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This article explores the impact of the 'hostile environment' on racialised migrant women's experiences of pregnancy and childbirth in England, arguing that the 'hostile environment' functions as a technology of 'stratified reproduction.' First coined by Shellee Colen, the concept of stratified reproduction describes the dynamic by which some individuals and groups may be supported in their reproductive activities, while others are disempowered and discouraged. This paper locates the stratified reproduction produced by the 'hostile environment' as intertwined with wider gendered and racialised discourses around British citizenship which have been 'designed to fail' racialised residents of the UK. Drawing on interviews with racialised migrant mothers in the north of England, this paper analyses how the proliferation and intensification of immigration controls interacts with gender, race, class, and other social regimes to differentially allocate the resources necessary for a safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth, and how this is experienced materially by pregnant migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The onset of prehistoric farming brought unprecedented changes to landscapes and their biodiversity. Past biodiversity patterns are broadly understood for different parts of Europe, and demonstrate trajectories that have been linked to prehistoric and historic demographic transitions, and associated land-use practices. To our knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to directly link evidence of agricultural practice from the archaeological record to biodiversity patterns. Records of fossil pollen are used to estimate plant and landscape diversity patterns, and novel approaches are employed to analyse 1194 harmonised archaeobotanical samples (plant macrofossil remains) spanning the prehistoric and Roman periods, from southern England. We demonstrate changes in the use of crops and gathered edible plants and non-linear trends in cultivation practices. Whilst, overall, cereal production is characterised by ever larger and extensive regimes, different trajectories are evident for most of early prehistory, the Middle Iron Age and the Late Roman period. Comparisons with the Shannon diversity of fossil pollen records from the same region suggest a positive relationship between developing agricultural regimes and landscape scale biodiversity during the prehistoric period. The Roman period represents a tipping point in the relationship between expanding agriculture and pollen diversity, with declining pollen diversity evident in the records from the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radicalisation has become a highly influential idea in British policy making. It underpins and justifies Prevent, a core part of the UK's counter-terrorism strategy. Experts have theorised the radicalisation process, often beset by a weak evidence base and mired in fundamental contestation on definitions and explanatory factors. Experiential experts have been active contributors to these debates, presenting a challenge to the low-ranking role often given to experiential knowledge in evidence hierarchies and a contrast to policy areas in which it remains poorly valued. This paper draws on interviews with radicalisation experts to examine the dynamics of this pluralisation in practice. With a focus on credibility contests, it explains how experiential experts can claim authoritative knowledge and the challenges they face from those who prioritise theory-driven empirical data as the basis for contributions to knowledge. The paper draws out the implications for understandings of expertise of this newly conceptualised, evidence poor and highly applied topic area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age is an important known driver of residential sorting, yet little is understood about how age segregation is affected by housing unaffordability. This relationship is particularly pertinent given trends of increasing housing inequalities and population ageing, in Europe and elsewhere. Using harmonised population data for small areas linked with local house price statistics and household incomes in England and Wales, this paper examines the scale of, and links between, residential age segregation and housing unaffordability. The results reveal a strong association between increasing housing unaffordability (for sales and rentals) and increasing residential age segregation (beyond other local characteristics). This association is particularly marked in urban and rich (least deprived) areas. This points to increasing spatial polarisation along the intersections of wealth and age: not only are the wealthiest parts of the country, where housing is particularly unaffordable, becoming increasingly demarcated socio-economically but also by age. This implies that age-related life course processes are integral to the trends observed more broadly of increasing socio-spatial polarisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the neglected topic of the organization and use of household space for work (paid and unpaid) during the early modern period. It engages critically with the concept of 'the open house' in relation to recent arguments about processes of spatial and social closure of houses and households in the early modern period associated with the development of a capitalist socio-economic system. Drawing on a variety of sources including diaries, autobiographies, inventories and court records the analysis considers how work was organized in the domestic context and how experience varied according to gender, age, status and location as well as time of day, week or year. The paper argues that a perceived dichotomy between an open house and a closed home secluded from the social and business world of community and commerce is inadequate in the consideration of space and attitudes in this period. Individuals in larger houses could control access to certain spaces at specific times and work could be concentrated in certain rooms. But in practice in most households the complicated demands of the household economy required openness to outsiders that rendered the boundaries of houses more permeable and potentially more unstable than they are today. The analysis considers the case of England and compares rural and urban homes in a particular regional context, but it opens up several ways for historians to think about the relationship between work and home in other European regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an understanding of the structural and spatial characteristics of regulated forms of temporary use across England's core cities. The paper's contribution lies in its adoption of an extensive research design that goes beyond the intensive qualitative approaches that predominate in the temporary use literature. We employ a novel data