Rugby,Modernity and Controversy: Le P'tit Parigot (1926) by René Le Somptier

The history of sports literature has enjoyed renewed interest over the last few years, with a noticeable increase in the number of Anglo-Saxon works and the revival of French research. Through fiction, it is possible to understand the processes whereby ideas spread and collective imaginaries are constructed. In this regard, this article revisits the history of rugby union through the prism of a cine-novel, Le P'tit Parigot (1926), which was presented in serialised form via the newspaper L'Intransigeant and as a six-episode film in cinemas. It depicts the misfortunes of Georges Grigny-Latour, also known as the ‘P'tit Parigot’, son of an academic and captain of the French rugby union football team. This sport serial is a historical source of precious and useful information enabling us to address the representations of rugby at the time. The article aims to characterise the ambiguous identity of the sport during the Roaring Twenties, an identity that was torn between a Parisian spirit cultivating the idea of rugby as the inheritance of Anglo-Saxon values, and a provincial vision using it as a means of territorial expression.     

Do weight categories prevent athletes from relative age effect?

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate whether weight categories prevent young athletes from being exposed to a relative age effect. The dates of birth of all French female (n = 727) and male (n = 5440) amateur boxers who participated in the 2010–2011 season were collected from the federation database. The dates of birth of all French male professional boxers (n = 354) were also collected. The results show an absence of a relative age effect among French female and male amateur boxers. The results also show an absence of this phenomenon among French male professional boxers. The male 18–18+ age category reveal an inverse relative age effect. This inverse relative age effect might be interpreted as the result of a strategic adaptation from relatively younger children who shift from one sport to another where there are weight categories in order to ensure fair competition. The results of this study suggest that the weight category system is a possible solution within the relative age effect phenomenon.     

Who’s fault is it? An analysis of the press coverage of football betting scandals in France and the United Kingdom

Sport betting is a lucrative business for bookmakers, for the lucky (or wise) punters, but also for governments and for sport. While not new or even recent, the deviances linked to sport betting, primarily match-fixing, have gained increased media exposure in the past decade. This exploratory study is a qualitative content analysis of the press coverage of sport betting-related deviances in football in two countries (UK and France), using in each case two leading national publications over a period of five years. Data analysis indicates a mounting coverage of sport betting scandals, with teams, players and criminals increasingly framed as culprits, while authorities and federations primarily assume a positive role. As for the origin of sport betting deviances, French newspapers tend to blame the system (in an abstract way); British newspapers, in contrast, focus more on individual weaknesses, notably greed. This article contributed to the growing body of literature on the importance of these deviances and on the way they are perceived by sport organizations, legislators and the public at large.     

Public Emotions and their Personal Consequences: The Nationalizing Affects of the Australian Football League since 1990

This article examines the historical and emotional consequences of the Victorian Football League's decision to ‘go national’. Many saw the emergence of the Australian Football League (AFL) as a threat to the authentic attachments of supporters. As many localized social practices were ‘rationalized’, however, engagement with the League increased across Australia. This article suggests that this success can be explained, in part, by the ways in which public representations of the AFL provided new points of identification for supporters. Drawing on recent work by critical theorists of emotion, I suggest that the already passionate culture of Australian rules supporting has been reworked by the animation of nationalistic attachments and the increasingly intimate representation of players in Australian public life. Ironically, though, these new modes of representation have opened the AFL out to heated debates about the emotions of the players themselves. The contested emergence of the crying AFL player in Australian public life since 2000 is both a product of these shifts and an example of the unruliness of identification and idealization. Attachments to players in the language of national identity, I suggest, are psychically volatile because they are connected to how supporters understand their own identities, lives, and losses.     

