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In 1986 Hugh England published his seminal book ‘Social Work as Art’ in which he mounted a spirited defence of the creative, intuitive and self-expressive notions of social work practice against a ...

We have personally been on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic since early March, when it cascaded through our neighborhoods and upended our daily lives, and we have seen first-hand what is wid...

At present, training in applied sport psychology chiefly targets and accelerates professional competence. However, theory and evidence suggests that our clients would experience significant benefit if our training targeted and accelerated professional expertise rather than just competence. Specifically, we argue that expertise-based training can: (a) help trainees to go on to break the “thinking ceiling” of competence; (b) foster a more independent, flexible, and creative form of practice; and (c) support a longer-term and more practitioner-centred training philosophy. To deliver these benefits, we then conclude by outlining some key principles for the progression of expertise-based training in applied sport psychology.

A contemporary issue in soccer talent development is the potential use of futsal as a training tool. This paper utilised survey methods to quantitatively assess the perspectives of high-level coaches working in youth player education, and players of futsal and 11-a-side soccer (n=77). Respondents completed surveys before and following a showcase game between an Under-21 international futsal team competing against a Premier League Under-21 soccer team. Responses were positive about futsal generally as a training aid and specifically, skills transfer from futsal into soccer performance. The majority of respondents (89.6%) indicated ‘post-game’ that they considered futsal could be useful for soccer talent development. Similarly, 90.9% stated they would consider its integration in their training/games program. Analysis of opinions on futsal regarding its constraints and the impact its specific rules may have on skill acquisition generally reported positive perceptions: 89.6% of participants suggested that pitch size improved skills (strongly agree=33.8%, agree=55.8%), 88.3% believed the pass back rule enhanced ball reception skills (strongly agree=27.3%, agree=61%), and 89.2% perceived that futsal can help develop ‘multifunctional’ players (strongly agree=27.3%, agree=62.3%). This knowledge of the constraints and potential for skill acquisition linked to futsal participation is a first step in aiding soccer coaches to understand potential learning returns from its inclusion in talent development policies and programs.

Despite the wide spread employment of Performance Analysis (PA) within the football coaching process to enhance augmented feedback, until recently little consideration has been given to the context...

Although our understanding of psychological and social factors in talent development continues to expand, knowledge of the broader system that underpins the entire talent pathways is relatively limited. Indeed, little work has moved beyond the recognition that coherence in this system is important to consider how this may be achieved; particularly in relation to coherent coaching. As such, the aim of this article was to address gaps in talent development and coaching literature and explore principles and potential mechanisms of coherent coaching in sport organisations’ talent pathways. After defining and contextualising coherence in whole talent pathways, including barriers to attainment, we discuss how an understanding of coach epistemology can provide a basis for integrating personal and collective coach coherence and therefore a coherent performer experience. With epistemology as our focal point, we then consider how coherent coaching may be supported through the strategic recruitment and placement of coaches, complimentary coach education and development and the use of change agents who can set and shape the coaching milieu, facilitate cross-level communication and enable epistemology-focused reflection and evaluation. Finally, we conclude with some brief recommendations for advancing practically-meaningful knowledge in this important area.

This paper offers a longitudinal analysis of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC). Drawing on archive sources, we consider the manner in which the IMC sought to institutionalize a form of expertise specific to management consultants. Rejecting attempts to locate the boundaries of such expertise within idealized, archetypal frameworks, we analyse the IMC’s attempts to secure occupational closure in the field of consulting by means of normative, cognitive and symbolic mechanisms. While others account for the Institute’s professional project as a failure consequent upon consulting’s fragmentary knowledge base, we suggest that this project did not so much fail as drift towards another ‘hybrid’ form. In an attempt (a) to account for this shift and (b) to outline its key contours, we offer an archival analysis that explores the manner in which the Institute sought to reconcile the multiple interests and competing logics that construct professionalism within the field of consulting.

This paper offers reflections on the failure of The Equitable Life Assurance Society. Noting that the collapse of this financial institution precipitated a raft of official inquiries, we provide a detailed analysis and ‘re-view’ of the public inquiry report that was produced by Lord Penrose. The paper observes that Lord Penrose's text presents itself as a factual description of events. Yet we counter that this report remains, at root, a creative product which depends upon narrative strategies of characterisation and emplotment. Analysing the narrative resources and the broader narratological choices that underpin Lord Penrose's account of the Equitable affair, we suggest that this report turns upon a Maxwellian rendering of the drama's key protagonist. Questioning the assumptions, omissions and elisions which underpin this method of plotting the failure of the Equitable, we propose another means of characterising the drama's principal. Building upon a reading of David Copperfield, we proffer a Micawberish alternative to the Maxwellian autocrat favoured by Lord Penrose's text. Readers are invited to consider the relative merits of these contrasting narratives and are, furthermore, encouraged to reflect upon the manner in which the interplay between text, author and reader acts to shape public understanding of accounting, accountability and financial regulation more broadly.

