The Thatcher governments and the British Sports Council, 1979–1990

The month of February 2015 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Sports Council. Despite its central role in sports governance in Britain, the advisory Council of 1965 and its successor bodies have received little attention from historians. This article assesses the early history of the Sports Council, using primary material such as National Archive papers and memoirs by practitioners to focus attention particularly on the period of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership in the 1980s. The pre-1979 Council commanded widespread respect, and the article explores how and why it became beleaguered thereafter, attributing this to a combination of ideological distrust as ‘Thatcherism’ gained in strength, shortcomings on the part of the Council itself and parochial in-fighting among leading sports bodies. By the mid-1980s the Council was under scrutiny as never before, some in the political and sporting world questioning whether it had a viable future. Although it survived to fight another day, the confidence and momentum of earlier years became a thing of the past and the way was opened up for a major overhaul of sports administration to be carried out in the 1990s.     

Tim Henman,British tennis and the social construction of English identity in the 1990s and 2000s

Tim Henman was inarguably the best English player, and the most popular and socially significant British player, since Fred Perry. Throughout his career, media constructions of him fluctuated from being heralded as a potential Wimbledon champion, to a weak, underachieving perennial loser. Throughout his career, and despite the constant transition of dominant narratives, Henman’s quintessential ‘Englishness’ remained a key component, expressed through his image, appearance, ostensible personality/character and playing style. His ‘Englishness’ was especially apparent against the backdrop of the Wimbledon Championships, which used Henman’s success in its marketing of ‘tennis in an English garden’. This paper assesses the shifting meanings behind, and values of, Henman’s sustained image, and examines how changes in the narratives of Henman as a player reflected broader shifts in English identity. It is argued that Henman played a significant role in how Englishness was constructed, both in Britain and abroad, during the 1990s and 2000s.     

Reactivity without legitimacy? Online consumer reviews in the restaurant industry

In recent years, web sites where individual consumers can rate and review goods and services have mushroomed all over the Internet. Restaurants are particularly affected by online reviewing. If the impact of online consumer reviews (OCRs) on the demand side of markets is now well understood and measured, few studies examine the reception of this new evaluation method by those who are assessed. Based on interviews with French restaurant managers, our research shows that OCRs systems reconfigure relations of accountability in the restaurant industry. We use the notion of reactivity to describe the mechanisms through which the new evaluation system transforms the activity of restaurants. We also examine the affects surrounding the reception of ratings and reviews by restaurant managers and the moral criteria that accompany their discourses on online reviews. Many restaurants consider online reviews as a brutal and hypocritical mode of judgment. The judgment produced by online ratings and reviews is not easily borne by restaurant managers, because it challenges the conventions of quality they had previously internalized as legitimate, that is, those produced by professional experts. We interpret this ambivalent reception as the unfinished movement of transforming a performative reputation device into a legitimate evaluation institution.     

Warum scheiterte 1920 August Biers Antrag auf einen „Doktor der Leibesübungen“?

This article deals with the first years of foundation of the private Deutsche Hochschule für Leibesübungen (DHfL). It focuses on the question of why August Bier’s application for a Doktor der Leibesübungen in 1920 was refused. In the same year the DHfL also made an application for the education in state-run schools which was already task of the state-run Preußische Landesturnanstalt at Spandau. As the DHfL combined this application with its insistence on its autonomous status an application for a Doktor der Leibesübungen had implied financial, conceptual and institutional obligations for Prussia and at the same time a renuncitation of its sovereign rights. This thesis was proved by a comparison between the doctorate in physical education and the doctorate for businessmen at Cologne University.     

Educational concerns of Arabic speaking migrants from Sudan and Iraq to Melbourne: Expectations on migrant parents in Australia

Families immigrating to Australia face many challenges integrating into the educational system, including language barriers and interrupted schooling. We have qualitatively evaluated the educational concerns of Arabic migrants from Sudan and Iraq to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, a city that receives a high percentage of Australia's immigrants. Using an interactive paradigm incorporating focus group discussions for thematic analysis, we concluded that the parents’ frame of reference for education was a more didactic style of learning. Parents viewed education as an essential part of the way forward for their children in Australia. However, it was stressful for them to try to cope with a new host nation's expectation of their involvement in their children's education while at the same time dealing with a language barrier. Professionals should look to empower parents with structural information about the key elements of the educational curriculum with minimal reliance on written technical language and match their expectations of parental involvement to the situation of the parents.     

Science Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Meta‐Analysis

Although science has received much attention as a political and educational initiative, students with learning disabilities (LD) perform significantly lower than their nondisabled peers. This meta‐analysis evaluates the effectiveness of instructional strategies in science for students with LD. Twelve studies were examined, summarized, and grouped according to the type of strategy implemented. Effect sizes (ES) were calculated for each study. Across all studies, a mean ES of .78 was obtained, indicating a moderate positive effect on students with LD science achievement. Findings also align with past reviews of inquiry‐based instruction for students with special needs, indicating that students with LD need structure within an inquiry science approach in order to be successful. Additionally, results suggest that mnemonic instruction is highly effective at increasing learning disabled students' acquisition and retention of science facts.