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This paper examines the ways in which a group of middle class second generation Bangladeshi adults construct and account for their experiences of racism. Using a discursive analysis of tape recorded conversations, the study shows how various discursive practices construct racism in participant's descriptions of racist experiences, and how these constructions serve particular functions. For instance, the discourses of an ‘improved present’ and ‘racism as present but hidden’ are identified. In these discourses, I argue, racism is constructed as a problem of the past and therefore only a comparatively minor problem at present, or as present phenomenon, but manifesting itself in more subtle covert forms. I argue that these discourses may be considered as problematic in that they can be seen as potentially sustaining and perpetuating particular kinds of social relations. What I also wish to argue is that this kind of analysis demonstrates the need for a theorization of the subject. In this case, the need for racism to be understood from the perspective of these middle class second generation Bangladeshis. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I critically explore the ideological underpinnings of pedagogical and political practices in UK Higher Education (HE). I first map out the political and pedagogical features of community psychology and then describe the Millennium Volunteers project at the University of Northumbria—a scheme that integrates voluntary placements into undergraduate degree programmes, reflecting on the political and pedagogical premises upon which it is based. I consider the political context and recent social policy trends in UK HE. Through exploring the ideological underbellies of community psychology and Millennium Volunteers I describe the tensions created once both are situated within a HE student's learning and a lecturer's teaching portfolio. I reflect on how each appears to share similar wish lists but conclude that a surface comparison of the pedagogical practices of each can leave unrecognized serious ideological, ethical and political differences that can cause disruption at the interfaces of staff, students and HE institutions. I recommend making the political and ideological assumptions behind pedagogical practices and education policy initiatives more transparent to both students and lecturers alike and outline the reasons for doing so. I conclude by reflecting on implications for the widening access agenda in the present political climate from the standpoint of a community psychologist. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study aims to contribute to our understanding of how second‐generation immigrants negotiate their multiple identities, and construct their feelings of belonging. We focus on second‐generation ethnic Kurds, a stateless ethnic group with a complex political and social history, who have seldom been investigated in a UK context. Drawing on data from interviews with 14 Kurds living in the UK, this paper outlines the tensions in Kurds' lived experiences of Kurdish and British identity; in particular, experiences of feeling "othered" and how this manifests in relation to their identities. We found that Kurds most commonly dealt with some of the tensions they experienced from not belonging or feeling like an "other" by constructing new identities with more permeable boundaries of belonging; in this study, this was achieved through a "place‐based" identity. In sum, this paper offers a novel contribution to discourses of belonging, by demonstrating how the nuances of belonging and its lived complexities manifest in the experiences of UK‐based second‐generation Kurds, and the resultant strategies that they adopt to navigate tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an analysis of the UK government discourse on citizenship during the first 9 months of the COVID‐19 pandemic (March–November 2020). We adopted a socio‐cultural approach to citizenship drawing on the scholarly tradition of ideological dilemmas and rhetorical psychology as well as interdisciplinary work on neoliberalism. In our analysis of over one hundred briefings and other material by the Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet, we identified five interrelated constructions of the 'good citizen': the confined, the heroic, the sacrificial, the unfree and the responsible citizen. The paper maps these constructions onto the ideological dilemmas of freedom/control, passive/active citizenship and individualism/collectivism. We show that, through the rhetorical use of notions of gratefulness for citizens' sacrifice and shared responsibility, the UK government's discourse appears to challenge the dominant model of the neoliberal citizen. However, it solidifies this very same model by responsibilizing individual citizens whilst abdicating itself from responsibility. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including neoliberalism in the economy and politics of western democracies, anti‐immigration and anti‐Islamic right, and failure of capitalism to sustain equal and sustainable societies.

