Worldwide regional variations in home advantage in association football

Home advantage plays an important part in determining the result of a game of football. Its existence and magnitude is well documented in England, but its causes are still not completely understood. In this study, reliable estimates of home advantage are calculated for the domestic leagues of all countries of Europe and South America, as well as a selection of countries from other continents. The results of all games during the last six seasons are used for each of these 72 countries. In Europe, home advantage in the Balkan countries, especially Bosnia and Albania, is much higher than average. It is generally lower than average in northern Europe, from the Baltic republics, through Scandinavia to the British Isles. In South America, home advantage is high in the Andean countries and lower elsewhere, especially in Uruguay. Home advantage is not unusually high or low in any of the countries from other continents. A multiple regression model for the 51 European countries, which included variables for geographical location, crowd effects and travel, accounted for 76.7% of the variability in home advantage. The large geographical variations can be interpreted in terms of territoriality being a contributing factor to home advantage.     

The World of Spirits in the Work of Some Caribbean Writers in the Diaspora

Writers of Caribbean ancestry who live outside of the region are usually described as having dual allegiance (Caribbean/American for example). This is eminently justifiable, since there is usually a recognizable Caribbean flavour to the writing. This paper focuses on one feature of Caribbean culture incorporated in three texts: Praisesong for the Widow, by Paule Marshall, who grew up in a Barbadian environment in Brooklyn, New York; Flickering Shadows by Kwadwo Kamau, who spent his early years in Barbados and Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson who spent her early years in Trinidad and Jamaica. All three writers are published in the USA (although Hopkinson lives in Canada). This paper isolates the spirit world and comments on how it is used in these texts and to what effect. Also discussed are the relative strength of cultural features and the fascination with the world of the spirits.     

Teaching a Human Sexuality Course: What Are Counseling Students Thinking?

The pervasiveness of sexual issues in counseling suggests the necessity of educating counseling students about relevant topics. Students enrolled in a human sexuality course anonymously submitted topical questions and secrets/fantasies. Following a content analysis, findings depicted themes of content and tone that provided curricular implications for counselor educators.     

The changing nature of assessment in English primary classrooms: Findings from the PACE project 1989–1997

The effective use of evaluation is currently hailed as the ultimate tool in raising standards and ensuring accountability for virtually all areas of life. Nowhere has this been more in evidence than in the area of schooling. This increasing emphasis on target setting and the raising of standards through summative assessment has brought with it major changes to the educative experience for both teachers and their pupils. The PACE Project, which began in 1989, was designed to track these changes as they impacted on a representative sample of teachers and their pupils as they progressed through primary schooling. This article highlights some of the major issues which have emerged from the study and goes on to discuss what implications these might have for future policy-making.     

The Role of the Internet in Presidential Campaigns

This essay examines the various roles and functions of the Internet predominantly in the Democratic primaries from January 1, 2008 through June 3, 2008. After tracing the emergence of the Internet in presidential campaigns since 1996, three functions of the Internet during the 2008 primary campaigns are examined. First, Democratic candidates employed their Web sites to create ideological unity, involvement, and commitment among their supporters and as a foundation for a new source of campaign funding, especially among small donors. Second, the Internet provides a foundation for tracking, if not predicting, the success of specific candidates at different stages in the campaign process. Third, while only an emergent force, the Internet increasingly appears to be functioning as an independent, if not discrete, sociopolitical system with unique modes of interaction, its own rules and procedures, and ultimately its own standards and guidelines for presidential campaigns. It is concluded that while the Internet can be usefully viewed strategically as an instrument to be manipulated by political candidates, it may be appropriate to also examine the Internet as a unique and discrete social system with its own ethos, pathos, and logos.     

Application of demand-control theory to sign language interpreting: implications for stress and interpreter training

The translation work of sign language interpreters involves much more than language. The characteristics and goings-on in the physical environment, the dynamics and interactions between the people who are present, and even the "inner noise" of the interpreter contribute to the accuracy, or lack thereof, of the resulting translation. The competent interpreter must understand and respond appropriately to the language and nonlanguage aspects of each interpreting assignment. We use the framework of demand-control theory (Karasek, 1979) to examine the complex occupation of sign language interpreting. Demand-control theory is a job analysis method useful in studies of occupational stress and reduction of stress-related illness, injury, and burnout. We describe sources of demand in the interpreting profession, including demands that arise from factors other than those associated with languages (linguistic demands). These include environmental, interpersonal, and intrapersonal demands. Karasek's concept of control, or decision latitude, is also explored in relation to the interpreting profession. We discuss the prevalence of cumulative trauma disorders (CTD), turnover, and burnout in the interpreting profession in light of demand-control theory and data from interpreter surveys, including a new survey study described herein. We conclude that nonlinguistic demand factors in particular and perceived restrictions in decision latitude likely contribute to stress, CTD, burnout, and the resulting shortage of sign language interpreters. We make suggestions for improvements in interpreter education and professional development, including the institution of an advanced, supervised professional training period, modeled after internships common in other high demand professional occupations.     

Learning,differentiation and strategic action in secondary education: analyses from the Identity and Learning Programme

This paper reports on the social factors influencing the learning of two cohorts of school students and their experience of compulsory secondary education in a city in southern England—the secondary schooling phase of a 12‐year, longitudinal ethnographic study that also tracked the same children’s experiences through primary schooling. We embed our report of secondary school findings within the theoretical models and understandings generated by the Identity and Learning Programme as a whole.

The paper addresses three key issues. First, we trace how social influences on learning broaden as young people develop through adolescence, and illustrate why viewing learning as social activity is so important. Second, we discuss evolving processes of social differentiation in relation to gender and social class. We draw particular attention to the dangers of over‐simplified models of social reproduction. Finally, we review an analysis of strategic action and identities, contrasting the differentiated experience of young people attending independent and selective schools compared with those attending non‐selective comprehensive schools.

Overall, this analysis seeks to complement studies of differentiated educational outcomes by suggesting possible social processes that could help to account for them. The Identity and Learning Programme, both in its secondary phase and as a whole, shows clearly how individual agency enables young people to cope with their circumstances. However, in so doing, they both reproduce elements of constraint/opportunity and construct others anew. This has significant implications for policy and practice.     

The myth of objective assessment — An analysis in relation to primary education

This article focuses on the recent growth and development of the field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in England and discusses the issue of ‘quality’ in relation to the diversity of provision on which these developments are based. In particular the article discusses the ways in which cultural constructions of childhood and the theories of child development and learning espoused by stakeholders impact on assessments of ‘quality’.     

Mixed deaf-hearing families: maximizing benefits and minimizing risks

This article examines certain dynamics that may occur in families where the parent(s) and one or more children differ in hearing status (i.e., 'mixed deaf-hearing families'). The essay has proved useful in promoting discussion during parenting workshops we have led. Hearing status differences between parents and children can be a cherished aspect of a family's diversity or a stage upon which family conflicts are acted out. We explore dynamics that lead to healthy versus unhealthy management of these hearing differences, especially as they relate to parental confidence, problem attribution, stages of child development, and information management.