set of 5890 temporary use interventions that have been recorded over a 15-year period (2000–2015). Informed by the temporary use literature, we distinguish between 'extraordinary' (e.g. urban beaches) and 'ordinary' (e.g. car parks) forms of temporary use alongside other characteristics that include the time of occurrence, the function of space appropriated, decisions taken and whether instances were isolated or reoccurring. Logistic regression is used to test whether the odds that a temporary use was defined as 'ordinary' or 'extraordinary' increased or decreased owing to their underlying structural characteristics. The analysis revealed that applications for extraordinary temporary uses increased in the period following the 2007/2008 financial crisis but that ordinary forms of temporary uses remained much more common before and after the recession. It also revealed differences between ordinary and extraordinary uses in relation to the functions of the spaces appropriated and decisions taken by the planning authority in processing the application. Geospatial approaches were then applied to two case study cities – Bristol and Liverpool. The analysis revealed a tendency towards the clustering of temporary uses that was spatially and temporally uneven, with extraordinary uses in particular concentrated in the cores/downtowns of the two cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the politicised history of Public Conveniences in England since the 19th century, this paper traces the socio-political motives for their provision and for their gradual withdrawal in recent decades. It discusses the effects these developments have had on public mobility, and the socio-political complexity these infrastructures pose to city-making agendas. In particular, the essay highlights the notions of stigma associated with these spaces in relation to gender, body-politics and control, which led to a lack of political interest in their provision and a pattern of closures that began in the Thatcher era and has continued through later times of economic austerity. To unfold these arguments, the essay examines a series of initiatives put forward to reclaim for public use a derelict toilet in the centre of London: from the concept of an interactive site-specific intervention to raise awareness of its closure, to a campaign for its listing as an Asset of Community Value, to contest its privatisation. This case study is used to address the spatial stigma that public toilets carry as a contested locus of public sanitation and, furthermore, to highlight important questions surrounding their provision in the context of contemporary citizen-driven urban agendas. To articulate this argument, the case study exemplifies how critical spatial practices can operate as a form of pedagogical urban praxis for awareness-raising and citizen engagement, advancing a Lefebvrian 'right to the city' against hegemonic neoliberal agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how intersecting identities, stigma and health-based infrastructures are spatially affiliated and territorialised in the South East of England through the findings of three research projects aimed at understanding health inequalities among urban Black, Asian and Ethnic Minorities including Gypsies and Travellers (BAME and GT) groups. It problematises Wacquant's approach to territorial stigma by explaining how Butler's notion of vulnerability and Castoriadis' notion of autonomous agency help to expand our understanding of the interplay between stigma and health infrastructures. Moreover, it suggests that such interplay requires an intersectional approach to identity as performative and embodied practice using illustrative examples. We propose that these health settings and infrastructures can be characterised as 'transbordering assemblages', following Irazábal who describes its embedded notions of pluri-locality (here and there: '[T]Here'), pluri-identity and practices of bordering (being in or out/in and out/in between) when experiencing health needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of narrative verdicts in the coronial system in England and Wales to record findings in cases of death after police contact. It uses a dataset of 68 verdicts into such cases in the period 2004-2015. The paper considers how regulation is constructed in a way that makes complex cases comprehensible through narrative. The construction of these narratives is affected by legal structures, institutional structures, but also the structures imposed by narrative convention. The paper argues that the relationships between these structures affect what type of narrative is constructed in the aftermath of a death after police contact. It further suggests that devices within narratives enable the construction of a comprehensible narrative verdict in such cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European countries have developed a range of long-term care (LTC) policy responses to support the increasing share of older people. However, little is known about the effectiveness of LTC services and benefits, particularly their impact on older peoples' quality of life (QoL). This paper investigates the role of personal, care service and environmental characteristics on the effects of home care services on QoL across England, Finland and Austria. We used data from surveys conducted in England, Finland and Austria. In total, 811 older adults were included in the analysis. OLS regression including main effects and country-specific interactions was used to explore variation in gains in long-term care service-related quality-of-life (LTC-QoL). Explanatory variables were derived from the production of welfare framework and comprised home care service user socio-demographics, needs indicators, social support and environmental variables and characteristics of home care service provision. In all three countries, LTC-QoL gains increased with needs, indicating that home care services perform well, with additional gains declining the higher the needs. Also, better process quality contributed to LTC-QoL improvements in all three countries. In addition, the availability of informal care, social contact, financial household situation and living alone, were associated with changes in LTC-QoL only in one or two of the countries. Home care services increased service users' QoL in all three European countries. The increase in QoL, however, varied across the countries. The results also provide insights into the benefits and limits of home care service provision and areas for future improvements. JEL: I31, I38, J14 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports a study that examines how to determine if a road traffic collision took place in daylight or in the dark. An innovative method was developed, based on solar altitude, to establish cut-off points of daylight and darkness determined from a study of daylight availability in