Helping students build competences in physical education: theoretical proposals and illustrations

In the French education system, the current curriculum for students from the primary to the end of secondary school is structured around the notion of key competence. A competence can be defined as an integrated and stable network of knowledge and know-how, with normative behaviors, procedures and types of reasoning. However, without a theoretical conceptualization of building and mobilization processes, the components of a competence are considered as isolated and not interconnected. In the health and physical education (HPE) setting, too few empirical studies have analyzed how teachers would contribute to the development of student’s competence. The aim of this forward-looking article grounded on an experiential and cultural framework consists in clarifying and illustrating a conceptualization of the dynamics of development of competences among students considering the teacher activity. This theoretical framework seems to offer heuristic possibilities for the examination of teaching and learning practices which contribute to the development of the key competences, particularly when a competence is read as an experience that integrates multiple dimensions. Based on audio-video recording of PE lessons and self-confrontation interviews with the teacher and a student, the results of the present study strengthen the criticism of the definition of competence emphasizing the relevance to adopt a holistic approach corresponding to the articulation of intertwined resources (i.e. motor, methodological and social) students allocate to act in PE groups. Furthermore, the results show that the competence building depends on various roles students have the opportunity to play in PE (i.e. observer, tutor). Finally, our results underline the importance of identifying the specific characteristics of the teacher activity designed to structure the learning environment to train students to acquire new competences transferable in society.     

开放式与闭锁式运动技能教学方法的比较研究 ———以普通高校女生排球和大众健美操项目运动技能的习得过程为例

采用教学试验法对高校体育英语和外贸英语两个非体育类专业本科女生习得排球和大众健美操项目的运动技能过程进行实证研究,结果表明:领会式教学方法对学生掌握两个项目的运动技能及其基本战术意识的形成是行之有效的手段。     

Gendering physical education: The role of the French State in the aftermath of the First World War

Abstract

The Great War contributed greatly to challenge the gender order in France, a context that resulted in both a crisis of masculinity and a certain freedom of women. As a reaction, men and women were redefined in the aftermath of the First World War according to traditional gender expectations. This return to tradition was especially reflected in the new official discourse on physical education. Between 1919 and 1927, the so-called “French Method of Physical Education” was written by the Military School of Joinville-Le-Pont and immediately imposed on the State school system for all French pupils. Consisting of three large volumes, the “French Method” offers an excellent tool to explore how the French State redefined the gender relations and presented ideal models of masculinity and femininity. The issue is of particular interest because the “French Method” became compulsory for almost half a century in France and was largely disseminated throughout the world.     

如何面对新教材的问世

为更好贯彻新教材 (《体育与健康》)的精神 ,使体育课教学上一个台阶 ,根据新教材推出的时代背景以及学习实践的体会 ,在对新教材有了更深刻的认识后 ,本文提出了面对新教材如何选择教学内容、改进教学方法和构建一个比较客观而积极的评价体系的粗略构想。     

Relative age effect in elite sports: Methodological bias or real discrimination?

Abstract

Sport science researchers refer to a relative age effect when they observe a biased distribution of elite athletes' birth dates, with an over-representation of those born at the beginning of the competitive year and an under-representation of those born at the end. Based on the complete sample of French male licensed soccer players (n=1,831,524), we suggest that there could be an important bias in the statistical test of this effect. This bias could in turn lead to the false conclusion of systemic discrimination in the recruitment of professional players. Our findings question the accuracy of previous research on the existence of this effect in elite soccer.     

Engines at top speed! Using the adventures of a comic book motorsports hero as an approach to understanding recent French history

Jean Graton created a series of comic books called Michel Vaillant, and its motorsports hero bore the same name. Michel Vaillant made his first appearance in 1957 in the weekly Tintin. Young French boys who loved adventure, sports and car racing greeted this publication with great enthusiasm. We studied the first series of Michel Vaillant, composed of 16 comic books produced in the 1960s. We have departed from traditional approaches and have based our method on the analysis of the sources of Graton’s inspiration. We link these sources to the comics’ text bubbles, visual signs and iconic meanings of the drawings. Our analysis of the comics’ iconography based on the establishment of a mass culture dedicated to the automobile brings to light the existence of an urge to go beyond the limits of tradition. Our research highlights that the success of Michel Vaillant is due, in the main, to the series’ detailed knowledge of the automobile sports industry, and to the myths of speed, youth and progress that it promulgates – myths in which its young male readers could see themselves reflected and which would also prepare them for the future.     

