Gender, health and physical activity in the digital age:between postfeminism and pedagogical possibilities

In this paper, I reflect on the numerous contributions of feminist research in helping to frame critical analyses of contemporary health imperatives and their impact on girls’ experiences of their bodies and subjectivities. I then consider recent trends towards the digitisation of girl’s bodies across both formal and informal sites of learning. Digital technologies are increasingly being used in physical and health education to track and monitor young people’s ‘health behaviours’. Evidence is also emerging that digital health technologies, mobile apps, social media and wearable lifestyle technologies are growing in popularity amongst young people but can have potentially far-reaching effects on their health practices, identities and well-being. I argue that new digitised cultures of health and fitness are sites within which gendered pedagogies circulate and reflect a postfeminist sensibility of consumption, surveillance and self-actualisation. I then consider how the proliferation of these technologies and new forms of engagement with the body, inform or challenge gender inequalities. As the title suggests, in terms of gendered norms, digital health technologies can be used to govern bodies and subjectivities but also provide opportunities for resistance; reflecting a postfeminist sensibility but also providing pedagogical possibilities for resistance.</p

Single-cell transcriptomics : a high-resolution avenue for plant functional genomics

Plant function is the result of the concerted action of single cells in different tissues. Advances in RNA-seq technologies and tissue processing allow us now to capture transcriptional changes at single-cell resolution. The incredible potential of single-cell RNA-seq lies in the novel ability to study and exploit regulatory processes in complex tissues based on the behaviour of single cells. Importantly, the independence from reporter lines allows the analysis of any given tissue in any plant. While there are challenges associated with the handling and analysis of complex datasets, the opportunities are unique to generate knowledge of tissue functions in unprecedented detail and to facilitate the application of such information by mapping cellular functions and interactions in a plant cell atlas. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Exploring the relationship between pedagogy and physical cultural studies:The case of new health imperatives in schools

This paper explores how we might better engage with pedagogy as a feature of the growing field of Physical Cultural Studies (Andrews, 2006). It is promulgated that pedagogy and physical culture, as disciplines, may benefit from a much stronger dialogical engagement. In progressing these discussions, the paper draws on the case of the current interest in what is putatively described as a childhood obesity epidemic, to illustrate how physical cultural practices relating to “health” produce public pedagogy which speaks to a complex interplay of political, social and technological relationships.</jats:p

"Any lady can do this without much trouble ...": class and gender in The dining room (1878)

Macmillan's "Art at Home" series (1876–83) was a collection of domestic advice manuals. Mentioned in every study of the late-nineteenth-century domestic interior, they have often been interpreted, alongside contemporary publications such as Charles Eastlake's Hints on Household Taste (1868), as indicators of late 1870s home furnishing styles. Mrs Loftie's The Dining Room (1878) was the series' fifth book and it considers one of the home's principal (and traditionally masculine) domestic spaces. Recent research on middle-class cultural practices surrounding food has placed The Dining Room within the tradition of Mrs Beeton's Household Management (1861); however, it is not a cookery book and hardly mentions dinners. Drawing upon unpublished archival sources, this paper charts the production and reception of The Dining Room, aiming to unravel its relationships with other contemporary texts and to highlight the difficulties of using it as historical evidence. While it offers fascinating insights into contemporary taste, class and gender, this paper suggests that, as an example of domestic design advice literature, it reveals far more about the often expedient world of nineteenth-century publishing practices

Media, ‘Fat Panic’ and Public Pedagogy:Mapping Contested Terrain

Discourses regarding a ‘global obesity crisis’ and alternative frames (e.g. weight-inclusive approaches to health) have proliferated through various media of communication. These media range from traditional print and visual formats (e.g. newspapers and television shows) to digital media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube), which enable different publics to produce, and not just consume, text, images and other data relating to the body. Reflecting a sociological understanding of educational practices as extending beyond formal schooling, mediated obesity discourse and counter-movements have also been conceptualised as public pedagogies, which instruct people how to relate to their own and other's bodies, health and subjectivities. This article examines what is critically known about various media at a time when governments and agencies are reinvigorating the global war on obesity, with populations being ‘advised’ to become and remain conscientious weight watchers. In conclusion, the article underscores the salience of social studies of the media when seeking to rethink obesity, incorporating critical reference to moral panic theory and the need to better understand what media can ‘do’ as enactments of public pedagogy.</p

BECOMING AVATAR:CO-CREATING GIRL’S PHYSICAL EDUCATION KIT ON 3D GAMING BODIES

For almost four decades, research within the field of physical education (PE) pedagogy has studied girls’ disengagement. Findings from these studies have highlighted several barriers to engagement such as the kit. The exploration of how PE kits affect young girls has not been widely researched within the social sciences and therefore, a gap in the literature has been identified. This pilot study, which is part of a wider PhD project, seeks to understand how the uniformed body affects girls felt experiences of PE. The kits worn for PE can be viewed as a means to discipline and control the body. Therefore, by giving power and agency back to girls to re-design the materiality of their PE kit, an improvement in engagement within PE may occur. A new materialist co-creative methodology was developed that applied fashion design principles and 3D video gaming to enable girls to re-imagine their school PE kit. Using print design on custom-made content for the SIMS 4 video game, four girls ages 10 -14 re-designed their school kit and wore them virtually in the game. The findings showed that using a co-creative approach, incorporating fashion design and video game avatars, to help facilitate the design of a kit relevant to the girls does have the potential to engage girls within school PE lessons. It is suggested that for more robust and conclusive findings, a larger study should be undertaken in UK secondary schools

Stressors that Affect Interracial versus Intraracial Relationships

Interracial relationships have become more common over the last fifty years, but they still make up only a small percentage of marriages in the United States. The following study investigates, first, whether individuals in interracial relationships report higher levels of stress and depressive symptoms and lower levels of relationship commitment than those in intraracial, or same-race, relationships. The study also evaluates whether these higher levels of stress and depressive symptoms will be mediated by the racial discrimination individuals face when with their partner and/or the stress of experiencing less social support from friends, family, and society because of their relationship. A survey was distributed via email to 33 individuals who identified as members of an interracial relationship and 67 individuals in an intraracial relationship. This survey included questions about relationship commitment, relationship with family and friends, perceived discrimination, and stress and depressive symptoms. Results show no association between relationship investment and type of relationship, nor was there an association between family and friend relationships and type of relationship. There was, however, a higher level of perceived discrimination reported by interracial versus intraracial couples. Moreover, perceived discrimination mediated the association between type of relationship and perceived stress and depressive symptoms. Overall, findings do not fully support the hypotheses; however, this could be due to idiosyncrasies in the sample that was surveyed. Implications of findings are discussed.Bachelor of Art