Jean Griffet

Habiter la mer

ABSTRACT During the twentieth century, the sea became an inhabited space for private leisure and well-being. Adventure stories express two ways of living in this space of leisure. From the reflection initiated by Heidegger on habitation and completed by Bachelard in the poetics of space, this article attempts to show that the accounts of adventure at sea measure this space in two ways, revealing two modes of ‘being in the world,’ which are articulated historically. The first mode is dominated by preconceived ideas and beliefs. It allows the maritime space to be marked out by the known means of representing reality, such as the instruments of time and space, the morals of the body, and the models of ideal societies. The second is constituted by the experience of the marine environment and gives priority to images. The space of the sea is then inhabited by man as a poet. By way of the image, the measurement becomes ‘adaptive.’ The phenomenology of poetic images helps us to think of the passage from one measurement to another. What Bachelard calls a ‘creative imagination’ sensitizes space and transforms it into places, settings, and landscapes.

Que gagnent et que dépensent les amateur-trice-s de course à pied?

In this study, the authors analyzed the benefits and costs experienced by amateur runners. The aims of this study were: (1) to inform specialized shops that sell products or services for athletes; (2) to inform and help key sports managers to make decisions; and (3) to inform all athletes on the perks and reimbursements they may benefit from in their practice. The study incorporates three categories of costs (equipment, registration, and travel) and four categories of benefits (sponsoring, reimbursement for travel expenses, invitations to competitions, and performance rewards). A questionnaire was administrated to 1132 athletes in France, from the 33 track and field specialties. The authors excluded from this sample all the jumping and throwing specialties in order to focus only on the 584 runners: 145 sprinters (24,83%), 168 middle-distance runners (28,77%), and 271 long-distance runners (46,40%). Results show that some socio-demographic and cultural variables influence the benefits and costs experienced by amateur runners. More scholarly research is needed to better understand the effects of these variables on sports consumption.

From which level of competition in clubs are adolescents at greater risk of injury compared with outside-of-clubs athletes? A school-based study

ABSTRACT Objectives: Sport practice is a key factor in a person’s physical and mental health but, for adolescent athletes, some injuries lead to health problems in the long term. The literature provides multiple factors for understanding injury but does not give information about injury risk related to each level of play in a large sample of multisport athletes. This study investigates this relationship in 14- to 19-year-old adolescents. Methods: The survey on adolescents and health was conducted in classrooms of France, from February to March 2015. Only sports players were included in the analyses (n = 986). The levels of play were divided into five categories: outside of a club/no competition, club player/no competition, club player/local level, club player/state level and club player/national and higher level. A three-step binary logistic regression analysis with age, sex, type of sport, weekly hours of exposure, and level of play was used. Results: During the past year, 48.1% of the adolescents were injured. Age and sex were not risk factors. The injury risk associated with the increases in level of play is higher than those related to the hours of exposure per week or the type of sport. In clubs, adolescents who do not compete or play at a local level showed no evidence of greater injury risk whereas state-level and national- and higher-level athletes were at greater risk than outside-of-club players (OR = 2.18, 95%CI = 1.13–3.94 and OR = 3.89, 95%CI = 2.07–7.31, respectively). Conclusion: Adolescents who play sports in clubs are clearly more exposed to injury than those who play outside of a club, mainly from state level. Age and sex are not related to injury. Future epidemiological studies should control adolescents’ level of play. Special attention should be accorded to the injury risk of athletes playing at these levels of competition.

Cultures of running: characteristics and determinants

Abstract Based on the studies of Mauss (1935) and Bourdieu (1980) on the determination of body techniques by culture and social background, this study seeks to describe the rules, dispositions and habits specific to different forms of athletic running. It is based on a sample of 732 athletes, all of them are the members of French athletics clubs, comprising 220 sprinters, 213 half-distance runners and 299 long-distance runners. Sports practices are different depending on sub-culture affiliation, sociological characteristics and forms of commitment. This being said, simple links between variables should not be transformed into causal connections. Before drawing such conclusions, it is important to identify the nature of the sport studied. This shows that middle-distance and long-distance enthusiasts, traditionally classified in the same family, have less, in common, than those practising sprint and middle distance. These results potentially question the methodological groups and sociological interpretations made by researchers and sports science.

Conformity to gender stereotypes, motives for riding and aberrant behaviors of French motorcycle riders

Abstract As sex differences are very pronounced in motorcycle crashes, both in terms of number and severity, the present study aims to determine the relationship between gender, motives for riding a motorcycle, and risk-taking behaviors among motorcyclists. Declared aberrant behaviors, conformity to gender stereotypes and motives to ride a motorcycle were investigated among 2262 riders of heavy motorcycles, through an Internet survey. Ages ranged from 18 to 78 years, 10.5% of the respondents were women. Results revealed the new scale on motives for riding a motorcycle was effective and allowed to show that competition motives were associated to masculinity, low femininity and youth. They also showed that maleness, masculinity, youth, and competition motives were predictors of violations and femaleness and low masculinity were predictors of lapses. Furthermore, competition motives were also mediators between masculinity and aberrant behaviors, except for personal protective equipment negligence. This study gives new knowledge on the relationship between conformity to gender stereotypes, motivations, and the behaviors of riders of heavy motorcycles. Results can be useful for adapting prevention campaigns to the small sub-groups that are the more at risk in the motorcyclists’ population.

Temporal Trends in Sports Participation among Adolescents between 2001 and 2015: A French School- and Territory-Based Study

Improving adolescents’ levels of sport and physical activity (PA) is an official public health issue. French national government plans were launched in 2001, 2006, and 2011 to improve the participation levels of citizens. These plans should be monitored. To date, information on temporal trends in sports has come from the national population. However, no data are available to measure temporal trends in different territories across the country. Our study aimed to measure these trends among a representative sample of adolescent students of the third biggest French region (Bouches-du-Rhône), but also one of the poorest, between 2001 and 2015. Three surveys were conducted in 2001, 2008, and 2015 in high schools (n = 3218). Logistic regressions adjusted for age were used to determine the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) on sports participation and to measure the changes in sport participation rates. Participation declined among all subgroups of adolescents: from 79.0% to 65.8%. The greatest decrease was observed for boys with a high SES, whilst the lowest was for the high-SES girls. We observed that SES inequalities in access to sport increased among the girls, whilst they reduced among the boys. National government plans seem to have had limited success in this territory. Next to national studies, there is a need to develop territory specific studies which could show important disparities across the national territory.