‘Women can’t referee’: exploring the experiences of female football officials within UK football culture

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of female (association) football officials who officiate in amateur men’s and boys’ football matches in two UK counties (Warwickshire and Somerset). The research presents a view of men’s football from a position that has hitherto been overlooked in the social exploration of football culture. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork collected between September and December 2012, the findings provide insight into some women’s experiences of sexism and marginalization in predominantly male football contexts. Participant observations, formal semi-structured interviews and a range of informal conversations with four female match officials demonstrated a wide range of abuse that could generally be construed as sexist. The women used various strategies to overcome the hostile attitudes that often greeted their presence on the football pitch. Moreover, they continuously negotiated their identities as females and football officials in a space where men and masculinity are prevalent.     

German Sports Shoes,Basketball, and Hip Hop: The Consumption and Cultural Significance of the adidas ‘Superstar’, 1966–1988

During the 1960s, adidas was the world's leading sports footwear manufacturer. Based in Bavaria and with a history stretching to the 1920s, the company dominated elite sports through aggressive promotion and innovative shoes that catered to athletes' needs. The ‘Superstar’ is one of the company's most successful models, still in production over 40 years since its launch in the late 1960s. Designed to wrest control of the basketball market from American rubber companies, in the two decades that followed it developed cultural meanings far beyond those envisaged by adidas, becoming associated with hip hop, a youth music and subculture born in 1970s New York. Arguing that design is shaped by use and consumption is allied to practice, this article examines the processes by which the ‘Superstar’ came into being, placing it into a wider context of changes within basketball, corporate ambition, and international trade. Tracing the actions and influence of young consumers in New York, it also considers how new ways of thinking about the shoe arose, spread, and were eventually commodified by adidas. It argues that a product's meaning can never be fixed, that producers and consumers are engaged in a constant dialogue over how things are used and perceived.     

The Complementary roles of the Headteacher,the Mentor and the Advisory Teacher in Induction and School‐based Teacher Training

This article reports on the findings of a two year research project on the management of new teacher induction in five LEAs (Turner, 1992). Headteachers, mentors and newly qualified teachers in twelve schools were interviewed as were LEA officers, Inspectors and advisory teachers. The analysis showed the key roles of headteacher, mentor and advisory teacher to be different but complementary. The conclusions are drawn from a detailed analysis of some 180 interviews.     

Spaces and physical education pre-service teachers’ narrative identities

Stories or narratives are integral to meaning making in relation to selves, others and the choices we make in living. It follows that pre-service teachers’ narratives can provide a means for understanding experiences and processes of becoming teachers of physical education (PE). This paper reports on an interview-based inquiry from which biographical information was collated and constructed as narratives. The specific focus of this paper is demonstrating how Ricoeur's [1991a. Narrative identity. In D. Woods (Ed.), On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and interpretation (pp. 188–199). London: Routledge; 1992. Oneself as another. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press] theorisation of narrative identity can generate understandings about incipient PE teacher identities as developed in various spaces and temporalities. Data are presented through a cluster of significant spaces: sport, families, schooling, PE and Teacher Education plus narratives. Findings indicate that in constructing narrative identities, participants activated links between spaces, their past, present and aspirational futures as teachers. Given this, I conclude by identifying possibilities for PE teacher educators in using personal narratives as resources for exploring significant lifeworld spaces and subjective possibilities.     

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Developmental Milestones and Movement: Results From the Gemini Cohort Study

Purpose: Variability in the timing of infant developmental milestones is poorly understood. We used a twin analysis to estimate genetic and environmental influences on motor development and activity levels in infancy. Method: Data were from the Gemini Study, a twin birth cohort of 2,402 families with twins born in the United Kingdom in 2007. Parents reported motor activity level for each of the twins at age 3 months using the Revised Infant Behavior Rating Scale and reported the ages at which they first sat unsupported, crawled, and walked unaided. Results: Activity level at 3 months and ages when first sitting and crawling were about equally influenced by the shared family environment (45%–54%) and genes (45%–48%). Genetic influences dominated for age when children took their first independent steps (84%). Conclusion: Aspects of the shared family environment appear to be important influences on motor activity levels and early milestones, although the timing of walking may have a stronger genetic influence. Further research to identify the specific environmental and genetic factors that promote early activity may be important for longer-term health outcomes.