Research Managers Uncovered: Changing Roles and 'Shifting Arenas' in the Academy

This paper draws on findings from a study that explored the changing roles and career experience of research managers and research administrators in English universities. It explores how research support has evolved during a period when the higher education sector was responding to changing science and higher education policy. These changes have impacted on research managers and research administrators roles, altered the occupational group and moved field boundaries. The paper draws on Bourdieu's theory of social practice to understand these changes and identifies a shared space of tension, the 'shifting arena,' where the research manager field crosses into the academic field. It is suggested that an increased understanding of this space will enhance the collaborative working of all those involved in research and help maximise research activity.     

Hearing Where the Eyes See: Children Use an Irrelevant Visual Cue When Localizing Sounds

To reduce sensory uncertainty, humans combine cues from multiple senses. However, in everyday life, many co‐occurring cues are irrelevant to the task at hand. How do humans know which cues to ignore? And does this ability change with development? This study shows the ability to ignore cross‐modal irrelevant information develops late in childhood. Participants performed a sound discrimination task, with or without an irrelevant visual flash, presented synchronously in front of them. Adults ignored the irrelevant visual information, while 7‐ to 10‐year‐olds' responses were biased toward the flash location. The findings show that acquiring mature cue combination mechanisms is a multifaceted process that includes learning to ignore irrelevant cues, as well as to optimally combine relevant cues.     

Women's recreational surfing: a patronising experience

Research analysing the operation of power within sport and physical activity has exposed the marginalisation and exclusion of women's sport in explicit and institutionalised ways. However, for women in recreational and alternative physical activities like surfing, sporting experiences lie outside institutionalised structures, thus requiring alternative surfing of conceptualising the processes of exclusionary power. In this paper, we focus on the voices of women recreational surfers to explore the changes which may or may not be occurring at smaller, more localised levels of women's engagement with surfing culture. An ethnographic methodology was employed to ask women how and why they engage in surfing and what it means for them, rather than asking questions based on existing assumptions. In presenting the data we draw upon the double meaning afforded by the term ‘to patronise’ as a means of framing the complex ways that women continue to be differentiated in surfing culture, and the ways they respond to this. In the final section, we employ a Foucauldian analytic lens to explore the subtle normalising practices in which women are incited to recognise and undertake the practices of the valued masculine ideal of the ‘good surfer’ through caring acts and advice offered by male surfers. This post-structuralist perspective offers space to think outside of simple resistance and reproduction, instead considering a complex space where women and men negotiate power in a range of ways from contextual, subjective positions. In conclusion, we argue that women recreational surfers are enacting alternative ways of operating within the power relations that circulate in the waves, creating ever-changing spaces for new ways of doing and knowing surfing to emerge.     

Mobile learning and the socio-materiality of classroom practices

The use of socio-material perspectives as a perspective for understanding new technologies in education has experienced a resurgence. At the same time, mobile learning as a concept is growing fast. This paper takes up the notion of mobile learning and classroom practices from a socio-material perspective, and looks at what socio-materiality has to offer for the understanding of mobile learning and classroom practices.     

Primary schools and the delivery of relationships and sexuality education: the experience of Queensland teachers

Primary school provides an appropriate opportunity for children to commence comprehensive relationships and sexuality education (RSE), yet many primary school teachers avoid teaching this subject area. In the absence of teacher confidence and competence, schools have often relied on health promotion professionals, external agencies and/or one-off issue-related presentations rather than cohesive, systematic and meaningful health education. This study examines the implementation of a 10-lesson pilot RSE unit of work and an accompanying assessment task in two primary schools in South-East Queensland, Australia. Drawing predominantly from qualitative data, the research explores the experiences of primary school teachers as they engage with RSE curriculum resources and content delivery. The results show the provision of a high-quality RSE curriculum resource grounded in contemporary educational principles and practices enables teachers to feel more confident to deliver RSE and minimises potential barriers such as parental objections and fear of mishandling sensitive content.     

An Exploration of Children's Experiences of Art in the Classroom

Despite the numerous benefits art has for children, research suggests that there is a lull in the development of expression in children's drawings during the primary school years and that many children give up on art between the ages of 10 and 12. Research investigating this phenomenon has taken an educational focus and aimed to identify potential shortcomings in the primary education system which could impact negatively on children's artistic development and interest in art. This article builds on previous educational research by exploring children's perceptions of the art education they receive. In this small exploratory study semi‐structured interviews were conducted with six children in each of the Key Stages of English compulsory education: Key Stage 1 (5–6 year olds); Key Stage 2 (7–8 year olds); Key Stage 3 (11–12 year olds) and Key Stage 4 (14–15 year olds). A qualitative thematic analysis is used to explore children's experiences of art in the classroom, the kinds of support they receive in art lessons and how art lessons can be improved. It is hoped that the exploration of children's experiences of art in the classroom will enable movement towards an engaging and relevant approach to art education.     

