One of the few: the experiences of female elite-level coaches in Norwegian football

The aim of this article is to explore the experiences of female elite-level Norwegian coaches in football. More precisely, we wanted to find out the meaning of gender for these coaches’ football experiences. The results presented are based on five in-depth interviews with female elite-level coaches between 36 and 50 years of age. A feminist cultural and a gender perspective are used to understand and discuss the findings. As shown in other studies, the culture of football in Norway is very gendered. This has an impact on the female football coaches’ experiences, both in relation to how they perceive their own role, their coach education and with respect to their self-confidence and how they look upon their own chances in the job market. As a group, they represent a form of pariah femininity, and very little resistance femininity and a liberal feminist perspective, i.e. equality on the men’s premises.     

The history of the unspeakable: Shimokawa Masaharu’s The forgotten history of evacuation

ABSTRACT

Histories of wartime Japan often focus on the Japanese home islands after Japan’s surrender to Allied forces on 15 August 1945. Japanese citizens living in Korea, Manchuria, and elsewhere in the far-flung Japanese Empire are usually left out of the historiographical record. In a new book about the evacuees—hikiagesha—from the defunct Empire, Shimokawa Masaharu presents a vivid, harrowing portrait of the suffering of those who had to make their way back to Japan after the end of the Greater East Asia War. In particular, Shimokawa focuses on Izumi Sei’ichi, who established a sanatorium and abortuary in Fukuoka for women who had been raped by enemy soldiers.     

Gender constructions in breaking

Drawing on the perspectives of youth involved in breaking, also known as breakdance, the aim of this article is to explore how their experiences contribute to the doing, redoing and undoing of gender. The negotiation of gender is highlighted through the female breakers’ experiences in a male-dominated culture. The analysis is based on fieldwork and qualitative interviews with young breakers in Norway. The results show that the female breakers challenged the perception of masculinity and femininity as they extended their practice of gender. Their desire to disprove the gendered expectations of female breakers resulted in a mixing of masculinity and femininity. Accordingly, the gender regime among the breakers was simultaneously re-constructed and challenged. We argue that both male and female breakers challenge normative perceptions of doing gender. Consequently, breaking has the capacity to dismantle the gender binary, and to redo and undo the gender order.     

Kindergarten Children's Executive Functions Predict Their Second-Grade Academic Achievement and Behavior

Whether and to what extent kindergarten children's executive functions (EF) constitute promising targets of early intervention is currently unclear. This study examined whether kindergarten children's EF predicted their second-grade academic achievement and behavior. This was done using (a) a longitudinal and nationally representative sample (N = 8,920, M_age = 97.6 months), (b) multiple measures of EF, academic achievement, and behavior, and (c) extensive statistical control including for domain-specific and domain-general lagged dependent variables. All three measures of EF—working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control—positively and significantly predicted reading, mathematics, and science achievement. In addition, inhibitory control negatively predicted both externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. Children's EF constitute promising targets of experimentally evaluated interventions for increasing academic and behavioral functioning.     

Interleukin-6 and Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness Do Not Vary During the Menstrual Cycle

The purpose of this study was to determine if a difference in interleukin-6 (IL-6) and delayed onset muscles soreness (DOMS) exists in two different phases of the menstrual cycle. Nine runners performed one 75-min high-intensity interval running session during the early follicular (EF) phase and once during the midluteal (ML) phase of the menstrual cycle. Estrogen and progesterone levels were significantly reduced in the EF phase when compared to the ML phase. IL-6 levels increased from pre- to postexercise in the EF and ML phases (p < .001). There was no relationship between the IL-6 level and DOMS. The results suggest that menstruating female runners need not vary training throughout the month to reduce DOMS.     

Test–retest reliability of a battery of field-based health-related fitness measures for adolescents

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to determine the test–retest reliability of existing tests of health-related fitness. Participants (mean age 14.8 years, s = 0.4) were 42 boys and 26 girls who completed the study assessments on two occasions separated by one week. The following tests were conducted: bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) to calculate percent body fat, leg dynamometer, 90° push-up, 7-stage sit-up, and wall squat tests. Intra-class correlation (ICC), paired samples t-tests, and typical error expressed as a coefficient of variation were calculated. The mean percent body fat intra-class correlation coefficient was similar for boys (ICC = 0.95) and girls (ICC = 0.93), but the mean coefficient of variation was considerably higher for boys than girls (22.2% vs. 12.2%). The boys' coefficients of variation for the tests of muscular fitness ranged from 9.0% for the leg dynamometer test to 26.5% for the timed wall squat test. The girls' coefficients of variation ranged from 17.1% for the sit-up test to 21.4% for the push-up test. Although the BIA machine produced reliable estimates of percent body fat, the tests of muscular fitness resulted in high systematic error, suggesting that these measures may require an extensive familiarization phase before the results can be considered reliable.     

The changing status of higher education in the ‘moronic inferno’

Getting a good and relevant education is difficult enough to achieve within a context where social and economic needs are constantly unsettled by political policy. The public funding of the education sector has become a contested arena irrespective of a government’s ideology. Recent graduates from various disciplines from Town Planning to Philosophy report in university destination surveys that they have only found employment in areas unrelated to their academic training – for instance, in supermarkets, restaurants and other low-level service industries. How has it happened that the universalisation of mass higher education has contributed to a disconnect between the individual’s social aspirations and their economic status? What happened to the tacit promise that an extended period of intellectual development would prepare the individual for a life of valuable social contribution and financial security? Part of the answer lies in the success of higher education itself. Its popularity has changed its transformative capacity and allowed operational efficiencies to overrule academic quality. The university, ideally seen as a repository of intellectual intuition, has been remade into yet another modern corporation concerned with the bottom line and financial security. Why has it been necessary to remake the university in the image of the department store, supermarket or bank, and how has it been achieved without more critique?     

Escaping the subject-based class: A Finnish case study of developing transversal competencies in a transdisciplinary course

Abstract

In 2014, the Finnish National Board of Education launched a new core curriculum with the aim of meeting the skills and competence requirements of the 21st century. The purpose of this case study was to find out what transversal competencies Finnish eighth graders developed and how they experienced studying in a problem-based transdisciplinary course, which was arranged for the transitional stage between the former and the new curriculum. The qualitative data consisted of questionnaires and interviews. The analysis followed the methods of qualitative content analysis. When asked about their learning, the students commented on not having learnt much, referring to the discipline-based knowledge. Instead, they had learnt skills through teamwork, problem solving, and expression of their views and opinions, an aspect that they did not clearly connect with the things to be learnt at school. Many students felt that they acquired the competencies that they would need later in their lives. The students’ teamwork had a crucial impact on their learning experience. The timeframe for the integrative approach needs careful consideration; the learning process in this course was perceived as being successful because it was long enough. Our study highlights that focusing on students’ views is critical when reforming curriculum.