Dean Barker

Acculturation and physical activity among immigrants: a systematic review

AimThe acculturation process presents numerous challenges that could benefit or adversely affect immigrants’ health practices. The goal of this review was to present a systematic summary of studies examining the relationship between acculturation and physical activity among immigrants and ethnic minority populations.Subjects and methodsSystematic review based on 44 original studies found in electronic databases (Psychinfo/Psyndex, Eric, Pubmed/Medline, Web of Science, SportDiscus). Studies were eligible if they were written in English, German or French, incorporated a measure of acculturation and physical activity, exercise, or sport as independent and dependent variables, and provided statistical information to judge the level of significance. The 44 studies found included 760,242 participants. A narrative synthesis was performed. Causality of effects was examined based on seven criteria: consistency, strength of associations, specificity of effects, temporality, gradient, plausibility and experimental evidence.ResultsAcculturation was associated with higher leisure time physical activity in 57% of all studies (even after controlling for potential confounds), independent of participants’ gender, age and ethnic background. The main limitations of this review are that findings were not weighted for sample size and that publication biases might have contributed to an overestimation of the relationships.ConclusionPrevention programs aimed at stimulating participation in physical activity among immigrants should give priority to individuals with low acculturation levels and it should consider culturally specific beliefs and constraints. Additionally, prevention programs could make an effort to promote acculturation among immigrants. Future studies should use longitudinal designs which include objective assessments of physical activity and which use multidimensional and bidirectional definitions of acculturation.

Understanding teachers: the potential and possibility of discourse analysis

Understanding the ways in which teachers make sense of what they do and why is critical to a broader understanding of pedagogy. Historically, teachers have been understood through the thematic and content analysis of their beliefs or philosophies. In this paper, we argue that discourse analysis (DA) involves a much finer-grained analysis of the ‘lifeworlds’ of teachers and, in our view, provides a more detailed canvas from which inferences can be made. Our argument is structured in four parts. We begin by locating DA within the physical education (PE) literature and discuss what others have referred to as its relatively modest use. Following our location of DA, we outline a conceptual framework that we regard as useful, which contains six interrelated principles. We then introduce the idea of interpretive repertoires, which we consider to have particular explanatory power as well as being a sophisticated way to represent the subjectivities of PE teachers. Finally, we discuss the methodological strengths of interpretive repertoires. The paper concludes with a discussion on the theoretical and practical merits of adopting DA to analyse problems within PE.

The trouble with teamwork: a discursive investigation.

Background: Teamwork sits comfortably within the vocabularies of most physical education teachers. It is used to both describe and prescribe student behaviour in a variety of physical and sport-related activities. Yet while supporters of sport and PE have readily employed the term, remarkably few pedagogues have taken the time to consider what teamwork refers to, let alone what it means to teach it. Focus of study: In this paper, we examine practitioners constructions of teamwork. Participants and setting: Data were generated with seven physical education teachers (four male and three female) at a state-funded secondary school near Brisbane, Australia. The teachers ranged in experience from three months to more than 30 years. Research design: The investigation was a case study of one physical education department at a secondary school. Data collection: Three interviews were conducted with each of the teachers. The first was biographical in nature and covered themes such as education and sporting experiences. During the second interviews, teachers produced examples and statements on the topic of teamwork as it occurs within their lessons. The material from the second set of interviews was explored in the final set where the teachers were invited to elaborate on and explain comments from their previous interviews. Analysis: Data were considered from a discursive-constructionist perspective and attention was given to linguistic and grammatical features of the teachers commentary as well as the cultural relevance of the utterances. The notion of ‘interpretive repertoires’ – essentially cultural explanations bounded by particular socio-linguistic features – provided the central unit of analysis. Findings: The teachers in the project made use of an array of discursive resources to make sense of teamwork. These constructions often bore little resemblance to one another or to existing theories of teamwork. In some cases, the teachers offered vague descriptions or drew on alternative concepts to make sense of teamwork. Conclusions: Without a certain level of agreement in their everyday usage, teachers constructions of teamwork fail to be convincing or useful. We maintain that a more substantive conceptualisation of teamwork is needed in the field of sport pedagogy and offer suggestions on how this might be accomplished.

Constructive readings of interactive episodes: examining ethics in physical education from a social constructionist perspective

In this paper we illustrate how ways of thinking about ethics are tied up with sport and physical education practice and introduce an alternative approach that can help to develop ethical pedagogies. We begin by locating socio-moral education in physical education within historical and contemporary pedagogical scholarship. Our argument is that the work of todays physical educators is still shaped by claims that were made about school sport in the nineteenth century and that sport scholars have long had difficulties proving these claims empirically. Rather than search for data that can confirm or refute claims of moral learning, we examine how incidents related to moral behaviour occur during physical education lessons. To do this we draw on data from an ethnographic investigation of a school in North Western Switzerland. Specifically, we present three episodes of interaction in three different physical education lessons. To make sense of these episodes, we introduce a social constructionist perspective. The main assumptions of this perspective are: (1) meanings are created through dialogue and consensus and are context-relative; (2) interactions between people are joint accomplishments; and (3) contexts affect how people interact with one another. Equipped with a constructionist framework, we then inspect the interactive episodes more closely. We include brief discussions of how constructionist understandings might inform ethics pedagogies in the future, suggesting that practitioners should be cautious of universal understandings of ethics, consider pupils as members of communities that are held together by shared practices, provide space for pupils to position themselves differently during lessons and, finally, account for contextual factors when evaluating pupils’ actions.

Sustainability in high performance sport : current practices : future directions

1. High performance sport and sustainability: a contradiction of terms? Dean Barker, Natalie Barker-Ruchti, Arjen Wals and Richard Tinning 2. Coaches learning and sustainability in high performance sport Steven B. Rynne and Clifford J. Mallett 3. Caring as an important foundation in coaching for social sustainability: a case study of a successful Swedish coach in high-performance sport Claes Annerstedt and Eva-Carin Lindgren 4. Alternative discourses in the coaching of high performance youth sport: exploring language of sustainability Karin Grahn 5. Techno-rational knowing and phronesis: the professional practice of one middle-distance running coach Natalie Barker-Ruchti, Dean Barker and Claes Annerstedt 6. Reaching balance and sustainability: weight regulation in combat sports. A case study of a female boxer Stefan Pettersson and Marianne Pipping Ekstrom 7. Growth problems in youth elite sports. Social conditions, athletes experiences and sustainability consequences Astrid Schubring and Ansgar Thiel 8. Just do a little more: examining expertise in high performance sport from a sociocultural learning perspective Dean Barker, Natalie Barker-Ruchti, Steven Rynne and Jessica Lee 9. Shifting the burden of proof in doping: lessons from environmental sustainability applied to high-performance sport Silvia Camporesi and James A. Knuckles

Jacob and Martin : Developing digital technology competence in physical education teacher education

This chapter provides an illustration of how digital technologies (DTs) are experienced by Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) students. The illustration is based on the reflections of two ...