"My own way of moving" - movement improvisation in children's rehabilitation

This article investigates the ways that children with different motor disabilities move in an improvisational context. We developed and implemented a one-year long movement improvisation program in which 12 children with different motor disabilities participated in weekly sessions under the practical leadership of two dance teachers and the researchers. The project's theoretical perspective and research approach are based on a phenomenological perspective that emphasizes movement as a personal, relational, and expressive phenomenon. The empirical material was developed and created through close observation and consists of the researchers' kinaesthetically lived experiences, video observations, and logbooks from the weekly movement improvisation sessions. In the article, we present and reflect upon five episodes from one activity regularly performed during the year. The article shows that movement improvisation can, over a period of time, offer children with motor disabilities an opportunity to explore their personal ways of moving together with others. The analysis explores how and why the children gradually felt secure enough to throw themselves into exploring their own movement possibilities and how improvisation promoted their desire to keep on moving

Structural Discrimination in Physical Education. The “Encounter” Between the (White) Norwegian Teaching Content in Physical Education Lessons and Female Students of Color's Movements and Expressions

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Everybody Can Dance—Except Aging Professional Dancers! A Discussion of the Construction of the Aging Dancing Body in Four Dance Texts

The subject of the article is a critical investigation of research concerning age and dance. Our objective is to investigate whether and how researchers express their ideas about dance and age in a selection of research papers. We are particularly interested in whether researchers are reproducing an instrumental understanding of age in the context of dance and whether discourses of dance define bodies as older or younger in ways that differ from the definitions used in other social contexts. What kind of assumptions about the abilities of dancers form the baseline expectations of researchers? We wonder if harming the body is an implicit part of dance practice that operates as a tacit premise in the understanding of age and dance. Through a document analysis of several research texts on dance and age, we try to identify what kinds of meanings, expectations, and bodies such documents convey and produce. One of our findings from the analysis of the literature is that young dancers from western European countries and the U.S. are concerned with age throughout their entire career, while in dance practices in Japan, being an older dancer is regarded as a as a value that gives flavor and energy to both to aging and dance in a shared interaffective and mutual space.publishedVersio

Når fedmekirurgi vurderes som «siste sjanse»

Bakgrunn: Fedmekirurgi har i løpet av de siste årene etablert seg som en medisinsk metode i eksplosiv vekst. Stadig flere får tilbud om denne behandlingsmetoden, og av disse er over 70 % kvinner. Hensikt: Å undersøke kvinners begrunnelser for å velge fedmekirurgisk behandling. Metode: Empirien baserer seg på individuelle dybdeintervju med 22 norske kvinner som alle hadde gjennomgått en gastric-bypass operasjon. Funnene er analysert tematisk. Resultater: Mye står på spill når kvinner velger fedmekirurgisk behandling, både helsemessig og sosialt. De risikerte alvorlig sykdom og tidlig død om de ikke gikk betydelig ned i vekt. På den andre siden risikerte de å få alvorlige og livstruende komplikasjoner, samt plagsomme bivirkninger som følge av selve operasjonen. Stilt overfor dette dilemmaet ble et annet aspekt vurdert som betydningsfullt, nemlig ønsket om å få en sosialt akseptert kropp. Konklusjon: Kvinnenes tiltro til kirurgi som deres siste sjanse var særlig relatert til frykten for hva som kunne skje om de lot være å benytte seg av denne behandlingen. Det var vanskelig å ta innover seg at behandlingen i seg selv kunne resultere i problematiske bivirkninger og livstruende komplikasjoner. Denne troen på at det kun finnes et alternativ må sees i lys av fedmekirurgiens framvekst som medisinsk behandlingsmetode, hvordan det er blitt et kommersielt felt, samt tidens sterke idealisering av slanke og faste kropper

A dialogical encounter with teaching practice-based subjects in higher education

The intention of this article is from a phenomenological perspective to “unpack” the role of emotions when teaching practice-based subjects in higher education. When teaching practice-based subjects, educators’ embodied expressions and personal understanding affect both teachers’ and students’ knowledge production. The academic and the political worlds have a vested interest in understanding and improving methods of teaching and learning in higher education, and concepts such as accountability and performativity are used to indicate quality in education, whereas the affective and embodied knowledge tend to be unterminated. In this article, the authors investigate the teacher’s body as a knowledge producing and productive resource in teaching practice-based subjects. Analysis of the dialogue between two teachers shows how expressing the intersubjective and subjective dialogues in- and between them illuminates qualities such as daring to be a bodily perceptive and emotional being, listening within and the experience of teaching and learning simultaneously, trusting bodily sensations, and letting the students be who they are. By applying theoretical concepts to teachers’ descriptions of classroom experiences, this article contributes perspectives and sheds light upon human knowledge in professional relations.publishedVersio

The role of sensous flow and sensing the ground in movement skill experiences—a reflection using the practice of yoga as an example

