1,720,974 research outputs found
Why do youth step out of sport and into court? A narrative-based exploration
No full textMotivated by my son’s incarceration months after he stopped playing sport this thesis attempts to answer the questions that plagued me as I began dealing with lawyers, courts, and prison visits: If sport is all that it is supposed to be why is my son sitting in a prison cell? Had his fourteen years of playing sport been for nothing? Why hadn’t sport honoured its promise to protect my son from such a reality?
Consequently, this thesis explores ‘Why youth step out of sport and into court?’ My objective is to provide parents and those interested in youth issues with new research that confirms, supplements, and/or challenges what is arguably ‘known’ about youth sports attrition and deviancy. However, rather than produce a traditional academic text I offer a polyvocal interpretive narrative text, where my own voice (as mother and academic) has been interwoven with the lived experiences and voices of five young men who had also ‘stepped out of sport and into court’ as well as the voices of published theorists and researchers who have broadened my understanding of the issues. As a result this thesis honours the lived experiences of the research participants as relayed to me during three semi-structured interviews, and is hopefully engaging enough to encourage you/the reader to think about the issues and to discuss them with others.
The study highlights the complexities of sport and deviance, in that we live in a world of multiple realities. For instance, while many of the research participants had had similar experiences they had also come from different social, cultural and historical locations. Three of the participants had had two parents, two had had two parents living in different locations, and one had been raised by extended family. Three were raised in environments where gang ideology and drug use were normalised, while the other two had experienced environments to the contrary. One had been arrested on only two occasions, while the others had been arrested anywhere between five and thirty times before their nineteenth birthday, with charges ranging from painting on public property through to burglary and extreme violence. Their common experiences included their participation in rugby and/or rugby league; they had participated in sport and crime at the same time; they had been coached by intimidating people, and they had ‘stepped out of sport’ between thirteen and eighteen years old.
The first take home message is that parents need to be diligent for the duration of their child’s sporting career and to be aware that whilst sports can do great things for young people, sport may also dampen a child’s sensitivity to fear and normalise and reinforce deviant beliefs, attitudes, justifications and orientations. The second take home message is that it is time for us to consider other forms of sport and physical activity and to give youth the power to define what sport means to them. Furthermore, if we agree that things need to change, this study recommends that attrition and deviance research be made more accessible and that the interested parties work together rather than independently
Ko au te whenua, te whenua ko au – I am the land, the land is me: An autoethnographic investigation of a secondary school teacher’s experience seeking to enrich learning in outdoor education for Māori students.
No full textThis thesis is my story as an outdoor educator, as a researcher, and a co-participant reflecting on my own actions and experiences as well as those of my students. In this autoethnography I share my revelations and tensions in my role as an outdoor education teacher seeking to enrich the experiences of Māori students. Māori culture and history have largely been ignored in the outdoor education classrooms and environments of Aotearoa New Zealand. After teaching the subject for ten years I didn’t perceive that I was perpetuating the same invisibility in my own outdoor education course. Over this time a number of questions that had fermented at the back of my mind came to the fore; ‘why are so few Māori students opting to take outdoor education as a senior secondary school subject?’ and ‘how can I make the subject of outdoor education more desirable and appealing to Māori?’ A place-responsive approach incorporates and values traditional ways of learning through the notion of place and the stories attached to them. The cultural context of learning about and through place has the potential to provide learning opportunities that are relevant and meaningful to all learners but particularly Māori. Place-responsive pedagogies allow outdoor educators to create an environment where language, knowledge, culture and values are normal, valid and legitimate – contexts where Māori students can be themselves. Through this research I have found that the implementation of a place responsive approach has had significant implications for Year twelve outdoor education at Mount Maunganui College. The improvement in Māori student achievement and numbers selecting the subject have been affirming.
