Category / BU research

Why this football tournament should be called the men’s World Cup

BU research, Research communication, the conversation

By Dr Jayne Caudwell, Bournemouth University

The globalisation of football means it can now be found in most parts of the world. It is celebrated as the national sport in many countries. But, we forget that “football” actually means “men’s football”. It’s the same with other popular sports – our habit is to refer to basketball and women’s basketball, cricket and women’s cricket, ice hockey and women’s ice hockey. This naming places men’s football as the dominant universal and natural norm, while women’s football becomes the “other” version.

If we want a level football playing field, then “football” should be redefined by changing our reference to tournaments, championships and leagues to “men’s football” if that is what is being played. It’s time we started referring to the men’s football World Cup, just as we refer to the women’s football World Cup.

Women and girls have long been treated as second-class citizens in the many worlds of football, including playing, officiating, governing and spectating. And indeed, in the build up to the 2018 men’s World Cup, there was much discussion about racism and homophobia – but practically none about football, gender, sexism and misogyny.

The histories of the development of football in most countries around the world show that women and girls have been denied access to pitches, equipment, coaches, training, stadiums and financial support. These material opportunities are important because they enable and validate participation – and full football citizenship.

Finland takes on Austria in a qualifier for the 2019 Women’s World Cup. EPA

Media sport pages cover men’s sport. During the football season, the coverage is dominated by stories of men’s football. Women footballers seem to not exist. The sport press obliterates them.

But women and girls are playing, officiating, spectating and commentating on the game in ever increasing numbers around the world. The England women’s team outperforms the men’s team on the European and world stage. They are currently ranked ten places higher, in second position. And yet, the gender pay gap in football is atrocious.

Ignoring sexism

While Russia, as host of the men’s football World Cup 2018, has been criticised for its poor record in dealing with homophobic and racist abuse, nothing has been said about gender-based abuse or discrimination.

Instead, ahead of the men’s World Cup, Russian MPs have been arguing over whether Russian women should or should not have sex with visiting (presumably male) football fans. The UK Foreign Office released advice on race and LGBT concerns, but there’s nothing on how sexist chanting can make men’s football a hostile environment for women. You only need to look at the sexism experienced by doctor Eva Carneiro and assistant referee Helen Byrne in the men’s premier league to see how this plays out.

What’s more, many of the concerns about homophobia and racism at the men’s World Cup stem from wider cultural issues in Russia. The same problems are evident with sexism and misogyny, yet they are curiously absent from the discussion when it comes to football. Cultural problems that affect men extend into the sporting arena, but not those that affect women.

In 2017, the Russian parliament passed legislation loosening laws on domestic violence. Russian women who support the #MeToo movement have come up against draconian assembly laws that say only one person is permitted to make a public protest.

There are no campaigns in international men’s football that aim to stop sexism, or call for anti-sexism and an end to gender-based violence.

Meanwhile, the women and girls who have fought hard to play football often encounter negative responses from the general public and from the media. Sport sociologists have found that sportswomen are trivialised, sexualised and experience symbolic annihilation – they simply don’t exist in images of the sport. A recent poster depicting Iranian fans is a prime example. Not a single female face features.

Women’s and girls’ sporting achievements are reduced as a result of ridicule. Their bodies are considered sexual objects rather than for playing sport. Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s comment that women should play in tighter shorts to attract more fans to the game is a classic example of this. More recently, feminist author Laura Bates challenged FIFA for describing player Alex Morgan as “easy on the eye and good looks to match” as well as the FA for tweeting about “lionesses go back to being mothers, partners and daughters” after playing in the women’s World Cup.

It’s easy to imagine that this men’s World Cup in Russia will continue to disregard gender, sexism and misogyny. And yet, sport, specifically football, has potential to incite change, and reform.

Renaming to men’s football is an easy and simple step in the direction towards equality. We may as well start with the men’s World Cup 2018.

Jayne Caudwell, Associate Professor Leisure Cultures, Bournemouth University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Funding opportunities : Connected and autonomous vehicles

BU Challenges, BU research, Funding opportunities, innovation

Image from martechtoday.com

The Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) will invest up to £25m in industry-led projects that develop and then ‘pilot’ CAV services at scale in a UK setting.

