Initial Communication with and Attitudes toward International Students: Testing the Mediating Effects of Friendship Formation Variables

From the theoretical perspectives of intergroup contact, predicted outcome value (POV), and similarity-attraction, this study examined U.S. host nationals’ (N = 342) communicative behaviours in a recent initial encounter with an international student and attitudes toward the student’s cultural group as a whole. Testing of two models indicated the significant sequential mediator effects of perceived similarity-social attraction and POV-social attraction between communication variables (e.g. amount of communication exchange in both models, self-disclosure in model 1, and information seeking in model 2), and intergroup attitudes (e.g. behavioural attitudes). Findings in general demonstrated that contact effects in the intercultural context varied according to specific measures of communication, the mediating mechanisms, and intergroup attitudes.     

Relationship Understanding Between Emotional Stability,Self-Disclosure and Social Adjustment

This paper discusses a survey, carried out by the authors, of 211 employees’ employed in public and private manufacturing organizations in North India to determine if emotional stability acts as a mediator between self-disclosure and social adjustment. Capitalization theory has been used as theoretical framework to examine the proposed relationships. Results indicate that high self-disclosure has positive association with social adjustment. Results also suggest that emotional stability partially mediates self-disclosure and social adjustment relationship. Implications for future research include further examination through additional mediators and other dimensions of self-disclosure from capitalization theory in understudied non-U.S. cultures like India.     

Gender equality in the Olympic Movement: not a simple question,not a simple answer

This article explores the strategies followed by the International Olympic Committee for the achievement of gender equality. It is argued that this international body can go beyond simply adopting an equality of opportunities approach to gender equality. It suggests which other strategies can be incorporated for which it draws on the different ways of understanding gender equality in gender political theory.     

Immigrant perpetrators in the news: A terror management approach to resultant hostility,perceived vulnerability,and immigration issue judgment

This study found that mortality salience in TV news activated more hostile attitude toward the perpetrators and negative judgment on the immigration issue. Social group difference influenced news viewers’ immigration issue judgment, but did not affect their resultant hostility and perceived vulnerability. More negative attitudes emerged toward the immigration issue when immigrant perpetrators were portrayed negatively in the news. News viewers with exposure to mortality salience in TV news reported more negative toward immigrants. Exposure to mortality-related elements in TV news could lead to social conflicts that were viewed as a severe threat by U.S. government and policymakers.     

Tinkering through transition: on ‘doctoring’ as an early-career academic in physical education and sport pedagogy

This article addresses the notion of ‘making it’ as an early-career academic in physical education and sport pedagogy. In it, we draw on the tradition of material semiotics to reflect on our shared journeys from doctoral student to beginning scholar and beyond. By attuning ourselves to the relationality, materiality and precariousness of our experiences, we offer an answer to the question of what it takes to ‘make it’ as an early-career academic by advocating the practice of ‘making do’ or ‘doctoring.’ We develop this argument, first, by describing the narrative methods we used to conduct our inquiry and by explaining the material-semiotic ideas we used to explore the stories it generated. Then, we tell tales of our transitions from higher degree research student to early-career academic, focusing specifically on our ongoing, collective efforts to make do. In our discussion, we explore these narratives and attend to three features of our actions and activities as early-career academics; namely semiotic relationality, material heterogeneity and the precarious processes of heterogeneous engineering through which we sought to make a career in our field. We conclude by encouraging beginning scholars in physical education and sport pedagogy to become sensitive to these aspects of their own agency, and to experiment, experience and tinker together in ways that are attentive, inventive, caring and persistent.     

‘Playing with space’: a conceptual basis for investigating active sport tourism practices

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a conceptual tool, the expression ‘playing with space’, for the analysis of active sport tourism as a meaningful social practice. The expression issues from practice theories and pragmatic understandings of space, which emphasize the processual and contextual dimensions of human action and seek to seize altogether the corporealities and shared conceptions that constitute action. On such views, sport tourists are considered as reflexive and embodied beings, enjoying sensations, mobilities and places, and constantly (re)making sense of their own practices. I argue that the notion of ‘play’ allows for a comprehensive understanding of the ways active sport tourists engage with space, where space is viewed as an object or material for this play. Three major dimensions of active sport tourism are then identified: a set of playful and game-like practices with global space resulting in shared imaginaries and large-scale mobilities; a kinaesthetic play, based on freedom and sensations and deeply engaged in the materiality of the places and the omnipresent media practices that support the other dimensions of play while being fully integrated into the experience of sport tourism. This conceptual framework is a way to better understand the motives and practices of sport tourists; it is also a way to underline wider trends of contemporary leisure cultures: such cultures are increasingly integrated into the daily spheres of activity, increasingly playful and increasingly mediatized.     

京族民族民间体育起源分类特征的分析与研究*

采用文献资料、田野调查、访谈法等对我国唯一海洋民族京族的民族民间体育的起源、分类、特征以及发展方向进行分析,认为京族民族民间体育可分为嬉戏娱乐、节庆习俗、比赛竞技三类,并具有亲海性、宗教性、娱乐性的特征.课题根据“四层文化理论”对京族民族民间体育进行分析与研究,科学而准确地把握其的产生、分类和发展方向,促进京族民族民间体育的发展,努力发掘京族民族民间体育文化资源,推广民族体育文化.     

关于训练理论研究中若干方法论问题的思考

摘要：我国训练理论研究水平仍处在经验阶段,训练理论的治理迫在眉睫。运用文献资料法、逻辑法、时序法等研究方法,以科学技术哲学与复杂性科学为研究视角,从方法论层面试厘清训练理论研究中所出现的问题,以及未来研究趋向等问题。研究认为复杂性是认识训练规律的路径、科学理性是提升训练理论着眼点、学科交叉性是促进训练理论增长点、非线性是促使训练理论研究转型、整体性是表达训练理论的要义。通过提出超越传统意义上的方法论纲领,以期加快竞技体育治理体系和治理能力的现代化,适应国家竞技体育发展战略的需求;希冀训练理论对现代训练实践的要求做出科学地解释与说明,实现训练理论在实践中的应用性和操作性。