This paper considers the symbolic, experiential and institutional basis of the stigmatization of British smokers, particularly in the context of the higher rates of smoking in lower socio-economic status (SES) groups. Interviews based on a free association task were conducted with 40 smokers and non-smokers from higher and lower SES groups. Thematic analysis identified several areas of stigmatization of British smokers by non-smokers: identification of negative aesthetic ‘marks’ of smoking and of smokers as ‘polluters’ who harm others; the display of direct and indirect social disapproval; and the association of smokers with out-groups such as single mothers. Higher SES smokers tend to challenge the ‘facts’ on which this stigmatization is based, whereas lower SES smokers internalize the stigmatized aspersions. Recent British Tobacco Control campaigns, which play on the negative aesthetic of the smoker and the ‘peril’ which they represent, may exacerbate stigmatization. This may have de-motivating effects on lower SES smokers for reasons explored in the paper. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes advantage of a unique dataset with a prospectively longitudinal, nationally representative sample (n = 5,178) that began in 1958 and has information on COVID‐19 health status in 2020 to examine the effect of Big Five personality traits on compliance with social distancing requirements and contraction of COVID‐19. The results show some consistency with epidemiological recommendations (Conscientious individuals were more likely to maintain social distance and less likely to contract COVID‐19; men were less likely to comply and more likely to contract) but more inconsistency (Agreeable individuals were more likely to comply with social distancing requirements yet more likely to contract COVID‐19; Open and Neurotic individuals were no less likely to comply yet more likely to contract COVID‐19). The results highlight the importance of Big Five personality factors for behaviour in the global pandemic and may call into question the universal effectiveness of social distancing requirements for all individuals. However, the small number of confirmed cases of COVID‐19 during the early months of the pandemic requires caution in interpretation of the results. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the provision of primary care for young people with an eating disorder within the UK from the perspectives of three key stakeholder groups: young people with an eating disorder, carers of young people with an eating disorder and General Practitioners (GPs). Twenty‐two young people with an eating disorder (aged 16–25) and 10 carers completed qualitative questionnaires or participated in interviews about their experiences of seeking primary care from GPs. Forty‐one GPs participated in either focus groups or interviews about delivering care to young people with eating disorders. Interviews and focus groups were audio‐recorded and transcribed verbatim. All data were then analysed qualitatively using thematic analysis. Our analysis indicates that GPs often felt they lacked the necessary knowledge and/or resources to provide adequate support to young people with an eating disorder who they also often viewed as a "difficult" patient group. Young people and carers expressed mixed but predominantly negative experiences; reporting that GPs often lacked adequate understanding of eating disorder, failed to take participants' concerns seriously, and delayed referring patients to specialist services. Our findings indicate a need for interventions that will improve primary care provision and access to appropriate support for young people with an eating disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop a conceptual and methodological approach that psychologists and other social scientists can employ to study emergence. We consider relevant social psychological approaches and conclude that, for the most part, social psychology has tended to focus on processes of normalisation following disruptions, rather than examining emergence in itself. An exception to this is G. H. Mead, whose work we draw on to theorise emergence with a focus on contemporary "affective politics." In the second part of the paper, we use focus group data on the European Union referendum in the UK to empirically illustrate our theoretical points. We discuss in particular three axes for exploring the emergent politics of Brexit: political values, political authority, and the authority of affect. We conclude our discussion by reflecting on some of the theoretical and political implications of our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT UK voluntary and community sector organizations (VCOs) play a key role in caring for homeless people. However, there are widespread concerns about the impact of increasing government contracting on the quality of their services. This paper examines understandings of homelessness and identities as homelessness professionals, as expressed by VCO professionals. By so doing, it considers how 'partnership working' enables or undermines their capacities to care. The paper uses 24 in-depth interviews and four focus groups with London-based homelessness professionals. Professionals expressed deep tensions in their experience of their role. On one hand, they reported a deep ethical commitment to care and to develop quality supporting relationships to respond to their clients' complex needs. On the other, their capacity to care was undermined by their dependence on statutory resources and the controls this involved over the way VCOs delivered care. Professionals had to adjust to statutory monitoring frameworks and hard performance targets, which detached them from the human and intimate encounter with their clients and constrained their person-centred caring interventions. The findings highlight the contradictory nature of contemporary systems of 'joined up' welfare that neglect the very human and complex nature of the issues that they were originally created to address. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on elements of critical discursive psychology in order to explore some of the issues and concerns raised by parents' responses to the policy and practice of school choice. Drawing on data from a group of mothers of diverse social class and racial backgrounds, this paper examines the dilemmas some mothers engage with in their role as chooser-reconciling competing rationalities for choosing or trying to manage contradictions. A central argument of this paper is that the policy and political context shaping the emergence of school choice in Britain has provisionally secured the development of certain trends in education-consumerism, individualism and competition. Alongside and coupled with this has been the veneration of a narrow utilitarian conception of parents as consumers of education services, defined as people who share the capacity and willingness to maximize the utility of their decisions in a rationally self-interested way. This paper questions the value of this approach as a framing for understanding the aspirations, motivations and fantasies informing parents' school choice and highlights instead the ways in which some mothers articulate the importance of community in their decision-making practices. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focusses on the discursive practices through which agency is constituted in accounts of disordered eating within a corpus of UK radio phone-ins and discussions recorded between 2004–2007. Data includes a range of participants with eating disorders as well as various professionals and radio hosts. The paper focusses on how accountability for problematic eating behaviours is negotiated, focussing particularly on constructions of ‘illness’. Discursive psychology is drawn upon to explore the way ‘psychologising’ (producing psychological characteristics or dispositions) is done using technical or medical language; how the concept of ‘illness’ is made relevant and negotiated in talk using technical or lay psychological notions; and how constructions of ‘illness’ are fitted into narratives to reassign agency from the individual to the eating disorder. Analysis illustrates that participants frequently orient to behaviour in pathologised ways, thereby reducing their own accountability, but are still faced with a dilemma of moral blame as pathology is located within the individual. The analysis then demonstrates how this moral accountability is attended to by shifting agency from the person to the ‘disorder’, using various grammatical and metaphorical practices. This analysis is used to support a broader consideration of the way major eating disorders appear in an important public forum. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government AIDS education campaigns are based on a number of tacit assumptions. They presuppose that an increase in knowledge of HIV transmission routes will produce behavior change in and of itself. In addition, the major slogans used in nationwide media campaigns make three further assumptions: 1. there are objective facts that are undisputably true, 2. such facts can be assessed via scientific inquiry, and 3. individual freedom of behavioral choice. Research reported in this paper aims to assess to what extent a consensus with regard to these assumptions can be expected among ‘the general public’. The material presented in this paper is based on a series of depth interviews with 12 representative individuals. Qualitative analysis of interview transcripts via the identification of fundamental assumptions about the world in respondents' discourse revealed a concern with emotional and psychological factors which is not matched by national AIDS slogans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2016, British voters took part in a referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union (EU). By a margin of 52% to 48%, they voted to leave. Studies have demonstrated that fixed demographic factors were the best predictors of voting intentions in either direction, or that "leave" voters were driven by perceived threats from immigration. In this paper, we examine the role of moral intuitions in referendum voting intentions. In Study , demographic variables did not predict voting intentions after adding psychological variables to our statistical model. Instead, voting leave was predicted by political conservatism, social change insecurities, and placing moral importance on personal liberty. In contrast, only an adherence to the care foundation of morality predicted "remain" voting. These findings were also reflected in linguistic analyses of campaign materials and news items (Study). We discuss these data in relation to common discourses around the Brexit vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2016, the United Kingdom held a referendum on EU membership; 52% of those who voted, voted to leave, and 48% voted to remain. During the referendum campaign, two identities emerged: "Brexiter" and "Remainer," which remained salient post‐referendum. This study explores how the categories of Brexiter and Remainer were deployed by posters online. Data comprise comment threads collected from four online newspapers both during the campaign and after the vote, which focus on the Brexit campaign promise: "We send £350m a week to the EU. Let's fund our NHS instead." We draw on membership categorization analysis and discursive psychology to analyse when categories were made salient and what responses to the invocation of categories were. Analysis revealed that posters explicitly categorize the out‐group and in doing so implicitly define their group. Posters resisted other political identities when attributed to them in relation to the referendum. The analysis shows how Brexiter and Remainer are new, albeit contested, political categories and identities in their own right, with other political identities resisted when used. The paper highlights implications for the political system in the United Kingdom and for social divisions within U.K. society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a culturalist interpretation of the outcome of the Brexit referendum. This interpretation is grounded on the analysis of the U.K.'s cultural milieu, which is part of a more general study of the cultural milieus of several European countries. Specific to the United Kingdom, our analysis is based on a questionnaire carried out on a representative sample of U.K. respondents stratified by sociodemographic variables and geographic region (NUTS1). Responses to the questionnaire were subjected to multidimensional analysis—a combination of multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis. Findings about the multicountry analysis