Summary:

Deadline: 19 September 2018; noon

Award: Between £5m to £20m

Project duration: between 18 and 30 months; must be completed by 31 March 2022.

Please see this link for more information.

The Commissioning of Essay Mills: A Focus on BU

BU research, Research communication

 

Essays Mill in UK HE

The use of essay mills in UK higher education has been a topic of concern for several years. It has been considered a sensitive subject within academia by students and staff alike, with institutions requiring that academics take preventative measures.

Since the increased marketisation of UK higher education in 2012, where tuition fees increased as a result of the Browne Review (2010), and the subsequent reduced cap in the number of students who can now attend university, institutions have seen an increase in students applying for a place to study.

Universities are seemingly weighted by a digital mindset coined as Generation Z (aka as iGen or Linksters), the newest age group to emerge since the Millennials, who in turn, were the largest group since the baby boom generation. The later two generations – Gen Z and Millenials – have had the advantage of technology providing instant responses and offering information 24/7, allegedly creating a generational digital need within the curriculum and delivery, processes and procedures in order to exploit engagement and feedback in ways that a knowledge institution, or its inhabitants, may not yet be fully – or seemingly desirably – aligned.

With students entering HE from a mixed economy of practical, academic, cultural and educational skill sets, alongside external issues and commitments, and hopes for secure employment, students may, at times, struggle to engage with courses, assessment, multiple deadlines, grades, and feedback.

In frustration, students may be tempted to turn to the phenomenon of essay mills, a paid-for external service that writes essays for students, and crosses intellectual boundaries that underpin plagiarism, a much-frowned-upon activity by those in academia and beyond.

It is not just the students who do not wish to admit to being tempted by an essay mill offer, it can be a complex conversation for the institution and society, too.

Project Purpose: The purpose of this project is to gather perceptions and experiences relating to the essay mill phenomena. It focuses on the academic, student, and professional staff voices, and seeks to understand experiences of students commissioning essay writers/essay mills, an external paid for service whereby essays are written to order.

This overall project was not designed to be pejorative or demonise any of the participants, but to find out what’s really going on. The data will be important for understanding the needs of the C21st student, as seen through multiple lenses.

If you would like to be interviewed informally over coffee or off campus, please contact Steph Allen: stephaniea@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Survey links can be found below. Please share the relevant link to academics or student cohorts.

Undergraduates: https://bournemouth.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/turning-to-the-churnthe-commissioning-of-essay-mills-in-u

Masters: https://bournemouth.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/the-commissioning-of-essay-mills-in-uk-higher-education-p-2

Doctoral Candidates: https://bournemouth.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/the-commissioning-of-essay-mills-in-uk-higher-education-p-3

Academics:  https://bournemouth.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/turning-to-the-churnthe-commissioning-of-essay-mills-in-u-2

Deciding to take part or not, will not impact on your (or others) employment or studies at BU, or elsewhere in the future. Ethics number: 21274

 

 

Simon Thomas and Dimitrios Buhalis to contribute to ABTA’s Future Talent in the Travel Industry Conference in London

BU research, conferences

Future Talent in the Travel Industry

London Tuesday 3 July 2018
Grant Thornton, 30 Finsbury Square, London, EC2A 1AG

Register now

Network with travel industry employers at ABTA’s second annual future talent conference. 

What do industry employers expect from candidates looking to work in travel? From desirable qualifications and qualities to the future of travel industry roles, attend for first-hand insight into employability in travel. As the industry develops, learn what skills gaps employers will be looking to fill and how your candidates can meet the criteria for these new positions.

