The football club: spaces for capital accumulation

This paper focuses on the various forms of capital that are used and accumulated through the interactions and development of an amateur football team specifically in relation to issues around social class. Formed by the author in 2009, the team plays in an amateur Sunday football league and is based in a public house in the North East of England, UK. The overall purpose of this study is to assess the transformative potential of the team through various interactions that members have through different spaces and times. A key influence for the research developed from an initial year’s experience within the club where many interesting issues and situations arose for me as a football manager and what Jarvie calls a ‘public intellectual’. For the purpose of this paper, Bourdieu’s explanation of cultural fields, cultural capital, social capital and symbolic capital will be adopted in a critique of how players acquire status via forms of ‘legitimised capital’ considered important to football players in the research setting. Attention is also drawn to the various uses of capital by the researcher in his role as manager/coach. Empirical data are incorporated in a discussion of sites and expressions of capital and how these inform processes of transformation through sport. These empirical data are in the form of extensive diary entries collected over two years. Drawing upon Murray’s work, the structured format of this journal covers the four areas of observational notes, theoretical notes, methodological notes and personal notes.     

STUDENTS' APPROACHES TO LEARNING AND SATISFACTION WITH PROBLEM‐BASED CURRICULA FOR FOUR DIFFERENT PROFESSIONS

This research looked at students' satisfaction with, and changes in approach to, learning during their first year in problem‐based curricula for agriculture, architecture, medicine and paramedicine. While students at each school showed little change in approach apart from achievement orientation in the six‐month period after entry to the course, there were different patterns of approach at each school. Satisfaction with their respective schools was uniformly high — notably in terms of their emotional climate, supportiveness, student and teacher interaction, and meaningful learning experiences. Correlations between students' approach to learning and degree of satisfaction with their course strongly support earlier claims and research findings on the merits of problem‐based curricula, although they still need more careful definition to be useful to curriculum planners.     

Outcome of abuse during childhood among pregnant low income women

The outcome of experiencing abuse as a child was studied by comparing pregnant women who did recall versus those who did not recall this type of maltreatment. Fourteen hundred low income women were interviewed in prenatal clinic; those who said they were both punished by abuse and beaten by caretakers as children were considered abused. Abuse was recalled by more white than black women but families were followed after delivery and protective service reports of abuse for their offspring were equal. Because of low numbers, black subjects were dropped and the 95 white women who recalled abuse during childhood were compared to the remaining 832 white subjects. The groups did not differ in attitude about current pregnancy, age or marital status, and no differences were found for their children at birth. Abused mothers were more likely to have felt unwanted and unloved as children and to have lower self-images and more isolation than controls. Abused mothers had greater stress, and many of their stresses reflected disturbances in interpersonal relationships. Thus, women abused as children had some characteristics similar to those of known child abusers. Although abused women had more aggressive tendencies, their children were reported to protective services for abuse at the same frequency as control children. Intergenerational transmission of abuse was therefore not demonstrated prospectively. Classic theories of child abuse suggest a special child, special parent and stress act as independent agents to cause abuse. The above data suggest, alternatively, that abuse during childhood may lead to other risk characteristics and to greater stress. These may act together to increase risk for abuse. The special child may have an independent influence on abuse.     

Faculty communication and academic policy

Given the premise that the university level faculty committee system is an important element of academic policy‐making, this article reports an effort to describe the communication patterns which control the policies which are and are not “made by faculty committees.     

Becoming a teacher: the identity construction experiences of beginning English language teachers in Hong Kong

Debate over educational reform in many countries has addressed the question of how to attract and retain teachers. As part of a multiple case study that includes eight beginning English language teachers in Hong Kong, this paper offers an in-depth analysis of the experiences of two participants, Christine and Samuel, during their initial year of full time teaching in Hong Kong schools. The data, collected during an entire academic year, suggests that Christine used her experiences of becoming a teacher to justify and reaffirm her determination to pursue a career within English language teaching. In contrast, Samuel??s preliminary year of full-time teaching culminated in his decision to leave the teaching profession. A contribution of this study is to explore these very different experiences and outcomes using a framework of teacher identity construction. From this perspective, findings suggest that the participants?? engagement in the practices and activities of teaching, their relations with colleagues, and their positioning within different discourses of teaching and learning by their schools as well as by the wider educational environment, shaped their decisions about whether to continue to pursue a teaching career. Implications for attracting and retaining teachers, as well as for future research, are discussed.     

Prevalence of Disordered Eating and Pathogenic Weight Control Behaviors Among NCAA Division I Female Collegiate Gymnasts and Swimmers

Abstract

Nine trained trackmen were divided into experimental (nonmilk) and control (milk) groups. Both groups participated in eight weeks of training. The experimental group was not permitted any milk, cheese, or ice cream except in those dishes in which milk was used in cooking. The controls consumed a minimum of three pints of milk daily and about two pints of ice cream each week. Steady state and all-out treadmill measures were obtained as well as diet recall records. During the period of this investigation no significant effects which might be attributed to milk were observed on performance. With exclusion of milk from the diet the intake of calcium, vitamin A, and riboflavin dropped significantly and below the recommended minimum allowances.     

Lung Volumes and Maximal Respiratory Pressures in Collegiate Swimmers and Runners

Abstract

To determine whether respiratory muscle strength is related to pulmonary volume differences in athletes and nonathletes, 11 intercollegiate female swimmers, 11 female cross-country runners, and two nonathletic control groups, matched to the athletes in height and age, were evaluated for pulmonary parameters including maximal inspiratory pressure (P_lmax) and maximal expiratory pressure (P_Emax). Swimmers exhibited larger (p < .05) vital capacities (VC), residual lung volumes (RV), inspiratory capacities (IC), and functional residual capacities (FRC) than both the runners or the controls but no difference (p > .05) in either P_lmax or inspiratory flow (FIV_25%-75%). Timed expiratory volumes (FEV Q.5 m and FEV_1.0 were significantly (p < .05) lower in the swimmers than in the controls. These data suggest that an adaptational growth may be responsible, in part, for the augmented static lung volumes demonstrated in swimmers