In Defence of Ballet: Women, Agency and the Philosophy of Pleasure

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Kolb ◽  
Sophia Kalogeropoulou

This article offers a novel approach to conceptualising ballet practice as a leisurely activity that exudes pleasure. It argues that the notion of pleasure in ballet has been neglected in scholarly research which criticises ballet for its negative impact on the physical and mental health of dancers, its authoritarian teaching methods and its trivial aesthetic that objectifies the female body and perpetuates the construction of stereotypical gender roles within a patriarchal society. This study focuses on the lived experiences of female amateur ballet participants, emphasising their agency. It provides first-hand accounts to illuminate the significance of ballet in women dancers’ personal growth, development and psychological wellbeing, drawing on sociologist Roger Caillois's categorisation of pleasures involved in games and play. Overall, the article highlights the multiple types of pleasure associated with ballet dancing as a key motivational factor and rationale for participation.

2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 1271.1-1272
Author(s):  
S. Derham ◽  
J. Lewis ◽  
E. Dures ◽  
F. Cramp

Background:Adults with fibromyalgia frequently report symptoms of cognitive dysfunction, often referred to as fibrofog. However primary research exploring cognitive dysfunction in the lives of adults with fibromyalgia is very limited (Kravitz and Katz, 2015).Objectives:The aim of this review was to (i) synthesise the qualitative literature on the lived experiences of cognitive dysfunction in adults with fibromyalgia, (ii) develop common themes through thematic analysis and (iii) identify knowledge gaps to inform future research and clinical practice in this area.Methods:Seven electronic databases (MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Amed, Scopus and OpenGrey), reference lists of key articles and two high impact qualitative journals were searched from 1990 to November 2018. Articles were eligible for inclusion if they reported primary qualitative data exploring the experiences of cognitive dysfunction in adults with fibromyalgia. Included studies were appraised using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) qualitative checklist and extracted data analysed using narrative synthesis. SD conducted critical appraisal and data extraction on all included studies. FC, JL and ED reviewed five papers each. All papers were reviewed by two co-authors. Of the 1413 records identified, 15 studies were selected for inclusion.Results:These studies included 208 women and 22 men with fibromyalgia, aged 18 to 72 years and representing seven different countries. Duration of diagnosis was four months to 34 years. Fourteen studies used interviews and one used focus groups. None of the included studies focussed exclusively on cognitive function in adults with fibromyalgia. Three studies identified themes specific to cognitive dysfunction and fibromyalgia symptoms. The remaining 12 studies presented relevant data intertwined with the overall lived experiences of fibromyalgia.Cognitive dysfunction, as a part of fibromyalgia, was often unpredictable. Problems with memory and concentration that were most commonly reported were emotionally distressing and affected functional and vocational activities. Participants found communication effortful, with a negative impact on work, leisure and social activities. Stress, fear and worry around perceived cognitive changes were commonly expressed. Lost employment or changed work roles and relationships, due to cognitive difficulties, had negative impacts for many participants. The terms cognitive dysfunction and fibrofog were used interchangeably within the studies, but lacked common definition. This introduced uncertainty around whether participants and authors were describing the same phenomenon.Conclusion:Adults with fibromyalgia experience unpredictable and emotionally impactful difficulties related to cognitive dysfunction. Functional impact was broad-reaching, particularly around work ability and lost employment opportunities. It is unclear how cognitive symptoms in fibromyalgia related to co-morbid symptoms such as pain, fatigue and poor sleep. Further research focusing on the full impact of cognitive function on the lives of adults with fibromyalgia is recommended to inform clinical practice. Research to establish clarity of definition of the terms cognitive dysfunction and fibrofog within fibromyalgia is highly recommended.References:[1]Kravitz H, Katz R. Fibrofog and fibromyalgia: a narrative review and implications for clinical practice. Rheumatology International. 2015;35(7):1115-25.Acknowledgments:This work is supported by the National Institute for Heath Research [ICA-PCAF-2018-01-078 to SD]Disclosure of Interests:Sandra Derham: None declared, Jenny Lewis: None declared, Emma Dures Grant/research support from: Independent Learning Grant from Pfizer, combined funding for a research fellow from Celgene, Abbvie and Novartis, Paid instructor for: A fee from Novartis to deliver training to nurses., Fiona Cramp: None declared


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (14) ◽  
pp. 3012
Author(s):  
Sandra Giménez ◽  
Miren Altuna ◽  
Esther Blessing ◽  
Ricardo M. Osorio ◽  
Juan Fortea

Sleep disorders, despite being very frequent in adults with Down syndrome (DS), are often overlooked due to a lack of awareness by families and physicians and the absence of specific clinical sleep guidelines. Untreated sleep disorders have a negative impact on physical and mental health, behavior, and cognitive performance. Growing evidence suggests that sleep disruption may also accelerate the progression to symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in this population. It is therefore imperative to have a better understanding of the sleep disorders associated with DS in order to treat them, and in doing so, improve cognition and quality of life, and prevent related comorbidities. This paper reviews the current knowledge of the main sleep disorders in adults with DS, including evaluation and management. It highlights the existing gaps in knowledge and discusses future directions to achieve earlier diagnosis and better treatment of sleep disorders most frequently found in this population.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-191
Author(s):  
Angelle Cook

