to promote condom use among this group. 2013-02-20T03:10:06.525Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:9589 We suggest that recent concerns about young people's excess body weight have generally been treated quite separately to longer standing concerns about young people (particularly, young women) and eating disorders. The few papers that have addressed this connection directly have focused on how practices motivated by the obesity discourse have had damaging consequences for the ways young women have come to understand and act on their bodies. The research described in this paper, however, makes a different point. It demonstrates how one teacher struggles to negotiate the different and often contradictory meanings about the body and young women's health, in a context where explicit teaching about eating disorders and body image is formally endorsed and legislated through the State health and physical education (HPE) syllabus. The interview material and classroom exchanges described in the paper are from a project that examined the implementation of a sociocultural perspective as a curriculum change in HPE. The case presented here took place in a girls' private school, where an accomplished female HPE head teacher developed and taught a unit of work focused on food and nutrition to a class of 15- and 16-year-old female students. Our analysis suggests that, within this particular gendered and classed setting, the teacher understood the students in her class as being at greater risk of developing eating disorders than of becoming obese. However, despite the apparent ‘risk’ presented by eating disorders, the investments both students and the teacher had in their own bodies as the slim ideal, meant that learning and teaching about how to avoid being fat continued to be paramount. We suggest further research is required to understand how teachers negotiate the intersection of obesity and eating disorders in the formal curriculum and across different social and cultural contexts, and to draw on this in advising teachers in relation to future practice. 2011-12-05T05:00:03.439Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:6060 This paper reports on a study into the meanings of marriage for young women in the Hunter region. Using data from 73 interviews, the paper examines the meanings of marriage for women aged 18-35. Looking at multiple narratives, it considers young women’s attitudes towards marriage in terms of detraditionalization and retraditionalization. Although conjugal diversity has increased, and crude marriage rates have decreased, the majority of couples still marry. Despite high divorce rates, marriage remains the most powerful and widely acknowledged form of social contract. Few empirical studies focus on the meanings young women ascribe to marriage, instead viewing marriage as a stable concept, around which to research. This paper discusses the ‘fit’ of respondents’ attitudes towards marriage with the ‘detraditionalization’ arguments posited variously by Beck, Giddens and Bauman. It argues that attitudes towards marriage reflect the detraditionalization process to some extent, yet concurrently indicate the retraditionalization process, for example in the desire for church weddings and defending housework. 2010-04-27T04:47:44.839Z ]]>