The evolving role of PA and the associated proliferation of positions and internships within high performance sport has driven consideration for a change, or at least a broadening, of emphasis for use of PA analysis. In order to explore the evolution of PA from both an academic and practitioner perspective this paper considers the wider conceptual use of PA analysis. In establishing this, the paper has 4 key aims: (1) To establish working definitions of PA and where it sits within the contemporary sports science and coaching process continuum; (2) To consider how PA is currently used in relation to data generation; (3) To explore how PA could be used to ensure transfer of information, and; (4) To give consideration to the practical constrains potentially faced by coach and analyst when implementing PA strategies in the future.

There is substantial scientific research suggesting the physical and psychological health benefits of a physically active lifestyle. Consequently, governments worldwide prioritize policies, finances, and resources in healthcare, education, and sports sectors to increase mass participation in physical activity. However, practices in physical activity promotion are often not underpinned by evidence-based standardization that is requisite in other domains of epidemiology. The aim of this article is to examine critically the available scientific research on promoting life-long physical activity participation and to propose an evidence-based model for implementation in school physical education. Reasons are discussed as to why programs that integrate physical, psychological, and behavioral skills have been long acknowledged in physical education and physical activity domains but remain lacking in empirical validation. Finally, future directions are suggested that are required to examine the application of this approach to practice in primary-level physical education.

Alum sludge from wastewater treatment was applied at five rates on a phosphorus-deficient sand, and the effects on cereal growth and nutrition were investigated over 2 years. An inorganic fertilizer treatment, reapplied in the second year, was also included. The grain yield for inorganic fertilizer was 44% higher than the control in year 1 and 58% higher in year 2. Alum sludge was an adequate source of nitrogen for crop growth, and supplied sufficient residual nitrogen to meet crop requirements in year 2. However, grain yield in the alum sludge treatment applied at an equivalent available nitrogen rate to the inorganic fertilizer was 62% (year 1) and 69% (year 2) of the yield achieved by the inorganic fertilizer, though greater than the control. No toxic forms of aluminium were detected in the soil at any rate of alum sludge application. Plant shoot tissue analysis indicated that wheat sown in alum sludge-amended soil and the control were phosphorus deficient, whereas phosphorus was adequate in the inorganic fertilizer treatment. There was no evidence of any other nutrient deficiency. Alum sludge amendment resulted in an increase in soil phosphorus; however, further soil analysis indicated that forms of phosphorus present in alum sludge-amended soil may not be available for crop uptake; this is consistent with phosphorus deficiency observed in plant tissue in alum sludge-treated soil. It is suggested that on this nutrient-poor sand, the ability of alum sludge to provide sufficient phosphorus for plant production was limited in the 2 years after application.

This article highlights the role of personal epistemology in decision-making and proposes the construct of an epistemological chain (EC) to support this process in the domain of sports coaching. First, the EC is outlined using examples from education and other parallel disciplines. What it looks like to sports coaches is then described, and its operation in a sporting context is explored. The article then discusses EC's further sporting applications. For coach development, it offers practicing sports coaches a useful framework by which to assess their own and others’ actions and behavior. EC also enables coaches to optimally apply new ideas to their own practice and can be used to direct the search for new coaching knowledge. Finally, implications are discussed with reference to how EC could/should be implemented to select, educate, and develop coaches, leaders, and players.

Critical accounts of popular management have tended to caricature the authors of this literary genre and have, furthermore, made broad claims as to the nature and potential of the organizational storytelling which features in these texts. This paper re-examines such claims and proclivities. It argues that any attempt to explore the nature of popular management or to account for the organizing potential of its storytelling must be located within an account of storytelling practice. To this end, the paper offers a critical analysis of the excellence project that is situated within a review of Tom Peters’ storyworld. Acknowledging the extent to which popular management deploys organizational storytelling in its endeavours, we offer – uniquely – a longitudinal analysis of Tom Peters' storytelling practices. Noting a tension between organizational sensegiving and organizational sensemaking processes, we argue that the storyworld of the excellence project acts to obscure the frictions, stresses and dislocations...

This paper examines the UK Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations (UTCCR)'s prohibition on clauses in consumer contracts that mandate dispute settlement in an arbitration tribunal as potentially unfair and oppressive as against consumers because it denies their right to civil adjudication. The understanding of UTCCR's unfairness as developed by the UK House of Lords is not necessarily applicable to arbitration clauses because of the lower cost of such proceedings and the availability of legal aid, even in the international context. International arbitration decisions may also be reviewed for procedural irregularities under the New York Convention. Various European court decisions are reviewed where compulsory arbitration clauses in consumer contracts were evaluated for fairness to conclude that courts should be more receptive to such terms because of procedural advantages that they may accord to consumers.