Ko au te whenua, te whenua ko au – I am the land, the land is m
How a game sense coaching approach impacts on the learning experience for teenage rugby players
Get PDFRugby is the national game in New Zealand and has played a significant part in the lives of many New Zealanders. More recently there has been a steady decline in the number of youths engaging with rugby (and organised sport in general), which is of concern to governing bodies such as New Zealand Rugby and Sport New Zealand. This collaborative action research study collaborated with coaches of two provincial representative rugby squads (one boy’s, one girl’s), consisting of 16-18-year-olds, where the coaches implemented a Game Sense (GS) coaching approach throughout their respective campaigns. The perspectives of the players were sought through focus groups and individual semi-structured interviews, to better understand how the learning experience was received by them. The researcher led and supported the development of the coaches through an initial workshop, observation, and feedback, as well as relaying relevant themes from focus groups, to better understand and implement GS together. The study intended to enhance understanding of a GS approach through the eyes of youth participants, with the hope that coaches and coach education may benefit and provide a practice offering that meets the needs of teens. Results suggest that players were highly engaged with a GS approach as the practice environment replicates the reality of a match through the practice design, utilising opposition, contact, and a questioning approach in practices. An underpinning theme on a culture of trust emerged, depicting how important team culture is for teenagers to engage with not only GS but also a team sport like rugby
Life as a Carded Athlete
No full textIn 2001 the Ministerial Taskforce for Sport, Leisure and Fitness presented the Graham Report to the New Zealand government. The authors of this document had been invited to assess the state of sport within New Zealand and provide recommendations for the future direction of wider sport initiatives. One of these initiatives involved restructuring the process for developing New Zealand’s elite athletes, which led to the establishment of the New Zealand Academy of Sport (NZAS) and the carded athlete system. This research project investigated the impact that the carding system has had on both the career and identity development of New Zealand’s elite athletes. In particular it examined athletes’ perspectives of this system as they explored how being part of the carding system has impacted their lives, both in and outside of the sport experience. Additionally, it addressed the impact that athlete carding has had on individuals’ role identities. In so doing, this investigation has allowed for a previously silenced, yet growing population of elite athletes to share their experiences of life as a carded athlete.
Semi-structured interviews conducted with a purposeful sample of 17 male and female carded athletes from eight different sports were used to explore these insights. The interviews revealed that while athletes experienced increased levels of funding and support upon becoming carded, they were also subjected to decreased levels of autonomy and perceived increases in external pressure as a result of their involvement within the carding system. Furthermore, the potential for participants to become engulfed within the athlete role was evident throughout each of their narratives. These results suggest the carded athlete system it is not currently meeting its potential of developing world class ‘holistic’ athletes. As such, it is important that individuals working within New Zealand’s elite sport environment explicitly encourage carded athletes to explore a more balanced approach to their daily lives. Differences in athlete readiness to embrace activities outside of the sport context however, suggests that career development programmes may also need to consider the stage of an athlete’s career in order to best meet individual athlete needs and motivation
Whānau aspirations, extracurricular activity and positive youth development: The leisure activity patterns and narratives of successful young Māori men and how they might inform urban whānau raising tamatāne.
Get PDFThe purpose of this research is to offer parents and whānau (extended family groups) insight about the kinds of leisure activities that might make a positive contribution to their boys’ development. Focused on the positive developmental benefits of leisure participation in relation to Māori boys, and employing a kaupapa Māori framework and qualitative methods, this study represents a foray into new territory.
