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The enactment of political skills in community sport coaching
No full textCommunity sport coaches play a vital role in delivering sport and physical activity schemes to achieve (non)sporting government policy goals. While research has started to examine the social, relational and emotional features of this work, political skills remain underexplored. It is unclear which political skills are required and how they are enacted, learnt, and developed. This study addresses this gap through online semi-structured interviews with 17 community sports coaches, examining the political skills crucial for managing workplace dynamics, building relationships, and achieving professional goals. Through our application of political astuteness (Hartley et al., 2013, 2015, 2017) and political skill (Ferris et al., 2005, 2012) the findings highlight: a) the importance of reading and building effective relationships with key stakeholders in response to organisational and policy demands, b) the personal and interpersonal skills required to achieve goals strategically, and c) how these skills are typically learnt on the job, outside of formal coach education. This study contributes new insights to the critical social analysis of sport work by identifying the political skills underpinning community sport coaching practice. It also highlights the need to develop these skills in the coaching workforce and raises important questions about coach education and professional development
Prospecting for gold: finding your guide
No full textLGBTQ+ research can be a highly specialised area, and therefore , it is important that researchers choose institutions and supervisors that have the necessary expertise. This opening chapter will discuss what is involved in starting out in LGBTQ+ research and how to seek out potential supervisors
The nature of sleep and how to improve it
No full textSleep is an essential aspect of human functioning that we cannot live without. Despite this, it can be easy to develop patterns of behaviour that prevent us from sleeping well, and from responding to bodily cues that we are ready to sleep, or to wake. In this article, we outline the components of sleep and how they change as we develop from infancy to early adulthood, and present an overview of the ways in which we can support the development of healthy sleep behaviours. We argue that sleep health should be considered a public health priority, as important for children’s healthy development as nutrition and physical activity
Transfiguration Sunday [From a Rural Pulpit]
No full textThis study offers an example of ‘standing theology’ as distinguished from sitting theology and kneeling theology. The occasion was the Sunday next before Lent, Year C, in St Tegfan’s Church, Llandegfan. The Gospel was Luke 9: 28-36
“Watching the loo door swing slowly open”: using visual metaphors to explore autistic experience through the medium of PGCE school placement
No full textThis study uses images to explore the experience of an autistic trainee maths teacher struggling to navigate the school placement environment. The use of ‘illustrations of
meaning’ supports autistic communication of the experience and aims to enable a nuanced articulation of autistic viewpoint. As such it may elucidate the perspective of one autistic (purported) teacher, but also that more widely of autistic teachers and pupils and of autistic people in other employment and life situations. The paper was co-created by an autistic participant and an autistic researcher as a joint endeavour using participatory methodologies and exploring imagery and metaphor as vehicles of communication to share autistic lived experience. Suggestions for future professional support that emerge are shared
The psychological type profile of Anglican clergymen serving in Northern Ireland: Closer to Wales than to England?
No full textThis study set out to examine the psychological type profile of Anglican clergymen serving within the Church of Ireland in Northern Ireland. A sample of 85 clergymen completed the Francis Psychological Type Scales. The data demonstrated a group of clergymen who prefer introversion (68%) over extraversion (32%), sensing (67%) over intuition (33%), feeling (60%) over thinking (40%), and judging (82%) over perceiving (18%). The two predominant types among this group of clergymen were ISFJ (25%) and ISTJ (19%). These findings are then set alongside previously published profiles of Anglican clergymen serving in England and Wales. While in England the majority preference on the perceiving process is for intuition, in both Northern Ireland and Wales it is for sensing
OFF THE BEATEN TRACK IN THE KINGDOM OF ITALY WITH THOMAS ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE Questioning Victorian Models of Masculinity through Narratives of Travel in A Lenten Journey in Umbria and the Marches (1862)
No full textThis chapter questions Victorian models of masculinity through a little-known
travelogue entitled A Lenten Journey in Umbria and the Marches, published by
Thomas Adolphus Trollope (1810-1892) in 1862. Trollope was a prolific British
writer whose career was defined by his life in Italy from 1843 to 1887, a period in
which he witnessed the establishment of the Italian Kingdom. While the peninsula remained a central destination for the British traveller, in the second half of
the nineteenth century, its traditionally feminised representation was questioned
by politically engaged writers, like Trollope, who claimed instead masculine
gendering for the newly united country. As a modern nation, Trollope believed,
the Kingdom of Italy required a masculine image and, in A Lenten Journey in
Umbria and the Marches, he goes off the beaten track to shape one in contrast
with that of la bella Italia
Christian affiliation and personality among secondary students in religious schools in Hong Kong: Testing the Chinese Junior Personality Scales in Three Dimensions (JPS3D)
No full textData provided by 4,468 12- to 18-year-old students enrolled in ten religious secondary schools in Hong Kong are employed to address two research aims. First, the data support the three factor structure of the Chinese Junior Personality Scales in Three Dimensions, and document the internal consistency reliability and construct validity of these three scales (measuring extraversion, anxiety, and toughmindedness). Second, the data support the hypothesis that there is no significant association between scores recorded on these three scales and Christian religious affiliation among 12- to 18-year-old students attending religious secondary schools in Hong Kong
Empirical Validation of a Streamlined Three-Repetition Sit-to-Stand Protocol Using MAI Motion
No full textMAI Motion is a motion capture system designed to assess lower-limb biomechanics during functional movements like the sit-to-stand (STS) test. Determining how many repetitions are needed to obtain reliable measurements is critical for balancing data quality and participant burden. This study evaluates whether three repetitions (3x) of STS provide reliable data compared to five repetitions (5x). Three-dimensional videos of participants (n = 20) performing 5x STS movements were captured using MAI Motion. Primary measurements were the mean values of each joint angle and the coefficient of variation (CV). Statistical comparisons (including one way ANOVA followed by paired t-tests or non-parametric equivalents) determined whether differences in mean (DiM) values or CV existed between 3x and 5x. The analysis revealed minimal DiM angles between 3x and 5x. Variability, assessed via CV, showed no clinically meaningful differences. Although ankle angle, knee and hip abduction had higher CV values than the other metrics, 3x and 5x performed similarly. Participants reported that 3x required less effort than 5x, underscoring its potential for clinical application. These findings demonstrate that the MAI Motion system captures comparable biomechanical data to the 5x STS protocol when using a 3x approach. This supports the adoption of 3x as a practical alternative, reducing participant burden
Implicit religion, extrinsic religious orientation and consumerism: Exploring what ‘no religion’ young people do to make themselves feel better
No full textThe present study tests the connection among 8,084 unchurched 13- to 15-year-old students between consuming chocolate, caffeine, and alcohol to make themselves feel better and levels of purpose in life and suicidal ideation. After controlling for personal factors (sex and age) and psychological factors (extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism) the data demonstrated that such consumption was associated with lower levels of purpose in life and higher levels of suicidal ideation. This connection is explored in light of Edward Bailey’s theory concerning implicit religion and Gordon Allport’s theory concerning extrinsic religious orientation