Stress,Coping, and Emotions on the World Stage: The Experience of Participating in a Major Soccer Tournament Penalty Shootout

This study was designed to capture the first-hand experiences of stressors, coping, and emotions that elite professional soccer players have during a major soccer penalty shootout. Eight players who each took part in an important European Championships penalty shootout were interviewed. The results showed that the experience of stressors, coping, and emotions changed extensively throughout the event. Moreover, the participants experienced a series of different stressors, some of which were specific to the penalty shootout, and they employed a variety of coping strategies. Anxiety was the most common emotion. Practitioners can use these results to help design valid simulation protocols.     

Containment in theory and practice

Abstract

This article selects the term ‘containment’ as a vehicle for an exploration of multi-professional work and communication in the general practice setting. The term was selected because of its widespread use by and relevance to the different professionals who work in general practice. It is sufficiently elastic to be applied to one-to-one work between patients and GPs, counsellors, nurses or complementary therapists, and to a multi-professional teamwork process.

The exploration of the concept in use at Marylebone Health Centre is complicated by the multi-professional nature of the team and then-wide range of belief systems and language groups. In the process of exploring the term, members of the team had to cope with their discovery that it was being used in contradictory ways. They decided that a new and more grounded definition in shared and ordinary (nonprofessional) language was needed, if the term were to become a vehicle for inter-professional collaboration and if unhelpful, anti-task social defences were to be minimised.     

Peer Leadership Programs in Schools

Abstract

This paper presents an outline for implementing a peer leadership program in the schools. It provides a brief overview of the historical roots of peer leadership. This paper also addresses issues relevant to implementing a peer leadership program such as selecting peer leaders, the roles peer leaders play in education, the role of educators in this process and how educators can be involved in peer leadership programs to create a more effective learning environment in the school. Peer leadership is discussed in the context of the public schools with a focus on future directions that peer leadership may pursue.     

Understanding Sarason��s Concepts of School Cultures and Change: Joining a Community in School Improvement Efforts

This paper describes an evolving transformative partnership between a large comprehensive university, an urban school system and a predominantly African‐American, low‐income neighborhood. The partnership's originating intent was to apply an array of university, civic and local resources to improve the academic performance of a neighborhood's schools and the health, welfare and economic well‐being of its residents. The extent to which that partnership would precipitate transactional (Sameroff and Fiese, Handbook of early childhood intervention, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 119–149 in 1990 ) synergies among the partners was unanticipated; the long‐term implications for each of the partners of such unfamiliar interactional processes remain unclear but are being systematically monitored over time. Evident at this point, however, it that a process has been initiated that has impacted how the university community, the local public school system, city government and the target neighborhood relate to each other, collaborate with each other and are changing each other. The pace of that process has varied over the years and challenged each partners' expectations and assumptions about the nature and consequences of their involvement. With time and perseverance, however, it appears that all are moving toward a sense of mutual learning and trust and toward extending to each other the benefit of the doubt. This paper discusses the evolution of that process and its implications for university‐school‐community collaborations.     

Food Systems Change and the Environment: Local and Global Connections

Making changes to the way food is produced, distributed, and processed is one strategy for addressing global climate change. In this case study, we examine the "forming" stage of an emergent and locally-based coalition that is both participatory and focused on promoting food security by creating food systems change. Social network analysis is used to compare network density, centrality, and centralization among coalition partners before the formation of the coalition and at its one-year anniversary. Findings reveal that the coalition facilitated information seeking, assistance seeking, and collaborative efforts related to food security among a group of organizational stakeholders that were relatively disconnected pre-coalition. Results also illuminate tensions related to increased centralization of the network, coalition efficiency, and the goals of democratic decision-making. This study highlights the utility of social network analysis as a tool for evaluating the aims and trajectory of locally-based coalitions focused on global concerns.     

创造力研究的新领域:合作创造力

创造力研究已经从重视个体创造力逐渐走向重视具有复杂互动功能的合作创造力。本文首先论述了合作创造力研究的产生及特点,然后总结了合作创造领域目前研究的主要问题,如个体与群体同一性、个体与群体动机以及有助于创造的个体及环境因素,并指出合作创造力研究领域需要解决的问题,认为应在重视合作创造过程与机制研究的基础上,建构系统的合作创造力理论,同时注重研究合作创造力的支持环境与支持技术,并且发展出合作创造力的评估体系。     

竞争和合作对学龄前儿童分配模式的影响:心理理论和抑制控制的作用

研究考察在双方贡献不相等时,3~6岁儿童分配模式的发展趋势及其原因。98名儿童在竞争或合作情境下和玩偶进行钓鱼游戏,然后对6枚冰箱贴进行分配。结果发现5~6岁儿童比3~4岁儿童进行平均分配的比例更高,一级心理理论和抑制控制能力完全中介了年龄的效应。和竞争情境相比,合作情境促进儿童进行平均分配,同时情境调节了抑制控制对分配模式的影响。研究表明一级心理理论和抑制控制能力的发展能够解释学龄前儿童分配模式的变化。     

Collaboration with Urban Community Stakeholders: Refining Paraprofessional‐led Services to Promote Positive Parenting

This paper describes the process of a community–academic partnership to navigate implementation challenges for a school‐based service model led by paraprofessionals to promote positive parenting in high poverty urban communities. We describe the process by which we (a) identified implementation challenges, (b) sustained a university–community collaboration to redesign the paraprofessional service model, and (c) assessed the feasibility of the new model involving four social service agencies in 16 schools with over 600 families. The structure and process of the collaboration and refinement are described with attention to who was best positioned to engage in the collaboration and how the partnership worked to balance scientific rigor with responsiveness to paraprofessional workforce strengths. Feasibility data indicated that the revised model was successfully implemented by paraprofessional staff; 92.2% of possible staff monthly reports were completed and discussion of key goals was incorporated into 94.2% of interactions. Continual monitoring provided critical feedback from stakeholders as we drew on and interpreted these various sources of information to build and refine the service model. We suggest that these processes are critical steps to bridge the research‐to‐practice gap, by promoting practices that are aligned with the needs of children and families, and the staff who serve them.     

“Communities isn't just about trees and shops”: students from two South African universities engage in dialogue about ‘community’ and ‘community work’

The question of what constitutes ‘a community’ or even ‘the community’ takes on an extra salience in a divided society such as South Africa where the entire environment remains imprinted with the legacy of enforced segregation along racial lines. Higher education institutions need to prepare emerging health and social service students for the world of practice in a context of diversity, continuing segregation and marked inequality. As one step to helping students deal with working in a divided society, academic departments from two different South African universities have been involved in a collaborative teaching and research project. Fourth year psychology and social work students from the two universities took part in a collaborative, practical course which formed part of their curricula. In this course, students were given the opportunity to engage with the notion of ‘community’ and ‘community work’ with each other. The students came from diverse racial, class and political backgrounds, and by engaging with one another as they did, had the opportunity to ‘visit’ worlds they have rarely had access to. While this course was able to achieve a broadening awareness among students from different backgrounds about the notion of community, it will take both more engagement with courses of this kind, and a continuing history of change in South Africa, for students to feel more comfortable in transcending both physical and psychological boundaries. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.