The Belts are Set Out: The Batizado as a Symbolic Welcome to Capoeira Culture

ORCID iD: Neil Stephens - https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3871-0887.Copyright © The Author(s) 2021. In contemporary capoeira groups, newcomers are symbolically ‘baptised’ into the community at a public ceremony called their Batizado (literally baptism) held during a festival. Novices play a game with a guest expert, get their first belt and thereafter they are members of their teacher’s group. Drawing on a long term, two-handed ethnography of diasporic capoeira contemporanea in the UK, including observation of 53 such festivals, their ceremonial features are analysed. At all the stages of the ‘welcome’, before, during and after the batizado, the topic of gender in capoeira contemporanea is explored. In the last 40 years, women have become enthusiastic participants and are core members of the groups we have studied. The article compares the sociological (symbolic interactionist) and anthropological approaches to ceremonies and rituals such as the capoeira batizado, drawing on Glaser, Strauss and Katz compared to van Gennep, Turner and MacAloon.Funding: The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

Motivation in physical education across the primary-secondary school transition

The purpose of this study was to examine the temporal patterns of approach-avoidance achievement goals, implicit theories of ability and perceived competence in physical education across the transition from primary to secondary school. We also evaluated the predictive utility of implicit theories and perceived competence with regard to achievement goal adoption, and determined the moderating influence of gender on temporal patterns and antecedent–goal relationships. One hundred and forty pupils (mean age at start of study = 11.37 years, SD =.28) completed measures of entity and incremental beliefs, perceived competence and goals on four occasions during a 12-month period. Mastery-approach, performance-approach and perform-ance-avoidance goals, as well as entity and incremental beliefs, exhibited a linear decline over time. Mastery-avoidance goals showed no significant change. Girls exhibited a linear decline in perceived competence, whereas for boys the trajectory was curvilinear. Competence perceptions predicted initial scores, but not rate of change, on mastery-approach and both types of performance goals. Incrementa

Conclusions

What is the function of parent–child argumentation? This chapter intends to answer the main research question that has guided the study presented in this volume and open a discussion for future research on this topic. In the first part, the chapter provides a detailed overview of the main findings of the analysis of parent–child argumentative discussions during mealtime. The role played by parents and children in the inception and development of argumentation, and the types of conclusions of their argumentative discussions are described. Subsequently, two educational targets achieved by parents and children through their argumentative interactions are presented and critically discussed. In the last part, new open questions that should guide future investigation to expand our knowledge of the role and function of argumentation between parents and children are proposed

No good surprises: intending lecturers' preconceptions and initial experiences of further education

Current initiatives to promote lifelong learning and a broader inclusiveness in post-16 education have focused attention on further education (FE). The article examines the experiences and reactions of 41 intending lecturers studying full-time for a Postgraduate Certificate in Further Education and Training (PGCET), as they enter FE colleges on teaching practice and encounter FE students for the first time. It argues that the sector may have something to learn from the contrast between these intending lecturers' expectations and their subsequent experiences, and that attempts to address problems which are endemic within the current FE sector by initiatives to improve teacher competence, such as the Further Education National Training Organisation (FENTO)'s recently introduced FE teacher training standards, are inadequate and misdirected

Further education sector governors as ethnographers: five case studies

This paper considers how governors in the English Further Education and Skills (FE) sector examined their practice as ethnographers. The paper locates both FE governance and ethnography within the challenges of the performative and Panoptic environments facing English education. In doing so, the paper explores how the informants’ mobilisation of ethnographic methods revealed a novel lens on both governance and the role of ethnographer. Employing Grounded Theory, the paper considers how the participants negotiated philosophical questions regarding evidence, objectivity and truth. The paper suggests that despite the deep-seated complexities inherent in conducting ethnography in performative contexts, the participants generated data which painted a unique and revealing picture upon their practice as governor and researcher

Performativity, fabrication and trust: exploring computer-mediated moderation

Based on research conducted in an English secondary school, this paper explores computer mediated moderation as a performative tool. The Module Assessment Meeting (MAM) was the moderation approach under investigation. I mobilise ethnographic data generated by a key informant, and triangulated with that from other actors in the setting, in order to examine some of the meanings underpinning moderation within a performative environment. Drawing on the work of Ball (2003), Lyotard (1979) and Foucault (1977, 1979), I argue that in this particular case performativity has become entrenched in teachers’ day-to-day practices, and not only affects those practices but also teachers’ sense of self. I suggest that MAM represented performative and fabricated conditions and (re)defined what the key participant experienced as a vital constituent of her educational identities - trust. From examining the case in point, I hope to have illustrated for those interested in teachers’ work some of the implications of the interface between technology and performativity

Supervision and Scholarly Writing: Writing to Learn - Learning to Write

This paper describes an action research project on postgraduate students’ scholarly writing in which I employed reflective approaches to examine and enhance my postgraduate supervisory practice. My reflections on three distinct cycles of supervision illustrate a shift in thinking about scholarly writing and an evolving understanding of how to support postgraduate students’ writing. These understandings provide the foundation for a future-oriented fourth cycle of supervisory practice, which is characterised by three principles, namely the empowerment of students as writers, the technological context of contemporary writing, and ethical issues in writing

Enacting informal science learning: exploring the battle for informal learning

Informal Science Learning (ISL) is a policy narrative of interest in the UK and abroad. This paper explores how a group of English secondary school science teachers, enacted ISL science clubs through employing the Periodic Table of Videos (PTOV). It examines how these teachers ‘battled’ to enact ISL policy in performative (Lyotard, 1979) conditions at the micro-scale, and how this battle reflected macro-scale epistemological and political considerations. Data from the study suggests that for some, ISL was low-stakes as it was seen to have negligible impact upon performance data. As a result, there was some resistance toward enacting ISL and conflict between the formal and informal curriculum processes. Nonetheless, analysis indicates that the informants highly valued ISL despite the requirement for them to justify it over more formal and ‘effective’ approaches to learning science