Conducted ‘by, with, and for’ Māori (the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand), and guided by the question ‘How might the leisure activity patterns and narratives of successful young Māori men inform urban whānau raising tamatāne (Māori boys/sons)?’ the three-phase research design was strengths-based, collaborative, and both retrospective and prospective. In phase one, a group of 11 parents participated in focus group hui (gatherings) in which they established the criteria for ‘successful young Māori men’ (SYMM) based on their aspirations for their primary-school aged boys. In phase two, this whānau of interest then selected six SYMM from a pool of eight volunteers, who, along with one or both of their parents participated in one-off semi-structured interviews. In these interviews, we co-constructed life and leisure maps, and discussed how their childhood leisure activities and experiences contributed to their development and who they are today. In phase three, a selection of raw data from these interviews was prepared for a group analysis, during which the whānau of interest made three key observations: (1) As children and youth, these SYMM had participated in a number and range of organised and informal leisure activities including sport, kapa haka (Māori cultural performance), music, art, and for three of them, faith-based activities; (2) they were “connected” to their parent(s) and whānau; and (3) their leisure activities had brought them into contact with positive male role models. Consequently, the whānau of interest talked about increasing the number and variety of their boys’ leisure activities; how they could further support their boys’ leisure participation; and bringing more male role models into their boys’ lives.
The findings of this study support the current literature regarding extracurricular activity participation in relation to positive youth development, but also highlight some methodological issues and cultural and contextual nuances. The research supports international and local studies in which high-performing students participated in a number and combination of extracurricular activities. In contrast, however, the experiences and reflections of the SYMM in this study highlight the limitations of combining all sports and all arts into broad activity categories. The research participants’ leisure activities also point to the relevance and applicability of the Te Whare Tapa Whā model of health and wellbeing. Their involvement in kapa haka contrasts with the (North American) literature in which males are a minority in the performing arts, and while some studies indicate that participation in music making declines in high school, these young men began playing musical instruments in high school. Moreover, the salience and significance of the research participants’ casual leisure activities challenges the tendency to cast informal leisure as the antithesis of extracurricular activity participation. These findings raise questions about the applicability of using international activity categories in Aotearoa New Zealand research, and consequently the need to conduct our own leisure and positive youth development studies.
Other topics raised in this thesis include rugby and masculinity, spirituality, and the tensions involved in building and honouring our children’s rangatiratanga (independence). The short answer to the research question is that a variety and balance of leisure activities has the potential to make positive contributions to boys’ lives. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are also discussed
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
It's Personal and it's Professional: The meanings women Baby-boomers attribute to their ageing and 'working-out' with a personal trainer.
No full textGreater numbers of older populations is the emerging norm for all countries, and something that triggered the World Health Organization to revise its 2002 global ageing strategy. In the 2015 document, greater emphasis is given to the concept of active ageing, a lifestyle all individuals are encouraged to embrace as a way to facilitate ‘ageing well’. Such an ideal is in part fostered by the Baby-boomer heading into their ‘old’ age where there is a high probability many will live to eighty years and beyond. Physical activity is one component of active ageing but translating the unequivocal evidence into practice is a daunting task at a population and individual level. There is no shortage of research on physical activity and ageing, but little attention has been given to trying to understand the experience from the point-of-view of the ‘older’ person. This study was in part inspired by an increasing number of Baby-boomer women who were not only conscious about their own ageing, but endeavouring to prepare for a long life well-lived.
This study, which is situated in the theoretical framework of social constructionism, set out to unravel the active ageing experiences from a life course perspective and what actually transpires when 18 women Baby-boomers employ the services of a Personal Trainer. The numerous semi-structured interviews and verbatim transcriptions were subjected to on-going analysis, during which I recognised that in spite of the ‘richness’ of data, not all the subtleties could be captured. This, however, did not detract from the analysis where three dominant themes emerged. Supporting the need for a ‘life-course’ approach to fully understand physical activity at a personal level, the meanings of the experiences fluctuate and are negotiated, and there is a ‘resistance’ to the ageing discourse.
This study broadens and shares alternative insights about women’s activeageing and challenges the commonly held assumptions about how women position their ageing in the context of being physically active in varying ways. These Baby-boomers have ‘grown-up’ with the fitness industry, an industry whereby Personal Trainers are well placed to assist Boomers in their activeageing ambitions. This study has particular relevance to, as well as advice for, those working in health promotion and the fitness industry. A future more active ‘older’ population is possible, but according to the Boomers who participated in this study any level of substantive change will not happen by chance
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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