Conference highlights 

  • Discover current and future trends in travel – the impact on workforce, training and education
  • Explore Brexit priorities for the travel industry and higher educational institutions
  • Get a crucial update on graduate schemes, internships, placements and apprenticeships
  • Hear employer perspectives on talent, desirable qualifications and qualities
  • First-hand experiences from graduates, students and interns

Speakers include

  • Moderator: Vicki Wolf, Education Partnerships Manager, ABTA
  • Myra Cooke, Head of Performance and Development, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Holidays
  • Carolyn Smith, Head of People Development, TUI
  • Elaine Bader, Head of Overseas Resourcing, Eurocamp
  • Anne-May Janssen, Head of European Engagement, Universities UK International 
  • Alan Wardle, Director of Public Affairs, ABTA
  • Annette Allmark, Director of Strategic Policy, People 1st
  • Dimitrios Buhalis, Head of Department – Tourism & Hospitality, Bournemouth University 
  • Simon Thomas, Head of Employability and Talent Development, Department of Tourism and Hospitality, Bournemouth University 
  • Celeste Jones, Head of Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management, University of Hertfordshire
  • Natasha Iacona, Management Accountant and HR Partner, Intrepid Group
  • Justin Rix, Partner, Grant Thornton
  • Maddie Blanks, Assistant Manager, Grant Thornton
  • Doreen McKenzie, Consultant, Oasis Travel
  • Nicky Duffy, UK Operations Manager, Clarity Travel Management 
  • Bradley Escorcio, Product Manager, Thomas Cook Media & Partnerships and member of the TTG 20 Under 30 scheme

Register now

Undertaking sensitive and challenging research- free workshop 11th July

BU research

The research into sensitive topics (RIST) project has been designed to explore the impact of researching sensitive topics on the researcher. This project, funded by BU pump priming, has interviewed researchers who have undertaken research on sensitive or challenging topics such as child abuse, sex work, and domestic abuse.

The aim is to develop insights into the impact of such research on the researcher, as well as exploring the types of support required when undertaking such research. On Wednesday 11th July Bournemouth University are hosting a free event for researchers to hear the team present their preliminary findings of this project. This event will also be an opportunity to discuss the types of support institutions offer to researchers, as well as explore the future direction of this project.

Lead researchers Professor Lee-Ann Fenge (Bournemouth University) and Dr Lisa Oakley (University of  Chester) are looking forward to sharing the data they have so far collected, which raises issues such as researcher positionality; conflicts around the representation of vulnerable and/or marginalised voices, and insights into how concepts of power and privilege can be both a gift and a burden when it comes to researching sensitive topics.

Though the RIST team share a background in the social sciences, they feel that the findings of this study have implications beyond this field, to any whose profession involves interacting with subjects that might be considered sensitive or disturbing. All are welcome to the event, but there are a limited number of spaces.

For more information, or to book your space on the workshop, visit the Eventbrite page

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/research-into-sensitive-topics-rist-workshop-tickets-46794351164

 

Photo of the Week: The TACIT Trial

BU research, Research communication

The TACIT Trial: TAi ChI for people with demenTia

This week’s photo of the week is Dr Samuel Nyman‘s entry of a Tai Chi class in action. This weekly series features photo entries from our annual Research Photography Competition taken by BU academics, students and professional staff, which gives a glimpse into some of the fantastic research undertaken across the BU community.

The TACIT Trial is all about people. The study is undertaken by a team of researchers led by Dr Samuel Nyman at BU who are looking into the benefits of Tai Chi for people with dementia.  Qualified Tai Chi instructors, such as senior instructor Robert Joyce from Elemental Tai Chi (photographed), lead the classes.  The classes are attended by people with dementia and their informal carers.  The classes involve slow, gentle, fluid body movements and slow breathing that leave you feeling relaxed and yet you have exercised your core muscles.  In this randomised controlled trial, we are following up for six months people who have taken part in the classes and practiced at home and are comparing them to others who have not done Tai Chi.  This will provide initial evidence for the first time in the UK as to the benefits of Tai Chi for the health and well-being of people with dementia and their informal carers.  This photo is taken from a workshop for Solent NHS led the the chief investigator Dr Samuel Nyman and Robert Joyce.

You can find out more about the TACIT Trial here:

Webpage: www.bournemouth.ac.uk/tai-chi/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheTACITTrial/

—

Dr Samuel Nyman is a Principal Academic at Bournemouth University. For more information about this research, please contact Samuel here.