England, Scotland and Wales. This approach provides a rigorous method to differentiate daytime and night-time collisions. The criteria were used in a study of the collisions reported in the STATS19 data set for the weeks either side of the clock changes that are necessary between Greenwich Mean Time and British Summer Time. By comparing periods with the same clock time either side of the time change, using the aforementioned method, it was possible to isolate collisions within the same time period that during one week occurred in darkness and in the other week in daylight. The initial finding was that there are 19.3% more collisions in the dark periods and there is an even greater increase (31.7%) in pedestrian injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Association of Social Workers has campaigned for many years for the registration of social workers in Australia, but with little success to date. This paper critically examines the key arguments for and against registration with reference to academic and government policy literature from international jurisdictions (primarily New Zealand and England) where government regulation of social work already exists. This review of existing literature found that arguments in favour of registration broadly centre on two main assumptions. They are improved protection of clients and amplification of professional standing. The findings indicate that there is only limited empirical evidence as to whether registration does in fact lift the professional standing of social workers or protect consumers from substandard practice. We conclude that further research is required to examine whether registration of social workers is justified in Australia, and particularly to ascertain whether the regulation of social workers generally or in specific practice areas such as child protection can realistically take place independently of the large number of human service practitioners who are not social work trained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers the notion that innovation in territorial governance is associated with a set of core neoliberal ideas about local economic development which have come to constitute a new and pervasive consensus. Through a case study of attempts to construct city-regional institutions in Manchester, England, over a period of 25 years, it attempts to track the themes that have underpinned the development of a local politics of economic development. The paper considers the extent to which evolution of city-regional institutions and policy accord to wider ideas about post-political forms of governance and the erosion of democracy in cities. It concludes by considering the degree to which this experience is representative of a wider orthodoxy in the governance of local economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite an emerging literature on guerrilla gardening as a political practice in public spaces, with few exceptions, these accounts theorise it as working against many corporate and bureaucratic forms of power. Using the example of ‘F Troop’—a group of gardeners operating on a site in an English midland city—this paper focuses on the practices of urban guerrilla gardening in order to illustrate that these are perhaps not as ‘resistant’ or ‘celebratory’ as previous accounts have suggested. Rather, this paper draws on ethnographic data to focus attention on the micro politics of garden activism, arguing that the social backgrounds and motivations of those involved in guerrilla gardening and their relationship with other users of the space surrounding the dig site are also important—but largely underacknowledged—aspects of guerrilla gardening. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the origins and traces the history of the Social Fund, an ideologically-motivated social policy departure of the Thatcher era. It identifies the controversy, in research communities amongst others, which surrounded the establishment of the Fund, and considers the evidence of recurring difficulties in its practical operation over a thirty-year period. It then turns to the Coalition administration in Westminster’s decision to divest itself of responsibility for key parts of the Fund, devolving such obligations to local authorities in England, the Parliament in Scotland and the Assembly in Wales. The paper sets out a comparison of the approaches being developed to discharge the Fund’s prior responsibilities in the three nations. It concludes that the essential policy thrust lies in a determination to roll back central state obligations in poverty relief and income maintenance which had hitherto been accepted by all post-war administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New relationships between service users and the welfare state have emerged as a result of governmental strategies of public service reform in which participation has appeared as the cure for a putative welfare dependency. A new public has been invoked in technologies of governance which have conflated responsible citizenship with participation in the marketplace and have aimed to change the behaviour of welfare service users accordingly. This paper investigates the ability of welfare service users to resist, or amend, the disciplinary intentions of these discourses, to constitute ‘counter-publics’, and to formulate their own visions of public services. Drawing on research with English social housing tenants engaged in participation with their quasi-public landlords, and applying a theoretical framework based on the work of feminist and queer theorist Judith Butler, the paper explores the behavioural effects of participation on tenants and evidences their use of consumerist and communitarian discourses to construct alternative perceptions of a ‘public’, and re-imagine their relationship with public services. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper contributes to recent interest in city twinning by urban theorists. It begins with a review of writing from across the social sciences which describes the institutional context and content of twinning programmes, as well as work which theorises how care and hospitality are key elements of twinning practices. Ethnographic research is then presented from the City of Manchester (UK) in order to consider the ways in which twinning is constituted through circuits, networks and webs of co-operation and competition involved in the transfer of policy and knowledge which can be strategic, uneven and at times ambivalent. In doing so, it is argued that the conflicts, tensions and contradictions bound up with twinning have much to offer theoretical and empirical understanding of territorial and relational urban politics. The paper concludes with theoretical, methodological and policy relevant insights. