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The utilisation of non-formal educational methods has long been advocated as a means of supporting marginalised young people. For many in this cohort, the adverse social circumstances that confront them can limit their sense of hope and leave them susceptible to educational under-achievement and/or engagement in anti-social behaviour. Research indicates that sport can act as an effective back-drop for the promotion of non-formal educational programmes especially in relation to marginalised youth. However, there is contention over the role that such programmes play in providing a foundation for enhanced aspirational goals and social integration. Drawing upon research conducted on one UK-based sporting intervention, this paper explores how project engagement enabled participants to enhance their sense of hope, especially around education, training and employment. In so doing the paper demonstrates how the pedagogical approach adopted by project staff, drew parallels with critical education, and nurtured an increased sense of hope amongst participants.

This study examined whether thinking style mediated relationships between belief in conspiracy and schizotypy facets. A UK-based sample of 421 respondents completed the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale (GCBS), Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences Short (O-Life), and measures indexing preferential thinking style (proneness to reality testing deficits and Need for Cognition). Path analysis revealed direct and indirect relationships between Conspiracy Beliefs and schizotypy facets. Unusual Experiences had a direct effect on Conspiracy Beliefs and predicted Reality Testing and Need for Cognition. Preferential thinking style mediated the schizotypy-belief in conspiracy relationship. This pattern of results (higher experiential-based processing and lower Need for Cognition) was consistent with intuitive thinking. Introverted Anhedonia and Impulsive Nonconformity predicted Reality Testing and had indirect effects on Conspiracy Beliefs. Finally, Reality Testing predicted Conspiracy Beliefs, whereas Need for Cognition did not. These results confirm that cognitive processes related to thinking style mediate the schizotypy-conspiracist beliefs relationship.

Sport is often framed as a panacea for social disharmony, especially within the context of marginalised youth populations, and is widely promoted as a mechanism through which a multiplicity of social policy objectives can be achieved. Yet while political rhetoric has long pointed towards sport's transformative abilities, the basis for such claims remains unproven. Theory-based approaches to evaluation have been posited as a useful device to explore the impact of specific initiatives and indicate where best practice may operate. The aim of this paper is to highlight one such theory-based framework that has been devised by practitioners in recent years around the operationalisation and evaluation of sporting interventions in criminal justice settings and which has come to be adopted as the dominant 'theory of change' across sport and criminal justice practitioner settings in the UK, but has, as yet, eluded academic scrutiny. To address this omission, the present discussion offers an in-depth analysis of this framework with the aim of discerning more clearly 'what might work' within sport and criminal justice contexts. In turn, the paper aims to stimulate further academic debate around the instrumental role of sport within criminal justice and the value of such frameworks for both policy and practice.

This article presents an analysis of the way in which a group of students at one UK university mobilised their interest in and commitment to pro/feminist values and ideals through the establishment of a student society geared towards combating anti-sexism. Placing the students at the centre of the discussion, the article describes the various strategies adopted by the group to proselytise their views and how, through the utilisation of a range of resources, they sustained a programme of political activism around issues of gender inequalities. Highlighting the possible connections between pedagogic practice, classroom experience and extra-curricular activity, the article demonstrates the ways in which the teaching and learning process might facilitate student engagement with a broader set of ideas about life both inside and outside of the university setting. Within the context of ongoing change surrounding UK higher education, and the heavily gendered institutional climate which this supports, the article provides evidence to suggest that curricular design and delivery can impact upon student motivations towards a contemporary and, it is argued, transgressive and transformative, reworking of feminist principles and ideals.

This paper presents the findings of a qualitative research project carried out in a UK Pupil Referral Unit during the 2000/01 academic year. It describes and analyses the strategies adopted by a small group of Behaviour Support Service teachers in order to achieve their everyday occupational goals. It is argued that despite their commitment to the reintegration of excluded pupils into mainstream schools, the pedagogic practices adopted by these teachers served to contribute to an amplification, rather than a moderation, of pupil disaffection and misbehaviour. Teachers' perceptions and understandings about the nature and aims of lesson content varied whilst concerns and preoccupations about classroom control remained constant. Within the context of ongoing government debates in the UK surrounding "social exclusion" and, more specifically, educational exclusion, these findings call for a widening of the research agenda in these areas to include more detailed investigations of occupational circumstance and practitioner needs within non-traditional school settings. (Contains 18 notes.)

It has been widely argued that during the nineteenth century the English public schools and the Protestant church in Britain played a formative and innovative role in the growth of modern sport through what has been termed «muscular Christianity» an ideology subsequently exported around the globe via British Imperialism. The emergence of neo-muscular Christian groups during the latter half of the twentieth century can be seen as a direct consequence of this historical legacy. Modern-day evangelical Protestant organisations such as Christians in Sport (CiS) in the UK and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) and Athletes in Action (AIA) in the US, have resurrected many of the basic theological principles used to promote sport and physical fitness in Victorian Britain. This paper examines the historical and theological development of muscular Christianity and how this has impacted the relationship between sport and religion in twenty first century Britain and North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]