The self-concept level of black adolescents with and without African names

The self-concept level of Black adolescents with African names was explored. Black males with and without African names were first identified. All participants and their parents were then administered the Terrell and Taylor Black Ideology Scale and the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory. Differences between groups on the self-concept measures were then examined using a one way MANOVA with parents' scores on the self-concept measures serving as covariates. Significant differences were found between groups. Supplemental analyses revealed no differences between groups on the Coopersmith. However, adolescents with African names had significantly higher scores on the Black self-concept scales than did those without African names.     

Assessment of mentally retarded children with the Matrix Analogies Test-Short Form,Draw A Person: A quantitative scoring system,and the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement

This study examined the utility of the MAT-SF and the DAP: A Quantitative Scoring System as screening instruments for mental retardation. In this study, 46 normals and 39 developmentally handicapped (DH) 4th- and 5th-grade students were group administered both screening tests and individually administered an achievement test, the KTEA. The results found the MAT-SF to correlate significantly with all areas of achievement for both groups, whereas the DAP did not correlate significantly with any areas of achievement for the normal group but correlated significantly with math, but not reading, for the developmentally handicapped students. The results support the use of the MAT-SF as a screening instrument for mental retardation, whereas the usefulness of the DAP is not as clear.     

Subjective well-being in cultural advocacy: a politics of research between the market and the academy

This paper responds to a trend of contracting out subjective well-being econometrics to demonstrate social return on investment (SROI) for evidence-based policy-making. We discuss an evolving ecology of ‘external’ research taking place ‘between’ the academy and commercial consultancy. We then contextualise this as waves of research methodologies and consultancy for the cultural sector. The new model of ‘external between’ consultancy research for policy is not only placed between the University and the market, but also facilitates discourse between policy sectors, government, the media and the academy. Specifically, it enables seductive but selective arguments for advocacy that claim authority through academic affiliation, yet are not evaluated for robustness. To critically engage with an emergent form of what Stone calls ‘causal stories’, we replicate a publicly funded externally commissioned SROI model that argues for the value of cultural activities to well-being. We find that the author’s operationalisation of participation and well-being are crucial, yet their representation of the relationship problematic, and their estimates questionable. This case study ‘re-performs’ econometric modelling national-level survey data for the cultural sector to reveal practices that create norms of expertise for policy-making that are not rigorous. We conclude that fluid claims to authority allow experimental econometric models and measures to perform across the cultural economy as if ratified. This new model of advocacy research requires closer academic consideration given the changing research funding structures and recent attention to expertise and the contracting out of public services.     

Humility & Humiliation: The Transformation of Franciscan Humour,c.1210–1310

Humiliation and self-ridicule worked as surprisingly important tools of evangelical outreach in the first decades of the Franciscan Order (c.1210–50). According to early Franciscan texts such as the Assisi Compilation (c.1240s) and Jordan of Giano’s Chronica (c.1260), St Francis and his earliest followers sought to win supporters by stripping naked in public, mocking learned preachers and ludicrously imitating animals. Yet within a few decades of the founder’s death this type of humour had been erased from Franciscan texts. Chronicles now omitted references to Francis’s laughter, while humiliating behaviour came to be condemned by Franciscan preachers, chroniclers and theologians alike. From being a means of undermining dignity and reason, joking was now instead celebrated as a tool of upholding these very same values. Describing the nature of this shift, and contextualising it within the evolving institutional priorities of the Franciscans under the leadership of Bonaventure (d.1274), this article will complicate debates about the development of medieval humour, while also reflecting on laughter’s role as a means of resistance to the significant social and cultural upheavals of the 1200s.     

Excellence and Frontier Research as Travelling Concepts in Science Policymaking

Excellence and frontier research have made inroads into European research policymaking and structure political agendas, funding programs and evaluation practices. The two concepts travelled a long way from the United States and have derived from contexts outside of science (and policy). Following their conceptual journey, we ask how excellence and frontier research have percolated into European science and higher education policies and how they have turned into lubricants of competition that buttress an ongoing reform process in Europe.     