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A central element in the privatization of council housing has been the development of stock transfer policy. A variety of perspectives on this process have been explored including the impact on accountability relations; however, the tenants’ experience is almost completely absent from this literature. The paper develops a case study that draws on the experience of the tenants involved in a stock transfer. In the process stock transfers, and related accountability relations, are shown to be contested with tenant-led campaigns challenging this neoliberal inspired policy. The case study illustrates the power and financial resource asymmetries in transfer campaigns with a range of anti-democratic tactics employed by those pursuing the transfer. On the basis of a critique of neoliberalism, the stock transfer process is seen as an attack on the previous democratic control of council housing, which is replaced with ‘governance by experts and elites’ and private sector inspired corporate governance forms of accountability. Thus the paper seeks to answer two questions; how democratic is the transfer process and what are the long-term implications for democratic accountability in the social housing sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how the loss of 6300 jobs from the closure of MG Rover (MGR) in the city of Birmingham (UK) in April 2005 affected the employment trajectories of ex-workers, in the context of wider structural change and efforts at urban renewal. The paper presents an analysis of a longitudinal survey of 300 ex-MGR workers, and examines to what extent the state of local labour markets and workers’ geographical mobility—as well as the effectiveness of the immediate policy response and longer-term local economic strategies—may have helped to balance the impacts of personal attributes associated with workers’ employability and their reabsorption into the labour markets. It is found that the relative buoyancy of the local economy, the success of longer-run efforts at diversification and a strong policy response and retraining initiative helped many disadvantaged workers to find new jobs in the medium term. However, the paper also highlights the unequal employment outcomes and trajectories that many lesser-skilled workers faced. It explores the policy issues arising from such closures and their aftermath, such as the need to co-ordinate responses, to retain institutional capacity, to offer high-quality training and education resources to workers and, where possible, to slow down such closure processes to enable skills to be retained and reused within the local economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper outlines the history of workforce strategies for providing mental health care to “black and ethnic minorities” in England. Universal mental health policies failed to deliver equity in care, and thus specific policies were launched to address ethnic inequalities in care experiences and outcomes. The emphasis on race equality rather than cultural complexity led to widespread acceptance of the need for change. The policy implementation was delivered in accord with multiple regional and national narratives of how to reduce inequalities. As changes in clinical practice and services were encouraged, resistance emerged in various forms from clinicians and policy leaders. In the absence of commitment and then dispute about forms of evidence, divergent policy and clinical narratives fuelled a shift of attention away from services to silence issues of race equality. The process itself represents a defence against the pain of acknowledging systemic inequities whilst rebutting perceived criticism. We draw on historical, psychoanalytic, and learning theory in order to understand these processes and the multiple narratives that compete for dominance. The place of race, ethnicity, and culture in history and their representation in unconscious and conscious thought are investigated to reveal why cultural competence training is not simply an educational intervention. Tackling inequities requires personal development and the emergence and containment of primitive anxieties, hostilities, and fears. In this paper we describe the experience in England of moving from narratives of cultural sensitivity and cultural competence, to race equality and cultural capability, and ultimately to cultural consultation as a process. Given the need to apprehend narratives in care practice, especially at times of disputed evidence, cultural consultation processes may be an appropriate paradigm to address intersectional inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper concerns the use of photo-elicitation interviews in constructing migrant narratives of health and well-being. It argues that photo-elicitation can be particularly effective in producing nuanced understandings about relationships among culture, place and health. It explores how, through this method, subject-centred understandings of health and well-being are able to challenge dominant discursive constructions that tend to ‘other’ and potentially stereotype minority groups in explanations of health behaviour. The paper includes discussion of issues of power and representation in research with marginalized populations, which further elaborates the value of photo-elicitation in developing a non-essentializing view of minority groups. The paper concludes with comment on the potential value of this method in the formulation of health and social policies aiming to incorporate the views and needs of marginalized or minority groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the value of photography walking tours for exploring meanings and experiences of community. The work is part of a larger visual research project which sought to examine the everyday lives of residents in a neighbourhood identified as ‘disadvantaged’, with the tour being organized as an opportunity for residents to identify what they valued about their local environment and what they considered to be problematic. The dynamics involved in gathering this photographic record are one element of the discussion as is analysis of the ways in which the participants constructed and re-constructed their sense of community through the different examples they selected for photographing. The paper is thus concerned with the ways in which visual data bring different insights to understandings of which practices, services and resources are embedded in meanings of community in working-class neighbourhoods and, in turn, how such data might have value for informing policy and practice about the experiences of inequality in contemporary England. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper will focus on the place of black history in heritage sites in England and discuss how visual methodologies can be used to develop a more inclusive approach to heritage. It will argue that visual archives, from portraits of the aristocracy to asylum portraits, are an essential part of the research process for heritage site staff who are assessing how they connect to (potential) visitors. The paper highlights examples that illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of using the visual record for historical recovery and suggests how visual methodologies can be used to encourage greater participation with historic environments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 1970s, security planning has become an integral and required part of bidding documents and preparation for hosting sporting mega events, most notably the summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. Drawing on a multidisciplinary conceptual framework derived from prior experiences of security operations at major sporting events and historical counter-terrorism experiences of London, the paper unpacks the socio-spatial implications of security measures intended to secure the 2012 Games. In particular, it highlights the threat posed against ‘crowded places’ from international terrorism as well as possible surveillance, design or managerial measures that are to be deployed to make such sites more resilient to terrorist attack. This, it is argued, both converges with standardised Olympic security models and diverges at important points, related to the pre-existence of capacity in urban counter-terrorism onto which 2012 security will be overlaid or laminated. The paper also highlights the increased use made of security for ‘legacy’ purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the interrelationships of security policies and processes of commodification with respect to contemporary sport mega events (SMEs). First, it is argued that we need to move beyond conventional understandings of SMEs, as specific occasions fixed in time and space. Instead, we should examine more diffuse forms of SME, as illustrated by major sport leagues such as the English Premier League (EPL). Secondly, the paper discusses the popular cultures that have long been intrinsic to urban sporting spaces and which have been marginalised by strategies of securitisation and commodification since the late 1980s. Thirdly and fourthly, the principal juridico-political and political-economic forces that prevail within the EPL, and UK football in general, are examined—notably in regard to constrictive legislation and advanced security technologies, alongside policies of neo-liberal governmentalisation and urban revanchism. Fifthly, the paper explores expressions and irruptions of public unease, transgression and conflict within UK football settings with respect to these forces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the impact of existing land use patterns on housing supply price elasticities in local areas of England, under existing planning policies. The paper demonstrates that, despite common national planning policies, local supply responses to market pressures vary considerably, because of differences in historical land uses. The study area covers the Thames Gateway and Thames Valley, which lie to the east and west of London respectively. However, whereas the latter is one of the wealthiest areas of England, the former includes some of the highest pockets of deprivation and was a government priority area for increasing housing supply. Due to differences in historical land use and geography, the price elasticity in the least constrained area is approximately six times higher than the most constrained. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the UK the number of state social workers supplied by independent employment agencies has increased significantly since the mid-1990s. Although state sectors of welfare such as education and health have always relied upon a steady supply of locum staff, there is no such tradition within social work. This paper explores some of the ethical tensions that have become apparent with the expansion of contingency social work. Questions remain about the ‘opportunity cost’ of agency social work, as well as subsequent problems of recruitment, access to training, collegiate relations and any impact upon service users. The paper notes tensions that persist between a push for more flexible labour, the ethics of practitioners and the needs of service users. Recent policy responses which aim to push responsibility back to local authorities and social work managers are also questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Ministry of Justice Green Paper on Breaking the Cycle contains proposals for the re-formation of the criminal justice system in England and Wales during the period 2010 to 2015. Even though the document includes a brief profile of the offender population, it does not engage critically by locating the profile within a neoliberal political, social, and economic explanatory context. It used to be the responsibility of the probation service to provide relevant information to the courts to explore and explain offending episodes. However, recent modernizing transformations have damaged this historic function and it is a considerable omission the Green Paper neither discusses nor rectifies. This has significant implications for both criminal and social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a framework is developed for analysing the ‘(new) urban politics’ (NUP) of global cities. The paper is structured around three main sections. First, it briefly reviews the global city literature alongside some of its main criticisms, with a particular emphasis on its ‘political deficit’. Secondly, it suggests that this shortcoming can be addressed through the establishment of a conversation with the NUP literature. These scholarships have developed parallel to each other but their relationship has been rather weak. It is argued that such cross-fertilisation presents an opportunity to refashion and bring forward the NUP in the particular context of global cities, but only if it is developed through a historical geographical materialist approach. Finally, the paper draws the contours of a conceptual framework to address the NUP of global cities, drawing mainly from the case of London. The conclusion sets out elements of a future research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues for a rethinking of our understanding of what and where go into the ‘urban’ in the New Urban Politics (NUP). It contends that these issues have always been more complex, complicated and, most importantly, contested than has sometimes appeared to be the case in the literature. Using the example of one trans-urban policy learning network—that around the city of Manchester’s bids for the Olympic and Commonwealth Games—the paper makes the case for taking seriously the politics around comparison and referencing in making possible the NUP. It argues that there is a need to study the circuits, networks and webs in and through which urban knowledge and learning are constituted and moved around, and that often underpin the territorial outcomes that have been the traditional focus of scholars working on the NUP. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are many reasons why cities with diverse populations may grow faster. Ethnic diversity might attract human capital, tourists or firms, increase productivity through diverse approaches to problem-solving or ethnic minority entrepreneurship. Yet there are also reasons to believe that diversity could be harmful, by leading to sub-optimal provision of public goods or reducing trust or social capital. Or it may be irrelevant, being merely a proxy for class. A number of studies have shown both positive and negative relationships between diversity and growth, using a range of different measures for ‘diversity’. This paper asks two questions: have more diverse English cities grown faster? And does measurement matter: is it important to have a multinational population or an ethnically diverse one? To answer these questions, in this paper a range of models are estimated for employment growth for 53 English cities between 1981 and 2001. The evidence suggests that cities with a high proportion of their populations born abroad in 1981 grew faster in the subsequent 10 years. Neither diversity by country of birth nor ethnic diversity is significant in the period 1991—2001. However, when variables accounting for both are included together, it appears that cities with a large number of migrants saw higher employment growth in the 1990s, but that ethnically diverse cities were less successful. The results presented here suggest that considerable attention needs to be paid to the variable used to indicate ‘diversity’ in these studies and that the impact of diversity varies according to nature of the groups any indicator for ‘diversity’ is representing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on case study evidence from three deprived urban neighbourhoods in England, this paper explores the influence of social networks and attachment to place on young people’s access to training and employment opportunities. The findings presented contribute to the emerging literature which highlights the importance that place-based social networks have in facilitating young people’s access to training and employment opportunities through provision of trusted information, references and role models. Moreover, the evidence also demonstrates how both social networks and attachment to place may constrain geographical and social horizons, and therefore limit the available opportunities in employment and training that young people perceive are open to them. The paper concludes by focusing on policy implications. In particular, it is argued that it is important that the influence of social networks, place attachment and associated subjective geographies is recognised by academics and policy-makers seeking a better understanding of the attitudes and perceptions of young people towards training and employment—especially in deprived areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports the number of sex workers in Scotland and England who are in contact with specialist services for sex workers. Then, using methods and multipliers derived from the frequently quoted Kinnell study (1999) the paper provides various updated estimates of the wider population of sex workers. We point out the limits of our estimates and the methodological difficulties of estimating the size of this hidden population. The paper argues that many claims about sex work made by politicians and the media are misleading especially where they conflate sex work with trafficking and abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a film and television production system theoretically framed using a network approach. The organisation and geographies of production are examined using the notion of project ecologies to incorporate non-firm actors including freelance individuals. Empirical findings from quantitative and qualitative data collection in Manchester are used to illustrate different hierarchical networks within and between production stages. The paper argues that inherent multiscalar network inequalities impact on the capacity for the film and television industry in Manchester to secure financing and distribution, and on the organisational logics of production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on empirical data from a project exploring the experiences and identities of London school children who were identified by their schools as being 'at risk of dropping out' of education, this paper highlights schools as important local spaces in urban children's identity constructions. It is argued that the way in which schools and local areas are materially and discursively constructed can impact on children's identities as learners and their engagement with education. The paper shows that urban children's relationships to their school and local area are complex and contradictory, generating feelings of attachment and positive identification, but also fear and disgust. It is also argued that these feelings about place impact on children's relationships to education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reform of adult social care is a major preoccupation within England. It is presented as the inevitable consequence of the changed expectations of people who use services; in addition, the detail of policy is portrayed as being in accordance with what those people specify they want from social care. However, there appears to be little recognition of the complexities and contradictions that characterize much of the policy. Of these, the inadequacy of the resource base of adult social care is most significant; consequently, rationing of scarce resources will continue to be a priority. The paper also highlights problems in other areas, including the rhetoric that accompanies policy change and the evidence base for that change, the lack of connection between issues of independence and protection, the partial understandings of partnership that appear to characterize it and the inadequate conceptualizations both of the nature of those people who require social care support and of the character of that support. In discussing these issues, the paper emphasizes that there remain continuities in the context of policy, while noting the continual focus on discontinuity within government documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changing ethnic composition of housing tenures in London (inner and outer) from 1991 to 2001. The question that it addresses is the extent to which ethnic minorities have become increasingly concentrated in social and privately rented housing in the inner city, as much of the literature on other European and American cities suggests, and the extent to which some of them have been able to move outwards and upwards into suburban ownership. The period 1991-2001 is particularly important in London because it witnessed a major increase