Letters from Early Career Academics: the Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy field of play

Taking our lead from Rainer Maria Rilke’s (1929) ‘Letters to a Young Poet’, our broader project aimed to create a space for dialogue and intergenerational learning between Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP) Early Career Academics (ECAs) and members of the PESP professoriate. This paper focuses specifically on the experiences of PESP ECAs. We draw upon narratives of thirty ECAs from nine different countries to gain insight into the experiences, joys, challenges and ambitions they associate with being and becoming a PESP academic. A narrative analysis of the data generated by the ECAs was undertaken. The analysis aimed to be holistic in nature, interested in form and content: both the told (the content) and the telling (how it was told). We initially focused our analysis using the six dimensions of narrative (characters, setting, events, audience, causal relations and themes). Bourdieu’s socio-analytical toolkit complemented our narrative analysis and helped us move beyond the personal narratives by linking them to the broader social practices, relations and structures of the various settings or fields (PESP, university, family) within which the participants function. The findings suggest that many ECAs are experiencing crises of habitus, as they work to suppress ethical dispositions and values and adjust to ‘the rules’ that universities increasingly play by. Our discussion engages with the affective costs of playing by these rules, and recruits Bourdieu’s notion of ‘reflexive vigilance’ to advocate for ongoing critical analysis of how power operates in the various field which academics inhabit.     

Self-, teachers', and mothers' perceptions of the behaviorally disordered child

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a difference between the self-perceptions of the behaviorally disordered child and the perceptions of the child by his/her teacher and mother. A related purpose was to determine if there are specific areas (factors) with greater discrepancies. Normal and behaviorally disordered children, matched by grade and sex, were evaluated using the Piers-Harris Children's Self-concept Scale. There were significantly lower scores given by the three evaluator groups for the behaviorally disordered. The teachers evaluated the behaviorally disordered children significantly lower than did the other evaluators. For the normal children, there were no significant differences between the three evaluator groups. The pattern of evaluations was the same for all factors. The only exception in each of these findings was Factor III—Physical Appearance and Attributes—in which both normal and behaviorally disordered children evaluated themselves lower than did their teachers and mothers. Implications of these findings for school personnel are discussed.     

Daily steps in midlife and older adults: relationship with demographic, self-rated health, and self-reported physical activity

The relationship between average daily step counts and age, body mass index (BMI), self-reported physical activity (PA) level, and perceived health was determined in 85 middle-aged and older adults who wore a pedometer for 7 consecutive days. Average daily steps were significantly (p < .05) correlated with BMI (r = -.26), age (r = -.44) and perceived health (r = .53) but not with self-reported PA level (r = .19). The adjusted percentage of participants classified as meeting the PA recommendation in < or = 5,000, 5,001-9,999, and > or = 10,000 steps/day categories ranged from 53 to 61%. These findings support previous evidence in younger populations suggesting that the recommended minimal level of health-related PA may be achieved despite not accumulating 10,000 steps/day.     

'Pedagogy,Identity and the Construction of a Theory of Symbolic Control': Basil Bernstein questioned by Joseph Solomon

In this interview, Basil Bernstein replies to Joseph Solomon's questions concerning the concept of pedagogy, its role in his theory of symbolic control and cultural production, reproduction and change, and its capacities to deal with different modes of construction and regulation both inside and outside the context of formal education. Furthermore, the questions probe Bernstein's key concept of boundary, its relation to code and the production of social identities. The final issues discussed raise questions about Bernstein's methodology, and changes and weaknesses in the theory.     

The Relation between Mothers' Hostile Attribution Tendencies and Children's Externalizing Behavior Problems: The Mediating Role of Mothers' Harsh Discipline Practices

This study examined relations among mothers' hostile attribution tendencies regarding their children's ambiguous problem behaviors, mothers' harsh discipline practices, and children's externalizing behavior problems. A community sample of 277 families (19% minority representation) living in three geographic regions of the United States was followed for over 4 years. Mothers' hostile attribution tendencies were assessed during the summer prior to children's entry into kindergarten through their responses to written vignettes. Mothers' harsh discipline practices were assessed concurrently through ratings by interviewers and reports by spouses. Children's externalizing behavior problems were assessed concurrently through written questionnaires by mothers and fathers and in the spring of kindergarten and first, second, and third grades through reports by teachers and peer sociometric nominations. Results of structural equations models demonstrated that mothers' hostile attribution tendencies predicted children's future externalizing behavior problems at school and that a large proportion of this relation was mediated by mothers' harsh discipline practices. These results remained virtually unchanged when controlling for initial levels of children's prekindergarten externalizing behavior problems at home.     

Contemporary developments in educational technology design and evaluation: Special issue part II

This special issue of the research section of ETR&D represents the second grouping of papers solicited from national leaders in educational technology research and design. The first grouping, which appeared in Volume 46, Number 4, 1998, contained papers by Rita Richey, “The Pursuit of Useable Knowledge in Instructional Technology”; Mitchel Resnick, “Digital Manipulatives: Tools for Lifelong Kindergarten”; and Ben Shneiderman and colleagues, “Emergent Patterns of Teaching/Learning in Electronic Classrooms.”