A comparison of time-motion performance between age groups in judo matches

The aim of this study was to compare time-motion indicators during judo matches performed by athletes from different age groups. The following age groups were analysed: Pre-Juvenile (13-14 years, n = 522), Juvenile (15-16 years, n = 353); Junior (19 years, n = 349) and Senior (>20 years, n = 587). The time-motion indicators included: Total Combat Time, Standing Combat Time, Displacement Without Contact, Gripping Time, Groundwork Combat Time and Pause Time. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) one-way and the Tukey test, as well as the Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney (for non-parametric data), were conducted, using P < 0.05 as significance level. The results showed that all analysed groups obtained a median of 7 (first quantile - 3, third quantile - 12) sequences of combat/pause cycles. In total time of combat, the result was: for Total Combat Time, Standing Combat Time and Gripping Time: Pre-Juvenile and Senior were significantly longer than Juvenile and Junior. Considering Displacement Without Contact, Junior was significantly longer than all other age groups. For Groundwork Combat Time, Senior was significantly longer than all other age groups and Pre-Juvenile was longer than Junior. These results can be used to improve the physiological performance in intermittent practices, as well as technical-tactical training during judo sessions.     

Affordability of private schools: exploration of a conundrum and towards a definition of ‘low-cost’

The affordability of private education is a contentious issue. While the extent of ‘low-cost’ private schooling is widely accepted, there is no agreement on what ‘low-cost’ means in this context and how this relates to affordability for poor families. This paper addresses the lacuna in the literature by defining ‘low-cost’ in relation to what poor families could afford if they were to send all their children to school while restricting their expenditure on schooling to a fixed proportion of their total family expenditure. This approach links the definition of ‘low-cost’ to internationally accepted poverty lines. Two examples from recent research in South Sudan and Liberia illustrate the flexibility of the new method. The paper also addresses the ‘conundrum’ in the research literature, which suggests low-cost private schools are unaffordable for poorest families, when the same literature typically shows some of the poorest using these schools.     

Early Childhood Education as a Scientific Discipline: a state‐of‐the‐art perspective

The objective of early childhood education is to address the totality of issues and areas of activity relevant to young children. In spite of the considerable growth in knowledge concerning children and childhood, this objective has yet to be attained at the theoretical level. Proceeding from the vantage point of a retrospective of the conceptions of the two classical theorists, Rousseau and Frobel, the case is made for grounding early childhood education in the dimensions of subjectivity, intersubjectivity, society and history in order to be able to analyse its various tasks in their respective specificity and reciprocal dependence. The attempt is made to characterise the challenges facing such a theory and to outline the resulting systematic issues for a pedagogy of early childhood.     

Mathe mit der Matte – Verkörperlichtes Training basisnumerischer Kompetenzen

Basic numerical representations are seen as the building block for the successful development of more complex numerical and arithmetic competencies. Extending previous studies focusing on improving basic numerical representations by means of embodied training schemes, the current study focused on an embodied training of children’s place-value understanding. In this vein, 49 secondgraders were trained on solving a number line estimation task by stepping on different fields of a dance mat allowing for separate estimations of tens and units with more effort needed to step on the tens. In a partially randomized cross-over design, two control conditions were used to controll for training effects caused exclusively by the numerical content trained or the use of the dance mat. Interestingly, results revealed specific training effects after both the embodied and the control conditions. However, training effects were significantly more pronounced after the embodied training, thereby providing further evidence for the benefit of an embodied training of the place-value structure of the Arabic number system.     

The linkage between the education and employment systems: ideal types of vocational education and training programs

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the literature by proposing a methodological approach that scholars in all research fields can use to develop high-quality explanatory typologies. We argue that every typology should be constructed using a systematic, transparent process and must have a strong theoretical foundation to validate its explanatory value. Drawing on Max Weber’s typology theory, we apply our approach to construct three ideal types of vocational education and training (VET) programs. By bypassing heterogeneous context conditions, our typological approach enables us to compare VET programs based on the criteria that are relevant to an explanation of youth labor market outcomes. We build on Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems, which helps elucidate the significance of the linkage between actors from the education and employment systems in VET. The first ideal type, with maximal linkage, entails equal power-sharing between both kinds of actors. We expect such a VET program to have the most favorable outcome. The other two ideal types, in which one system has all the power, result in either undesirable youth labor market outcomes, such as unemployment or skills mismatch, or lack of access to further education.     

Stichwort: Entwicklung im Erwachsenenalter

In this review article, “aging and learning” is discussed from the perspective of life span developmental psychology. Accordingly, aging is regarded as a continuous and multidimensional process which is characterized by a potential for change (plasticity) at all ages. We give an overview of age-related changes in two psychological domains which are considered to be highly relevant for learning processes, namely cognitive resources and resources related to personality, motivation and emotion. In addition, we describe developmental contexts which were shown to contribute to plasticity in the second half of life. The findings allow for the conclusion that learning is possible throughout the adult life span, albeit under changing conditions. Key implications for learning processes and learning contexts are discussed.     

Teachers' social class,professional dispositions and pedagogic practice

Through theoretically driven case studies, the research reported here considers the ways in which students in different social class settings are inducted into school knowledge. The paper brings to the centre the social class positioning of teachers in considering their role in schooling processes. The central question of the paper is whether we can establish a relationship between teachers' own social class backgrounds, their professional dispositions and their pedagogic practice. The interest emerges from a long-standing assumption that teachers are middle class, and reproduce the practices associated with that social location. The paper is exploratory and is not able to provide a definitive answer to the question of the relationship between class, professional disposition and pedagogic practice. Although it suggests a relationship between teachers' social class position and schooling practices, the main contribution of the paper is to offer a metric for exploring the issue further. That is, through a specifically selected sample, the paper provides a means for considering the implications of teachers social class background, professional dispositions and pedagogic practice for the processes of the reproduction of social inequality, and its interruption.