in the size and importance of its ethnic minority population and important changes in its tenure structure. The introduction of an ethnicity question in the 1991 census permits analysis over time. The paper shows both an increase in suburban ethnic minority ownership and a growing concentration of ethnic minority groups in social and privately rented housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the number of sex workers in Scotland and England who are in contact with specialist services for sex workers. Then, using methods and multipliers derived from the frequently quoted Kinnell study (1999) the paper provides various updated estimates of the wider population of sex workers. We point out the limits of our estimates and the methodological difficulties of estimating the size of this hidden population. The paper argues that many claims about sex work made by politicians and the media are misleading especially where they conflate sex work with trafficking and abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on research amongst women living in England who are on the margins of the labour market. It analyses why current policy works so inadequately for this group of women, whose existence is often marked by poverty and social exclusion. It emphasizes the significance of the reality of women's lived experiences and the nature of local labour markets, and discusses how and why policy fails to respond to these. Women lack bespoke support and are channelled into 'women's jobs', perpetuating gender inequalities in employment and reinforcing precarious relationships with the labour market. In addition, the effect of the key ideas underpinning policy, in particular 'welfare dependency' and a 'work first' orientation, is to distort the responses to women claimants and to ignore the needs of non-claimant women returners. In conclusion the paper argues that current policy both overlooks the specificity of women's labour market disconnection and contributes to its reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a cross-classification of material deprivation and lack of digital engagement, at a far more spatially disaggregated level than has previously been attempted in the UK. This is achieved by matching the 2004 Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) with a unique nation-wide geodemographic classification of ICT usage, aggregated to unit postcodes. The results of the cross-classification suggest that lack of digital engagement and material deprivation are linked, with high levels of material deprivation generally associated with low levels of engagement with ICTs and vice versa. However, some neighbourhoods are 'digitally unengaged' but not materially deprived and the paper investigates the extent to which this outcome may be linked to factors such as lack of confidence, skills or motivation. As with material deprivation, there are distinctive regional and local geographies of digital unengagement and these have important implications for digital policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine critically the role of culture in the continued development, or regeneration, of 'post-industrial' cities. First, it is critical of instrumental conceptions of culture with regard to urban regeneration. Secondly, it is critical of the adequacy of the conceptual framework of the 'post-industrial city' (and the 'service sector') as a basis for the understanding and explanation of the rise of cultural industries in cities. The paper is based upon a case study of the transformation of a classic, and in policy debates a seminal, 'cultural quarter': Hoxton Square, North London. Hoxton, and many areas like it, are commonly presented as derelict parts of cities which many claim have, through a magical injection of culture, been transformed into dynamic destinations. The paper suggests a more complex and multifaceted causality based upon a robust concept of the cultural industries as industry rather than as consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The restrictions many parents place on children's spatial freedoms are often tied to concerns about 'urban risk'. Concurrently, those children afforded greater spatial autonomy are often represented as threatening and disruptive to local social interaction. Little research has, however, explored the implications of children's spatial freedoms on social cohesion. Framed by the concept of social capital, this paper examines the role children play in developing the kinds of connection and relationship that build social networks, trust and neighbourliness. Focusing on children's lives in three innercity and two suburban locations in England, the paper explores neighbourhood social capital in relation to two 'critical interactions': first, between social policy, parenting values and children's autonomy and, secondly, between children's and parents' local engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between the increasing emphasis on the integration of social, economic, democratic and environmental objectives within planning practice and the emergence of new forms of networked governance. Using a framework which stresses the hybridity and tensions that characterise current governance arrangements, the article investigates attempts to create 'sustainable communities' in the Thames Gateway, England. The analysis reveals the tensions and contradictions arising from governing the Gateway, including those between the conflicting goals of economic competitiveness and social and environmental sustainability, between horizontal, networked governance and forms of and requirements for hierarchical direction and between a focus on delivery and participatory governance. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of the hybridity and complexity in governance forms for the search for sustainable communities and the forms of governance 'fit for purpose' in their realisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, policy-makers have introduced social mixing initiatives that have sought to address urban social problems by deconcentrating poor and working-class communities through attracting the middle classes back to the city. Such a policy objective clearly 'smells like gentrification'. However, some commentators have warned against being critical of these policies, pointing out that the types of innercity redevelopment generated by them is different from classical gentrifi cation and that state-led gentrifi cation offers benefits for many working-class communities. This paper draws upon research conducted in London to demonstrate how, despite having many commendable aspects, these policy agendas carry with them significant threats of displacement for lower-income communities. The paper also argues that, due to the mutating nature of gentrifi cation, these threats are increasingly context-bound. In conclusion, the paper argues that those state mechanisms which