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Extracurricular Sport and Physical Activity in Welsh Secondary Schools: Leisure Lifestyles and Young People
No full textThis paper presents research into an initiative that promotes extracurricular sport and physical activity opportunities for young people in Welsh secondary schools. The purpose of the research was to develop a nuanced understanding of young people's participation, and non-participation in the initiative and its connection to their leisure lifestyles. An accumulated twelve month period of ethnographic case study research was undertaken. An exploratory 18-week study period was spent in six Welsh secondary schools that led to phase two, a further eight week period at two of the original six schools visited. The research adopted a young person-centred approach and used observations, focus groups, interviews and classroom activities for data collection. The findings highlighted the importance of locating extracurricular sport and physical activity as part of young people's leisure lifestyles. The success of the initiative appeared closely linked to three principal factors: its perceived image; the type and range of activities offered; and the ability of the sport development officer to connect to young people. An explanatory framework is proposed as a means of making sense of the research findings and identifying the implications for policy makers interested in introducing and managing similar initiatives
“This is awesome Miss. It is safe. We don’t do this with any other teacher.” Classroom activities to listen to pupils’ voices
No full textThis methodological paper is concerned with the use of ‘child-centred’ methods to gather data from young people about their leisure lives. Specifically, a set of activities were devised that enabled young people’s voices to be heard, and their lived experiences to be understood. Inspired by research undertaken in primary schools, classroom-based activities which included creative representation, mind-mapping, pupil interaction and role play were used in a series of ethnographic case studies as part of a national secondary school physical activity research project in Wales during 2007-2009. This paper is an
exposition of these activities for researchers and professional practitioners to gather information. Through an evaluation of their efficacy with the young people themselves, the methods were found to be effective for data capture and as a focal point for subsequent interviewing and focus group discussions. They also engaged the young people and enabled rapport to be developed between the researcher and the researched. The success of these methods in specific educational settings has implications for teacher-researchers and professional practice with children and young people in other contexts
Meditation Awareness Training (MAT) for work-related wellbeing and job performance: A randomized controlled trial
No full textProspective and retrospective categorisation category proffers and inferences in social interaction and rolling news media
No full textIn this chapter, we have attempted to do three things. First, we have illustrated an approach to Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) that focuses on sequential and categorial analysis and shows the way categories, and the resourcefulness of their inference-rich quality, can be used prospectively and retrospectively to proffer and solidify on-going accounts, states of affairs, event descriptions, and ‘fact’. In addition to the analysis of different kinds of spoken and written interaction, we have also shown how the movement between description and categorisation functions to construct, constrain and produce accounts of ‘what is happening’ and ‘what happened’ in news reporting.
Second, we have tried to show Sacks’s machinery of membership categorisation in practice. While one reads many descriptions of the terms of MCA, including the notions of ‘inference-rich’ and so on, these terms can seem complex and can also be used to justify the kinds of ‘wild and promiscuous’ analysis that Schegloff has criticised MCA for conducting. In contrast, we have shown how the inference-rich nature of categories is built into people’s categorial practices. As noted earlier, it is not just that categories are, in theory and before empirical observation, ‘inference rich’, but that we can see that, and how, people treat categories as carrying inferential resources, in the design of their turns in which categorial formulations appear (Stokoe, 2012b). In other words, the inference-rich nature of categories is observable from the endogenous orientations of participants and is a resource for constructing accounts that can be reconstructed, contested, provisional, deniable – on their way to becoming solid, factual and beyond construction.
Third, we have shown how one can build MCA studies of the identification of practices from different sorts of large datasets. As Stokoe (2012b) has argued elsewhere, for MCA to survive as a method, in any way distinct from the more dominant conversation analysis, or as adding something to the analysis of social interaction, studies of practices that can be transferred across settings are required. Not only does such an approach provide an empirical base for other researchers, in the same way that CA has done, but it provides for the possibility of applying research findings to create impact for users and practitioners (Stokoe, 2013). Stokoe (2012b) has described a number of principles and steps for beginning and proceeding with a categorisation study, whether they start with an interest in a particular category in mind (e.g., ‘nutter’) or categorial phrase (e.g., ‘it’s human to get angry’; ‘speaking as a parent’), or with a more inductive ‘noticing’ of a set of spoken or written interactional materials. The key is to collect data across different sorts of settings; including both interactional and textual materials. Data collection may be purposive (e.g. gathering together instances of particular categories in use because of an a priori interest in that category) or unmotivated (e.g. noticing a category’s use and pursuing it within and across multiple discourse sites). Once collected and organised, analysis should look for evidence that, and how, recipients orient to categories, devices or inferences for the [Page 70]interactional consequences of a category’s use; for co-occurring component features of categorial formulations; and for the way participants within and between turns build and resist categorisations. In this way, a ‘categorial systematics’ approach to MCA works with collections of instances of possible categorial phenomena gathered from different discourse contexts, with the aim of uncovering the systematic centrality of categories and categorial practices to action
Stress in rural ministry
