Education,Competence and the Control of Expertise

This paper is concerned with the rise of the ‘competency’ movement in education and beyond. It argues that ‘competency’ should be understood in terms of a change in the social control of expertise in society involving a move from a relatively autonomous form of liberal professional community to more direct State control. This, in turn, is located within a broader analysis of the nature of regulation in late modern societies and draws upon the recent work of Guldens and Bernstein in order to analyse the positioning of expertise between its primary theoretical base in higher education and the social relations of everyday life with which it is concerned. The move by the National Council for Vocational Qualifications into the area of graduate level occupations ('NVQ level 5') is discussed with reference to the role of ‘functional analysis’ as a methodology for translating expertise into ‘competencies’ and controlling professional practice.     

Crime Reporting in Chartist Newspapers

This paper examines police intelligence columns in Chartist newspapers. Asking why Chartist papers would care to document working-class criminal activity, given that Chartists maintained that the ‘people’ were vote-ready, the paper argues that the columns show that crime and class are in fact not integrally related. Grouping well-to-do defendants with working-class counterparts allowed Chartists to demonstrate that money or property in themselves do not make for good citizenship and the right to vote.     

Transectorial innovations and the transformation of firms

Abstract

Innovation which is generated in a specific sector or prepared for it but finds application in others is called transsectorial innovation. This is a subject which, up to now, has attracted very little attention; yet it deserves a thorough examination. Indeed, the incidence of transsectorial migrations is very much on the increase and its impact on industry strongly felt: It generates a multiplicity of new products, causes changes in the location of production units and affects their organization.

In this report, the concept of innovation is addressed and studied in depth, then looked at in the context of long‐term economic perspectives (I). Next the emergence of transsectorial innovations and their pervasive influence are described (II). Lastly, the effects on industry (size, location, organization, products) are examined (III).

The industrial revolution which is beginning represents much more than what is generally expected. It will cause a complete upheaval, not only in the productive system, but also, probably, in the whole range of human activities. The transsectorial phenomenon has a large role to play in the dawning of this new era.     

Energy system contribution to 400-metre and 800-metre track running

As a wide range of values has been reported for the relative energetics of 400-m and 800-m track running events, this study aimed to quantify the respective aerobic and anaerobic energy contributions to these events during track running. Sixteen trained 400-m (11 males, 5 females) and 11 trained 800-m (9 males, 2 females) athletes participated in this study. The participants performed (on separate days) a laboratory graded exercsie test and multiple race time-trials. The relative energy system contribution was calculated by multiple methods based upon measures of race [Vdot]O₂, accumulated oxygen deficit (AOD), blood lactate and estimated phosphocreatine degradation (lactate/PCr). The aerobic/anaerobic energy system contribution (AOD method) to the 400-m event was calculated as 41/59% (male) and 45/55% (female). For the 800-m event, an increased aerobic involvement was noted with a 60/40% (male) and 70/30% (female) respective contribution. Significant (P <?0.05) negative correlations were noted between race performance and anaerobic energy system involvement (lactate/PCr) for the male 800-m and female 400-m events (r = ? 0.77 and ??0.87 respectively). These track running data compare well with previous estimates of the relative energy system contributions to the 400-m and 800-m events. Additionally, the relative importance and speed of interaction of the respective metabolic pathways has implications to training for these events.     

Energy system contribution to 1500- and 3000-metre track running

The aim of the present study was to quantify the contributions of the aerobic and anaerobic energy systems to 1500- and 3000-m track running events during all-out time-trials performed individually on a synthetic athletic track. Ten 3000-m (8 males, 2 females) and fourteen 1500-m (10 males, 4 females) trained track athletes volunteered to participate in the study. The athletes performed a graded exercise test in the laboratory and two time-trials over 1500 or 3000?m. The contributions of the energy systems were calculated by measures of race oxygen uptake, accumulated oxygen deficit (AOD), race blood lactate concentration, estimated phosphocreatine degradation and some individual muscle metabolite data. The relative aerobic energy system contribution (based on AOD measures) for the 3000?m was 86% (male) and 94% (female), while for the 1500?m it was 77% (male) and 86% (female). Estimates of anaerobic energy expenditure based on blood lactate concentrations, while not significantly different (P?>?0.05), were generally lower compared with the AOD measures. In conclusion, the results of the present study conform with some recent laboratory-based measures of energy system contributions to these events.     

