Global norms and local politics: uses and abuses of education gender quotas in Tajikistan

In Central Asia, the post‐Soviet transformation period has been accompanied by significant economic and social costs, including the widening of the gender gaps in politics, economy and the social sphere. Tajikistan, which receives the largest amount of international aid and has the worst record of gender inequity in Central Asia, has quickly responded to the worsening situation by introducing quotas favoring female representation in politics, labor market and education. This article examines the context within which international gender equity norms were introduced in the 1990s as well as the factors that account for the variation in implementation of these policies. By using the case study of Tajikistan, this article suggests that the introduction of policies favoring female participation in political, economic and social life has largely depended on the transfer of international discourses on gender equality, while their implementation has been halted by historical legacies, economic realities and local political factors.     

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.     

Effortful Control, Surgency, and reading skills in middle childhood

We examined the associations between components of temperament and children’s word and pseudo-word reading skills, in a school-age sample using a within-family internal-replication design. We estimated the statistical prediction of word and pseudo-word reading in separate regression equations that included the main effects of, and two-way interaction between, Surgency and Effortful Control. Children with better Effortful Control scores showed better reading skills. Surgency was unrelated to reading skills, but moderated the effect of Effortful Control. The positive association between reading skills and Effortful Control was present only for children who were low in Surgency. Thus, reading achievement in school-age children is optimized by strong Effortful Control, but these processes may be disrupted for those children who are high in Surgency.     

Teacher-perceived temperament and educational competence as predictors of school grades

Associations between teacher-perceived temperament, educational competence (EC), and school grades in mother language (ML) and mathematics (Math) were assessed in 3212 students (1619 girls) in Secondary School (aged 13–19) taken from a nationally representative Finnish sample. Temperament was assessed with scales from the TABC-R and DOTS-R batteries. EC consists of cognitive ability, motivation, and maturity. Activity, persistence, distractibility, inhibition, and negative emotionality were significantly associated with both ML and Math grades. EC turned out to mediate the relationship between temperament and school performance and moderated the relationship of activity to Math. The findings show a high association between teacher-rated temperament and school performance and indicate a strong “halo effect” between temperament, EC, and school grades.     

Treating sensitive topics online: a privacy dilemma

This paper aims to provide new insights to debates on group privacy, which can be seen as part of a social turn in privacy scholarship. Research is increasingly showing that the classic individualistic understanding of privacy is insufficient to capture new problems in algorithmic and online contexts. An understanding of privacy as an “interpersonal boundary-control process” (Altman, The environment and social behavior, Brooks and Cole, Monterey, 1975) framing privacy as a social practice necessary to sustain intimate relationships is gaining ground. In this debate, my research is focused on what I refer to as “self-determined groups” which can be defined as groups whose members consciously and willingly perceive themselves as being part of a communicative network. While much attention is given to new forms of algorithmically generated groups, current research on group privacy fails to account for the ways in which self-determined groups are affected by changes brought about by new information technologies. In an explorative case study on self-organized therapy groups, I show how these groups have developed their own approach to privacy protection, functioning on the basis of social practices followed by all participants. This informal approach was effective in pre-digital times, but online, privacy threats have reached a new level extending beyond the scope of a group’s influence. I therefore argue that self-determined sensitive topic groups are left facing what I present as a dilemma: a tension between the seemingly irreconcilable need for connectivity and a low threshold, on the one hand, and the need for privacy and trust, on the other. In light of this dilemma, I argue that we need new sorts of political solutions.     

Latent learning in the work place: the placement experiences of student-coaches

The aim of this study was to investigate the work-based internship experiences of eight student-coaches. This was particularly in terms of what precisely such coaches learned within the practical context, and how they engaged with unexpected situational events. The methods employed within the project included focus group interviews and participant observation. In particular, the student-coaches were both interviewed and observed over the course of a nine-month sporting season, with each phase of the research informing the next. The subsequent data were primarily subject to a thematic analysis. The findings of the study were organized under four principal themes: (1) the reality shock felt by the student-coaches in terms of the gap between what they expected and what they experienced; (2) the lack of respect demonstrated by the organizational head coaches for the students; (3) the students’ response in terms of developing their micro-political literacy; and (4) the social price paid by the student-coaches in adopting such action. The results point to the limitations of student learning within high-performance sporting environments. In this respect, the student-coaches’ experiences were not what was expected or desired. Despite this, many valuable and relevant lessons were learned. These related to developing students’ micro-political literacy; necessary knowledge for any neophyte coaches trying to establish bone-fide situational roles.     

