The Maintenance of Masculinity Among the Stakeholders of Sport

Feminist and hegemony theorizing are used to explicate how sport and its ancillary organizations and occupations have managed to reproduce its masculinized nature despite the gains of second wave feminism that characterizes the broader culture. The author shows that contemporary sporting institutions largely originated as a political enterprise to counter the first wave of feminism, and describe how gender-segregation and self-selection permits sports’ gatekeepers to near-exclusively draw upon a relatively homogenous group of hyper-masculine, over-conforming, failed male athletes to reproduce the institution as an extremely powerful gender-regime. The author suggests that, because orthodox notions of masculinity are institutionally codified within sport, it will take more than affirmative action programs to bring gender equality off the pitch; it will also require gender-integration on the pitch.     

An examination of the planar nature of golf club motion in the swings of experienced players

The golf swing has been modelled as a planar movement, but recent findings suggest that the upper limbs and golf club do not move in a single plane. However, the idea that the club alone can be swung in a single inclined plane has not been investigated mathematically. The aims of this study were to determine whether a single plane could be fitted to club motion, and if this plane varied for different clubs. Ten golfers (handicap 1-5) performed repeated, consistent swings with three clubs (driver, 5-iron, and pitching wedge). The motion of each club during the downswing was fitted to a single plane. The fit of the plane varied between golfers and clubs (r(2) = 0.871-0.995, root mean square residual = 44.9-166.2 mm). Mean angles of the plane to the reference horizontal Z axis (driver: 125.5 degrees , s = 3.0; 5-iron: 117.1 degrees , s = 3.0; wedge: 113.6 degrees , s = 2.7) and target line axis (driver: -7.8 degrees , s = 5.9; 5-iron: -4.9 degrees , s = 5.7; wedge: -5.9 degrees , s = 6.0) were significantly (P < 0.05) different. Further analysis revealed a single plane was more appropriate for some participants than others, but that it might be neither desirable nor possible in some cases.     

Book reviews

International Review of Education -     

General Communication

COMMUNICATION RESEARCH: ISSUES AND METHODS by James A. Anderson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987--price not given)

MASS MEDIA RESEARCH: AN INTRODUCTION by Roger D. Wimmer and Joseph R. Dominick (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1987---price not given)

SEARCH STRATEGIES IN MASS COMMUNICATION by Jean Ward and Kathleen Hansen (New York: Longman, 1986---$34.95/15.95)

THE KNOWLEDGE INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES: 1960-1980 by Michael Rogers Rubin and Mary Taylor Huber (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986---$40.00)

KNOWLEDGE GENERATION, EXCHANGE, AND UTILIZATION edited by George M. Beal, et al. (Houlder,CO: Westview Press, 1986---$38.00, paper)

OVERLOAD AND BOREDOM: ESSAYS ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY by Orrin K. Klapp (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986---$29.95)

INTERNEDIA: INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION IN A MEDIA WORLD edited by Gary Gumpert and Robert Cathcart (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986---$16.95, paper)

MAPPING THE INFORMATION BUSINESS by John McLaughlin and Anne Lousie Antonoff (Cambridge: Harvard University Program on Information Resources Policy, 1986---price not given, paper)     

Investigations into the relationships of the WRAT,the PIAT,the SORT,and the WISC-R in low-functioning referrals

Research involving standardized reading achievement tests has been widespread, but there has been little investigation into the relationships among the more widely used tests of reading achievement. In the present study, the Reading subtest of the WRAT, the Reading Comprehension subtest of the PIAT, and the SORT were compared with each other and with the WISC-R. Results showed a high correlation between the WRAT and the PIAT, a moderately high correlation between the SORT and the PIAT, and a very low correlation between the SORT and the WRAT. The WRAT and the PIAT had higher correlations with the various components of the WISC-R than did the SORT. These findings imply that the WRAT and the PIAT measure essentially the same dimension of reading achievement, possibly verbal fluency, but that the SORT is measuring a different dimension, one that is also tapped to some extent by the PIAT.     

Appropriating scientific practices and discourses with future elementary teachers

We describe a physics course designed to engage preservice elementary teachers in the practices and discourses of science through activities they would later use with children. Formerly successful science students encountered considerable barriers in giving up prior conceptions of science as an enterprise practiced alone, with quick and certain answers that were obvious to everyone, and external authority as the preferred grounds for knowing. Other students, who deemed themselves unsuccessful in previous science learning, came to the course with a value for personal understanding—something they had not accomplished in earlier science courses. We describe how both sets of students made progress in inventing and testing models, working with empirical data, critically evaluating and using authoritative sources, and talking and thinking within a community of validators. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 755–776, 1999