Habitus as foregrounded history: theorising affect in the social formation of embodied practice

This article builds upon a tradition of feminist critical engagements with Bourdieu, developing the concept of ‘foregrounded history’ as a way to conceptualise the temporal and affective in processes of habitus formation. Through analysis of affects ‘produced through the social encounter’ within everyday childhoods on a British council estate, the article explores habitus as histories both embodied and felt in the present. Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted within the interrelated fields of the Primary School and the Community Centre, this article considers processes of distinction, disagreement and resistance in the formation of classed positionings on The Estate.     

Community Consultation in Developing Museum Projects: A Case Study Using the Repertory Grid Technique

Good community consultation is a powerful tool in developing new museum projects and exhibitions, facilitating a more effective delivery of service to a diverse public. Existing techniques for both user and community consultation are limited with front end evaluation particularly undeveloped in the sector, often providing no meaningful base by which to compare project outcomes. Tension exists between government, which values quantitative data, and researchers who argue qualitative methods are more appropriate for evaluating community projects. This article reports a pilot study using the repertory grid technique to examine a ‘socially excluded’, ethnically diverse local community's perceptions, expectations and previous experiences of similar projects, to provide a benchmark against which to compare outcomes. This research formed part of the front end evaluation for a New Deal for Community's Project run by Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust. The repertory grid technique was developed in psychological studies as a means of understanding respondents' own world views, and is particularly helpful in working with people with poor language skills. Although this study only used the technique qualitatively, it can be used to combine both quantitative and qualitative data, providing more robust data for evidence-based policy decisions. Using the repertory grid technique, respondents were able to list both perceived and practical barriers to participation in projects. The technique also enabled them to articulate what would motivate them to become involved in future projects. The repertory grid technique has significant potential for use in community consultation and project evaluation as a means of understanding local residents' perceptions and its visual representation means that its findings can be easily understood by participants, policy-makers and practitioners.     

Children born at risk: What's happening in kindergarten?

Many studies examine the development of infants born at risk for medical and developmental problems during the early years of life, but far fewer follow these children into their school years. This project compared high-risk vs. low-risk children in their performance on the WPPSI at pre- and postkindergarten levels. In general, both groups of children demonstrated increases in performance; however, their patterns of performance were different. The high-risk children showed increases predominantly in the Performance areas of the test, whereas the low-risk children demonstrated increases predominantly in the Verbal areas.     

Leveraging microgrants to support capacity-building workshops in low- and middle-income countries for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals

Twenty fifteen marked the year of assessment for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs that achieved the greatest success were those where evidence-based practice (EBP) interventions were implemented. The ability to practice evidence-based medicine is grounded in the creation of and access to medical literature that synthesizes research findings. The role that global health literature played in the success of the MDGs demonstrates that medical libraries and librarians have a role to play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Librarians can hold capacity-building workshops that provide instruction on how to access evidence-based literature and also train health professionals to conduct synthesis research. Research findings conducted by in-country health professionals are more likely to address issues being faced by local communities and will afford the possibility of obtaining the necessary evidence-based answers that can then be used to implement policies to resolve public health issues identified in the SDGs.This paper discusses how an international team of librarians leveraged funding from a Medical Library Association/Librarians without Borders/Elsevier Foundation/Research4Life grant to hold a capacity-building workshop in Zimbabwe and follow-up online trainings. The workshop focused on accessing evidence-based resources and conducting synthesis research. Outcomes included the creation and policy implementation of evidence-based knowledge products in alignment with local needs and galvanizing a multisectoral group of key individuals who have gone on to collaborate toward the vision of creating a Zimbabwe innovation hub. Looking ahead, such grants can be leveraged to conduct capacity-building to support knowledge translation and other local training needs.     

The individual family service plan: Unresolved problems

The federal requirement to develop an Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) for all infants and toddlers with special needs has a major conceptual difficulty that has, to date, been inadequately addressed in the literature. That problem stems from the linkage of family service to family assessment. Many authorities, attracted to parental “empowerment” theory, advocate that parents should be the authors rather than (or as well as) the objects of assessment, and that professionals and parents should be partners in assessing needs and planning services. When there is disagreement, professionals should defer to parents, who are in the best position to assess their own needs. We question the wisdom of conducting assessments with, or on, families of targeted children. But, if there are to be assessments, we argue that families are better served, and mutual respect better preserved, by a traditional complementary relationship: The professional controls the evaluation process, determines the problems (with the input of the family), and makes recommendations, which parents are then free to reject.     

Variation in Valuation: How Research Groups Accumulate Credibility in Four Epistemic Cultures

Minerva - This paper aims to explore disciplinary variation in valuation practices by comparing the way research groups accumulate credibility across four epistemic cultures. Our analysis is based...     

Business communication as cultural text: Exchange and feedback of promotional video clips

Our research is a response to the need to improve the understanding of the complexity of global professional communication. To investigate the complex cultural interpretations that producers and audiences apply to professional texts, we developed a two-year interactive project. Business students in New Zealand and Israel produced promotional “texts” – video clips to promote a university program – which they exchanged with their counterparts overseas to receive feedback. We adapted models of home-made visual communication and advertising which used the categories of participants, settings, topics, and style, to analyze the eight clips. Emergent findings suggested two more categories – information and language – as important analytical tools. Variables of age, gender, intra- and intercultural differences, and (cultural) context also resulted in student audiences’ multiple interpretations of the texts. The outcomes indicate the need to extend the culture-in-context approach for a “situation focused communication approach,” where the primary focus is a group of producers and their audience as they produce and interpret a professional text. This approach also foregrounds contextual variables and a plural understanding of culture to accommodate the potential for miscommunication of business and professional texts in pluricultural contexts.     

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.     

Prolonged static stretching does not influence running economy despite changes in neuromuscular function

The aim of this study was to examine the acute effects of prolonged static stretching (SS) on running economy. Ten male runners (VO2(peak) 60.1 +/- 7.3 ml x kg(-1) x min(-1)) performed 10 min of treadmill running at 70% VO2(peak) before and after SS and no stretching interventions. For the stretching intervention, each leg was stretched unilaterally for 40 s with each of eight different exercises and this was repeated three times. Respiratory gas exchange was measured throughout the running exercise with an automated gas analysis system. On a separate day, participants were tested for sit and reach range of motion, isometric strength and countermovement jump height before and after SS. The oxygen uptake, minute ventilation, energy expenditure, respiratory exchange ratio and heart rate responses to running were unaffected by the stretching intervention. This was despite a significant effect of SS on neuromuscular function (sit and reach range of motion, +2.7 +/- 0.6 cm; isometric strength, -5.6% +/- 3.4%; countermovement jump height -5.5% +/- 3.4%; all P < 0.05). The results suggest that prolonged SS does not influence running economy despite changes in neuromuscular function.     

Nostalgia,homesickness and emotional formation on the eighteenth-century Grand Tour

Nostalgia and homesickness were well-known eighteenth-century ailments. Undertaking protracted travels, Grand Tourists were potential sufferers, yet these emotional afflictions are absent from the Tour's lengthy lists of hazards. Querying this and applying history of emotions approaches to the histories of the Tour, masculinity and the family, this article examines how Tourists and tutors navigated nostalgia and homesickness as emotions that sat uneasily with the Tour's wider aims of masculine formation. Such investigations offer a means of unpicking the complex, contradictory demands placed on young gentlemen during their emotional formation. Through this, it contributes to wider reconsiderations of eighteenth-century masculinity.