Developing participation opportunities for young people with disabilities? Policy enactment and social inclusion in Australian junior sport

Abstract

Interventions aimed at increasing the participation of young people with disabilities in recreational sport have had mixed success. The authors draw on in-depth interviews with representatives from State Sporting Associations, local government officers and volunteers within community sports clubs in Victoria, Australia, to examine why some sports clubs are unable or unwilling to translate policy ambitions into practice. The findings indicate how by framing disability provision as ‘too difficult’, ‘not core business’ and antithetical to competitive success, community sports clubs are able to resist policy ambitions to modify existing structures and develop more inclusive practice. Greater priority needs to be given to transformational inclusion objectives and challenging ableism if clubs are to structurally progress the development of participation opportunities for young people with disabilities.     

Managing physical education lessons: an interactional approach

Physical education (PE) lessons involve complex and dynamic interactive sequences between students, equipment and teacher. The potential for unexpected and/or unintended events is relatively large, a point reflected in an increasing amount of scholarship dealing with classroom management (CM). This scholarship further suggests that unexpected and disruptive events negatively impact on learning and can have deleterious effects on teacher health. Despite considerable potential for these kinds of events, many PE lessons occur in structured, organized ways. The broad purpose of this paper is to consider how classroom action becomes ordered in PE contexts. To this end, an interactional approach is put forward including the specific analytic concepts of directives, epistemic authority and deontic authority. To exemplify the approach, the micro-dynamics of a situation in which a group of students are building a human pyramid is examined. The examination draws attention to: how the teacher engages in a series of interactions with the students to move the sequence forward; how the students themselves achieve order through their interactions with one another; and how the characteristics of the activity help to organize the students' behaviors and limit possibilities for action. The discussion is located against a backdrop of current CM scholarship. Reference is also made to two aspects of social context: the increasing prominence of managerial discourse in educational arenas and the significance of student-centeredness in pedagogical theory. Both aspects appear to influence how order can be achieved in PE today. The analysis raises issues related to pedagogy, management and authority which are addressed in the final two sections of the paper.     

‘Tours of Imperialism’: Cricket and Cultural Transfer in South Africa, 1880–1910

Abstract

Few can deny the significance of sport in today’s South Africa. The sporting structures upon which this is based were first introduced to the country by the British in the late nineteenth century. In line with policies of cultural imperialism, sports such as cricket were promoted at this time as part of a wider political agenda that encouraged the adoption of an ‘English’ way of life in the region. Sports tours, most notably cricket, were a fundamental part of this cultural transfer between the ‘Mother Country’ and her colonies in Southern Africa. To underpin the study of transnational linkages and transfer in African sports, this paper will offer an historical overview of how ‘British-styled’ sport arrived in South Africa and how the early cricket tours between England and South Africa were constructed to promote distinct political and cultural connections. This paper will explore the early development of cricket in South Africa and investigate its symbiotic link to British imperialism and colonialism via the first tours and sporting exchanges that took place. The origins of the game in South Africa will be examined as well as its development up to 1910 (the date of Union in South Africa) as the site of a constructed transnational 'brotherhood' between Britain and its most coveted African colonies.     

Quality assessment and quality assurance in distance teacher education

Governments around the world have increasingly used distance education (DE), both preservice and inservice, to overcome conventional, campus‐based programme constraints in funding, access and student places. DE programmes have shown that they can expand assess to teacher education, but still need to demonstrate that they can produce teachers of the quality needed for today's schools. Quality assessment systems have been developed, using either examinations or impact studies, to demonstrate programme effect on graduate outcomes related to good teaching. Quality assurance systems have been designed, based on the concept of the ‘learning organisation’, to assure continuous improvement in programme conditions related to the desired outcomes. Quality assessment and assurance systems are reviewed and some examples of quality DE programmes presented.     

Impact of cutback planning and management on the poor and minorities in New York City: The case of public education

It is argued that the plight of the dependent-poor is likely to get worse as New York City's fiscal crisis is transformed into a service crisis. Considerable emphasis is given to describing the politics of school closings. The school closure issue has profound implications for any attempts to improve the educational lot of urban schools due to the potential relationship between white flight and school closings. The common tendency to close small and old school facilities located in areas where densities are higher (which minimizes transportation costs) results in schools being closed that are predominantly attended by poor and minority students. Policymakers should be able to learn a great deal about cutback management and planning in general through a better understanding of retrenchment policies which school districts throughout the nation have adopted.Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, Washington, D.C., October, 1981.     

Adaptive expertise – a characteristic of expertise in outdoor instructors?

ABSTRACT

Background: Over the past 10 years, research has started to investigate the pedagogic practices of instructors and coaches working in adventure sports settings. Outdoor instructors face particular challenges regarding the impact the dynamic environment has on the coaching process and their students. This challenging combination of factors obliges the instructor to be agile in response. We propose that this adaptive expertise is characteristic of these factors and that adaptability may be a beneficial focus of outdoor instructor training and education.

Purpose: The major aim was to identify if adaptive expertise is an attribute of outdoor instructors? And if so, what are its characteristics in this context?

Research design and data collection: We applied a mixed methodology to a sample of outdoor instructors (n?=?64). The instructors were asked to complete a quantitative adaptive expertise inventory. We then interviewed a selected sub-sample (n?=?12).

Participants and setting: Quantitative data was collected from outdoor instructors working in the UK (n?=?64). The sample consisted of instructors qualified to work independently with groups in adventurous settings in a range of activities. Qualitative data was collected from a smaller sample (n?=?12) via a series of thematically analysed semi-structured interviews.

Findings: Results suggest that the participating outdoor instructors have high levels of adaptive expertise. A characteristic of that adaptive capacity is a combination of skills revolving around reflection, metacognition, and situational awareness. There were differences, however, between less and more experienced outdoor instructors in their adaptive capacity, with less experienced instructors being adaptive to a lesser extent.

Conclusions: The implication is that further research is worthwhile to examine the development of instructors’ adaptive capacity. The training and education of outdoor instructors requires pedagogic approaches that facilitate and engender adaptability, flexibility and agility in neophyte instructors.     

谁才是英雄?

多年前,在怀俄明州,我从一辆燃烧的汽车中救出一家人.上周,我接到了一位女士的电话,她哭着告诉我,我的一个故事挽救了她的准备自杀的儿子.……     

Understanding Magnetic and Electrostatic Actuators Using Bond Graphs and a Mechanical Model

Magnetic actuators in relays, solenoids, and valve positioners and electrostatic loudspeakers and microphones store electrical and mechanical energy and are inherently nonlinear. They are harder to understand than transformer or gyrator transducers such as hydraulic pistons or voice coil drives which transduce power instantaneously and are essentially linear. Bond graph models show that magnetic and electrostatic transducers are mathematically analogous although electrically dual. An all-mechanical equivalent model shows the nonlinear behavior clearly and aids in the intuitive understanding of the problems associated with the use of such actuators.