Contents of Volume 4

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 4     

Activity theory,complexity and sports coaching: an epistemology for a discipline

The aim of this article is twofold. First, it is to advance the case for activity theory (AT) as a credible and alternative lens to view and research sports coaching. Second, it is to position this assertion within the wider debate about the epistemology of coaching. Following a framing introduction, a more comprehensive review of the development and current conceptualisation of AT is given. Here, AT's evolution through three distinct phases and related theorists, namely Vygotsky, Leont'ev and Engeström, is initially traced. This gives way to a more detailed explanation of AT's principal conceptual components, including ‘object’, ‘subject’, ‘tools’ (mediating artefacts), ‘rules’, a ‘community’ and a ‘division of labour’. An example is then presented from empirical work illustrating how AT can be used as a means to research sports coaching. The penultimate section locates such thinking within coaching's current ‘epistemological debate, arguing that the coaching ‘self’ is not an autonomous individual, but a relative part of social and cultural arrangements. Finally, a conclusion summarises the main points made, particularly in terms in presenting the grounding constructivist epistemology of AT as a potential way forward for sports coaching.     

Teacher Actions to Maximize Mathematics Learning Opportunities in Heterogeneous Classrooms

The basic unit of school based mathematics teaching is the lesson. This article is a contribution to understanding teacher actions that facilitate successful lessons, defined as those that engage all students, especially those who may sometimes feel alienated from mathematics and schooling, in productive and successful mathematical thinking and learning. An underlying assumption is that lessons can seek to build a sense in the students that their experience has elements in common with the rest of the class and that this can be done through attention to particular aspects of the mathematical and socio-mathematical goals. We examine three teacher actions that address the mathematical goals: using open-ended tasks, preparing prompts to support students experiencing difficulty, and posing extension tasks to students who finish the set tasks quickly; as well as actions that address the socio-mathematical goals by making classroom processes explicit. To illustrate and elaborate these actions, we describe a particular lesson taught to a heterogeneous upper primary (age 11–12) class.     

Constructing Neonarratives: A Pluralistic Approach to Research

Practitioners in the visual arts and education can find researching their field a tricky business. They are often caught within the debate about the values of qualitative vs quantitative research, as well as the need to reflect the reality of visual arts practices in a changing world. The selection of an approporiate research method is no easy task. This paper presents a way of approaching research in art and education using a narratological approach to develop neonarratives. Such a method can satisfy calls for rigour while offering contemporary views of the issues under investigation.     

The Cognitive and Academic Benefits of Music to Children: Facts and fiction

There is considerable interest in the potential non‐musical cognitive and academic benefits of music listening and instruction to children. This report describes three lines of research relevant to this issue, namely, the effects of: (1) focused music listening on subsequent task performance (the Mozart effect); (2) music instruction; and (3) background music listening. Research suggests that while Mozart effect studies have attracted considerable media attention, the effect cannot be reliably demonstrated in children. In contrast, music instruction confers consistent benefits for spatiotemporal reasoning skills; however, improvements in associated academic domains, such as arithmetic, have not been reliably shown. Finally, background music may calm and focus children with special education needs, thereby enhancing learning. Additional research is required to determine whether this effect is evident in normal populations. Overall, evidence for the non‐musical benefits of music listening and instruction is limited. The inherent value of music and music education should not be overlooked by narrowly focusing on cognitive and academic outcomes.     

Classroom Competencies and Marginal Positionings

In this paper we examine the way students are positioned in classrooms in terms of the binary power/powerlessness and its relation to other binaries such as teacher/student, white/black and competent/incompetent student. We show how those positioned in the marked non‐ascendant pair of each binary are assumed, from the perspective of ‘teaching‐as‐usual’ to be choosing (irrationally) their lesser status. We show how this can be read quite differently from a poststructuralist perspective and how such a reading makes visible the ways in which power and ascendant positionings are discursively achieved not only as ‘normal’ but as the way things really are and should be. It further makes visible the ways in which such discursive achievements are dependent on those who are positioned as the necessary other/outsider to the ascendant order.