Participation,financial support and the marginal student

This paper examines differences between the decision-making of marginal and nonmarginal students about participation in higher education (HE). We distinguish between two kinds of marginality: being ‘borderline’ on account of prior achievements in school and being ‘unsure’ after taking prior achievement into account. We identify a significant minority of students in their final year of schooling who are unsure about participation in higher education even though they have prior school achievements typical of entrants to HE. Being ‘unsure’ is found to be unrelated to socioeconomic background, but it is associated with significantly different attitudes towards the potential benefits and risks of participation, different levels of knowledge about financial support that is available and different approaches to information search about participation in HE.

Can alcohol sponsorship be diluted by health messaging?

Concerns surround the association between alcohol advertising and alcohol consumption amongst audiences. Research has examined the link in broadcast sports, yet limited attention is directed towards newer media. This paper examines whether there is a link between alcohol sponsorship in sports games and alcohol brand recall, recognition and choice, and whether in-game health messages moderate this association. Simulated games designed specifically for this study are used to observe whether in-game alcohol sponsorship combined with embedded health messages affect the player’s brand awareness. Findings highlight the influence of in-game alcohol sponsorship placement on brand awareness, yet embedded health messages do not impact consumer behaviours. This research provides evidence suggesting regulations in games may be warranted and further examination of health messaging in sponsor brand placement necessary.     

From Honeymoon to Divorce: Fragmenting Relations between China and South Korea in Politics,Economics – and Sport

This is an analysis of two East Asian Nations, South Korea and China, and a descent from growing friendship to growing friction in economics, politics and sport – with sport as an analogue of fragmentation and the Guangzhou Asian Games as an analogous illustration of crescive tension between the two nations in economics, politics and sport in the twenty-first century.     

London 2012 – Site for Political Animosities: South Korea and Japan in Confrontational Rational ‘Irrationality’ (Part Two: Long Gestations)

Sport and politics have a close relationship. Political conflicts are re-enacted, reflected and reinforced on international sports stages. In East Asia, the past casts a long shadow! It darkened the London 2012 stage. Controversy followed a South Korean football player's celebration at the London Olympics semi-final match between South Korea and Japan. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned the player Park Jong-woo from participating in the bronze medal ceremony. He was accused by the IOC of a political act that violated IOC and FIFA regulations. Park's celebration included holding up and carrying around a sign, which was interpreted by the IOC as a political message about a South Korean territorial dispute with Japan. The incident became a lead story in the South Korean media. The IOC's decision caused intense nationwide indignation and an outpouring of anti-Japanese sentiment. It was not a unique incident. This essay examines media representations of the incident and how political controversies between South Korea and Japan are reproduced, intensified and exacerbated by media reporting of international sports events. In South Korea, insult was added to injury by the fact that IOC's disapproval of Park's behaviour was contrasted in the South Korean media and by the public with the IOC's silence regarding the Japanese gymnastics team's uniform emblazoned with the ‘Rising Sun’ flag. The evidence from the incident is clear. Mega-sports events can be inflammatory occasions for the expression of hostile and heated political expression. Nowhere is this more the case than in East Asia with its long history of fierce national animosities and memories of national hostilities and humiliations. Throughout East Asia, international sport has become a potent medium for perpetuating painful memories!     

Changes in Examination Performance in English Secondary Schools over the Course of a Decade: Searching for Patterns and Trends Over Time

The article explores changes in the examination performance of a random sample of 500 English secondary schools between 1992 and 2001. Using econometric methods, it concludes that: there is an overall deterministic trend in school performance but it is not stable, making prediction accuracy poor; the aggregate trend does not explain improvement over time at school level, where there is very considerable variation in improvement paths; there is a degree of persistence with respect to changes in performance at school level but it is short-lived; whilst there is evidence of a general upward trend across schools, there is a large amount of year-to-year variation and little evidence of sustained improvement at school level; and the model applied has little ability to forecast the direction of change for particular schools in the following year(s).     

London 2012 – Site for Political Animosities: South Korea and Japan in Confrontational Rational ‘Irrationality’ (Part One: Long Memories)

Sport and politics have a close relationship. Political conflicts are re-enacted, reflected and reinforced on international sports stages. In East Asia, the past casts a long shadow! It darkened the London 2012 stage. Controversy followed a South Korean football player's celebration at the London Olympics semi-final match between South Korea and Japan. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned the player, Park, Jong-woo, from participating in the bronze medal ceremony. He was accused by the IOC of a political act that violated IOC and FIFA regulations. Park's celebration included holding up and carrying around a sign which was interpreted by the IOC as a political message about a South Korean territorial dispute with Japan. The incident became a lead story in the South Korean media. The IOC's decision caused intense nationwide indignation and an outpouring of anti-Japanese sentiment. It was not a unique incident. This essay examines media representations of the incident and how political controversies between South Korea and Japan are reproduced, intensified and exacerbated by media reporting of international sports events. In South Korea, insult was added to injury by the fact that IOC's disapproval of Park's behaviour was contrasted in the South Korean media and by the public with the IOC's silence regarding the Japanese gymnastics team's uniform emblazoned with the ‘Rising Sun’ flag. The evidence from the incident is clear. Mega-sports events can be inflammatory occasions for the expression of hostile and heated political expression. Nowhere is this more the case than in East Asia with its long history of fierce national animosities and memories of national hostilities and humiliations. Throughout East Asia, international sport has become a potent medium for perpetuating painful memories!