This article presents a dissertation study that investigated the lived experiences of participants engaged in an inclusive therapeutic theatre production through a post-intentional phenomenological lens, informed by critical dis/ability theory. The study included ten participants aged 14–26 with a variety of dis/abilities. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and a focus group and analysed using thematic analysis. The qualitative findings included six themes and fifteen subthemes. These findings suggested that the participants experienced belonging and community, personal growth and insight, feelings of empowerment and the desire to make societal change by being a part of the inclusive production.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyyed Heshmatollah Mortazavizadeh ◽  
Mohammad Reza Nili ◽  
Ahmad Reza Nasr Isfahani ◽  
Mohammad Hassani

This study seeks to recognize teachers’ lived experiences about teaching-learning process in multi-grade classes. The approach of the study is qualitative under the rubric of phenomenological studies. The statistical population consisted of the teachers of multi-grade classes in a non-prosperous province and a prosperous one. 14 teachers were selected using criterion sampling technique for an interview. The interviews were recorded and transcribed with the interviewees’ permission; and they were analyzed using Creswell data analysis. In order to evaluate the validity of the questions, the viewpoints of experts in the field of educational sciences as well as some teachers experienced in multi-grade classes were taken into account. The reliability was approved through examination by the participants and asking from counterparts. The results showed that teachers of multi-grade classes in both provinces had similar views on using teaching methods, determining learning activities and grouping methods. However, they did not have the same views on determining the type of learning materials and resources. The results show that in multi-grade classes various teaching methods such as peer teaching and integrated teaching, leading resources and materials such as the local community, nature, and discarded materials and objects, different grouping methods such as adjacent grouping, row grouping, and sex grouping, and finally various learning activities including self learning and peer learning are utilized. Multi-grade teachers in the two provinces have similar viewpoints regarding teaching methods, learning activities, and grouping methods, but are of different viewpoints on kinds of learning materials and resources.


Author(s):  
God Mihalyuk

In the article essence of interactive teaching methods is explained in the article and the advantages of their application in the educational process of higher education institutions are argued. The importance of the focus of the modern educational process not only on professional but also on personal growth of students is outlined. It is about the need to create conditions for the formation of personality traits such as mobility, ability to integrate into a dynamic society, critical thinking, the ability to generate new ideas, the ability to make non-standard decisions and be responsible for them, communication skills, teamwork skills, skills educational situations, etc. The essence of interactive learning is defined, which consists in mutual learning, group form of organization of educational process with realization of active group teaching methods for solving didactic problems. The peculiarities of using interactive teaching methods in the process of preparation of future teachers are revealed. The essence of the most common interactive teaching methods is considered. Working in pairs is an effective method that involves sharing ideas with a partner and further voicing your thoughts to the audience. It is effective to use the Microphone method to update background knowledge, which enables each student to say something quickly, alternately, by answering questions or expressing their opinion or position. Collective discussion, such as Brainstorming, is at the forefront of the educational process of higher education. The Carousel method is most effective for simultaneously involving all participants in the educational process in active work with different partners to discuss discussion issues. The Learning-to-Learn method enables students to pass on their knowledge to their classmates. The method of projects that determines the acquisition and application of practical skills by students. An important tool for the cognitive activity of future professionals is a discussion that involves broad public discussion of some controversial issue. The role of interactive teaching methods in the process of formation of personal and professional qualities of future teachers is revealed.


Author(s):  
Oliver Robertson ◽  
Kim Nathan ◽  
Philippa Howden-Chapman ◽  
Michael Baker ◽  
Polly Atatoa Carr ◽  
...  

IntroductionHigh residential mobility has been shown to have a negative impact on young children, with long-term consequences for their physical and mental health, and social outcomes. Understanding the broad trends in moves and differentiating between moves to neighbourhoods which are likely to have ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ consequences is an important question in the residential mobility literature, with important implications for public policy and children’s health. Objectives and ApproachThe aims of this study are to describe the level and changes in neighbourhood deprivation that occur during residential moves involving children aged 0–4 years of age in New Zealand, and to assess whether these changes differ for children of different ethnicities. Our cohort is 565,689 children born in New Zealand from 2004 to 2018. The dataset of residential moves is created using the full address notification table from the Integrated Data Infrastructure, a set of government data tables that have been linked and anonymised by Statistics New Zealand. ResultsWhile there is a reasonable amount of mobility in terms of the deprivation of the area in which a child lives, the most likely outcome of a move is that it will be to an area with the same level of deprivation. This is especially true for the most and least deprived areas. Areas of high deprivation have the highest levels of churn and residential mobility. Māori and Pasifika children have lower levels of socioeconomic mobility and are more likely to move into and to stay in, areas of high deprivation. Conclusion / ImplicationsChildren living in highly deprived areas are likely to stay in high deprivation areas. Children living in these areas also move more frequently than the general population. Māori and Pasifika children are overrepresented in high deprivation areas, and on average they move more frequently than the group of all children aged 0 – 4.