This contribution takes a phenomenological approach to explore the sensuous flow and perceived experiences in practicing movement skills, using the practice of yoga as a case study. The article focuses on the role of perception and the anonymous aspect of the body's responses in practicing skills and capabilities to move, with yoga as an example. The author uses a phenomenological framework, highlighting how passivity and sensuous flow is available in the practice of yoga. Edmund Husserl's concepts of passive synthesis and Thomas Fuch & Sabine Koch interpretation of bodily resonance and Kym Maclaren's “letting be” are used as analytic frames to illuminate how movement experiences are dependent on bodily awareness towards the ground, without demanding conscious willpower or focus on force, but listening and sensing with and from the body. The article aims to illuminate the ambiguous character of how movement experienced from a first-person perspective gains importance by understanding oneself, others, and the world as reciprocal and intertwined phenomena

“My quality of life is worse compared to my earlier life”: Living with chronic problems after weight loss surgery

Weight loss surgery is commonly regarded as improving individuals' health and social life, and resulting in a happier and more active life for those defined as “morbidly obese.” However, some researchers have started to doubt whether these positive outcomes apply to everyone and this article explores this doubt further. More specifically, we focus on the experiences of women whose life situation became worse after weight loss surgery. The material draws on qualitative interviews of five Norwegian women undergoing the irreversible gastric bypass procedure. Our findings illustrate that the women lived seemingly “normal” lives prior to the surgery with few signs of illness. Worries about future illness as well as social stigma because of their body shape motivated them to undergo weight loss surgery. After the surgery, however, their situation was profoundly changed and their lives were dramatically restricted. Chronic pain, loss of energy, as well as feelings of shame and failure for having these problems not only limited their social lives but it also made them less physically active. In addition, they had difficulties taking care of their children, and functioning satisfactorily at work. Accordingly, the women gradually felt more “disabled,” regarding themselves as “outsiders” whose problems needed to be kept private. The results highlight some “subtle” consequences of weight loss surgery, particularly the shame and stigma experienced by those whose lives became dramatically worse. Living in a society where negative impacts of weight loss surgery are more or less neglected in research as well as in the public debate the women seemed to suffer in silence. Their problems were clearly present and felt in the body but not talked about and shared with others

Kunnskapsformer i kroppsøvingslæreres undervisning – en analyse av profesjonskunnskap

Forskning på læreres profesjonskunnskap viser til at lærere bruker kunnskapsformer fra forskjellige fagområder i sin undervisning. Hvilke kunnskapsformer som inngår i kroppsøvingslærerens profesjonskunnskap, er imidlertid lite utforsket. Problemstillingen i denne artikkelen er: Hvilke kunnskapsformer kommer til uttrykk hos lærere når de underviser elever i kroppsøving? Artikkelens materiale ble skapt fra observasjoner av undervisningspraksiser i kroppsøving ved fire videregående skoler i Oslo. Analyseperspektivet hentes fra forskningslitteraturen om lærerprofesjonen (Gilje, 2017; Hermansen et al., 2018; Jensen et al., 2022). Funnene viser at når lærerne underviser elevene i helse og trening, brukes primært teoretisk kunnskap fra treningslære og medisinsk helsevitenskap. Videre at den mest brukte undervisningsmåten er vise-forklare-øve. I vise-forklare-øve baserer lærerne seg på teoretisk kunnskap om motorisk læring og aktivitetslære, samt at de demonstrerer praktiske idrettsferdigheter for hvordan elevene skal utføre bevegelser. Det finnes også situasjoner i materialet der læreren bruker praktisk ferdighetskunnskap som fremhever kvaliteter ved bevegelser elevene kan gjenkjenne. Læreren bruker sin praktiske ferdighetskunnskap for å synliggjøre tause sider ved bevegelsen som kan være vanskelig å artikulere. Basert på sine funn diskuterer forfatterne om egenferdighet i idrett er en form for praktisk ferdighetskunnskap som kan anses som profesjonell kunnskap for kroppsøvingslærere. De diskuterer også om didaktiske kunnskapsformer og etisk/moralske kunnskapsformer er en del av profesjonskunnskapen for kroppsøvingslærere (jf. Backman & Barker 2020; Smeby & Mausethagen, 2017).publishedVersio

The Messiness of Children’s Voices : An Affect Theory Perspective

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Tensions and tractions of moving together and alone in physical education

Author's accepted version (postprint).This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Routledge (Taylor & Francis) in Sport, Education and Society on 19/01/2020.Available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13573322.2020.1712654A wide variety of activities, instructional teaching styles and physical activity for health characterise PE practices today. However, for children, PE is about more than performing activities or being physically active for health. Children experience moving in the context of PE in varying and ambivalent ways, which indicates that qualitative aspects of movement (how to move) and the movement context (where to move and with whom) matter to them. To gain understanding of movement qualities in PE and PE as a movement context, this article explores what happens with and between children when they move in PE and how children’s movements and interactions relate to the context in which they move. The analysis starts with observational material from four primary schools in western Norway and an affect theoretical perspective is used. Through an in-depth analysis of 10–11-year-old children playing a game of sheep and wolverines, the article demonstrates how multiple actions and multiple dimensions of movement emerge simultaneously and how children’s own movements and the activity emerge and develop through reciprocal interactions. The activity framework forms how children move or is expected to move, while children’s actual movements make the activity what it is. Playing together co-exists and alternates with playing alone and playing in multiple ways. The flux of the game involves both an opportunity for something different to the present moment to become and for the accumulation of permanent patterns. The findings indicate a need to further discuss and explore the balances and imbalances between the individuals and the collective and the individuals, descriptions, rules and instructions in the context of PE.acceptedVersio