Leading for social justice in challenging school contexts

This article is part of the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) and aims to analyse the success factors of two Spanish secondary school principals working in the line of social justice in challenging contexts. The factors are arranged in traits and beliefs of principals and in the strategies they used to bring successful leadership. The article concludes by showing a model of leadership that emphasizes both personal and professional characteristics of principals and their central role as agents of social change.     

Baseline Intraocular Pressure Is Associated With Subjective Sensitivity to Physical Exertion in Young Males

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to (a) investigate the effect of physical effort (cycling for 60 min at 60 ± 5% of individually computed reserve heart-rate capacity), combined with 2 different levels of cognitive demand (2-back, oddball), on intraocular pressure (IOP) and subjective judgments of perceived exertion (ratings of perceived exertion [RPE]), affect (Affective Valence subscale of the Self-Assessment Manikin [SAM]), and mental workload (National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index [NASA-TLX]); and (b) ascertain whether baseline IOP, measured before exercise, is associated with individual differences in subjective assessments of effort and affective response during exercise. Method: Seventeen participants (M_age = 23.28 ± 2.37 years) performed 2 physical/cognitive dual tasks, matched in physical demand but with different mental requirements (2-back, oddball). We assessed IOP before exercise, after 2 min of active recovery, and after 15 min of passive recovery, and we also collected RPE and SAM measures during the sessions (28 measurement points). We used NASA-TLX and cognitive performance as checks of the mental manipulation. Results: (a) Intraocular pressure increased after concomitant physical/mental effort, with the effect reaching statistical significance after the 2-back task (p = .002, d = 0.35) but not after the oddball condition (p = .092, d = 0.29). (b) Baseline IOP was associated with subjective sensitivity to effort and showed statistical significance for the oddball condition (p = .03, ?_p² = .622) but not for the 2-back task (F < 1). Conclusions: Results suggest a relationship between IOP and physical/cognitive effort, which could have implications for the management of glaucoma. Additionally, a rapid measure of IOP could be used as a marker of individual effort sensitivity in applied settings.     

‘You can tell kind of about the body’: young children,health, fitness and fatness

Fears of an ‘obesity epidemic’ in New Zealand and elsewhere have led to a growing focus on children’s weight, diet and activities. The aim of this research project was to highlight children’s voices, stepping back from obesity interventions to explore how health and obesity discourses are taken up by young primary school children. Nine 6 and 7-year-olds took part in individual semi-structured interviews which involved play and craft activities to focus discussion. Discourse analysis was used to explore how children talked about bodies, health, fitness and fatness. Children primarily drew on a series of clear-cut dichotomies around good foods and bad foods, and being active, able and fit, as well as constructing health in relation to the body in two distinct ways: fat vs. thin, and big-and-strong vs. small-and-weak. These findings support previous research suggesting that children, from a young age, are taking up narrow corporeal constructions of health in relation to food and fitness ‘choices’, and additionally children assume that these constructions can be ‘read’ off the body. On the other hand, children were also often hesitant, and at times resisted or problematised these straight-forward constructions, occasionally drawing on alternate understandings, including notions of pleasure and practicality, moderation, and being happy and healthy. Future research could explore these ideas further, investigating how children and adults utilise alternate meanings to negotiate the complexity of bodies, health, fitness and fatness.