might manage the unjust aspects of gentrifi cation are inadequate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gentrification has become a global phenomenon over the past 15 years and has been understood as an increasingly important strategy within neo-liberal policy-making. Focusing on London and Mumbai, this paper details how public policies and planning regimes have been reconfigured and rescaled to facilitate and encourage new property speculation. However, against more generalised and abstract accounts of the neo-liberal city, the paper uses its comparative perspective to emphasise the geographically and historically specific manifestations and effects of gentrification processes. By highlighting different forms of state intervention and sharper socio-spatial impacts in Mumbai, the paper challenges the Eurocentric framing of a global spread of gentrification and argues that Mumbai can act as an important source of learning for gentrification research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selective migration flows are thought to be a key means by which the intended benefits of area-based initiatives `leak out' of target areas, undermining their effectiveness. To date, direct evidence on the scale or impact of these flows has been weak since they are difficult to assess using survey methods. Using 2001 census data for England and Scotland, this paper looks at the scale and composition of flows for deprived neighbourhoods with a particular focus on educational attainment. It analyses the impacts of these flows on the characteristics of deprived areas, exploring differences between regions and comparing neighbourhoods involved in two major regeneration programmes with other deprived areas. The paper shows that selective migration flows do serve to reinforce spatial segregation but that the scale of this effect appears very modest and that impacts vary between regions. Flows for the regeneration areas are less adverse than for similarly deprived neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effects of iconic, abstract representations of complex objects on our interactions with those objects through an ethnographic study of the use of the London Underground Map to tame and enframe the city of London. Official reports insist that the 'Tube Map's' iconic status is due to its exemplary design principles or its utility for journey planning underground. This paper, however, presents results that suggest a different role for the familiar image: one of an essential visual technology that stands as an interface between the city and its user, presenting and structuring the points of access and possibilities for interaction within the urban space. The analysis explores the public understanding of an inscription in the world beyond the laboratory bench, the indexicality of the immutable mobile's visual language, and the relationship between representing and intervening. It further suggests fruitful crossovers between Science Studies, Urban Studies, and Human-Computer Interaction by approaching the individual as a 'user' of a city and its graphical interface, applying the technique of cognitive mapping to overlapping virtual and analog spaces, and exploring the social and practical effects of strong and standardized visual languages on further narratives and interactions with scientific, technological, or everyday objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of autonomous learners is an important goal for language teaching programmes. However, achievement of this goal depends on teachers creating an environment where learners can experience autonomy in order to become more autonomous, a process referred to by Little (2003) as 'autonomization'. In distance learning, course materials are the main vehicle for this process which brings particular challenges to course writers. This paper explores those challenges and how 'autonomization' can be achieved through distance language teaching materials, by examining experience and developments at The Open University (UK) during its first decade of language course production. It reports the ways in which course writers in French, German and Spanish for adult distance learners have turned commitment into practice in order to develop the capacity for reflection, metacognitive strategies and conscious decision-making essential for autonomous learning. The paper concludes by considering how support for 'autonomization' can be further enhanced, the implications for course writers and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst there has been a resurgence of interest in community in many fields in the UK this has been singularly missing in relation to domestic violence. Relatively little is known about informal community networks and their responsiveness to survivors of domestic violence and the intersections of these with formal agency networks. This paper argues that (mis)understandings of domestic violence, a focus on agency/state responses and the traditional association of discourses of caring with women have all been important contributory factors here. Drawing on an empirical study on the informal support of survivors in the north of England in the mid 1990s and current research with survivors in the south of England this paper reviews the evidence for arguing that, whilst community-based work against domestic violence raises particularly complex challenges, it is nevertheless essential to explore this as an additional strategy in tackling domestic violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details major and significant developments in the teaching of English to pupils aged 5-16 years in the school system in England, the years of compulsory education. To begin with definitions of terms. There are four aspects of language education provision that pertain in England: 1. the teaching of English as the mother tongue; 2. the teaching of English as an Additional Language (EAL); 3. the teaching of other languages: community (CL) and 4. modern foreign languages (MFL). This paper addresses 1, 2 and 3. Throughout the nomenclature reflects that of the public documents that have outlined the details of provision. It is hoped this reflects changing attitudes, policy and provision of the teaching of EMT, EAL and CLs within mainstream education in England. There is no formal policy for language education in England (PLEE). Official views on the type and nature of language education, including which languages are to be taught, and by implication, the opposite, which are to be omitted from the official curriculum, are gleaned from a range of curriculum policy documents (listed in Appendix A). The absence of a formal language policy statement can be understood as a statement by omission. This paper will explore the implications of this absence and pose the question: does less policy lead to more language education? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]