Outdoor life,nature experience,and sports in Norway: tensions and dilemmas in the preservation and use of urban forest

Abstract

How should contemporary societies promote physical activity in nature and preservation of the natural environment? Outdoor life occupies a central and contested position on this question in the Nordic countries. In Norway, a 1957 Act of Parliament took a major step by guaranteeing free public access to both public and private uncultivated land. This article explores the media debate that raged in 2008–2009, when the national government proposed new legislation intended to promote outdoor life, sport, nature experience and urban forest preservation around Oslo, Norway’s capital. Applying narrative and discourse methodologies, this case study reveals how the media debate evolved from an initial cacophony of voices into a schism between advocates of nature preservation and advocates of sport. The controversy explored here is increasingly relevant throughout all of Europe: how to encourage urban active living, sustainable recreation and democratic citizenship that embody distinct social practices, identities, emotional bonds and symbolic meaning.     

现代轿车的外形

为了帮助喜爱汽车的人们识别和挑选中意和实用的汽车,介绍了厢型汽车、甲虫型汽车、船型汽车(鱼型汽车)和楔型汽车四种不同外型以及暖色、冷色和消色三种不同颜色轿车的优缺点,使广大读者尤其是非专业人士对汽车外形的基础知识有一定的了解。     

American Sammys and French Poilus in the Great War: sport, masculinities and vulnerability

The violence and duration of fighting throughout the Great War created an intense feeling of vulnerability among the men engaged in battle, which challenged their perception of manliness. When the Americans joined the war in 1917, the balance between the two opposing armies was modified and the psychological crises of French soldiers brought to an end. The confidence shown by the American soldiers and their first successes on the battlefield changed the way the French Poilus perceived their new allies. From scepticism to admiration, Frenchmen's feelings extended beyond the fighting. Indeed, by living with American soldiers in the trenches and camps behind the front, French soldiers discovered a new culture where games and sport played a major role and contributed to building manliness. The Foyers Franco-Americains du Soldat (Franco-American hostels for soldiers) provided an ideal place for the cultural transfer of a model of masculinity from Sammys to Poilus. The foyers were managed by the American YMCA and eventually reached the number of 1,500 in France during the war. These hostels afforded soldiers numerous opportunities to develop cultural and sports practices, by bringing together Americans and Frenchmen. Mainly based on the archives of the American Expeditionary Forces, the YMCA and the French Army, the paper argues that the Foyers du Soldat brought to light a new model of masculinity based on sport, which challenged the Frenchmen's vision. It aims to show the rapid transformation of masculine identity within a context of extreme vulnerability and confirms the changes in representations of men in French society at this time.     

Migratory Networks Used by Algerian Professional Footballers in France: From Colonial Times to the Postcolonial Era, 1932–1991

The aim of this article is to reconstruct the history of transfer networks used by footballers who left Algeria to work in the French League for first and second division clubs from the 1930s to the early 1990s. The genealogy of the intermediary market from the colonial period to the postcolonial period is analyzed through a study of French and Algerian state and federal policies which impacted on how these migratory channels were modified from the colonial period through to the postcolonial period. Forty interviews were conducted with Algerian migrant players and various federal archives studied highlighting four distinct historical contexts between 1932 and 1991: a pioneering student channel (1932–1954), colonial control of transfer networks during the Algerian War (1954–1962), departures to the former motherland marked by exemptions, blocks, and adventures (1962–1982), and professionalization under the control of Algerian Internationals (1982–1991).     