National qualifications in Scotland: A lightning rod for public concern about equity during the pandemic

Scotland, traditionally, has high levels of confidence in teachers. Fairness and justice are key concepts in policy and practice in Scottish education. For more than 100 years, the high-stakes assessment system in Scotland, with the Scottish Higher qualification at its heart, has been crucial to that sense of opportunity and justice. However, in 2019–2020, public confidence in high-stakes assessment in Scotland, as in other United Kingdom countries, was dented. In Scotland, the Covid-19 pandemic meant that schools were closed, teachers provided online learning opportunities for pupils working at home and, for the first time in 130 years, it was not possible to run national examinations. To ensure that learners were not further disadvantaged, alternative approaches to gathering evidence for qualifications were instigated. However, these results were challenged as socially unjust and the results that had been nationally moderated were replaced by results based on locally moderated teachers' professional judgement. As Scotland looks to qualifications beyond Covid-19, trust must be re-built. This article reports on a participative research project that sought to understand public perceptions of standards and fairness across a range of key communities following this experience. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data, we analyse factors which affected trust in National Qualifications under the pandemic. The evidence suggests that when considering what matters for qualifications to be trusted, technocratic solutions are likely to be rejected by stakeholders. Understanding and responding to what led to the mistrust of qualifications in Scotland will be crucial to inform its future qualifications system.     

Associations between prolonged sedentary time and breaks in sedentary time with cardiometabolic risk in 10–14-year-old children: The HAPPY study

This study examines the association between prolonged sedentary time and breaks in sedentary time with cardiometabolic risk in 10–14-year-old children. This cross-sectional design study analysed accelerometry-determined sedentary behaviour and physical activity collected over 7 days from 111 (66 girls) UK schoolchildren. Objective outcome measures included waist circumference, fasting lipids, fasting glucose, blood pressure, and cardiorespiratory fitness. Logistic regression was used for the main data analysis. After adjustment for confounders, the odds of having hypertriglyceridaemia (P = 0.03) and an increased clustered cardiometabolic risk score (P = 0.05) were significantly higher in children who engaged in more prolonged sedentary bouts per day. The number of breaks in sedentary time per day was not associated with any cardiometabolic risk factor, but longer mean duration of daily breaks in sedentary time were associated with a lower odds of having abdominal adiposity (P = 0.04) and elevated diastolic blood pressure (P = 0.01). These associations may be mediated by engagement in light activity. This study provides evidence that avoiding periods of prolonged uninterrupted sedentary time may be important for reducing cardiometabolic disease risk in children.     

Internationalisation,Mobility and Metrics: A New Form of Indirect Discrimination?

This paper discusses the relationship between internationalisation, mobility, quality and equality in the context of recent developments in research policy in the European Research Area (ERA). Although these developments are specifically concerned with the growth of research capacity at European level, the issues raised have much broader relevance to those concerned with research policy and highly skilled mobility. The paper draws on a wealth of recent research examining the relationship between mobility and career progression with particular reference to a recently completed empirical study of doctoral mobility in the social sciences (Ackers et al. Doctoral Mobility in the Social Sciences. Report to the NORFACE ERA-Network, 2007). The paper is structured as follows. The first section introduces recent policy developments including the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers and the European Commission’s Green Paper on the ERA. The discussion focuses on concerns around the definition of ‘mobility’ and the tendency (in both policy circles and academic research) to conflate different forms of mobility and to equate these with notions of excellence or quality. Scientific mobility is shaped as much by ‘push’ factors (limited opportunity) as it is by the ‘draw’ of excellence. Scientists are exercising a degree of ‘choice’ within a specific and individualised framework of constraints. The following sections consider some of the ‘professional’ and ‘personal’ factors shaping scientific mobility and the influence that these have on the relationship between mobility, internationalisation and excellence. The paper concludes that mobility is not an outcome in its own right and must not be treated as such (as an implicit indicator of internationalisation). To do so contributes to differential opportunity in scientific labour markets reducing both efficiency and equality.