Author(s):  
RASHI VOHRA ◽  
BRAJESH PATEL

The utmost negative impact of advancement of technology is an exponential increase in security threats, due to which tremendous demand for effective electronic security is increasing importantly. The principles of any security mechanism are confidentiality, authentication, integrity, non-repudiation, access control and availability. Cryptography is an essential aspect for secure communications. Many chaotic cryptosystem has been developed, as a result of the interesting relationship between the two field chaos and cryptography phenomenological behavior. In this paper, an overview of cryptography, optimization algorithm and chaos theory is provided and a novel approach for encryption and decryption based on chaos and optimization algorithms is discussed. In this article, the basic idea is to encrypt and decrypt the information using the concept of genetic algorithm with the pseudorandom sequence further used as a key in genetic algorithm operation for encryption: which is generated by application of chaotic map. This attempt result in good desirable cryptographic properties as a change in key will produce undesired result in receiver side. The suggested approach complements standard, algorithmic procedures, providing security solutions with novel features.


Author(s):  
Ana L. Burgos ◽  
Alejandro Velázquez

Sustainable science ultimately seeks to minimize the negative impact of human activities on nature, however its role is regarded as limited, chiefly because it lacks a robust spatial framework to join ecological and social processes. Space, from a territorial perspective, is the result of historical interactions between socio-economic forces governing access to natural resources. This paper provides a territorial-oriented approach to improve land use policy from a spatially explicit perspective. We develop a novel approach, namely ‘Territorial Configuration’ implying the dissection of the geographic continuum into territorial conglomerates. These are delimited by a range of meaningfully socio-histori calliaisonen compassing a clear understanding of how space is controlled by space holders trigging proximal and underlying governing processes. We discuss how the territorial configuration facilitates overcoming pending issues inland use policy, such as, ecological and geographical articulation, legitimate decision-making process, and increase of certainty on the subject of management among others.


2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-24
Author(s):  
Neha Thakur (Rai) ◽  
Arvind Kumar Singh ◽  
Narendra Rai ◽  
Devesh Kumar Shukla

Background: With the ongoing growth and expansion of digital media and COVID-19 pandemic, children are inclining more and more toward spending time on digital media as compared to outdoor sports, leading to poor physical and mental growth. Developed nations have already set up a screen time guideline which is yet to be established in developing nations. This study was conducted with the objectives of identifying the needs of screen time guidelines and to study the impact of screen time on mental and physical health in children. Aims and Objectives: This study aims to check the screen time in children aged 2–18 and find the health consequences both physical and psychological in those children. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study on children aged 2–18 years was conducted between 2019 and 2020. Parents were asked to fill a pre-structured questionnaire. Impact on health physical and mental were assessed by pediatrician and psychologist. Results: A total of 155 children were enrolled in the study. Mean child hours in children aged 2–5 years, 5–10 years, and 10–18 years were 4 h, 5.83 h, and 6.29 h on week days and 5.64 h, 5.76 h, and 7.69 h on weekends, respectively. More than one-third of children had age of onset of screen time below 2 years of age. About 70% of children had malnutrition. Only 18% of parents were aware of concept of screen free days. Screen time had negative impact on health (P=0.0001) and on behavior of child (P=0.001). Average increase in screen time during COVID-19 was nearly 3 times the pre-COVID era. Conclusion: This study has paved the way for the need of larger study and development of guidelines on impact of screen time on children in developing nations where screen time guidelines is yet to be set more so in era of COVID 19 pandemic.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (8) ◽  
pp. 583-606
Author(s):  
Kamesha Spates ◽  
Na’Tasha Evans ◽  
Tierra Akilah James ◽  
Karen Martinez

Historically, Black women have experienced multiple adversities due to gendered racism. While research demonstrates that gendered racism is associated with negative physical and mental health implications, little attention has been given to how being Black and female shape Black women’s experiences in multiple contexts. This study provided an opportunity for Black women to describe their lived experiences of gendered racism in the United States. We conducted in-depth interviews with Black women ( N = 22) between the ages of 18 and 69 years. We applied a thematic analysis approach to data analysis. Three themes were identified that underscored how these Black women navigated gendered racism: (a) navigating societal expectations of being Black and female, (b) navigating relationships (or lack thereof), and (c) navigating lack of resources and limited opportunities. Findings from this study provide an increased understanding of the unique challenges that Black women face because of their subordinated statuses in the United States. These findings may influence programs and assessments for Black women’s wellness.


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