A Bitter Partnership: The Black Press’ Contentious Relationship with the Negro Leagues in the Struggle to Integrate Major League Baseball

In the 30-year campaign to integrate Major League Baseball, the relationships between African-American newspapers and the Negro Leagues developed in three distinct phases. What began as a harmonious partnership where the two institutions worked together to publicize and improve the quality of the Negro Leagues gave way to bitterness and resentment, as each questioned the other’s role in integrating the sport. By the early 1950s, however, some black sportswriters attempted to revitalize the Negro Leagues after recognizing that the integration of the sport had damaged this distinctly African-American social and economic institution. Analysing the contradictory and complicated attitudes and actions of black journalists as they worked with and later disassociated from the Negro Leagues demonstrates the black press’ shifting relationship with the Negro Leagues and illustrates the conflict among African-American journalists over how to transition from a segregated environment to an integrated one.     

Student Success and Failure: As a matter of fact or just how they are portrayed?

This paper introduces and analyses three broad discourses of academic achievement and failure, specifically those that speak of students' deficits, disadvantages and differences. It draws on interview data collected from teachers working in Australian primary (elementary) and secondary (high) schools and on academic literature that speaks to the field. The paper argues that 'deficit', 'disadvantage' and 'difference' represent discourses of considerable influence in determining how teachers, students and parents define what constitutes success or failure in schools, which respective approaches educators employ, and the beliefs we hold about students who fail and those who succeed. In this respect, the paper is concerned with matters of inclusion and exclusion in schooling. In particular, we seek to tease out the stories that these discourses tell about student diversity, as a way of unmasking how students are differently represented and how these representations serve to include some and exclude others from the benefits of schooling and society more broadly.     

Promoting attitude change and expressed willingness to take action toward climate change in college students

This study examined the relationship among cognitive and motivational variables impacting college students’ willingness to take mitigative action to reduce the impacts of human-induced climate change. One hundred and forty college students were asked to read a persuasive text about human-induced climate change and were pre and post tested on their attitudes about climate change and their willingness to take action to mitigate its effects. Students showed statistically significant changes in their attitudes about climate change and their willingness to commit to take action. A path model demonstrated that openness to change and a willingness to think deeply about issues predicted both change in attitudes and expressed willingness to take action. This research demonstrates that a persuasive text has the potential to promote change around complex socio-scientific issues.     

Selected Measures of Angular Displacement,Strength, and Flexibility in Subjects With and Without Shin Splints

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if angular displacement between the calcaneus and the midline of the lower leg while running is related to shin splints. A secondary purpose was to compare the strength and flexibility of ankle-joint plantar flexion, dorsal flexion, inversion, and eversion of shin-splint-injured and non-shin-splint-injured subjects. Two groups of conditioned female athletes were randomly selected to participate in this study. One group had a previous history of chronic shin splints, and the other group had no history of shin-splint injury. Angular displacement between the calcaneus and the midline of the lower leg was measured from motion picture film (100 frames/second) taken while the subjects were running at two speeds, 3m/second and 5m/second. A cable tensiometer was used to measure plantar flexion, dorsal flexion, and inversion and eversion strength at the ankle joint; and a goniometer was used to measure the flexibility of the plantar flexors, dorsiflexors, invertors, and evertors at the ankle joint. The results indicated that a shin-splint-injured leg had greater angular displacement between the calcaneus and the midline of the lower leg than a healthy leg, and that shoes and speed of running had an influence upon the amount of angular displacement. In addition, the muscular strength of the plantar flexor muscle was greater in the shin-splint subjects than in the non-shin-splint subjects.     

Relationship between Physical Fitness and Susceptibility to Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

This study was conducted (a) to determine through factor analysis techniques the basic factors underlying selected blood variables, metabolic variables, and previously determined physical and athletic fitness variables at four fixed stages of metabolic stress and (b) to determine with the t-test and through discriminant function techniques those blood variables which can discriminate between high and low levels of physical fitness. The objective of the analyses was the interpretation of the revealed information in light of previously found knowledge on the relationship of physical activity and susceptibility to heart disease. Four factors were extracted and interpreted: the effect of weight on motor fitness, the detrimental effect of aging on physical fitness, metabolic readiness, and fitness and NEFA mobility. The t-test showed statistical significance for the difference between the physically fit and unfit group means in resting serum cholesterol, submaximal exercise serum cholesterol, maximal exercise blood pH, and recovery period blood pH. The discriminant function of the combined resting and submaximal exercise serum cholesterol has a statistically determined discriminating power for the physically fit and unfit groups.