Articles from:August 2021

• Brock researchers want to hear from teachers about pandemic and return-to-classroom experiences

  Friday, August 06, 2021 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 5 August 2021 – R0085

  All eyes are on September following the Ontario government’s recent unveiling of its back-to-school plan.

  Brock University Professor of Child and Youth Studies Dawn Zinga and Associate Professor Danielle Sirianni Molnar want to make sure teachers’ voices are being heard and understood as schools re-open.

  “I think of teachers as being front-line workers of a different sort,” says Zinga. “They were there with the students face to face and they were there in students’ homes virtually during long periods of the pandemic, yet we didn’t hear a lot about that side of things,” she says.

  To that end, the duo has launched a survey of teachers as part of their study “Teachers’ Perspectives on the Pandemic.”

  “Teachers have faced an incredible number of challenges during the pandemic, such as having to adapt to completely different learning environments with no warning,” says Sirianni Molnar.

  “We want to understand their experiences, including impacts to their health and well-being,” she says. “We are also very interested in what teaching is like during these difficult and ever-changing times.”

  The research team, which also consists of master’s student Melissa Blackburn and other research assistants, is looking for 250 elementary or secondary school teachers who are certified with the Ontario College of Teachers and have at least two years of teaching experience in Ontario.

  Those interested in participating are asked to e-mail [email protected] to enrol in the study, which consists of three online surveys, each spaced two months apart. For each survey completed, participants will receive a $20 Amazon gift card.

  The first survey asks teachers to describe their teaching experiences during the pandemic, including being mandated to teach virtually, the transition to online platforms, if there was a combination of online and in-person learning, and other processes.

  “We’re also asking if they feel stressed or burned out, what resources they may have used, what helped them get through the tough times, how they balanced things at home and if there were any positive things that came out of the pandemic for them,” says Zinga.

  Two months after the first round, the second survey will ask teachers about their experiences with returning to in-person teaching.

  The third survey will ask similar questions about transitioning back to in-person learning.

  “The surveys are spaced two months apart so that we can assess changes over key transitional periods, such as when everyone returns to school, and so that we can capture changes over relatively short periods of time, given how fast things have been changing across the pandemic,” says Sirianni Molnar.

  The researchers will also be conducting extensive, one-on-one online interviews with teachers interested in going into more detail and sharing their assessments of what needs to be done to improve the situation. Those who complete an online interview will also receive a $25 Amazon gift card.

  The current research follows a study the researchers launched last month. The Niagara Adolescent Personality and Social Connection Study involves adolescents completing a series of three online surveys including questions on how the pandemic affected their experiences at school.

  Adolescents are still able to register in this study. Requests to participate and parental permission can be sent to [email protected]

  “These are twin studies,” says Zinga. “When you take the two studies together, it gives us those two perspectives.”

  The researchers are hoping the surveys will capture information and perspectives that will help educators and policy-makers to move forward with their current re-opening plans, especially in the area of providing more teacher supports.

  Lessons learned during the pandemic can also inform policies and procedures in the event of future pandemics or a fourth wave, say the researchers.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Manager Communications and Media Relations, Brock University [email protected] or 905-347-1970

  – 30 –

  Categories: Media releases

• Framing Tokyo 2020 as gender-equal misleading, says Brock researcher

  Thursday, August 05, 2021 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 5 August 2021 – R0084

  The International Olympic Committee (IOC) continues to promote Tokyo 2020 as the most gender-equal Games ever. But Brock University Sport Management Assistant Professor Michele Donnelly says more needs to be done as “most changes the IOC has introduced are relatively superficial and performative.”

  Some positive steps the IOC has championed for the Games include encouraging each country to select both a male and female flag bearer and each nation sending at least one male and one female athlete as part of its delegation.

  “The important thing to emphasize when the IOC says this is the first gender-balanced Games is they are speaking exclusively in terms of numbers,” Donnelly says. “They are strictly basing those statements on women athletes making up 48.8 per cent of the Games and ignoring a more substantive understanding of equality.”

  One of the big headlines during Tokyo 2020 has been the difference in requirements for men’s and women’s uniforms across various sports. Much of the dialogue is focused on how men often compete in shorts and looser clothing compared to women in bikinis or tight-fitting outfits.

  “We need to expand the uniform regulations for women’s sport to include options,” says Donnelly. “Requiring women to wear revealing, tight-fitting uniforms is reflective of outdated beliefs that no one would watch women’s sport unless there was something else to watch.”

  Female athletes are pushing back more than ever against unequal standards for uniforms they say are more revealing, sexualized and divert focus from their athletic ability.

  “If women athletes are saying ‘my uniform is making me feel uncomfortable and distracted when I want to be focused on performance,’ they should be allowed to have more options,” Donnelly says, adding that the problem starts at the top, with a lack of women in top-level decision-making positions at the IOC and international sport federations.

  Arguments resisting changes to women’s uniforms range from claims that judges need to see arms and legs to do their jobs, sand can be difficult to get out of one-piece bathing suits, performance can be inhibited or improved making the competition unequal, and more.

  “If the men are wearing relatively loose-fitting board shorts and tank tops, why is there is no equivalent option for women?” says Donnelly. “Officials continually resist change based on how it may interfere with women’s performance when men are competing just fine. It reinforces discriminatory ideas about how women should look, including when they play sport.”

  An example of both gender and racial disparity at the Tokyo Games was the rejection of the use of the British-made Soul Cap, an extra-large silicone covering designed specifically to protect dreadlocks, weaves, hair extensions, braids and thick and curly hair.

  In their decision, Fédération Internationale De Natation (FINA), which oversees international competitions in swimming, cited ‘no previous instance in which swimmers needed caps of such size and configuration.’ It also ‘wondered if the cap could create an advantage by disrupting the flow of water.’

  “The rejection of the soul cap is yet another way racialized athletes, and particularly women, are being controlled by dominant ideologies,” says Donnelly, who says the argument reminds her of when women were excluded from the elite sport competitions for wearing hijabs and men were asked to remove their turbans or yarmulkes.

  “Now, we see Muslim women competing in athletics, beach volleyball and other sports wearing more modest uniforms with full sleeves and pant legs, as well as sport hijabs,” she says.

  Donnelly is concerned that without change, younger athletes looking ahead and realizing the types of uniforms they may be expected to wear could be enough of a deterrent that they decide it’s not worth it to continue.

  “We have no idea how many young women and even men we are losing because of significant inequalities in many of the events on the Olympic programme including uniforms, rules, equipment, race distances and more.”

  Brock University Sport Management Assistant Professor Michele Donnelly is available for media interviews on the topic.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Manager Communications and Media Relations, Brock University [email protected] or 905-347-1970

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  Categories: Media releases