 

Funding news for culture and creative industries in England

BU Challenges, BU research, Funding opportunities, pre-award

Image from https://ec.europa.eu/culture/news/20170606-new-study-creative-value-chains_en

As part of the government’s commitment in the Industrial Strategy. towns and cities across the country will benefit from a new £20million fund for culture, heritage and creative industries, launched by Minister of Arts, Heritage and Tourism, Michael Ellis.

Areas will be able to bid for up to £7 million for a number of projects in a certain area to help regeneration, create jobs and maximise the impact of investment. This could be for new spaces for creative businesses, bringing historic buildings back into use or redeveloping museums and art galleries.

Call summary

Expression of interest : 3 July to 15 August

Full applications: 9 September to 19 September

Please see this link for more information.

Victorian pleasure piers are unique to Britain, but they are under threat

BU research, the conversation

File 20180618 85819 1086tff.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1

Edmond Holland/Shutterstock.com

 

By Dr Anya Chapman, Bournemouth University.

A stroll along a pier remains the most popular activity for visitors to the British seaside, with 70% of them enjoying a walk over the waves.

For many, the seaside pier is perhaps the most iconic symbol of the British seaside holiday and the epitome of excursions to the coast. Piers have always provided holidaymakers with entertainment, from the grand pavilions and theatres of the Victorian era, to the amusement arcades of the 1980s. For two centuries, piers have been the place to see and be seen at the seaside.

Victorian pleasure piers are unique to the UK, but they are under threat: in the early 20th century nearly 100 piers graced the UK coastline, but almost half of of these have now gone.

By their very nature, seaside piers are risky structures. When piers were constructed, British seaside resorts were at the height of their popularity. The Victorians wanted to demonstrate engineering prowess and their ability to master the force of the sea. Some lasted longer than others, with Aldeburgh pier in Suffolk lasting just less than a decade before it was swept away by a drifting vessel. At the other end of the spectrum is the Isle of Wight’s Ryde pier, which at over 200 years is the oldest pleasure pier in the UK.

Yet the longevity of such piers presents them with new risks: fire, maintenance issues, rising costs, and climate change. Piers face an uncertain future. The National Piers Society estimates that 20% of today’s piers are at risk of being lost.

Piers at risk

Over the last 40 years, many notable piers have succumbed to time and tide. Perhaps the most iconic of these losses is Brighton West Pier, which has suffered multiple storms and fires since closure in 1975, leaving an isolated skeleton as a haunting reminder. Now there is growing recognition that seaside piers are vital to coastal communities in terms of resort identity, heritage, employment, community pride, and tourism. In fact, the UK government now offers funding to enable the revival of piers and other seaside heritage.

Brighton West Pier. National Piers Society

Despite the sea change in the perceived importance of seaside piers, many remain derelict and in a state of decay. One such pier is Weston-Super-Mare’s Birnbeck Pier, on the west coast, which has been closed for over three decades. Birnbeck Pier is unusual in that it is the only pier which links to an island, but as time has passed, parts of the structure have crumbled into the sea. Despite the endeavours of the local community and groups such as The Birnbeck Regeneration Trust, the owner of the pier refuses to sell or regenerate the pier.

This is in stark contrast to nearby Clevedon Pier, which was deemed “the most beautiful pier in England” by the poet Sir John Betjeman. After partial collapse and subsequent closure of the pier in 1970 there were calls for its demolition. Clevedon Pier was saved and reopened in 1998, and is now the UK’s only Grade I listed seaside pier. Today it stands as a testament to The Clevedon Pier Heritage Trust who continue to develop the pier with a new visitor centre, wedding venue, and conferencing space. Recently, the pier gained a new group of fans as it featured as a backdrop to a One Direction music video.

Thriving piers

Despite their advancing years, since the turn of the 21st century many piers have found a new lease of life. The high-profile regeneration of Hastings Pier, led by a local community trust and backed by Heritage Lottery Funding, has spearheaded the revitalisation of many seaside piers (although the pier, controversially, was recently sold to a commercial investor). Nevertheless, a number of coastal communities have successfully regenerated their piers through the formation of pier trusts, including those at Swanage and Herne Bay. Other seaside towns are being even more ambitious and hoping to rebuild their piers or to build brand new piers.

