Football's Ability to Combat Social Exclusion

Over the past few years there has been a clear shift in governmental focus on the role of sport within British society. The old maxim of ‘sport for sport’s sake’ has been largely superseded by an approach emphasising the role of sport in helping to create a more inclusive social environment (Department for Culture, Media and Sport / Strategy Unit, 2002; Local Government Association, 2001). Sporting excellence is no longer enough on its own, rather sport is seen as a tool to be used in addressing the underlying factors which lead to the exclusion of certain individuals and communities. It is our contention that this political positioning and the related search for funding leads to over ambitious claims for what can be achieved. As the sport with the highest media and public following, football (soccer) is increasingly being challenged regarding its role in addressing this social agenda. In this paper we review some of the available evidence relating to the contribution of football and sport more generally. To do this we shall first examine how ‘social inclusion’ is interpreted; then, adopting a more questioning view of both football and sport, summarise what their contribution to social inclusion might realistically be. We contend that this has to mean considering a more differentiated interpretation of both sport and social inclusion

The Changing Role of the Local State in UK Leisure Provision

In the UK the public sector has had a long history of both providing leisure opportunities and also regulating and encouraging activities of other agents through legislation, enforcement and subsidy. What we seek to do in this paper is to address some of the recent shifts in public sector operation so that readers can perform a comparative analysis with recent developments in their own nation state. Our basic argument is that the experience of the last two decades has been characterised by: i. a gradual fragmentation of the ‘leisure project’ ii. a growing instrumentalism in public policy which increasingly deploys leisure in order to secure wider social goals. iii. an invasive centralisation of policy and a reduction of the power of the local state. These processes are interrelated and are associated with a proliferation of more short term pragmatic policies. These in turn find expression in more centralised project funding and contracting arrangements. The shift away from traditional leisure policy and towards a contract culture was centrally driven in the UK by iconoclastic neoliberalist policies. They were the hallmark of Margaret Thatcher’s years of governance (1979-1990) .This policy direction has been continued, arguably refined and sharpened, by the three successive ‘New Labour’ governments of Tony Blair (1997-2006)

Joining up policy discourses and fragmented practices: The precarious contribution of cultural projects to social inclusion?

This article outlines New Labour's policy discourse about social exclusion and the confusing challenge it poses to local cultural projects. Government now demands hard evidence to measure the impact of cultural projects on performance indicators such as education, employment, crime and health. However, community-based workers are hard pressed to collect valid and reliable data that evaluate projects against clear criteria for social inclusion. This article outlines possible criteria for social inclusion. Then, drawing on data collected from two 'Arts in Health' projects, we examine how contributions to social inclusion might have been effected. Considerable energy is required to form new alliances and health partnerships to resolve the dilemmas posed by a confused policy discourse and by fragile funding streams. © The Policy Press, 2006

Normalisation of shear test data for rate-independent compressible fabrics

This article describes a method of using both picture frame (PF) and bias extension (BE) tests together to characterize accurately the trellis shearing resistance of engineering fabrics under low in-plane tension conditions. Automated image analysis software has been developed to reduce the amount of laborious manual analysis required to interpret BE data accurately. Normalization methods for both PF and BE tests on rate-independent compressible fabrics are presented. Normalization of PF test results is relatively straightforward while normalization of BE test results for direct comparison with PF data is more complicated. The normalization method uses a number of simple assumptions to account for the nonuniform shear strain field induced across BE samples during testing. Normalized results from BE tests on samples of different aspect ratios are compared and provide validation of the theory

Effect of pairing correlations on nuclear low-energy structure: BCS and general Bogoliubov transformation

Low-lying nuclear states of Sm isotopes are studied in the framework of a collective Hamiltonian based on covariant energy density functional theory. Pairing correlation are treated by both BCS and Bogoliubov methods. It is found that the pairing correlations deduced from relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov (RHB) calculations are generally stronger than those by relativistic mean-field plus BCS (RMF+BCS) with same pairing force. By simply renormalizing the pairing strength, the diagonal part of the pairing field is changed in such a way that the essential effects of the off-diagonal parts of the pairing field neglected in the RMF+BCS calculations can be recovered, and consequently the low-energy structure is in a good agreement with the predictions of the RHB model.Comment: 5 figures, 5 page

Count Me In: The dimensions of social inclusion through culture and sport

This study was set up to examine claims made for the ability of cultural projects to promote social inclusion (cultural projects are here taken to include those incorporating sport, the arts, media, heritage and outdoor adventure). This was to be achieved primarily by collecting evidence from a sample of 14 projects selected from some 200 that had volunteered their services. The report to the government’s Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) from the Policy Action Team (PAT10) (1999)2 noted the potential. In his foreword, Chris Smith (then Secretary of State for the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS)) wrote: “… art and sport can not only make a valuable contribution to delivering key outcomes of lower long term unemployment, less crime, better health and better qualifications, but can also help to develop the individual pride, community spirit and capacity for responsibility that enable communities to run regeneration programmes themselves”. Similar statements have followed from other politicians, particularly in the recent Commons debate on sport and social exclusion (22/11/01), and again in the public health debate (13/12/01). However, the PAT 10 report also came to the same conclusion as previous commentators (e.g. Glyptis, 19893; Allison & Coalter, 19964; Long & Sanderson, 19985) that there is little ‘hard’ evidence of the social benefits that accrue

A search for X-ray polarization in cosmic X-ray sources

Fifteen strong X-ray sources were observed by the X-ray polarimeters on board the OSO-8 satellite from 1975 to 1978. The final results of this search for X-ray polarization in cosmic sources are presented in the form of upper limits for the ten sources which are discussed elsewhere. These limits in all cases are consistent with a thermal origin for the X-ray emission

Single and Many Particle Correlation Functions and Uniform Phase Bases for Strongly Correlated Systems

The need for suitable many or infinite fermion correlation functions to describe some low dimensional strongly correlated systems is discussed. This is linked to the need for a correlated basis, in which the ground state may be postive definite, and in which single particle correlations may suffice. A particular trial basis is proposed, and applied to a certain quasi-1D model. The model is a strip of the 2D square lattice wrapped around a cylinder, and is related to the ladder geometries, but with periodic instead of open boundary conditions along the edges. Analysis involves a novel mean-field approach and exact diagonalisation. The model has a paramagnetic region and a Nagaoka ferromagnetic region. The proposed basis is well suited to the model, and single particle correlations in it have power law decay for the paramagnet, where the charge motion is qualitatively hard core bosonic. The mean field also leads to a BCS-type model with single particle long range order.Comment: 23 pages, in plain tex, 12 Postscript figures included. Accepted for publication in J.Physics : Condensed Matte