Integrative Anthropological Method in History of Culture and Education

This is the story of three professors who found collective success in certain old-time approaches to teaching. Using three different first-person perspectives from Professors Burg, Piedmont, and Kamke, we examine some of the key components of such teaching orientation that may be helpful for professors navigating increased enrollments, while trying to engage students to learn not only the subject matter, but also, perhaps more importantly, about themselves as human beings.

The relevance of this classic approach is reflected in the fact that all of us, typically unawares, continue to apply, and expand on, the way of education to which we were introduced a long time ago. In essence, that old-time teaching showed us how to be, in the words of Angyal, simultaneously autonomous (i.e., being oneself, standing alone) and homonomous (belonging/surrendering to something greater than oneself).     

Negotiating a liberative pedagogy in sport development and peace: understanding consciousness raising through the Go Sisters programme in Zambia

Labelled as an alternative and more representative engine for development [Levermore, R. (2008). Sport: A new engine of development? Progress in Development Studies, 8(2), 183–190. doi: 10.1177/146499340700800204], the international sport development and peace (SDP) movement is under pressure to enhance its credibility and authenticity. The claims made are of SDP's capacity to deliver development to a world that feels let down by traditional development approaches, especially at the end of the Millennium Development Goals. However, for SDP to assume its true position of an authentic alternative, it needs to be wrestled from its neo colonialism and undemocratic tendencies that have privileged the Global Northern ways of being and knowing, invalidating and marginalising alternative ways of social betterment. In particular, the use of SDP to facilitate learning of social, health and economic skills has become popular [Spaaij, R., & Jeanes, R.(2013). Education for social change? A Freirean critique of sport for development and peace. Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 18(4), 442–457], yet, the dominant pedagogic approaches resemble what Paulo Freire has called ‘banking education’. This concept refers to ‘depositing’ information that learners passively receive, memorise and repeat, and is one such crucial segment that needs close examination in SDP. This article draws on Paulo Freire's critical consciousness as a theoretical framework to support analysis of empirical data that examines the negotiation of a liberative pedagogy within the Go Sisters programme. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews the retrospective views of six former Go Sisters programme participants were examined. Three broad themes, in line with a liberative pedagogy, emerged from the data: (i) critical dialogue (ii) family support and (iii) Ubuntu Sisterhood. The findings highlight how Go Sisters participants negotiated the development of critical consciousness to counter the dominant banking education paradigm in SDP. Over many years the Go Sisters developed capacity to embed collective critical dialogue in programme activities that were informed by both the EduSport Foundation's organisational philosophy of Ubuntu and Global Northern neo-liberal education focused on life skills.     

Psychological Correlates of Fear of Falling in the Elderly

Fear of falling (FOF) is widely found in the elderly population and, regardless of its complex nature as a multicomponent construct, its related psychological variables have been overlooked as primary research topics. This article aims to examine the relationship between FOF, falls self efficacy, anxiety, balance, and perceived control over falling in a sample of older adults. A total of 100 subjects aged 60+ were asked about the presence of FOF, falls history, health, and functional status; they also completed the Falls Efficacy Scale (FES), the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI), the Perceived Control Over Falling Scale (PCOF), and the Performance-Oriented Assessment of Mobility and Balance (POMA-I). FOF was found to be associated with low falls self efficacy, low perceived control over falling, and reduced balance but not with anxiety. Conversely, a statistically significant association was found between GAI and FES, PCOF and POMA-I, and 47.1% of FOF was explained by two items from FES and GAI. FOF is influenced by variables that, though being commonly considered equivalent to FOF, do not fully explain it. A critical thought on the instruments used to evaluate FOF, is needed as well as additional studies to clarify the role of specific psychological variables.     

How do pre-kindergarteners spend their time? Gender,ethnicity, and income as predictors of experiences in pre-kindergarten classrooms

The current paper considers how children spend their time in state-funded pre-kindergarten programs and how time use relates to ethnicity, gender, and family income, based on the assumption that how time is spent in pre-kindergarten is relevant for the programs’ success in narrowing achievement gaps. Classroom observations of 2061 children in 652 pre-k programs in 11 states were analyzed. Findings indicated that the pre-kindergarten day was roughly equally divided among free choice, teacher-assigned activities, and meals/routines. Children spent much of their time in language/literacy, social studies, and art, and less time in math and gross motor activities. Much of the pre-k day was spent in ‘no coded learning activity.’ Children in classes with lower proportions of Latino and African American children and higher average income-to-need ratios were generally engaged in richer and more stimulating experiences. The child-level variables of ethnicity and income were generally unrelated to how children spent their time, above and beyond the effects of classroom-level ethnicity and income. There were generally small, but significant gender differences – always in the gender-stereotyped direction – in how time was spent, especially during free choice time.     

Non-invasive characterisation of binding media on painted glass magic lantern plates using mid-infrared fibre-optic reflectance spectroscopy

Painted glass magic lantern plates from the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Torino (Italy), were studied using mid-infrared (mid-IR) fibre-optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS), a non-invasive technique, to test its potential for the identification of the types of binding media used in the paints. Gum, oil and resin media were identified on the plates and the amounts of these media varied from place to place; the discovery of these media correlate well with the literature on magic lantern plate preparation and painting. The spectra collected are reported uncorrected and also with the fingerprint region corrected with the Kramers–Kronig correction, which corrects distorted peaks caused by specular reflections.