Book Review
Profile of Young Australians: Facts, Figures and Issues
Peter Boss, Sue Edwards, Susan Pitman (Eds)
ISBN: 978-0443052576 1995 288 pages Churchill Livingstone
Ruth Webber
Australian Catholic University, Melbourne VIC
This is not a book that you would want to read from cover to cover. It is a resource book about young people and their families in Australia, and it includes demographic details within a historical and legislative context. It also provides summaries of the findings of major enquires like the Henderson Poverty Inquiry or Burdekin Report. The statistical information is accompanied by visual representations via tables or graphs, and these in turn are explained and supported by recent research findings and analysis. It is useful to have the material put into an international context as occurs on some topics like child maltreatment. This allows the reader to compare Australian with overseas trends Differences in State and Federal Laws about certain issues like Age of Criminal Responsibility are also included. To present diverse information about young people and their families in the same format and in an easily accessible manner is invaluable. In this way the book is a gem. Previously, if researchers wished to access family data, then they were obliged to chase it from numerous sources all of which presented the material in different and not always user friendly ways.
The material is presented in an objective a manner; facts and figures are provided but there appears to be a conscious decision not to make value judgments. This is particularly evident in the chapter on substitute care and fostering. On several occasions the authors make predictions about future trends and the reasons for their predictions, but at no time do they push a political viewpoint.
There are numerous graphs that help the reader to quickly grasp both percentage and numerical breakdown. The authors have avoided the error of putting so much information on graphs that they become almost unintelligible. However, the graphs would not reproduce clearly on to overhead transparencies because there is very little differentiation between categories in terms of shading or patterns. This is a drawback and the use of either colour or different patterns might have helped overcome this difficulty. Despite this drawback, the graphs and table are very easy to interpret. This and other information is accessible to a wide audience primarily because the authors refrain from using academic or statistical jargon. For example, before providing statistical information about incidents of bullying, the authors provide a summary of the elements of bullying that are common to most definitions presented in research. In this way the reader knows exactly what is being discussed and can interpret the data easily.
Most areas about young Australians are covered, including, education, health, juvenile justice, recreation, homelessness, work force participation, and education. It was pleasing to see that in several chapters there was a section about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and children from non- English peaking backgrounds. In struggling to think of topics that may have been over-looked, I was reduced to considering areas such as 'young people and their representation in the media' or 'young people and social values and/or religion'.
I believe this book is an essential addition to libraries in both University and community settings. I recognise that the book's life will be limited and new editions will be required to keep up with changing demographic details. However, this book would pay for itself relatively quickly in respect to the time that would have otherwise been lost chasing information from other sources.
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