Athens, Ga. – Three University of Georgia College of Education faculty members-Rose Chepyator-Thomson, Bryan McCullick and Michael Ferrara-will make presentations at the 2012 International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport, a global scientific conference associated with the Olympic Games, in Glasgow, Scotland July 19-24.
Chepyator-Thomson, a professor in the sport management program, and McCullick, a professor and program coordinator of physical education, will deliver papers as part of an invited symposium titled “School Physical Education Curricula for Future Generations: Global Patterns? Global Lessons?”
Along with speakers from New Zealand, South Korea, Germany, Australia, England and Turkey, McCullick will discuss the place of physical education in today’s schools. His presentation, “Re-Thinking the Place of P.E. in American Schooling,” will propose a rationale and a plan for physical education to reposition itself in the school curriculum so that it can make added contributions and remove itself from the debate on what public schooling should be.
Chepyator-Thomson’s presentation, titled “Public Policy and Physical Education in Post-Colonial Africa,” explores how teaching movement forms in physical education is lost to the politics of knowledge in the schools. This is revealed through the ranking of subjects, the lack of indistinguishable characteristics between physical education and school sport, the presence of negative school practices, and the general understanding of school sport as an agent of social engineering and economic development, as well as an organ for the promotion of a nation’s international image abroad as in the Olympic Games. She will conclude her presentation by describing “a way forward for physical education in Africa.”
Ferrara, the college’s associate dean for research, a professor of exercise science and founder of UGA’s athletic training education program, will present at a symposium titled “Sport-Related Concussion Management: From the Field to the Laboratory” with Larry Leverenz from Purdue University and Jake Resch from the University of Texas at Arlington, a 2010 UGA doctoral graduate.
Ferrara will present on the current trends in concussion assessment and dual tasking. Dual tasking requires an individual to perform a combination of mental and physical tasks concurrently to replicate sport activity. UGA researchers Phil Tomporowski and Ferrara have developed and tested dual-task methodology to assess executive function of the brain. The dual task testing can be used to determine the severity of a concussion and assist clinicians in making return to play decisions.
ICSEMIS 2012 is sponsored by the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, the International Federation of Sports Medicine and the International Council of Sports Science and Physical Education. The first ICSEMIS was held in Guangzhou, China in 2008 prior to the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic Games will take place July 27.
For more information on the conference, see www.icsemis2012.com/.
##