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Policy and Governmentality of Early Childhood Education and Care in England
Get PDFThis paper provides an overview and investigates the English Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) policy landscape. It introduces the political and ECEC policy history, and the development of the statutory Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (DfE, 2021) framework, whose publication in 2008 was a significant milestone in ECEC in England. Twenty-two nursery workers from a variety of nursery settings were interviewed to learn what they think, know, and how this policy influences their professional practices. Foucault’s (1988) and Dean’s (1999) idea of ‘governmentality’ was used to analyze the data, as governmentality offers a way to create critical analyses of the ECEC policy that affects young children. The analysis recognizes the nursery worker's strong and often stressful relationship with government policy and highlights how policy documents mandated their work.The study also reveals that despite government regulations and guidance, most of the participants decide to continue with their professional development and enrol to study for a higher education degree
Bridging the Know-Do Gap Using Integrated Knowledge Translation and Qualitative Inquiry: A Narrative Review
Get PDFThe research-practice gap is an ongoing concern for sport and exercise science researchers. Despite ongoing efforts to ‘bridge’ the gap between research and practice, a know-do gap remains. Drawing from alternative fields of research (e.g., healthcare, implementation science), the purpose of this article is to outline an emerging research approach to maximise research uptake in practice. Specifically, this article explains the what, why, and how of integrated knowledge translation (iKT), and how this approach to research is well suited to qualitative researchers. Challenging the traditional way academics have conducted research, iKT proposes that researchers work with and not on those in practice settings. As an approach to research under which many forms of qualitative inquiry can fall, the article illustrates how the practical nature of iKT aligns with what qualitative researchers from various traditions do in action. We discuss how iKT possesses three synergies with qualitative inquiry: meaningful researcher engagement, understanding context, and tolerating flexible research designs
Displacement, replacement and creative endeavour; English Children’s Experiences of ‘Lockdown’ – a basis for planning?
No full textChildren were significantly impacted by Covid-19 and associated restrictions of human movement (Unicef 2021). Consequences are long term and understanding the nature of this essential to educational planning.
This study focused on children aged 7/8yrs in a south of England school; its purpose to understand children’s experiences of lockdown. Children were invited to create pictures/photographs illustrating perspectives and interviewed about their images. The class teacher was interviewed about each child’s background.
28 children participated drawing a total of 87 pictures; 6 children additionally took photographs creating 43 images. Data was analysed following a dimensional model for the analysis of children’s data sets (Everley, 2021).
Findings aligned to three key themes:
•Socially Realised Identities: Loss and redefinition
•Domesticization of experience and generation of creativity
•Anthropomorphisation of pets as companionate beings
Outcomes suggest impact on:
•the generation and performance of identity
•inter-personal communication
•creative collaborations
•independence/self relianc
Relational Frame Theory: A framework for psychologists to develop positive interventions to bring about real change in applied settings
Get PDFWomen in a man's world: Coaching in elite sport
Get PDFUnderpinned by critical feminist psychology and in response to repeated calls to explore how the dynamics of gender inform coaching practices, this study aimed to explore the experiences of men and women coaches to better understand the role of gendered expectations in elite sport environments and how these are reproduced within a Western European country’s elite sport system. Data were collected over 18 months via fieldwork observations and semi-structured interviews with 10 elite coaches, from five Olympic and professional sports. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Using Gramsci’s theory of hegemony as a theoretical lens to interpret the data, macro (i.e., wider socio-cultural norms), meso (i.e., organizational practices), and micro (i.e., coaches experiences working with women athletes) levels were identified. The findings demonstrate that each level plays a role in actively producing and reproducing the broader power relations between genders within and beyond the sporting environment. ‘Moments of intervention’ are offered to coaches and sport personnel to create more inclusive environments to provide optimal support for women athletes
A framework to guide practitioners for selecting metrics during the countermovement and drop jump tests
Get PDFResearchers and practitioners have highlighted the necessity to monitor jump strategy metrics and the commonly reported outcome measures during the countermovement jump (CMJ) and drop jump (DJ) tests. However, there is a risk of confusion for practitioners, given the vast range of metrics that now seem to be on offer via analysis software when collecting data from force platforms. As such, practitioners may benefit from a framework that can help guide metric selection for commonly used jump tests, which is the primary purpose of this article. To contextualize the proposed framework, we have provided 2 examples for how this could work: one for the CMJ and one for the DJ, noting that these tests are commonly used by practitioners during routine testing across a range of sport performance and clinical settings
