Guideposts and Roadblocks to the Career-Long Scholarly Engagement of Physical Education Teacher Education Faculty

Purpose: Scholarship is essential for the growth and development of the physical education field. Over time, scholarship expectations have changed, forcing faculty members to alter time spent for research, teaching, and service. Social-cognitive career theory (SCCT) presents a model for understanding performance and persistence in an occupational environment. The interconnected aspects of SCCT have different emphasis related to self-efficacy, outcome expectations, or personal goals pursuit. This study explored physical education teacher education (PETE) faculty members’ continuing engagement in scholarly activity through SCCT. Method: Data collection included interviews with 9 senior PETE faculty members who met the criteria for “productive scholars over time.” Curriculum vitae were collected to verify productivity. Results: Data analysis revealed guidepost themes that included collaborating, finding balance, defining a research process, and maintaining a strong work ethic. Roadblocks encountered included other obligations and lack of support for research. Conclusions: Participants demonstrated strong self-efficacy; held high, positive expectations for success; and set very specific, clear, and deliberate goals. Participant behavior was moderated by their personal attributes (capacity to build relationships, set goals, and maintain interest and passion) and was tempered by the environments in which they worked. Fostering similar behaviors has the potential to guide future and current PETE faculty members in creating supportive and encouraging atmospheres for sustained productivity. The lack of literature relating to this topic warrants the need for more research exploring the influential factors and benefits gained from sustained scholarly productivity over time for PETE faculty members.     

Planting virtual lemons: performing forest protection in the context of political performativity

The socialist People’s Democratic Republic of Laos (Lao PDR) has some of the largest intact forests in Southeast Asia, yet these are being quickly depleted by illegal logging, slash-and-burn farming, increasing population pressures, monocrop plantations, mining and dam building. Foreign government and nongovernmental organizations stage “infotainment” theatre plays to educate and inform the Lao public of its role in protecting the forests even though government projects and concessions are the primary causes of forest destruction. Because all the nationally subsidized performing arts troupes are government mouthpieces they cannot critique the government’s role. Foreign aid agencies funding the dramas are also made complicit in the hypocrisy of promoting forest protection to those with the least power to do so, while both performers and spectators know who is profiting the most from the sale of forest products. This article examines theatrical performances regarding forest protection presented in this context of performativity in which the state manipulates socialist rhetoric to conceal its actions that enrich its officials and capitalist partners at the expense of the rest of the Lao public.     

Validity and Reliability of Three Self-Report Instruments for Assessing Attainment of Physical Activity Guidelines in University Students

The purpose of this study was to compare the validity and reliability of three short physical activity self-report instruments to determine their potential for use with university student populations. The participants (N = 155; 44.5% male; 22.9 ± 5.13 years) wore an accelerometer for 9 consecutive days and completed a single-item measure, the a brief two item measure and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire—Short Form questionnaires on day 1 and 9. Correlations between self-reported and accelerometer derived moderate-to-vigorous physical activity levels were moderate for the International Physical Activity Questionnaire—Short Form, while poor for the single-item measure and the a brief two item measure. The agreement level was high with the International Physical Activity Questionnaire—Short Form (77.4%) and moderate for both the single-item measure (45.2 %) and a brief two item measure (44.5 %). The intraclass correlations between the two administrations were moderate to strong across all measures (0.52–0.70) in 133 participants. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire—Short Form is the most suitable of these three self-report instruments for use with this population due to higher correlations and levels of agreement with accelerometry.     

Modernising gender,civilising sex: perverse imaginary in the state feminist politics of Liu Yu‐hsiu

Abstract

The gender sexual politics of Liu Yu‐hsiu has been pivotal in the hegemonic ascendancy of Taiwan state feminism in recent years. Through an examination of Liu’s psychoanalytically mediated essays of cultural criticism, this article traces the contour of Liu’s sexual imaginary within the context of 1990s feminist and queer politics. Liu’s modernising project of gender equality, I argue, upholds heterosexual monogamy as a feminist ideal that seeks to purge all the masculine ills, including perversion and promiscuity. Meanwhile, queers and prostitutes come to be figured as the very negativity that must be repressed. Yet, like the Lacanian Real, they impinge on the symbolic order that Liu ordains as they thwart her desire to civilise sex.