School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses

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Start date: 2000 × End date: 2009 × Type: Honours thesis ×

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    Assessing the seriousness of rape: the effect of prior victim-perpetrator relationship, alcohol, and injuries on perceptions of severity, responsibility, and harm
    Saw, Anna Christine ( 2005-12)
    The prevalence of partner and acquaintance rape has given rise to an increasing amount of research into the effects on the victims from the 1970s and 80s onwards. Around the same time, researchers in the area of sexual assault began to investigate whether individuals perceive these types of rape as equally serious as stranger rapes. Substantial research has suggested that this is not the case, however the prevalence of rape supportive attitudes in current society is not definitively known. The current study aimed to isolate the factors of prior relationship, alcohol, and injuries within the context of rape, and investigate how these factors influenced perceived incident severity, perpetrator responsibility, and harm done to the victim. The methodology utilised extended from previous research which made use of text-based vignettes. Participants from two Victorian universities were asked to rate 12 descriptions of hypothetical incidents of sexual assault in terms of severity, responsibility, and harm. A subsample of participants responded to 6 descriptions of hypothetical incidents of sexual assault, and were asked to respond to a number of scales which assessed factors related to victim precipitation and perpetrator premeditation.
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    Citius, altius, fortius: a critical and exploratory analysis of sport and drugs discourses in Australian Football League
    Simpson, Vanessa F. ( 2006-09)
    Performance enhancing drugs in sport typically evokes a strong negative response. To make sense of this response and the drug policies it spurns this thesis undertakes a critical exploratory analysis of the discourses which surround illicit drugs and sport and the intersections between them. It looks at the globalisation of these discourses, assessing its manifestations in the World Anti-Doping Agency. A review of the literature finds that the strong desire to prohibit performance enhancing drugs stems from the global recognition of the cultural import of sport as a conduit for collective representation. Drugs and their symbolic associations with deviance and boundary violation are interpreted as a direct threat to this cultural role and so are vociferously fought. However, this emotionally driven response distracts from the task of addressing the pressures within the competitive sporting world. An analysis of the global impact of these discourses on local context follows. A contextual analysis finds that the Australian Football League, can consume, resist and transform global discourses on drugs and sport. A content analysis of the press news looks at this process at work in a recent scandal of caffeine as a performance enhancing drug. It concludes that rather than simply accepting the direction of the WADA, the debate reflected that the Australian context both magnified the symbolism of drugs in sport and contradictorily attracted increased criticism of it.