Prediction of habitual physical activity level and weight status from fundamental movement skill level

Abstract

Fundamental movement skills (FMS) have been assessed in children in order to investigate the issues of the low proportion of children who meet physical activity (PA) guidelines and rising levels of obesity. The aim of this research was to identify whether previous or current FMS level is a better predictor of PA levels and weight status in children. In January 2012 (year 1), 281 children were recruited from one primary school in the West Midlands, UK. Children performed eight FMS three times, which were videoed and assessed using a subjective checklist. Sprint speed and jump height were measured objectively. Height and mass were measured to calculate the body mass index to determine the weight status. Skinfold calliper readings were used to calculate body fat percentage. One year later, in January 2013, all these tests were repeated on the same children, with the additional collection of PA data via the use of pedometers. Following multiple linear regression, it was identified that prior mastery in FMS was a better predictor of current PA, whereas current FMS was a better predictor of current weight status. Overall, FMS mastery is needed in childhood to be able to participate in PA and maintain a healthy weight status.     

Mediating gendered performances: young people negotiating embodiment in research discussions

Gender inequalities in schools have implications for life chances, emotional well-being and educational policies and practices, but are apparently resistant to change. This paper employs Judith Butler’s conceptualisation of performativity in a study of young people and consumption to provide insights into gendered inequities. It argues that how the young people ‘do’ gender in focus groups frequently involves the discussion of young women’s bodies and clothes in ways that are ‘culturally intelligible’. The focus on young women’s bodies produced joking relationships and a taken-for-granted understanding of gender in some same-sex interactions, but sometimes created tension and divisions in mixed-gender groups. Discussions of sexualisation in single-sex and mixed-sex groups were similarly emotionally loaded. The paper argues that attention to gender inequalities requires detailed attention to the differential power relations in which boys express desires to control feminine bodies and girls police their own and other girls’ bodies. Methodologically, the paper suggests that focus group discussions constitute an ethnographic site for analysis and that researchers co-construct young people’s narratives of embodied gender practices in ways that mediate young people’s gendered performances.     

Sport,Technique and Violence: The Technical Modes for Generating Sport Violence

Norbert Elias makes technical progress one of the markers of the state of civilisation. It is from this viewpoint that we would like to return to the question of sport, a fundamental part in Elias' civilising process, which also constitutes, a contrario, one of the most ambiguous aspects of ‘technical progress’ and its relation to violence, to the articulation of a double abuse of instrumental rationality. On the one hand the infinite improvement of human possibilities (records, performance) which leads to the recognised risks of exploitation and the ultra-sophisticated controlling of athletes (extreme pressure, over-training) as a corollary of the temptation to over-stimulate athletic potential as a result of the uncontrolled use of victory techniques (cheating, doping, violence). On the other hand, the stakes involved in the production of a vast spectacle with ideological, sociopolitical and socio-economic overtones which lead to technological manipulations. Both these tendencies overlap, and furthermore cannot be isolated from, a more general context of the technification of the social, at the heart of which instrumental rationality constitutes the first example of violence. This three-fold observation constitutes the basis of the argument set out in this paper.     

Sport,Prison, Violence: On Imprisonment and Confinement Conditions – ‘French Prison Sport’ and the Instruments of the World's Good Conscience

In France today, sport is considered to be a fundamental element of the educational offer in the prison environment, especially because it represents in the eyes of the majority an activity that is capable of channelling violence and violent behaviours, although this exemplary effect of education cannot be taken for granted. It is based, in fact, on a commonly accepted opinion and on evidence that is rarely questioned and is even contradicted in recent studies. But can sport, as a more or less formalised pedagogical, institutional and/or sociopolitical project, continue to be ‘educational’ in particular social spaces, like prison, which in essence distorts the conditions of unconstrained free practice and cultural dissemination? Starting from a case study, focused on France, the aim of this paper is to question the relation of sport with the calming qualities and/or, on the contrary, those that produce force fields, not by isolating it and constructing an improvised model but rather by re-inserting it into the issue of pacifying social fields, that is by re-integrating sports practice in the very place which gives it a sense and literally one which incarnates a motor praxeology with constraints – not to say control.