The aim of this study was to compare tennis matches played on clay (CL) and resin (R) courts. Six matches were played (3 on CL courts and 3 on R courts) by 6 high-level players. Heart rate (HR) was monitored continuously while running time (4.66 m), and blood lactate concentration ([La]) were measured every 4 games. Mean duration of points and effective playing time (EPT) were measured for each match. Mean HR (154 ± 12 vs. 141 ± 9 b · min(-1)) and [La] values (5.7 ± 1.8 vs. 3.6 ± 1.2 mmol · L(-1)) were significantly higher on CL (p < 0.05). The [La] increased significantly during the match on CL court. Mean duration of rallies (8.5 ± 0.2 vs. 5.9 ± 0.5 seconds) and EPT (26.2 ± 1.9 vs. 19.5 ± 2.0%) were significantly longer (p < 0.05) on CL. Running time values in speed tests were not significantly different between CL and R. Running time performance was not significantly decreased during the match, whatever the playing surface. This study shows that the court surface influences the characteristics of the match and the player's physiological responses. The court surface should be a key factor for consideration when coaches determine specific training programs for high-level tennis players.

What does the analysis of school support practices during lockdown in France tell us about the fabrication of educational inequalities? The question of parental monitoring of schoolwork has long been absent from French sociology of education. Based on French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of cultural assimilation, the traditional assumption was that family socialisation operates in an “osmotic” way and that studying parents’ concrete, voluntary and explicit practices to support their children’s schoolwork would not yield much new information. This research note takes the opposite view and demonstrates, on the basis of a survey using a questionnaire ( n = 31,764) supplemented by a series of interviews ( n = 18) conducted in France during the spring 2020 lockdown, that there are strong differences depending on social background. The early results of this survey suggest in particular that limiting explanations for social inequalities in homeschooling to a digital divide is too simple. The pedagogical dimensions of social inequalities in children’s educational achievements must also be taken into account. The author introduces French theories about the “relationship to knowledge” ( les théories du rapport au savoir ) as a suitable theoretical approach to investigating this dimension.

The period of confinement in the spring of 2020 is of great interest in highlighting the parental work of educational support. While parental support is usually more diffuse, and is secondary in relation to what is done at school, occurring at different moments of daily life, home schooling during lockdown revealed new ways of helping and framing schoolwork. This article looks at parenting practices in higher socio-economic status (SES) families in France. Based on a massive questionnaire ( N = 31,764) and a series of additional interviews ( N = 15) conducted during lockdown, the aim is to investigate what makes parental assistance specific in high SES environments. Our findings show that such families have less difficulty carrying out schooling at home. What makes them consider this experience as ‘not a big deal’, as they say, is that they have organisational and pedagogical (i.e. objective) resources that enable them to respond to its challenges. In addition, however, we show that home schooling is experienced in these families as less contrived. In effect, they use schoolwork techniques that help to obscure (from others, but also from themselves) the effort that schoolwork requires.