No full textThis study set out to listen to the ways in which clergy serving in a rural diocese in the Church of England experienced and responded to stress. Qualitative data were provided by 69 clergy to three issues concerning the main causes of stress, their views on what would alleviate stress, and how the diocese could help. The six main requests to the diocese were for: better pastoral support for the clergy, better deployment of clergy and laity, reduced demands from the centre, help with managing buildings, help with administration, and support for facilitating time off
A comparative cross-cultural study of the prevalence and nature of misconceptions in physics amongst English and Chinese undergraduate students
No full textBackground: Despite the large body of literature regarding student misconceptions there has been relatively little cross-cultural research to directly compare the prevalence of common scientific misconceptions amongst students from different cultural backgrounds. Whilst previous research does suggest the international nature of many misconceptions there is little evidence as to whether the prevalence of such common misconceptions varies from culture to culture. Purpose: To examine the prevalence and the reasons for some of the previously studied scientific misconceptions amongst a group of English and Chinese undergraduate students so as to ascertain whether there is a cultural difference. Such a finding could help to identify teaching approaches in either country that are more effective in reducing the prevalence of common student misconceptions. Sample: The study involved a convenience sample of 40 undergraduate students – 20 English and 20 Chinese drawn equally from two universities in the North of England – whose formal science education ended at age 16 and 15 respectively. Design and methods: The study employed semi-structured interview schedule containing eight questions. Results: Whilst similar misconceptions existed amongst both English and Chinese undergraduates their prevalence was significantly higher amongst the English students (Chinese scored 27.7% higher, p < 0.01, r = 0.64). It also emerged that when such misconceptions exist English and Chinese undergraduates explain these by drawing upon very similar, erroneous, analogies and these appear to be only nominally culturally independent in that they are based on globally shared everyday experiences. Conclusion: If the prevalence of misconceptions amongst English undergraduates is to be reduced, research into the way in which specific areas of physics are taught in China might prove beneficial. It might also be possible to reduce the prevalence of misconceptions in both countries if a better understanding could be developed of how, and why, undergraduates use certain, erroneous, analogies
The history and heritage of Lincoln’s council estates: local history and ‘critical’ public history in practice
No full textThis article considers council housing built during the twentieth century from the perspective of public history, heritage and townscape. It suggests that it is important to highlight the rationale for their construction, now that the ‘understanding of what brought them into being is fading’. The study looks at the city of Lincoln, where council housing provision was extensive and where a series of large and distinctive estates was built on the edges of the urban area between and after the wars. These estates have now been included in a sequence of detailed reports on Lincoln’s townscape and urban environment, bringing their character and identity to the fore. The article begins with an overview of the emergence of council housing in the period before the Second World War, and then discusses the Lincoln estates in turn: St Giles (an interwar development); the Boultham Estate (some interwar and substantial immediate post-war building); and Ermine, in two phases between 1952 and 1958.
In each case, the design features of the estate are explained, with particular attention to the townscape and the mix of styles and sizes of housing. Particular attention is given to the inclusion of commercial, civic, religious, educational and ‘landmark’ buildings which vary the generally low-key architecture of all three estates. The conclusion suggests that local history and public history have very closely shared aims and agendas, and that council housing as a subject of study opens up one of the key links between them
Autobiographical memory and hyperassociativity in the dreaming brain: implications for memory consolidation in sleep
No full textIn this paper we argue that autobiographical memory (AM) activity across sleep and wake can provide insight into the nature of dreaming, and vice versa. Activated memories within the sleeping brain reflect one’s personal life history (autobiography). They can appear in largely fragmentary forms and differ from conventional manifestations of episodic memory. Autobiographical memories in dreams can be sampled from non-REM as well as REM periods, which contain fewer episodic references and become more bizarre across the night. Salient fragmented memory features are activated in sleep and re-bound with fragments not necessarily emerging from the same memory, thus de-contextualizing those memories and manifesting as experiences that differ from waking conceptions. The constructive nature of autobiographical recall further encourages synthesis of these hyper-associated images into an episode via recalling and reporting dreams. We use a model of AM to account for the activation of memories in dreams as a reflection of sleep-dependent memory consolidation processes. We focus in particular on the hyperassociative nature of AM during sleep
Teacher education in further education 2000–2010: subversion, avoidance and compliance
No full textThis article explores the impact of key teacher education policies created between 2000 and 2010 on further education teacher educators. Data was collected from a group of experienced teacher educators in the Midlands through a series of semi-structured interviews. This article argues that the reforms were driven by too great a concern for political ideology and established overly restrictive control mechanisms to ensure compliance. Although the need for standardisation was acknowledged, the use of competency-based standards was seen as detrimental to meaningful teacher education pedagogy. It was perceived that the policies were being implemented in a managerial manner that strove for compliance. However, where compliance was at odds with their own personal and democratic professional stance, the teacher educators used a range of strategies to subvert or avoid implementing policy in order to try to stay true to their philosophical values. Nevertheless, positive aspects did emanate from the teacher education reforms, which included a drive for professional status and a recognised level 5 qualification. These positive features now appear to have been abandoned following the Lingfield Report and a different ideological thrust to deregulate the sector