‘The helping,the fixtures,the kits,the gear,the gum shields,the food,the snacks,the waiting,the rain,the car rides … ’: social class,parenting and children's organised activities

ABSTRACT

Class-related parenting cultures and ideologies have been of considerable interest to academics over the last two decades. Much of the research thus far has focused on exploring Annette Lareau's conceptualisations of ‘natural growth’ and ‘concerted cultivation’ and the implications for outcomes in relation to education. The focus of the present article is organised activities, which are a central but as yet relatively under-researched feature of middle-class parenting. The findings are based upon 73 semi-structured interviews with parents and children from 48 middle-class families living in and around a small city in northern England. The article reveals that initiating and facilitating children's organised activities is considered a central aspect of ‘good’ parenting in middle-class social networks. It is shown how this is a consequence of several developments within society over the past three decades or so, including the rising levels of maternal employment, the growing competitiveness of the labour market and the increasing concerns related to children's health and safety. It is argued that these developments have heightened middle-class parents’ predisposition to not only be involved with and invest in their children's leisure biographies, but to do so in a more deliberate, rigorous and rational manner.     

终身体育视域下高校课余体育竞赛的改革与发展

对终身体育视域下我国高校课余体育竞赛进行分析,认为通过对我国高校课余体育竞赛的组织手段、内容设置、竞赛形式等进行改革,可有效培养大学生终身体育意识,激发大学生参与体育锻炼的兴趣.     

Acceleration patterns in the lower and upper trunk during running

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to relate 3D acceleration patterns of the lower and upper trunk during running to running gait cycle, assess the validity of stride duration estimated from acceleration patterns, investigate speed-dependent changes in acceleration, and examine the test–retest reliability of these parameters. Thirteen healthy young men performed two running trials each on a treadmill and on land at three speeds (slow, preferred, and fast). The 3D accelerations were measured at the L3 spinous process (lower trunk) and the ensiform process (upper trunk) and synchronised with digital video data. The amplitude and root mean square of acceleration and stride duration were calculated and then analysed by three-way analysis of variance to test effects of running conditions, device location, and running speed. Bland-Altman analysis was used to evaluate the test–retest reliability. Marked changes in acceleration were observed in relation to foot strike during running. Stride durations calculated from the vertical accelerations were nearly equal to those estimated from video data. There were significant speed effects on all parameters, and the low test–retest reliability was confirmed in the anterior–posterior acceleration during treadmill running and the anterior–posterior acceleration at slow speed during treadmill and overground running.     

The Effect of Increasing Conceptual Challenge in Primary Science Lessons on Pupils' Achievement and Engagement

This paper reports research into the effect on 11‐year‐old pupils of introducing more cognitively challenging, practical, and interactive science lessons. Our hypothesis was that such lessons would increase the children's enthusiasm for science and their engagement with the scientific process, thereby improving educational performance. Schools in England are under pressure to raise achievement, as measured by the results of national tests. This has an impact on teaching, where revision of subject knowledge often dominates and can be particularly detrimental to more able pupils. The research was a controlled trial which took place in thirty‐two English primary schools as part of a project “Conceptual Challenge in Primary Science”. Teachers from 16 intervention schools participated in continuing professional development (CPD) and developed science lessons that had more practical work, more discussion, more thinking and less (but more focused) writing. The proportion of pupils achieving the highest level (level 5) in the national science tests at age 11 was compared in the matched‐school pairs before and after the intervention. Focus group interviews were also held with a group of pupils in each intervention school. There was a 10% (95% Confidence Interval 2–17%) increase in the proportion of children achieving the top score in the intervention schools. The pupils and teachers reported greater engagement and motivation. These findings suggest that moving from rote revision to cognitively challenging, interactive science could help improve science education. They merit replication in other international settings to test their generalisability.     

