the troubadour

there were certainly numerous drunken and others high on one substance or another,but what i do think there was not the attitude that is a little too prevallant with todays crop.
Although saying that a lot of the punk girls from the late 70s had attitude to burn but still somehow different...or me seeing it differently with age could be part of it perhaps? And yes girls also fought back then as witnessed at least two screamers,with girl on girl action one in a Bayswater pub(W2) and other in the Notting Hill Gate tube station. Saw a few other minor pushing and shoving sort of affairs..but nothing as bad as in OZ where in full view of dozens,a woman smashed another in the face with a full bottle of beer in Todd Mall Alice Springs.
Seems girls are fighting in and out of school and recording it to play online as reported by the media in OZ recently.

ABCDiamond

In the old days, when they hit the ground they tended to stay there, a broken bottle in the face tended to have that effect.

Some areas of Australia rarely see violence, in much the same way as some areas of the UK rarely see violence.

BadgeIsBack

Said this before - the only Australian angle which worries (and bemuses me) is the obsession some men have with 'Chopper' - he's a bit of a role model for some.

Some men can't shave off their hair and grow a goatee fast enough - if it makes them look tough - all in!

ABCDiamond

Maybe they live in an area where most of the kids are polite and better behaved, in comparison to the area that they used to live in.

Sometimes people generalise... But they may have been right for their location.

willamos

Well, I think after reading through all these replies it is quite clear that the answer is essentially 'yes'.

Logic tells you that it would be the case, anyway. Kids are kids. Teenagers are not really, logically, likely to be radically different in individual western nations. Why would an Aussie 17 year old be SO different to a British 17 year old?

The real shame is that people are so convinced that it's only in Britain. None more so than the British.

sassie

Can't believe that this is my old school.

moneypenny20

I guess it depends on where you're (general) from and where you've moved to and who you mix with. The area I came from was normal vaguely upper middle class, most of the kids were nice but the kids I meet on a daily basis here are definitely more polite. I'd say the standard of behaviour to be much the same as it was where I was in the UK.

The police said that there was no proof he was kicked or hit once down. There was a fight but show me a school in the world where fights don't happen, things haven't changed since forever, there have always been kids in schools who fight and who bully since schools began.

A number of 'witnesses' have also said that he was not hit time and time again and after one kid said on tv that there was video evidence of the kicking, after being interviewed by police, they have confirmed that there isn't. I assume some kids are lying but I have no idea which ones.

elfman

actually, the study ranked Britain among the worst in a few of the criteria studied. I wrote the following on another thread but it bears repeating here:

I saw that some of the findings of this report -in particular those indicating that British teenagers are the pissheads of Europe - have already been picked up on by the UK press and reported in a manner that suggests that the UK is the delinquent parent of the western world. However, I had a closer look at the pdf chapter 2 linked to above and did some rudimentary <cough> analysis of my own. Chapter 2 includes bar charts for the 20 criteria studied (plus a couple relating to migrant children which I didn't look at closely) and I found that the UK is placed in the top (i.e. good) third in four of these criteria, in the middle third in nine criteria, and in the bottom third in seven. Overall the average UK placing in all these criteria was 16th - out of 30 countries in the OECD. But I guess UK COMPLETELY AVERAGE AMONG DEVELOPED NATIONS isn't a sufficiently dramatic headline and doesn't allow Daily Mail readers to indulge in their bizarre fantasies about how Britain is somehow akin to Somalia/Afghanistan/Zimbabwe rolled into one.

moneypenny20

You missed Ibiza

jmh

Until recently I worked in a UK 6th form college with 1500 teenagers. Not one has been stabbed in the 6 years I was there. There was one violent incident last year which was brief scrap between two boys. Both were cautioned with letters to their parents. It has not happened again. It is a state funded school - nothing posh. When you tell them off for swearing they say sorry!

I feel sorry for all the bad press kids get here. Most are really nice people with good parents. It's hard for them to hear off the cuff comments about how they are all violent drunken louts.

sammyg

Even if he was/wasn't hit once on the floor, you still call the whole thing an accident?

fish.01

I feel "Australia has a habbit of playing things down and sweeping 'things' under the carpet to make everyone feel safer!" and "the youths of Aus seem to be thicker and dumber" are just as big generalisations as "biggest comments of b**s**t i ever heard was, 'that kids are more polite and better behaved' in Aus!!!!!!".

BadgeIsBack

I think that applies to a great many expats, most do get some sort of improvement in some area. You can't forget or underestimate this - people generally do not go and live in an awful area, quieter maybe.

Therefore I think a great many expats get the dream life they always wanted, but with all the attendant boredom that goes with it which takes longer to sink in.

I think a great many of the Australian teens I meet are sort of politer and less aggressive but that is down to the lifestyle and the community we live in - not just Australia. If I have seen it elsewhere, it is again down to the way people live. I'll go out on a limb and say the pace of life is generally slower in Australian cities, but I come from London.

But when Australians get aggressive, they have the potential to be as violent as any.

Kapri

Thanks elfman!.

To those of you who still read the Daily Malice - WHY?????

mecheng

Well, from what I recall even of the eighties, the head was usually not kicked in again, and again, and again.....