Youthful Considerations
Body Logics in Early Childhood Education: How Pedagogies Move the Body
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nicole Land
This study asks, “how do we understand the body?” Grounded in early childhood education, I argue that dominant pedagogies create the moving body through logics of child development, healthism, and a moral imperative to set a foundational relation with movement and sport as positive habits of productive neoliberal citizens. Such pedagogies, I argue, figure the body through an instrumental relationship, where children come to know their bodies as entities to be managed, controlled, and deployed in the name of becoming the physically fit ideal body – a body crafted in dialogue with ongoing settler colonial conceptions of the “good” child and the “healthy” adult. These relations with the body are, I contend, limiting and often violent, as they take children’s relations with a complex materiality – their bodies – and reduce these relations to technocratic, regulatory practices. I propose that such relations do not engender an ethical relation with bodies that serves children well into their unknown futures. After a survey of relevant pedagogical documents, this paper turns toward practice-based research that investigates young children’s relations with fat, bodies, and movement. I show how children grapple with complex body logics. Relations of contagion, excess, sensation, and invention collide with inherited neoliberal discourses to produce children’s bodies as a constellation of complex logics. In everyday relations, sport and movement are wrestled away from regulatory practices and are made real as situated, responsive educational experiences.
Scoring a Global Goal: Examining the Public Health Implications of Soccer Without Borders-Boston, a Youth Sport Organization View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dela Acolatse
The influence of sport in society makes it a useful tool for public health if utilized correctly, in terms of child & adolescent health, physical activity, and other public health concerns. Therefore, this study examines how the program model of Soccer Without Borders (SWB) impacts social and health outcomes in the community of East Boston, Massachusetts. Data from SWB youth surveys were assessed and evaluated while questionnaires were sent to SWB stakeholders. Results show high percentages across all social and emotional measures throughout the length of the surveys and SWB stakeholders reported positive experiences participating in the SWB program. While future research and practice must be conducted, these results suggest the viability of using community youth sport for development programs as an effective public health policy.
Investigation of the Causes of Backache in Young Equestrian Athletes View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Haruna Matsushita
The prevalence of lower backache is high among various sports athletes, especially equestrians. Backache decreases performance and negatively affects horses. However, in recent years, there have been no studies examining the relationship between equestrianism and backache in Japanese people. The aim was to investigate the causes of backache in Japanese equestrians. We believe that this study will lead to further research on the prevention of backache. The equestrian group consisted of those who practiced equestrian more than 4 times a month. The control group consisted of non-equestrians. Exclusion criteria were those under the age of 18 and those practicing para-equestrian. The items to be measured were the presence or absence of backache, information on equestrian practice, and the work status of horse management. In the analysis, we first created a cross-tabulation table. Fisher's exact and Cocharan-Armitage trend tests was used as statistical analysis. There were 103 valid responses (equestrian group: n=62, control group: n=41). The equestrian group had significantly more backache than non-equestrians (p=.019). In the equestrian group, backache was more pronounced in those who sometimes carried heavy objects such as horse feed than those who did not (p=.031). Furthermore, there was a correlation between the number of practices per month and the presence or absence of backache, and there was a tendency to have backache as the number of practices increased (p=.0051). The study found a significantly higher prevalence of backache in equestrians. It was suggested that this was more related to horse-related work than practice.