A letter to my younger self: using a novel written data collection method to understand the experiences of athletes in Chronic Pain
Get PDFThis study seeks to extend the variety of written methods used in sport and exercise research by outlining the use of a novel written technique for data collection: ‘a letter to my younger self’. The use of solicited letter writing has long been endorsed as a valuable technique as part of the therapeutic process, but has yet to be considered as a method of collecting qualitative data. In this study, 21 participants who had experienced chronic pain while playing sport were invited to write a letter back to their younger self. A dialogical narrative analysis was used to analyse the written letters and our results are presented in two forms. First, a ‘collective letter’, written using amalgamated participant quotations. Second, an accompanying commentary which illustrates the characterisations, structure, and narrative themes that were evident in the data collected. Our findings extend existing knowledge of chronic pain in sport, contrasting previous literature that has presented degenerative stories. Further, we also illuminate the danger of the performance narrative in privileging personal agency and the risks this poses to receiving support during chronic pain. We conclude by challenging researchers to consider the importance that should be attributed to hindsight and the value of re-describing experiences with wisdom and knowledge of the significance of the past
Historical fiction in the Romantic Period: Jane Porter, Walter Scott and the Sublime Hero
No full textUntil recently, it was often assumed that Walter Scott was the first historical novelist. Moreover, it was accepted that, in writing a new form of fiction, Scott had chosen to make his heroes, caught up in large-scale historical events, relatively ineffectual. Yet when the work of the historical novelists (often women) who worked before and alongside Scott is taken into account, it becomes apparent that Scott’s decision regarding his heroes is a manoeuvre within a wider debate regarding the nature of heroism. Placing Scott’s heroes within a wider context, this essay examines how the Romantic historical novel first moderates, then reduces and reinvents the sublime figure of the heroic leader. My reading examines how, in The Scottish Chiefs (1810), Jane Porter invented a new model of sublime Christian heroism that could be extended beyond the upper ranks. It interrogates how Scott responded to Porter by minimising the potentially subversive elements of this paradigm, and it reveals how Jane Porter, in The Pastor’s Fireside (1817), proposed a form of heroic re-education. For these historical novelists, the difficulty, ultimately, was to imagine a variety of patriotic heroism that would safely function in commercial, peacetime Britain
Learning Through Volunteerism in Event Management Education: An Ethnography
No full textIn this chapter, the author will use their extensive work experience to provide a pragmatic commentary on how volunteerism can be used in higher education institutions to enhance the student experience and to harness the event management employability skills, knowledge, and attributes of undergraduates. The pedological foundations and benefits of volunteering, as well as how volunteering could be embedded into event management courses as an effective, novel, and enjoyable form of experiential learning, will dominate this commentary. This chapter will also provide a discussion on the pitfalls and caveats of volunteering activity and how institutions can avoid them
Reliability of the squat jump force-velocity and load-velocity profiles
Get PDFThe reliability of the squat jump force-velocity and load-velocity profiles. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2021-The purpose of this study was to investigate the between-session reliability of the squat jump force-velocity (FV) and load-velocity (LV) profiles. Eighteen subjects (age = 28.1 ± 4.8 years; height = 1.7 ± 9.7; body mass = 74.7 ± 12.8) who could back squat >1.5 times body mass participated in this study. Each subject completed a familiarization session, followed by 2 experimental sessions each separated by 72 hours. Subjects performed a series of squat jumps on a force plate against external loads between 0 and 100% of their body mass in a quasi-randomized block order. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and coefficient of variation (CV) were used to examine the between-session reliability. Peak velocity (PV) and mean velocity (MV) at each load were highly reliable (ICC >0.80, CV% <7.41, SEM <0.13 m·s-1, smallest detectable difference [SDD] <0.31 m·s-1, ES <0.21). Force-velocity profiles created with peak force and relative peak force resulted in poor to excellent reliability (ICC = 0.34-0.92, CV% = 11.9-26.3). When mean and relative mean forces were used to create FV profiles, there was poor to good reliability (ICC = 0.03-0.85, CV% = 18.1-39.4). When the LV profile was calculated with PV (ICC = 0.60-0.90, CV% = 7.9-16.9) or MV (ICC = 0.49-0.91, CV% = 11.1-23.4), there was poor to excellent reliability. There was no time effect found between sessions for both FV and LV profiles. The squat jump FV and LV profiles established with a force plate are not reliable. Therefore, these profiles are not recommended to be used to inform programming decisions