Swanage Pier. National Piers Society

Local authorities within seaside resorts are also promoting their piers as flagship tourist attractions and investing in their refurbishment and new facilities. Southport Pier, which narrowly escaped demolition during the 1990s, is now at the heart of the resort’s development strategy and is currently undergoing a £2.9m refurbishment which includes the addition of new catering and retail facilities.

The piers that are thriving in the 21st century are those that provide a unique selling point. Bournemouth Pier now features the only pier-to-beach zip line, and its former theatre now houses adrenaline-packed activities such as climbing walls, an aerial assault course, and a vertical drop slide. In Folkestone, the Harbour Arm, which was redeveloped as a pleasure pier in 2016, provides a range of pop-up bars and restaurants and its very own champagne bar. Weston’s Grand Pier offers family fun with a modern twist and even boasts an indoor suspended go-kart track. Southwold Pier boasts a novelty automaton arcade.

Weston-Super Mare Grand Pier. National Piers Society

By staying tuned to modern desires as well as a sense of nostalgia, piers will continue to adapt to changing tastes and provide entertainment and pleasure for seaside visitors.

But perhaps the biggest threat they face today is climate change, and the attendant rising sea levels and increasingly frequent storm surges. Cromer, Saltburn, and Blackpool North Pier have all recently been significantly damaged by storms. The World Monuments Fund has recognised the threat of extreme weather events to seaside piers by adding Blackpool’s three piers to their 2018 Watch List. With seaside piers regaining their popularity, their next big challenge will literally be finding a way to weather the storm.

Anya Chapman, Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management, Bournemouth University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The secret information hidden in your hair

BU research, the conversation

File 20180613 32313 ub0kww.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1

Shutterstock

 

By Dr Richard Paul, Bournemouth University.

Your hair can say a lot about you. It doesn’t just give people clues about your personality or your taste in music. It can also record evidence of how much you drink, whether you smoke or take drugs, and perhaps even how stressed you are. My colleagues and I research how hair can be used to provide more accurate testing for these attributes. And a recent court case shows how far the technology has come.

In 2008, a mother who had been struggling with alcohol abuse was asked by a UK court judging a child custody case to abstain from drinking for one year. To assess whether she managed to do this, scientists used a hair analysis that can detect long-term drug or alcohol abuse (or abstinence) over a period of many months, from just one test. At HelpAddiction, we can discuss you the key stages of addiction treatment options and consider your preferences and requirements to find the best treatment plan for you.

This case turned out to be a landmark moment for toxicological hair analysis. The labs analysing the mother’s hair suggested that she may have been drinking during the time she was supposed to be abstinent. The case ended up in the High Court, where the scientific principles underlying hair testing and, crucially, the way the results are reported were thoroughly debated. The judge was critical of the interpretation of the hair analysis data and disagreed with the scientists, ruling that there was no evidence to support drinking during the defined time-period.

Fast forward to 2017 and hair analysis featured in the High Court again. Yet this time the reliability of hair testing was confirmed. A lot changed in the intervening years between these cases. Technology advanced but, importantly, so did our understanding of what hair analysis data actually means.

The traditional samples for drug and alcohol testing are blood and urine. These provide evidence for cases where we require an indication of exposure to drugs and alcohol in a very recent time frame. These samples have what is referred to as a “window of detection”. This is a timeframe over which that sample can demonstrate exposure to drugs or alcohol. The window of detection for blood is often measured in hours, and urine can show evidence over a few days, possibly a few weeks.

By contrast, hair can show a retrospective history of your drug or alcohol consumption (or abstinence) over many months. This level of information makes hair testing invaluable in a wide variety of legal scenarios. If you need to screen potential employees for a safety-critical role, you can use a hair test to check they are not regular drug users. What if you’re concerned your drink was spiked at a party, but too much time has passed for any drug to still be found in your blood or urine? The drugs can remain trapped in your hair, which gives you a longer window of detection and allows scientists to find traces of the drug long after the actual crime event.