Three-dimensional assessment of squats and drop jumps using the Microsoft Xbox One Kinect: Reliability and validity

The Microsoft Xbox One Kinect? (Kinect V2) contains a depth camera that can be used to manually identify anatomical landmark positions in three-dimensions independent of the standard skeletal tracking, and therefore has potential for low-cost, time-efficient three-dimensional movement analysis (3DMA). This study examined inter-session reliability and concurrent validity of the Kinect V2 for the assessment of coronal and sagittal plane kinematics for the trunk, hip and knee during single leg squats (SLS) and drop vertical jumps (DVJ). Thirty young, healthy participants (age = 23 ± 5yrs, male/female = 15/15) performed a SLS and DVJ protocol that was recorded concurrently by the Kinect V2 and 3DMA during two sessions, one week apart. The Kinect V2 demonstrated good to excellent reliability for all SLS and DVJ variables (ICC ≥ 0.73). Concurrent validity ranged from poor to excellent (ICC = 0.02 to 0.98) during the SLS task, although trunk, hip and knee flexion and two-dimensional measures of knee abduction and frontal plane projection angle all demonstrated good to excellent validity (ICC ≥ 0.80). Concurrent validity for the DVJ task was typically worse, with only two variables exceeding ICC = 0.75 (trunk and hip flexion). These findings indicate that the Kinect V2 may have potential for large-scale screening for ACL injury risk, however future prospective research is required.     

Effect of 6-weeks WBVT on the behaviour of the lower limb muscle fibres during vertical jumping

The purpose of the current study was to examine the effect of 6 weeks of whole body vibration training (WBVT) on body composition, muscle activity of the gastrocnemius and vastus lateralis, gastrocnemius muscle architecture (static and dynamic) and ground reaction forces (performance jump) during the take-off phase of a countermovement jump in young healthy adult males. A total of 33 men (23.31 ± 5.62 years) were randomly assigned to a whole body vibration group (experimental group, EG_WBVT: n = 17; 22.11 ± 4.97 years) or a control group (CG: n = 16; 24.5 ± 6.27 years). The total duration of the intervention phase (WBVT) was 6 weeks with a frequency of 3 sessions per week. Statistically significant differences were observed (P ≤ 0.05) between pre- and post-test in the power peak (Δ 1.91 W · kg^?1; P = 0.001), take-off velocity (0.1 cm · s^?1; P = 0.002) and jump height (Δ 0.4 cm; P = 0.002) for EG_WBVT. There were no statistically significant differences in any of the body composition and muscle architecture variables. Moreover, no significant differences were found between EG_WBVT and CG nor changes in muscle activity during take-off phase of the gastrocnemius and vastus lateralis pre- versus post-training. This study suggests that a 6-week WBVT programme with increasing intensity improves jump performance but does not alter muscle activity nor muscle architecture in healthy young men.     

Effects of inspiratory muscle training in professional women football players: a randomized sham-controlled trial

This study was conducted to determine the effects of inspiratory muscle training (IMT) on respiratory and peripheral muscles oxygenation during a maximal exercise tolerance test and on repeated-sprint ability (RSA) performance in professional women football players. Eighteen athletes were randomly assigned to one of the following groups: SHAM (n = 8) or IMT (n = 10). After a maximal incremental exercise test, all participants performed (on a different day) a time-to-exhaustion (Tlim) test. Peripheral and respiratory muscles oxygenation by near-infrared spectroscopy, breath-by-breath ventilatory and metabolic variables, and blood lactate concentration were measured. The RSA test was performed on a grass field. After a 6 week intervention, all athletes were reevaluated. Both groups showed increases in inspiratory muscles strength, exercise tolerance and RSA performance, however only the IMT group presented lower deoxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin blood concentrations on intercostal muscles concomitantly to an increased oxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin blood concentrations on vastus lateralis muscle during Tlim. In conclusion, these results may indicate the potential role of IMT to attenuate inspiratory muscles metaboreflex and consequently improve oxygen and blood supply to limb muscles during high-intensity exercise, with a potential impact on inspiratory muscle strength, exercise tolerance and sprints performance in professional women football players.     

Investigating the Effect of Different Selected-response Item Formats for Reading Comprehension

While previous research has identified numerous factors that contribute to item difficulty, studies involving large-scale reading tests have provided mixed results. This study examined five selected-response item types used to measure reading comprehension in the Pearson Test of English Academic: a) multiple-choice (choose one answer), b) multiple-choice (choose multiple answers), c) re-order paragraphs, d) reading (fill-in-the-blanks), and e) reading and writing (fill-in-the-blanks). Utilizing a multiple regression approach, the criterion measure consisted of item difficulty scores for 172 items. 18 passage, passage-question, and response-format variables served as predictors. Overall, four significant predictors were identified for the entire group (i.e., sentence length, falsifiable distractors, number of correct options, and abstractness of information requested) and five variables were found to be significant for high-performing readers (including the four listed above and passage coherence); only the number of falsifiable distractors was a significant predictor for low-performing readers. Implications for assessing reading comprehension are discussed.