Elite athletes as mothers: Managing multiple identities

Mothers’ voices are often silent in the sports literature, especially as elite athletes. This research used a symbolic interactionist approach and semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of nine elite female athletes in New Zealand who were also mothers at the time of competing. The specific objectives were to explore how motherhood impacted on the identity of elite athletes, how they negotiated their multiple identities and roles, and how support systems were utilized to encourage and retain elite athletes as mothers. The women managed their multiple identities and negotiated constraints such as guilt, lack of time and limited organizational support by emphasizing how integral sport was to their sense of self. They highlighted the mutual benefits of motherhood to their sport aspirations and vice versa, by utilizing time/space management strategies, and by creating and accessing strong support networks which sometimes included organizational support. There was a move towards the integration of multiple identities and a focus on how women's choices in leisure and sport were realized for future research and theory development. Sport management practices and policies that create opportunities for mothers to achieve and maintain elite athlete status are also mentioned.     

Information Technology and the Emergent Organization

The potential impact of information technology on the workplace is greater than simply changing how work is performed by individuals. Our assumptions regarding information systems in traditional organizations are out of date and being challenged by the capabilities provided by new information technologies. The organization of the future will require a much higher degree of system integration in order to respond to the increasing demands for flexibility and rapid change in the global marketplace. This will require a complete re-thinking of current organizational assumptions and a whole system re-design effort at the organizational level. Performance technologists, in order to play a vital role in building this new organizational future, will need to apply their collective knowledge on the whole system rather than on isolated elements, and to understand the interaction between the technology and the organization.     

Stürze im Alter

The consequences of falls can be considerable for elderly people. They often lead to fractures or other injuries, immobility, curtailed independence, need for long-term care, and even death. They decrease the quality of life and can exert a negative influence on self-esteem, activity level, and the number of social contacts. The annual rate of falls in people over 65 is approximately 30%. This number increases to about 50% up to the age of 80 years and almost half of those who fall do so more than once during the course of a year. More than 90% of all falls occur in everyday situations, mostly resulting from movement errors. All studies demonstrated a significant correlation between muscle weakness and the incidence of falls, thus representing a major risk factor for a fall. Gait disorders, hip fractures, and the loss of functional autonomy are closely related to falls and associated with age to a similar extent. Almost 90% of hip fractures in Germany are the result of a fall. From the individual and economic points of view, a fracture near the hip has serious consequences in old age. Based on research findings to date, vibration training could constitute an interesting alternative to classic methods of strength training in fall prevention programs. The aim of this contribution is to provide fundamental facts regarding epidemiology and prevention and to present a potential approach to implementing vibration training in multimodal programs designed to prevent falls.     

The Future of Defunct Religious Buildings: Dutch Approaches to Their Adaptive Re-use

Across the Western world, membership in the established organized churches is on the decline with a concomitant reduction in the need for churches and church halls. As redundant and unused churches are the focus of vandalism and decay, owners and heritage managers are looking for options to adaptively re-use such buildings. This article reviews the literature on the re-use of churches in the Netherlands, which has long history of innovatively addressing the problems. The options available range from re-use for religious purposes by other denominations or faiths, to community use (multi-purpose, sport, music etc.), and private use, which can be either commercial or residential. The attitudes of the community and the original property owners play a major part in successful adaptive re-use. Because of its long history, the Dutch experience in adaptive re-use of religious buildings has much to offer heritage managers in other countries faced with this emergent management issue.     

Parent training research: An analysis of the empirical literature 1975–1985

This project was designed to provide a retrospective analysis of the parent training literature during the last decade. Eighteen journals with behavioral psychology, clinical/counseling psychology, school psychology, and special education emphases were selected for review. Data related to the number of articles published in each journal, year of article publication, referral problem, and contributing institution were collected. Results indicate that behavioral journals published the most empirically based parent training articles (66%), followed by clinical/counseling psychology (26%), special education (6%), and school psychology (3%) journals. Parents with noncompliant, handicapped, or abused/neglected children comprised the majority (58%) of research participants. Suggestions for involving school psychologists in parent training research and broadening the focus of parent training to include preventive, as well as remedial, efforts are presented.