Busy doing nothing? Physical education teachers' perceptions of young people's participation in leisure-sport

Within the substantial body of research examining the professional knowledge of physical education (PE) teachers one particular area remains relatively under-explored: namely, their understandings of young people's participation in leisure-sport and the implications of this, if any, for the practice of PE. There are grounds for thinking, however, that in this aspect of their professional knowledge PE teachers might not be as conversant with patterns of participation—among young people, generally, and their own pupils, in particular—as one might expect. In order to examine this tentative hypothesis, the present study involved focus groups with a total of 29 PE teachers at six secondary schools in England. A central finding of the study was that PE teachers' perceptions of their youngsters' leisure-sport lives tended to be characterized by a blend of myth and reality. Many teachers, for example, underestimated the levels of participation in leisure-sport both of their own pupils and the 15–16 years age group, generally. Nevertheless, the teachers' observations regarding what amounted to growing and diversifying sporting repertoires among their pupils were, to a greater or lesser degree, commensurate with the profiles reported by the pupils, and with wider trends associated with the changing lifestyles and preferences of young people. The paper concludes by briefly locating this study of professional knowledge within the sociology of knowledge, while observing that the content and form of PE for Year 11 pupils at the six schools in this study appeared to be informed by the common-sense, everyday knowledge of PE teachers rather than by evidence from national or local surveys of young people or studies of their own pupils.     

What Canadian youth tell us about disclosing abuse

ObjectiveTo report findings from a study of anonymous disclosures of abuse experiences among a national sample of youth in Canada who participated in violence prevention programming.MethodsA qualitative analysis was done of a purposeful sample of 1,099 evaluation forms completed following Red Cross RespectED violence prevention programming delivered between 2000 and 2003. Forms were selected based on program facilitators identifying voluntary, anonymous disclosures by youth participants of neglect and emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Additional data for this analysis includes 27 interviews and focus groups that were used to understand the context of these disclosures and to engage the help of youth and program facilitators in the interpretation of findings.ResultsWhile this study is exploratory and non-representative in its design, findings suggest high rates of hidden abuse, with less than a quarter of youth with abuse experiences reporting a disclosure. Disclosure patterns vary with boys, youth aged 14–15, victims of physical abuse, and those abused by a family member being most likely to disclose to professionals or the police. Interviews help to explain the large number of youth who express reticence to disclose to professionals. Specifically, the data show a perception among youth of negative consequences following disclosure.ConclusionsThis data raises questions regarding why youth are reluctant to report abuse to professionals, preferring to cope independently or by confiding in peers. Youth in this study report feeling anxious about disclosing to authorities, fearful of the potential loss of control over decisions which affect them.Practice implicationsFindings suggest that professionals who provide support to young people's own networks of family and friends may help to facilitate youths’ disclosures of abuse. Furthermore, prevention programming that promotes a positive attitude towards disclosure of abuse experiences and provides an anonymous forum (such as an evaluation form) in which to do so is likely to encourage more young people to disclose.     

‘[We're on the right track,baby], we were born this way’! Exploring sports participation in Norway

Based on quantitative data from the Norwegian Statistisk Sentralbyrå (Statistics Norway) study of Mosjon, Friluftsliv og Kulturaktiviteter, this paper explores trends in Norwegians' participation in sports, with a focus on young people. Norway boasts particularly high levels of sports participation as well as sports club membership and young Norwegians are the quintessential sporting omnivores. Among other things, the Statistics Norway study reveals substantial increases in participation (among young people and females especially) during the period 1997–2007, a shift in the peak of participation to the late teenage years, a relatively high level of lifelong participants, a re-bound effect in the post-child rearing years and a growth in lifestyle sports. Young Norwegians grow up in a socio-economic context of relative equality between the sexes and high standards of living. An abundance of natural and artificial outdoor and indoor sporting facilities alongside a well-established voluntary sports club sector and an elementary school system that emphasizes physical exercise and recreation, as well as high levels of parental involvement, add to the favourable socio-economic conditions to create seemingly optimal circumstances for sports participation. All these reinforce the sporting and physical recreation cultures deeply embedded in Norwegian society and embodied by the very many middle-class parents in a country which, for the time being at least, remains relatively young in demographic terms. In terms of lessons to be learned for policy towards sports and physical education beyond Norway, there may be grounds for some optimism around parental involvement in children's sport as well as the potential appeal of lifestyle sports. That said, it is likely to be the greater socio-economic equalities in Scandinavian countries such as Norway that make them unrealistic benchmarks for sports participation elsewhere.