The relationship between contact and prejudice against Indigenous Australians and refugees was explored.Using path analysis, increased quality of contact significantly decreased prejudice toward Indigenous Australians, both directly and indirectly through intergroup anxiety; while increased quantity of contact reduced prejudice via a direct pathway. Decreased levels of prejudice toward Indigenous Australians led to increases in support for legislation, which led to increases in willingness to act. Similar results were found for the refugee analysis, except that there was no relationship between quantity of contact and other 1 Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Katrine M. Turoy-Smith, School of Psychology, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, 6150, Australia. E-mail: tornerose_k@hotmail.com variables. Qualitative analyses revealed the importance of context, the nature of experience and indirect experience, and societal factors. Our results indicate the power of contact, as well as other structural, interpersonal, and personal factors.Australia has a long history of immigration, which has resulted in a checkered history of relations between different cultural groups. Now, Australia typically projects itself as an accepting and tolerant multicultural society (Department of Immigration and Citizenship [DIAC], 2003). However, research has found that prejudice and racism are pervasive in Australian society (Dunn, Forrest, Burnley, & McDonald, 2004). It is also evident that some minority groups experience more prejudice, racism, discrimination, and consequent inequities than do others (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission [HREOC], 2001).Indigenous Australians, in particular, experience much prejudice (Paradies & Cunningham, 2009), as well as disparities in health, housing, employment, and other social advantages (Paradies, 2006). The results also indicate that awareness of prejudice in the community negatively affects the physical and mental health of Indigenous Australians (Paradies, 2006) and is significantly related to anger, suicidal behavior, incarceration rates, and prison experiences of Indigenous Australians (Larson, Gillies, Howard, & Coffin, 2007). Asylum seekers also experience a great deal of negativity (Pedersen, Attwell, & Heveli, 2005), as do refugees (Tilbury & Colic-Peisker, 2006).Research focusing on different ethnic groups and immigrants has also found prejudice against people of Asian, Arab, and African descent (e.g., Islam & Jahjah, 2001); these regions being predominant areas of origin of many refugees (HREOC, 2005). Perceived discrimination in the community by refugees has likewise been found to be significantly associated with negative well-being (Werkuyten & Nekuee, 1999) and to increase the difficulties of settling and integrating into Australian society (Davidson, Murray, & Schweitzer, 2008). Prejudice not only has negative consequences for specific minority groups, but is detrimental for a society generally and leads to a lack of social cohesion (Pedersen, Wa...

Objective This study aims to provide a review of the current literature on the interviewing of children for family law matters as an up‐to‐date resource for practitioners who might be starting out in, or considering entering, the family law arena and as a guide for future research. Method This study is a literature review of publications concerning the purpose and practice of child interviews in family law matters. Specifically, this review is structured around the following questions: (a) what is sought from interviews with children for family law matters; (b) what capacity do children have to provide reliable information; and (c) how should children and how are children currently being interviewed in the family law context. Results Research on the interviewing of children for family law matters is still in its infancy, with the majority of the work concentrated on providing guidelines, principles, and suggestions for interviews without an evaluation of whether these guidelines or suggestions are being utilised or whether they are effective. Conclusions No one has yet extensively examined how child interviews for parenting disputes are being conducted. Overall, the aim of future research should therefore include investigation of: (a) how children are actually being interviewed for reports in family law proceedings; (b) what effect known interviewing techniques have in the family law context; and (c) how best practice interviewing can be developed and applied for assessments in family law proceedings.

Interviews with children form a major part of assessments in contested family law matters. This study provides a qualitative analysis of professionals’ perceptions regarding how children are interviewed for family law purposes and the challenges associated with these interviews. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 15 professionals who had experience in the area of family law and/or interviewing children. Transcripts of these interviews were analyzed using an inductive coding process and key themes identified. The overriding message found was that interviewing children for family law matters is complex and warrants considerable skill and expertise. The findings highlight the importance of recognizing the purpose of each child interview and the appropriate process and strategies to conduct each interview.

Child interviews form an important component of custody evaluations. Yet, research on children's responses to questions about home life and relationships is lacking. In the present study, children (N = 47) aged 6 to 10 years were interviewed about their daily routines and family relationships. Responses to four categories of questions were compared: open and specific questions about routines, and negative and positive aspects of family relationships. Responses were coded for amount of information, informativeness, topic pertinence, and refusals to answer. Results suggested that questions about everyday routines and relationships elicit relevant and informative responses from children. It is suggested that interviewers begin with open-ended questions about daily routines to structure family law interviews with children.

The utility of generic ("what happens") and episodic ("what happened") prompts in eliciting children's reports of their experiences has been considered in previous research, but not within the context of family law interviews. In the current study, 47 children aged 6 to 10 years old were interviewed about what usually happens (generic) and what happened during a particular event (episodic) during aspects of their daily lives. Interview topics were informed by published guidance on family law interviewing. Children's parents judged the accuracy of their reports. Interviews were coded for episodic and generic language use, accuracy, refusals to answer questions, uncertainty, informativeness, number of details provided, and the novelty of information provided across the generic and episodic phases. Recall order (episodic-first, generic-first) was counterbalanced but no effects of order were apparent. As predicted, children responded to interviewer questions with congruent language use. Parents judged generic accounts to be partially accurate more frequently, and inaccurate less frequently, than episodic accounts. Children said, "I don't remember" and indicated uncertainty more often to episodic than generic questions, but younger children's episodic accounts were more informative than were their generic ones. Conversely, generic accounts contained more total details and more novel details than episodic accounts. Few age differences were observed. The results suggest that there is value in asking children for both generic and episodic information about their daily lives when conducting information-gathering interviews for family law purposes, but that generic prompts may be more productive on the whole.