Active older people participating in creative dance - challenging perceptions

This case-study research report explores “active older people participating in creative dance”, implications and benefits for individuals and society and ways people from different work sectors, organisations and academic disciplines can work together. The research period March 2011 – 2016 includes social/political contexts where financial recession, demographic change and the ageing population require new solutions to meet local and national challenges. The research’s four phases involve new work and research with increasing reflexivity between them benefitting practice and informing the research. There are three aspects of inquiry: older people who have chosen to dance at this stage of their lives, my work practice and desk-top research including social gerontology, dance, community development, boundary-spanning, image, connectedness and spirituality. The research adapts overtime, benefitting from my varied positionalities as an older person and dancer having access to others choosing to dance, using skills and expertise from my previous teaching and management careers and voluntary work to new evolving work activities. This includes founding/managing a local grassroots older people’s creative dance organisation, performing dance, local and national networking and advising. The research includes conversations with some dance-providers and decision-makers in addition to in-depth phenomenological conversational interviews with eleven non-professional older dancers. Examples of the older dancers’ narratives bring new insights and vibrancy to the research. Their texts were carefully transcribed, then using NVIVO 10 software, analysed and interpreted. Emerging topics interweave with other data and evidence from literature and new reports, autoethnography, observations and live evidence from work activities. Self-designed models, tools and matrices give the research underpinning structures and ways to analyse, interpret and synthesise the different data. The research becomes an analytical, reflexive, creative “dancing-journey”. Topics emerge from themes involving individuals, active older people, dance, especially creative dance, participation, images and challenging perceptions. It increasingly becomes multidisciplinary with transdisciplinarity (Gibbs & Maguire 2015; Nicolescu, 2008). The results include fifteen findings and ten recommendations. Relevant terminology for those aged 50-105+ years is lacking, and they are not one cohort but individuals and groups with different life-styles and needs. Ageism needs to be actively challenged. “Active older people’s creative dance” is becoming mainstream and more dance choices need to be available. Decision/policy makers need to consider dance activities seriously because dance contributes to many older people becoming involved in arts, leisure and cultural activities and having better health and wellbeing in later life. Collaboration between different factions of the dance world will give dance more recognition and a stronger voice. More age-friendly environments are needed with dance being available for all who want to participate. Grass-roots organisations and independent dance-artists/facilitators require support and resources. Boundary-spanning and joined-up thinking across organisations encourages new solutions to be found to meet some 21st century issues. Dance challenges perceptions about ageing, contributing to understanding, connectedness and spirituality and brings people together. This work-based research makes a timely contribution, bringing together older people’s voices, work-based practice, theory and learning to create new knowledge that can inform future research and practice, whether large or small scale

Investigating the value of workplace-endorsed social media for improving deskbound employee physical activity program engagement and reducing sedentary behaviour health risks

Sedentary (prolonged sitting) behaviour is now recognised as an independent health risk factor contributing to a number of preventable lifestyle related diseases (Katzmarzyk, Church, Craig, & Bouchard, 2009). The widespread integration of computers into the office environment has seen an increase in employee work time participating in technology facilitated desk-based tasks requiring them to remain physically inactive (Philipson & Posner, 2003). According to recent research, workplace sedentary behavioural practices have objectively been measured as accounting for 81.8% of employee time, with a further 15.3% categorised as light activity within office based populations (Parry & Straker, 2013). With a recorded national employment rate of 11,613,900 employees representing 64.6% of the total population as at November 2014 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2014b), this recognisably poses significant need to develop mitigating strategies in reducing sedentary related health and business impacts. In recognition of the employee health hazards associated with prolonged workplace sedentary behaviours, increasing numbers of organisations have sought to mitigate this risk by introducing a variety of workplace wellness programs, many of which incorporate a physical activity (PA) focus or component. Owing to the huge increase in popularity of social media in recent years, there has been increased research into the effectiveness of utilising internet-enabled social media to foster enhanced participant engagement with workplace PA programs (Williams, Hamm, Shulhan, Vandermeer, & Hartling, 2014). This research therefore sought to investigate the value of workplace-endorsed social media for improving the engagement of deskbound employees in workplace PA programs and reducing the health risks associated with sedentary behaviour. It also investigated the influence of organisational cultural on employee engagement with workplace physical activity programs including both the perceived and actual experiences of using social media in association with a globalised workplace physical activity program. In association with iconic West Australian health insurance organisation HBF Health, two studies were conducted using of a number of participant data collection techniques including focus groups, surveys, and interviews which were further complemented by the adoption of an ethnographic participant-observational approach over 24 months. This extensive workplace embedded exposure afforded a well-qualified perspective of workplace cultural influences, participatory responses and organisational endorsement for workplace wellbeing incorporating social media enabled PA programs. Within both studies, predominantly sedentary employees were questioned on their perceptions of workplace health enhancement through social media as well as following active participation in a globalised workplace PA program utilising various forms of social media. This research found that desk-based employees participating in a workplace PA program identified value in using peer-supportive social media to address sedentary behaviour and other health risks within their office workplace. It was also acknowledged that in-house organisational social media based communication systems were seen as offering localised benefits that more globally-oriented social media mechanisms could not deliver

Avoiding the 'easy route': young peoples' socio-spatial experience of the outdoors in the absence of digital technology

Over-use of smartphones and under-engagement in outdoor pursuits are popularly touted as inter-dependent phenomena with various implications for the health and well-being of young people. At the same time, there has been a relative lack of social scientific scrutiny on the topic which, we contend, has been stifled by the imperative to avoid ontological distinctions between the ‘technological/virtual’ and the ‘real’, as well as deterministic renditions on the role of technology in social life. In this paper we provide evidence to reanimate this discussion by drawing into focus that, from the perspectives of young people themselves, there are and remain discernible differences in the socio-spatial relationships mediated by the presence/absence of technology in different settings. The empirical material draws on participant observation, walking- and group-interviews with young people taking part in the UK’s Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, which requires them to undertake outdoor expeditions without their smartphones. We use the metaphor of ‘avoiding the easy route’ to emphasise the differences in experience that manifest themselves for young people during co-present, and often more challenging, embodied encounters. We argue that co-present encounters with places and others are often fuller in terms of the breadth of embodied sensory experience, and often more difficult in terms of i) the kinaesthetic experience of place and ii) the non-selectivity of social relationships. The combination and sharing of these difficulties, we further argue, has a moral and political function in ordering young people's environmental and social values

The impact of digital technologies on teaching and learning

This thesis explores the impact of new technologies on learning and teaching and draws on research work carried out over a ten-year period. The thesis looks at the facilitators and barriers to using digital technologies effectively and explores the challenges for educators as they respond to the changes brought about by these digital technologies. It presents eight published works that have investigated the impact of digital technologies and collected data using a range of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The core paper provides a model by which the impact of digital technologies can be analysed and understood and the remaining papers populate that model. The model identifies a system of learning spaces that describe the ways that learners, teachers and managers respond to the challenges and opportunities that digital technologies bring to learning. The papers explore how the school space, the teaching space, the personal learning space and the living space have all been transformed by digital technologies. These papers highlight the ongoing tension within education brought about by the conflicting ambitions of managers to control learning while at the same time encouraging personalisation. The papers consider the nature of digital divides and also the potential hazards presented to young people by digital technologies. Finally, the papers explore the relationship between the use of digital technologies and academic achievement. The work presented here provides a coherent contribution to the field that offers new understandings of the impact of digital technologies on learning, and identifies key issues for further research