Ready for my close up. Shutterstock

My research group is investigating factors that affect the hair concentration of certain chemicals produced when the body ​processes alcohol (metabolites). This sort of work is important to give confidence to the results of hair testing when presented in court. We need the utmost confidence in the data, when a court judgment may have life-changing consequences.

We recently showed that hair sprays and waxes can greatly increase the level of alcohol metabolites found in hair, giving a false positive result in an alcohol test. In one of our experiments, a volunteer who was strictly teetotal tested negative for fatty acid ethyl esters (metabolites of alcohol) in head hair untreated with hair spray, but tested positive after application of hair spray. Not just a little positive either. The volunteer tested significantly over the threshold for chronic excessive alcohol consumption after using hair spray.

This may sound alarming for a test that is used in court, but now that scientists are aware of these limitations, procedures can be put in place to mitigate against them and guidance can be updated. Ethyl glucuronide (a different alcohol metabolite) is not affected by hair sprays and waxes and so is a better target to test when someone uses cosmetic products.

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Other ways of testing

Hair is not the only alternative to blood and urine testing. I’m currently investigating whether fingernails might be a better sample to test in cases where we need to prove abstinence from alcohol. It has been shown that fingernails may incorporate significantly more ethyl glucuronide (an alcohol metabolite) than hair samples. This means fingernails may be more sensitive than hair and could be better at distinguishing low levels of drinking and complete abstinence.

Toxicological hair analysis is not about catching criminals. It’s not about penalty or punishment. It’s about helping people. Results from hair testing can help support people struggling with addiction. In the future I hope we will also be using hair analysis as a diagnostic tool in healthcare.

The research I’m conducting at the moment is evaluating the potential for hair to be used as a diagnostic marker of chronic stress. Stress can lead to very serious healthcare issues. We are examining the stress hormone cortisol to see if we can identify people at risk from future healthcare issues from the concentration of this hormone in hair.

If successful, this work will take hair analysis into a new realm. I’d like to see a future where hair testing is used for a national screening programme for older adults who are most at risk from chronic stress. This could allow scientists to target interventions to lower stress at people who need them the most, which could significantly improve the health and well-being of older people in particular.

Richard Paul, Principal Academic in Biological Chemistry, Bournemouth University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The next six months within education, science, tech, digital and the environment

BU research, EU, policy

Dods (political monitoring consultants) have produced a series of short policy lookahead guides contemplating what is coming up politically in the following spheres over the next few months:
Science Tech and Digital
The Education Sector
Environment and Rural Affairs
The viewing permissions on these guides have been set to BU staff and students, please don’t download and share more widely.

Humanising Care, Health and Wellbeing conference

BU research, conferences, Events

One week to go  to find out more about education, practice and research at the Humanising Care, Health and Wellbeing conference 21-22 June 2018

Please find the conference programme http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/files/2018/06/18-06-13-Humanising-practice-programme-FIN.docx

If you would like to attend this conference at BU please register at https://humanisingcare2018.eventbrite.co.uk

This philosophically-driven approach to caring, health and wellbeing is based on humanising practice. Focusing on what make us feel human and what life feels like from the inside out (existential understandings from lifeworld approaches) provides novel approaches to consider issues relating to care, health and wellbeing.

Humanising practice is supported by work  settings which encourage connection to personal experience and research which privileges subjective experience and knowing; such as phenomenology, narrative, auto-ethnography, embodied knowing and arts–based approaches.

This is our fourth conference; people from previous conferences have said:

A fabulous conference. I leave this day feeling nutured…., inspired …. refreshed… glad to be human

I feel I have found my academic home, it’s a new home and I don’t know where everything is or where to put my ‘stuff’ , but it feels like home

It all fits ! So much lovely work is happening. The threads come together and support this work/idea/way of being. Loved hearing others’ stories and work in action

Thank-you for inviting me to participate –these are very powerful events

 

Doctoral College June NVivo Workshops – open to all

BU research, Doctoral College, Uncategorized

The Doctoral College is hosting two NVivo workshops. If you would like to attend either of these workshops please follow the instructions below.

 

Please note that to book onto the Advanced NVivo workshop you need to attend the Introduction to NVivo first.