This paper reflects critically on management consultants. The paper acknowledges those commentaries which suggest that management consultants must be understood as an element or node within a wider network which constitutes an advice or knowledge industry. However, the paper argues that our understanding of the consultant node within such networks has been fashioned in a manner that serves to restrict our appreciation of the nature and scope of the advice available to managers. To this end the paper attempts to identify a larger network of actors and agencies excluded from both critical and celebratory accounts of the advice industry, which is none the less fundamental to the reproduction of management. The paper concludes with the suggestion that Latour’s analysis of world‐building may offer a useful heuristic to those who would seek to understand the ways in which networks constitute the managed world.

This paper offers a critical review of the ‘guru industry’. Analysing its orientations and its related attempts to engage practitioners in a programme of re‐education designed to off‐set the excesses of guru theorising, this papers argues that the educational agenda so produced is simultaneously elitist, depoliticised and out of step with recent analytical developments. Reviewing accounts of consulting which highlight the interpretative flexibility of guru theorising, we will suggest that calls for practitioner re‐education remain deadlocked in a paradigm, which fails to acknowledge the local editing and translation of consulting products. In an attempt to break out of this limiting framework the paper suggests the need for an account of consultancy at work designed to acknowledge: a) workplace politics, b) the complexities of consumption, and c) the externalities associated with the production of a management education designed to reflect the orientations of an elite organizational cadre.

Current information and evidence indicate that for most activities free weight training can produce superior results compared to training with machines, particularly when the free weight training involves complex, multi-joint exercises. A number of reasons can account for the superiority of free weights; the major factor deals with mechanical specificity. Mechanical specificity is concerned with appropriate movement patterns, force application and velocity of movement. Considering the available evidence that adherence to the concept of specificity of exercise and training can result in a greater transfer of training effect then free weights should produce a more effective training transfer. Therefore, the majority of resistance exercises making up a training programme should include of free weight exercises with emphasis on mechanical specificity (i.e. large muscle mass exercises, appropriate velocity, contraction type etc.). Generally, machines should be used as an adjunct to free weight training and, depending upon the sport, can be used to a greater or lesser extent during various phases of the training period (preparation, pre-competition, competition).

This paper supports the contention that the brain stores memories in the form of a central representation that is accessed by both physical preparation and execution and, more importantly, by motor imagery associated with this preparation and execution. Considerable evidence in support of shared central and vegetative structures suggests that sport psychologists should consider more closely aspects of the performer's responses to the physical skill when providing imagery interventions and not rely on “traditional,” more clinically orientated, methods of delivery. Many texts provide a schedule of factors and techniques for psychologists, athletes, and coaches to consider but with a limited theoretical explanation of why these factors are the crucial concerns. We, therefore, propose an evidence-based, 7-point checklist that includes: physical, environmental, task, timing, learning, emotional, and perspective elements of imagery delivery highlighting the minimum requirement areas in which sport psyc...

Despite a rapid increase in the provision of outdoor management development courses, there is a lack of both empirical evidence and theoretical perspectives to support theories related to the efficacy of the learning process and its transfer to the workplace. This paper highlights the lack of research in the area of outdoor management development provision and proposes a framework for analysing the learning and transfer of managerial skills. Using skills in conflict handling as an example, the discussion links the role of knowledge in skill acquisition to the issue of learning transfer and proposes a way in which different approaches may affect learning outcomes. It is proposed that this framework may be used as an evaluation tool in respect of particular methodologies or course designs and that this may help to maximize the chances of focused learning and subsequent skills transfer.

This is the first half of a two-part critical survey of writings by British and American visitors to the Russian Altai between 1848 and 1928. In the first half the published travel accounts of Thomas and Lucy Atkinson (1848–53), George Kennan (1885), Elim Pavlovich Demidov (1897), Henry Elwes (1898), Samuel Turner (1903) and Harald Swayne (1903) are summarised and put into context. These sources are then assessed in turn to determine how useful they are for specialists in Siberian Studies, and specifically those investigating the Altai. The conclusion is that several retain value, particularly in the post-communist era when the Russian Altai is opening up for business and tourism, and researchers there are trying to rediscover their lost heritage. The extensive annotations provide scholarly backup for the author’s contentions and point to other known travellers who might have written relevant accounts, details of which are not as yet available. Biobibliographical notes place people and places in context.

It can be argued that media studies has already defined itself too narrowly in terms of the communications media and that it takes too little account of the impact of new technologies on the lives and activities of young people. Here David Collins, a Research Fellow of the University of Sheffield, who is investigating the uses of information technology in relation to special educational needs, considers the potential of microcomputers in the context of music teaching.

Both the aims of investigations, and the characteristics of the results obtained, of changes in mass balance of whole glaciers, occupying clearly-defined drainage basins, are assessed in the contex...

Electrical conductivity, a measure of total ionic concentration, was determined for samples of meltwaters draining from the snout of Gornergletscher, Switzerland, during the summer ablation season of 1974 and continuously recorded in summer 1975. Samples of meltwaters from the snout meltstream and