Explaining attendance through the brand community triad: Integrating network theory and team identification

In this study, the authors empirically test a model of sport behaviour that integrates both team identification and a network theory approach to understand attendance at intercollegiate ice hockey games. Grounded within the brand community triad, ego network data were collected among attendees to measure the fan-to-fan connections that constitute the horizontal relationships of brand community participants. Additionally, a multidimensional team identification measure was used to illustrate the vertical relationship between individual and team. Both measures were included in a structural equation model to test how both fan-to-fan and fan-team relationships explain attendance. The results from the model support the salience of both dimensions of the brand community triad, suggesting that understanding sport fan behaviour necessitates including both psychological and structural elements of behaviour. Future suggestions for extending the study of sport fans through structural networks are discussed.     

Book reviews

Clinical sports medicine, Robert C. Cantu, (ed.), The Collamore Press, Lexington, Massachusetts, Toronto, 1984. 219 pp, £19.95 (hb), ISBN 0 669 06842 X

Sports injuries, a self‐help guide, Vivian Grisogono, John Murray Ltd, London, 1984. 293 pp, £7.95 (hb), ISBN 0 7195 4111 5

Athletes’ guide to mental training, Robert N. Nideffer, Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois (distributed in the UK by Eddington Hook & Co.) 1985. vii +156 pp, $9.95 (pb), ISBN 0 931250 96 X

Scientific foundations of coaching, R.R. Pate, B. McClenaghan and R. Rotella, Saunders College Publishing, Philadelphia, 1984. xii + 344 pp, £21.95(hb), ISBN 0 03 057961 9

Mathematics in sport, M. Stewart Townend, Ellis Horwood, Chichester, 1984. 202 pp (hb), ISBN 0 85312 717 4

Frontiers of exercise biology, ’Big Ten Body of Knowledge’ symposium series, Vol. 13 K.T. Borer, D.W. Edington and T.P. White (eds), Human Kinetics Publishers Inc., Champaign, Illinois, (distributed in the UK by Edington Hook & Co.), 1983. vii + 295 pp, $31.95(hb), ISBN 0 931250 49 8

The knee, Philippe Segal and Marcel Jacob, Wolfe Medical Publications, Frome, Somerset, 1984. 143 pp (hb), £15, ISBN 2 224 00887 2

Psychological foundations of sport, J.M. Silva and R.S. Weinberg (eds), Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois, (distributed in the UK by Eddington Hook & Co), 1984. xxiv + 528 pp, £22.50 (hb), ISBN 0 93 1250 59 5

Physical activity and the social sciences, W. Neil Widmeyer, Mouvement Publications Inc., Ithaca, 1983. 472 pp, £9.00 (pb), ISBN 0 932392 13 X     

Impressions of ICOTS II

The following short contributions are from people who attended the Second International Conference on Teaching Statistics held in Victoria, August 1986     

A review of research on teachers’ use of student data: from the perspective of school leadership

Despite the increased worldwide acknowledgment of the importance of teachers’ use of formative and/or summative assessment data to improve teaching and learning, empirical research on its impacts on student learning is sparse. Even more so is the lack of studies on the best ways for school leaders to develop teachers’ capacity. Teachers generally have low efficacy in using student data to inform their day-to-day instructions. Teachers lack the basic skills to understand, interpret, and analyze data, develop instructional strategies based on data, and implement research-based instructional strategies in classrooms to address the weaknesses reflected from data analysis results. Any gap in this chain of instructional actions would lead to ineffective teaching and learning in classrooms. This study synthesizes research located from on-line databases on teachers’ data use conducted in the last 14 years and examines the nature, impacts, and shapers of teachers’ use of student formative and/or summative assessment data to improve teaching and learning. This review provides a much-needed guide to school leaders and policy makers in the USA, as well to other jurisdictions that want to make evidence-based decisions in the hopes of improving student learning and teachers’ capacity in data use.     

The policy cycle and vernacular globalization: a case study of the creation of Vietnam National University—Hochiminh City

This article examines the policy cycle and vernacular globalization in the context of higher education reform in Vietnam. Through an analysis of the development of the Vietnam National University—Hochiminh City as part of the post‐1986 reconstruction of Vietnamese higher education, the article considers the complex interrelationship between globalized policy discourses, national interests and history in Vietnam, and the specific politics of policy implementation within one institution. Vietnam National University—Hochiminh City was created through an amalgamation of a number of smaller universities, and against the backdrop of social and economic restructuring aimed at promoting industrialization and a market orientation within socialist governance. The article reveals the dynamic tension between these local and global influences on higher education policy and practice, and more specifically, the dilemmas associated with top‐down policy implementation when a new organization consists of older organizations with powerful provenance and reputations. In so doing the article demonstrates the necessity to globalize policy theory.     

Disseminating development initiatives in British higher education: a case study

The Effective Teaching and Assessment Programme (ETAP) was commissioned and funded by the Higher Education Funding Councils for England, Scotland and Wales and ran during the academic year 1993–4. Its aim was to identify and disseminate best practice in specific subject areas, student support and resource based learning. ETAP supported five projects, each undertaken by a consortium of British higher education institutions. This paper reports an evaluation of the programme based on interviews with leaders of the individual projects, along with a questionnaire survey of potential users of the products of the programme. A framework is offered for interpreting the results of the evaluation. Six different meanings of the word dissemination are identified, corresponding to the different degrees to which users actively engage with the materials produced. These distinctions are applied to the data collected and the findings are summarised in terms of the key notions of awareness of what is available, the attitude of teaching staff towards centrally-produced materials, and the accessibility of those materials. The implications of these three concepts are discussed in relation to the technical, organisational and presentational issues which promote or hinder the effectiveness of the dissemination. A number of policy recommendations for Funding Councils and institutions are outlined.     

Doing time in the sociology of education

Abstract

This article is both an editorial introduction for this special issue and a distinctive contribution in its own right. The article seeks to extend a dynamic and multiple conception of time to the sociology of education to think beyond the clock time associated with modernity and industrialisation. This need is illustrated through an account and critique of E.P. Thompson’s canonical account of clock time. The article argues that this construction of clock time implicitly frames most work in the sociology of education. The concept of ‘timespace’ offers a way to go beyond both clock time and the current ‘spatial turn’ in the sociology of education that prioritises space over time. It is shown how computerisation also ushers in a new temporality, which works simultaneously with clock time and perhaps presages the move from a disciplinary to control society. The article accepts that there are multiple and dynamic temporalities and correlatively supports a working together of historical and sociological imaginations towards a sociology of education that acknowledges and works with multiple temporalities, empirically, methodologically, theoretically and in research writing.     

International comparative studies in teaching and teacher education

This review of eight papers published in Teaching and Teacher Education over the past twenty years shows how the profession has been impacted by the forces of globalisation. The impact varies in different contexts, according to local factors. The review looks at papers that use explicit international comparisons as a means to bring local contextual characteristics into sharp relief, and discusses the values and pitfalls of this approach. The review concludes by suggesting a possible future agenda for international comparisons, one that seeks answers to the domestic challenges of the Millennium Development Goals and Education for All by looking for solutions overseas. However, international appropriation needs to remain highly sensitive to the cultural context of implementation.