体育院校公共事业管理专业（体育管理方向）学科建设分析与思考

随着教育事业的发展,公共事业管理专业朝着多元化方向发展,专业面向主要有教育管理、体育管理、文化艺术事业管理、环境经济与管理、城市社区管理等。它同传统的行政管理专业的主要区别是:公共事业管理更强调运用经济学原理和定量的方法去处理实际问题,而不仅仅从政治、社会学角度提出问题。因此,体育管理同样面临着新的内容和如何适应市场经济形势下的新的课题。本文试图从全新的视角提出在市场经济形势下如何建设公共事业管理专业(体育管理方向)。     

新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情下体育健康传播公共领域的建构

以公共领域理论为解释路径,分析新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情下的体育健康传播。认为疫情之下的体育健康传播尚未形成严格意义上的公共领域,表现:体育健康传播话语主要由精英主导,普通个体公共精神欠缺;大众理性认知和批判意识缺失,公共舆论难以形成;媒介的平台功能凸显,在激活公共讨论方面还存在不足。未来体育健康传播应在公众层面引导大众关注体育健康传播,强化公民意识;在公共舆论层面形塑认知强化治理,培养公众的理性批判意识;在媒介层面强化体育健康内容的互动性,激活公共讨论,以进一步构建体育健康传播的公共领域。     

Functional equivalence or behavioural matching? A critical reflection on 15 years of research using the PETTLEP model of motor imagery

Motor imagery, or the mental rehearsal of actions in the absence of physical movement, is an increasingly popular construct in fields such as neuroscience, cognitive psychology and sport psychology. Unfortunately, few models of motor imagery have been postulated to date. Nevertheless, based on the hypothesis of functional equivalence between imagery, perception and motor execution, Holmes and Collins in 2001 developed the PETTLEP model of motor imagery in an effort to provide evidence-based guidelines for imagery practice in sport psychology. Given recent advances in theoretical understanding of functional equivalence, however, it is important to provide a contemporary critical reflection on motor imagery research conducted using this model. The present article addresses this objective. We begin by explaining the background to the development of the PETTLEP model. Next, we evaluate key issues and findings in PETTLEP-inspired research. Finally, we offer suggestions for, and new directions in, research in this field.     

Le Numéro Barbette: Destabilising Gender on the High Wire and the Flying Trapeze

In the autumn of 1923, Barbette (Vander Clyde) took Parisian theatres by storm with a provocative amalgamation of trapeze artistry and female impersonation. His act in interwar France was timely and daring. While the destructive results of the First World War had left the country with deep concerns about the degeneration of the male body and the nation as a whole, Barbette's performance signified a homosexual identity and a questioning of traditional categories of masculinity and femininity. Fostering the interest of controversial poet and film maker, Jean Cocteau and his artistic entourage, Barbette's performance received much praise and was immortalised in Cocteau's 1926 essay Le Numéro Barbette. Drawing on a number of under-examined performance reviews by French critics, as well as Steegmuller's interview with Barbette, I focus on how Barbette's career and performances contributed to debates about the constructedness of gender and how they were indicative of the tensions of a post-war culture that wanted to ‘return to order’. Barbette's blurring of gender categories during his aerial performances embodied these post-war tensions and signified a liminality in which gender could be destabilised and reimagined without severe repercussions.     

学校体育中基本运动技能定性测评体系的研究

基本运动技能的教学与测评是近年来国际上儿童体育教育领域的热点议题,是儿童技能发展与培养必须直面的重要问题。在学校体育中,如何透过技能的测评来实现基本运动技能科学的指导与发展是学龄早期体育教学的核心关注点。文章参考国外众多基本运动技能教学教材与评价工具,试以最大化发挥学龄早期体育教育的价值为研究的根本目标,通过从基本运动技能测评的目的与价值、内容标准指标的确定、实施的环境与过程以及测评需遵循的基本原则四个方面来分析运动技能定性测评体系构建的程序问题,在一定程度上缓解我国儿童基本运动技能测评相关理论发展滞后的问题,为我国儿童青少年基本运动技能科学有序的发展提供理论保障和现实的基础意义。