Football Club Formation and the Lancashire Leisure Class, 1857–1870

This paper outlines the transition from football games played for occasional amusement to a system of organized football clubs playing regular matches in Lancashire in the mid-nineteenth century. This was led by young men of an emerging Lancashire leisured class being, in the main, the public school educated sons of the northern county’s commercial and industrial elite. These families had accumulated sufficient wealth, especially in the first half of the nineteenth century, to exempt a considerable part of their population from work both at weekends and during the normal working week with football becoming an act of conspicuous consumption. Three case studies of individual clubs and leading individuals within those clubs are presented with detailed archival research carefully avoiding the teleology implicit in much historical writing of the past. It also swells the paucity of good historical material about the organization of sport at levels below national bodies. In so doing, it aims to illuminate some of the shadows in the big picture of the evolution of sport and leisure in Lancashire and Britain itself while informing the ongoing orthodox/revisionist debate into the origins of football in the nineteenth century.     

生活方式干预对心血管疾病危险因素的影响——美国HELPS项目成果

摘要：心血管疾病（CVD）一直是全世界最主要的死因。由于CVD等慢性疾病对健康的威胁越来越大,有必要开展生活方式干预项目以控制这些疾病的危险因素。本研究的目的是评估美国的重要慢病干预项目—HELPS治疗型生活方式改变（TLC）项目对减少CVD危险因素和其他慢性疾病的有效性。方法：140位大学教职工参加为期12周的HELPS TLC项目,干预前后用配对t检验对其体重、BMI、腰围（WC）、6分钟步行距离（6MWD）、空腹血脂和血糖进行测定和比较。结果：干预后6MWD显著增加,总胆固醇（TC）和WC显著下降。对“高危”参与者进一步分析显示：BMI（-1.5±0.5,-3.9%）、TC（- 22.8±4.0,-9.0%）、LDL（- 14.1±4.9,9.3%）和血糖（-6.9±2.2,-6.1%）均显著下降;男性腰围（-4.5±0.8,-10%）显著减小,女性未见显著改变（-1.5±0.5,-4.0%）。此外,体重的变化与TC（r=0.43）、LDL（r=0.35）和血糖（r=0.44）的变化均显著相关。结论：参加12周的生活方式干预项目可以使CVD危险因素减少,特别是在CVD“高危”个体中。HELPS TLC项目的远期效果还待进一步深入研究。     

An analysis of the value of multiple mentors in formalised elite coach mentoring programmes

Background: Within the context of sports coaching and coach education, formalised mentoring relationships are often depicted as a mentor–mentee dyad. Thus, mentoring within sports coaching is typically conceptualised as a one-dimensional relationship, where the mentor is seen as the powerful member of the dyad, with greater age and/or experience [Colley, H. (2003). Mentoring for Social Inclusion. London: Routledge].

Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the concept of a multiple mentor system in an attempt to advance our theoretical and empirical understanding of sports coach mentoring. In doing so, this paper builds upon the suggestion of Jones, Harris, and Miles [(2009). “Mentoring in Sports Coaching: A Review of the Literature.” Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy 14 (3): 267–284] who highlight the importance of generating empirical research to explore current mentoring approaches in sport, which in turn can inform meaningful formal coach education enhancement. The significance of this work therefore lies in opening up both a practical and a theoretical space for dialogue within sports coach education in order to challenge the traditional dyadic conceptualisation of mentoring and move towards an understanding of ‘mentoring in practice’.

Method: Drawing upon Kram’s [(1985). Mentoring at Work: Developmental Relationships in Organisational Life. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman] foundational mentoring theory to underpin a multiple mentoring support system, 15 elite coach mentors across a range of sports were interviewed in an attempt to explore their mentoring experiences. Subsequently, an inductive thematic analysis endeavoured to further investigate the realities and practicalities of employing a multiple mentoring system in the context of elite coach development.

Results: The participants advocated support for the utilisation of a multiple mentor system to address some of the inherent problems and complexities within elite sports coaching mentoring. Specifically, the results suggested that mentees sourced different mentors for specific knowledge acquisition, skills and attributes. For example, within a multiple mentor approach, mentors recommended that mentees use a variety of mentors, including cross-sports and non-sport mentors.

Conclusion: Tentative recommendations for the future employment of a multiple mentoring framework were considered, with particular reference to cross-sports or non-sport mentoring experiences.