Questioning the no-touch discourse in physical education from a children's rights perspective

In this paper we question the rationality of ‘no-touch policies’ and offer an alternative approach to the matter of physical contact between teachers and students in the context of physical education (PE) in schools. Earlier research has drawn attention to how a discourse of child protection is starting to affect how physical contact is viewed in PE practice. The avoidance of intergenerational touch is increasingly justified by referring to the children's rights agenda. Here, arguments for ‘no-touching’ are linked to children's right to be protected from harm. In the paper we explore a children's rights-based viewpoint that supports the use of and need for physical contact in PE teaching by developing theoretical and practice-based arguments. An alternative children's rights perspective, based on rights theorising, is used to formulate the theoretical argument. Interviews with 16 PE teachers about their experiences of physical contact in their pedagogical work form the practice-based arguments. The two arguments provide a way of looking at intergenerational touch in education from the vantage point of children's human right to develop to their full potential, which can support a need for physical touch in pedagogical situations.     

A prospective examination of the impact of high levels of exercise training on sedentary behaviour

The aim of this study is to determine changes in sedentary behaviour in response to extensive aerobic exercise training. Participants included adults who self-selected to run a marathon. Sedentary behaviour, total activity counts and physical activity (PA) intensity were assessed (Actigraph GT3X) for seven consecutive days during seven assessment periods (?3, ?2, and ?1 month prior to the marathon, within 2 weeks of the marathon, and +1, +2, and +3 months after the marathon). Models were fitted with multiple imputation data using the STATA mi module. Random intercept generalized least squares (GLS) regression models were used to determine change in sedentary behaviour with seven waves of repeated measures. Results: Twenty-three individuals (mean?±?S_x: 34.4?±?2.1y, 23.0?±?1.9% fat, 15 women, 8 men) completed the study. Marathon finishing times ranged from 185 to 344 minutes (253.2?±?9.6 minutes). Total counts in the vertical axis were 1,729,414 lower one month after the race, compared with two months prior to the race (peak training). Furthermore, counts per minute decreased by 252.7 counts·minute^?1 during that same time period. Daily sedentary behaviour did not change over the seven assessment periods, after accounting for age, gender, per cent body fat, wear time, marathon finishing time, and previous marathon experience. This prospective study supports the notion that PA and sedentary behaviours are distinct, showing that sedentary behaviour was not impacted by high levels of aerobic training.     

‘Second death’, or revival of the ‘third world’ in the context of neo‐liberal globalization

Abstract

This paper tries to analyze the historical change in the Third World in its emergent stage, in the authoritarian stage and in the current democratic stage and, thereafter, find a way to revive the Bandung spirit in the current globalization context. I define the Bandung spirit as one of a ‘non‐aligned self‐helped “organization against” the dominant powerful countries’; that is, spirit of ‘anti‐predominance’. This spirit has emerged on the base of such domestic orientation and realities as economic self‐reliance, nationally integrated political regime, convergence of the state and civil society around anti‐colonialism. However, according to intensification of the Cold War confrontation on the international level and its centrifugal influence, the early Third World changed to a ‘new’ authoritarian Third World. The Third World in this stage could be characterized by an exclusive authoritarian political regime, dependent‐developmentalist economic orientation and coercively repressed and mobilized, in the top‐down way, civil society. This authoritarian Third World began to be confronted with a strong struggle from the bottom for democratization. In order for democratization of the Third World to become its true revival in the context of globalization, the following tasks should be considered. First, the democratic Third World should be a great driving force for the institutionalization of the transnational public regulatory mechanism. Second, the democratic Third World countries try to go over a kind of ‘transformed’ dependent development strategy. Third, democratization should go along with recovery of political inclusiveness and openness of the state to civil society’s demands. Thereafter, I tried to construct globalist re‐interpretation of the Bandung, by way of conceptualizing the current globalization as imperial globalization, unlike the imperialist globalization which the historical Bandung wanted to confront. I argue that the Bandung spirit of collective self‐help organizations against the newly emerging dominant order should be revived in this worse imperial globalization context. In addition, I argue that a nationalist resistance is also one component of the multiple resistances in the current imperial globalization.     

Modernising gender,civilising sex: perverse imaginary in the state feminist politics of Liu Yu‐hsiu

Abstract

The gender sexual politics of Liu Yu‐hsiu has been pivotal in the hegemonic ascendancy of Taiwan state feminism in recent years. Through an examination of Liu’s psychoanalytically mediated essays of cultural criticism, this article traces the contour of Liu’s sexual imaginary within the context of 1990s feminist and queer politics. Liu’s modernising project of gender equality, I argue, upholds heterosexual monogamy as a feminist ideal that seeks to purge all the masculine ills, including perversion and promiscuity. Meanwhile, queers and prostitutes come to be figured as the very negativity that must be repressed. Yet, like the Lacanian Real, they impinge on the symbolic order that Liu ordains as they thwart her desire to civilise sex.