On the aesthetic potential of sports and physical education

Even though there is a general presence of aesthetics in school curricula in most of western countries, both at the level of terminology and at the level of choice and definition of contents, objectives and skills to be developed, the approach to sports and physical education potential for the development of aesthetic education of students still does not seem to be a reality in the agenda of this subject. Moreover, it is not transversal in terms of its different didactic contents. In order to explore its relevance, the aim of this work was to deepen how aesthetics is internal and central to sports experience, and which elements of sports and physical education lived experiences can be relevant in the promotion and development of the aesthetic sensibility of students. We propose the deepening of the subject through an hermeneutical qualitative research approach, confronting the content collected in 19 semi-structured interviews that enabled the thematic analysis of its content, and through it, the discussion of viewpoints of representative subjects among those that are the main players in the consideration of an aesthetic education through sport, namely physical education teachers and researchers in the context of aesthetics and sports sciences. With the information gathered and after its processing, we could conclude that there are aesthetic elements of sport's experience that should be taken into account in an aesthetic educational point of view of physical education, namely: complexity, diversity, playability, tension between drama and accuracy, overcoming experience, risk and vulnerability, unpredictable storylines and uncertainty, technique and effectiveness.     

Understanding Undergraduate Plagiarism in the Context of Students’ Academic Experience

Journal of Academic Ethics - Previous research has shown that student plagiarism is the product of interplay between individual and situational factors. The present study examined the relationship...     

Child and family‐related predictors of psychological outcomes in children adopted from abroad; what is the role of caregiver time?

International adoptees need to cope with stressful transitions and to develop secure attachment with their caregivers at the same time. Although most children adopted from abroad adjust fine, they are at increased risk of psychological problems. We investigated whether both child and family‐related factors are associated with later psychological problems and whether the length of time spent at home after adoption before daycare moderates these associations among internationally adopted children in Finland (FinAdo, Finnish Adoption Study). The sample consisted of 1,265 children (708 girls, 557 boys) who arrived in Finland before they started school (mean age 2 years at arrival). Later behavioral problems were measured using the Child Behavior Check List (CBCL). According to our results, male gender, older age, child's early clinical symptoms (problems of sensory processing) and single parenthood were associated with later behavioral problems measured by CBCL scores. Longer stay at home before the start of daycare or school modified these results. Longer stay at home was associated with less later behavioral externalizing problems in girls but not in boys compared to those who spent a shorter time at home.     

A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Test of the Low Sensitivity to Threat and Affiliative Reward (STAR) Model of Callous-Unemotional Traits Among Spanish Preschoolers

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Despite advances in the theoretical and empirical literature, a better understanding of the etiological determinants of callous-unemotional (CU)...     

Equine Facilitated Therapy with Children and Adolescents Who Have Been Sexually Abused: A Program Evaluation Study

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a social problem that often inflicts long lasting psychological trauma and leads to psychopathology, behavioural problems and re-victimization. Treating young people who are presenting with the detrimental effects of CSA is often difficult because these effects off-set efforts at establishing a therapeutic bond. Animals have been found to facilitate the development of the therapeutic alliance between client and practitioner and therapies utilizing horses have the added bonus of empowering clients. This study aimed to evaluate an Equine Facilitated Program (EFT) run by Phoenix House, a sexual assault referral centre in Queensland, Australia. Participants were six boys and nine girls (aged 8–11 years) and 15 adolescent girls (aged 12–17 years). All participants provided several measures of data designed to establish levels of psychological distress at three points in time. That is, Time 1—intake into the service; Time 2—following approximately 6 weeks of in-clinic counselling and pre-EFT; and Time 3 post-EFT (9–10 week duration). Significant improvements in functioning were found between Time 2 and Time 3 assessment across all psychometric measures and for both age groups. No, or non-significant, improvements were found between Time 1 and Time 2 assessments. Overall the results show that EFT proved an effective therapeutic approach for the children and adolescents referred to the service. Of particular note was the finding that efficacy was similar across gender, age and Indigenous/non-Indigenous status. Implications of this and suggestions for further research are discussed.     

Body and meaning

Abstract

This paper discusses the very important but disregarded theme of somatization. Somatizers comprise a wide-ranging group of patients, who normally choose to consult doctors rather than psychoanalysts for treatment. We present two clinical reports of somatizing patients in which the psychoanalyst played a considerable role in the study and treatment of their problems. The subjects were not only totally relieved of their physical symptoms, but also dramatically changed their psychic lives.     

Topological representations of Post algebras of order ω+ and open theories based on ω+-valued Post logic

Post algebras of order ⁺ as a semantic foundation for ⁺-valued predicate calculi were examined in [5]. In this paper Post spaces of order ⁺ being a modification of Post spaces of order n2 (cf. Traczyk [8], Dwinger [1], Rasiowa [6]) are introduced and Post fields of order ⁺ are defined. A representation theorem for Post algebras of order ⁺ as Post fields of sets is proved. Moreover necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of representations preserving a given set of infinite joins and infinite meets are established and applied to Lindenbaum-Tarski algebras of elementary theories based on ⁺-valued predicate calculi in order to obtain a topological characterization of open theories.     

Plain Semi-Post algebras as a poset-based generalization of post algebras and their representability

Semi-Post algebras of any type T being a poset have been introduced and investigated in [CR87a], [CR87b]. Plain Semi-Post algebras are in this paper singled out among semi-Post algebras because of their simplicity, greatest similarity with Post algebras as well as their importance in logics for approximation reasoning ([Ra87a], [Ra87b], [RaEp87]). They are pseudo-Boolean algebras generated in a sense by corresponding Boolean algebras and a poset T. Every element has a unique descending representation by means of elements in a corresponding Boolean algebra and primitive Post constants which form a poset T. An axiomatization and another characterization, subalgebras, homomorphisms, congruences determined by special filters and a representability theory of these algebras, connected with that for Boolean algebras, are the subject of this paper.To the memory of Jerzy SupeckiResearch reported here has been supported by Polish Government Grant CPBP 01.01     

Androgyny,depression, and self-esteem in irish homosexual and heterosexual males and females

An examination was made of the following research questions: (a) Do Irish homosexuals and heterosexuals differ in the frequency of their classification in sex-role categories? (b) Is sexual orientation related to psychological adjustment? (c) Is androgyny related to psychological adjustment? Subjects were 112 Irish men and women who were administered Bem's Sex-Role Inventory, Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale, Zung's Self-Rating Depression Scale, and a questionnaire. Results indicated that Irish homosexuals were classified more frequently than Irish heterosexuals as androgynous. Homosexuals did not differ from heterosexuals in self-esteem or depression scores. Among these Irish subjects, psychological sex-role category is a more powerful influence on psychological health than actual sexual orientation. It is not whether you are homosexual or heterosexual that affects your psychological health, but how you perceive your own psychological masculinity and femininity.