show how cultural milieus are characterized by five basic, embodied, affect‐laden, generalized worldviews (defined as "Symbolic Universes"). Four out of five symbolic universes consist of a way of interpreting reality by a specific anchorage (i.e., the ethical norm, the institutional order, the emotional experience interpersonal bond, and the belongingness). One symbolic universe can be viewed as the anomic reaction to the failure of those anchorages. Focusing on Brexit, by means of a discriminant analysis, it is showed how the incidence of the symbolic universes (and of the underpinning basic dimensions of meaning within the 12 U.K. macroregions') enables to identify differentially the macroregions with high proportion of "leave" at the Brexit referendum against those with low proportion. More specifically, the high "leave" macroregion are characterized by higher relevance of cultural forms anchored on local identity/belongingness. Findings are discussed within the wider aims of the project and its implications for a cultural psychology informed policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we look at the relationship between European identification and political support for (or opposition to) EU membership. First, we argue that conceptualizing political attitudes towards the EU as a direct product of European identification (a) neglects the distinction between the social reality of Europe and the political reality of the EU and (b) leads to psychological reductionism. We propose that the relationship should instead be conceptualized as mediated by legitimacy perceptions and as moderated by social‐level variables. Second, we look at three spheres of European integration and propose that their perceived legitimacy is appraised through the following principles: (a) normative solidarity for wealth sharing, (b) political authority for sharing political decisions, and (c) collective self‐realization for the sharing of practices. We illustrate the key mediating role of those principles by drawing on data from a survey ran across five European countries. Third, we argue that these meditational relationships are in turn moderated by social, political, and ideological realities and illustrate this point by looking at the case of United Kingdom in the context of the EU membership referendum. We point to an ideological assumption in the U.K. political landscape about the illegitimacy of EU supranational decision making and argue that this contributed to shape both the debate of the referendum campaign and its result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the moment of Brexit and its political aftermath in order to challenge dominant academic and popular conceptions of the political subject as singular and coherent. Instead, we suggest that there is an urgent political and analytical need for a view of the subject as multiple, contradictory, and dialogic. As interdisciplinary scholars working on the borders of policy studies and cultural studies, we think this is a critical site for transdisciplinary conversations about such conceptions of the subject. In the political field, such subjects are selectively and unevenly addressed and mobilized by political projects—such as Vote Leave—that invite them to recognize themselves as part of an imagined collective identity. In the twin disturbances of the European Union referendum and the 2017 general election, we suggest that it is possible to see that other voicings, other identifications, and other projects remain possible. Specific political mobilizations are neither singular nor stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The meanings of social problems like poverty develop within the public sphere. This paper uses the theory of social representations to examine how poverty is represented in British newspapers. Poverty has been discussed and interpreted in numerous ways, and newspapers not only provide a platform for these elaborations but also contribute to shaping public understanding on the issue. The study sampled news coverage on poverty in four British newspapers during two randomly chosen one-month periods in the years 2001 and 2011. The data set of news reports ( n = 274) was thematically analysed to examine representations of poverty. The study found that in the domestic context, media represents poverty as a problem limited to vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly. With a lack of discussion on the wider socio-economic causes and contributing factors, poverty within the UK appears as an 'orphan phenomenon' with an unknown genesis. In contrast, the representations of poverty outside the UK are vivid and elaborate, and the news reports hold the socio-political inefficiency of countries responsible for poverty. The study also found that the media uses poverty to make sense of catastrophic events in society: the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the London riots of 2011 were both anchored using poverty. This paper discusses the representational dynamics of these findings and argues that the media representations distance general society from poverty, representing it as a problem of the other. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Research on ideological attitudes has identified two main dimensions that refer to two fundamental features of group organization: social solidarity and social control. In response to prior research that has studied their relationship mainly from a correlational perspective, this paper introduces a social reality model based on psychological functionality of ideological attitudes. Social position variables (education, income and material vulnerability) and insecurity variables (fear of crime and distrust) are used to predict the interplay between ideological attitudes towards social solidarity and social control. Using K-means cluster analysis, a typology with four patterns of support for solidarity and control ('socials', 'repressives', 'minimalists' and 'social-repressives') was created, on the basis of representative survey data for the UK, France and Germany ( N = 7034). Results from logistic regression analyses show that the proposed social reality model explains membership in typology categories, with similar results across the three countries. Overall, the model underscores the social origins of ideological attitudes as functional responses to perceived social reality. The paper illustrates how the social psychological study of ideological attitudes may be enriched by a typological approach that examines patterns of attitudes rather than single dimensions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The present paper argues for a discourse analytic approach to social psychological peace research and demonstrates the potential of such an approach through a re-specification of the concept of attitudes to war. This is illustrated through an analysis of a series of televised debates broadcast in the UK in February-March 2003 in the build-up to the formal outbreak of the Iraq War. Analysis draws attention to the importance of rhetorical context and function, the inseparability of attitude object and evaluation and the formulation of evaluations as specific or general. Findings are discussed in the context of recent calls for methodological pluralism in social psychological peace research with a suggestion that matters of epistemology stand prior to methodology. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weight management services in the UK's National Health Service (NHS) are on the increase, partly due to rising rates of patients classified as ‘obese’. Those attending such services are held accountable, on some level, for their weight, although this issue is rarely addressed in clinical research in this area. By contrast, critical social research on ‘obesity’ considers blame a prominent issue though has yet to examine this in situ, in interactions between patients and health professionals. This paper uses discursive psychology to examine how blame is managed in the turn-by-turn interaction in group meetings within NHS weight management treatment. The data corpus comprises of digital audio recordings of 27 discussion-based group meetings between patients and practitioners in a specialist weight-management service in central Scotland. The analysis focuses on those moments in which patients appear to resist the notion that they are responsible for their weight gain. Such moments are typically managed by patients in one of two ways: By denying having performed the blameworthy activity, or locating the blame as outside of individual control. Both strategies, however, rely on an individualistic concept of weight that reifies the medical model, while at the same time, troubling that model and its efficacy. The paper concludes with a consideration of the implications of these discursive practices and their relevance within the field. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at a political speech given by the leader of the opposition party during the run up to the UK elections in 2005. Using this speech as a starting point, we attempt to trace the path of ‘racism’ within a text that makes explicit claims to being ‘not racist’. Drawing on a number of theoretical and methodological resources, this paper approaches the analysis by focusing on a number of conceptually heterogeneous elements that, in relation with each other, function to produce, re-produce and stabilize ‘racism’. One of the difficulties commonly encountered in social psychological work, we would suggest, is that an explicit statement of allegiance to a particular methodological and theoretical tradition can also result in a restriction of theorization to a particular ‘level of analysis’. That is to say, a methodological process that constructs a pre-given category, presets the criteria by which ‘racism’ can be identified and fixes the ‘level of analysis’ at which it can be studied risks ignoring the multiple points of contact at which ‘racism’ can be made visible or made to disappear. The concern here it that such a process can work to reinscribe the very ‘racisms’ we aim to disrupt. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore some of the issues facing professionals in the UK currently involved in providing services for South Asian women who have experienced sexual abuse. The study describes part of a wider Economic and Social Research Council funded project, based upon interviews and focus groups with both professionals and women survivors of sexual abuse. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and two focus groups with 37 professionals including psychological therapists, refuge and project workers, from a range of organisations, our aim in this paper is to provide a discursive analysis of some of the key dilemmas faced by professionals working with sexual abuse in South Asian communities by exploring two central interpretive repertoires: ‘culture not self’ and ‘symptom talk as solution’. The analysis indicates that professionals face a series of dilemmas when working with South Asian women survivors. They highlight the tension between individualised models of personhood in many psychological therapies and the challenge to these by South Asian communities who hold a more relational view of the person. One of the strategies used by professionals to work with the tensions between ‘culture’ and the ‘reality’ of the survivor's pain was the translation of women's distress into symptoms of mental disorder. However, the consequences of this intervention raised some serious issues, including further pathologisation and stigma. The implications of these findings will be discussed in terms of how to understand the experiences of South Asian women from a more socially grounded perspective and to explore the issues they face in accessing and receiving appropriate services to deal with the aftermath of sexually abusive experiences. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community involvement in archaeological digs aims to reconnect people with the history and heritage of where they live. This paper applies social psychological theories to understand how community archaeological projects create opportunities for place-based social identity and positive intergroup relations. Focus groups were conducted across five areas of Greater Manchester (UK) with 24 participants who volunteered for Dig Greater Manchester, a community archaeology initiative. The focus groups aimed to understand how experiences of participating in digs and exploring local heritage modified, strengthened or initiated identification with place and community, thus moving from individual levels to social levels of identity. The findings offer insight as to the ways in which people make sense of their own-and others'-place-based social identities as a result of participating in community archaeological digs . Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on men's health has tended to link men's psychological distress with the negative effects of male socialization and masculinity. This analysis ignores social class influences on the experience and communication of distress, is at risk of misrepresenting the nature of working class men's experience, and may lead to practice that is oriented towards intrapsychic approaches or men's ‘inner worlds’. This paper reports on a grassroots mental health initiative called the Men's Advice Network set up in the west area of Nottingham, UK, for men experiencing psychological distress who have been unemployed for over one year. The project was based on ideas from Holland's work in London, which attempted to link psychotherapeutic work with social action. The project described here attempted to take account of working class experience by emphasizing the role of the group rather than the individual, the social as opposed to the intrapsychic aetiology of distress, and the role of action rather than introspection. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores HIV risk-related behaviour in the context of men's entry into the gay community. It is an exploratory study which employed a qualitative approach to describe men's accounts of the process of acculturation. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with working-class gay men from Barnsley, UK. These were translated and analysed, using interpretative phenomenological analysis, for recurrent themes which reflect the way gay men thought about HIV risk-related behaviour, ‘coming out’ and their sexual debut. As men began to socialize with other gay men in their local community they had much to learn with regard to local gay culture, e.g. a distinct new vocabulary and local sexual mores. By virtue of their lack of experience and the personal impact of first sexual experiences, some men reported feelings of disempowerment with their initial sexual partners. Theoretical accounts relating to gay men's sexual health would benefit from a consideration of the way gay men report the process of acculturation. Sexual debut and the particular vulnerabilities of entry into the gay community highlight a temporal context in which affective experiences are privileged above considerations of sexual health. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a model to predict intended condom use among a sample of British. 16–20 year old virgins (n = 571). This group are of interest as they hold attitudes and have beliefs about condoms and their ability to use them that are not based upon experience of condom use. In particular the paper focuses upon intentions to use condoms despite the possible disadvantages that condoms are perceived by some to have (e.g. lost spontaneity, the need to carry them etc.). The resulting model suggests that perceptions of personal control over sexual relationships and the perceived ability to use condoms whatever the situation can predict intentions to use condoms. Where respondents expect not to have control, either over sexual relationships generally or condom use specifically, they are less likely to intend to use condoms. A willingness to take risks as a general trait of individuals also provides additional predictive power in the model. The results are discussed with reference to Bandura's (1989) theory of self-efficacy and health education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asylum seekers living in the UK have been shown to have fled danger in their countries of origin, only to face hardship and the threat of deportation once there. This paper draws on the discursive psychological approach to address the way in which asylum seekers in the UK manage questions about returning to their country of origin. Interviews were conducted with nine asylum seekers in a refugee support centre in the Midlands. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using discourse analysis. The analysis showed that participants drew on the notion of safety to counter suggestions that they should return to their country of origin and to manage their identity as legitimate asylum seekers in need of support. The use of this strategy and the use of interviews for discursive analysis are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on community policing. Transition from authoritarian regimes to liberal democracy; Community policing strategies in Great Britain.

ABSTRACT Participatory Action Research (PAR) aims to articulate knowledge production and transformative action. In this paper, we outline the sociopolitical background to our interest in LGBT and trans-collectives as an important territory where PAR might make some intervention in the social conditions of LGBT lives by transforming dominant forms of representation that have emerged from a history of psychological and medical pathology. We present two projects, from UK and Spain that utilize post-structuralist informed methods (interviews, photo-production, discourse analysis, narrative production) within a PAR framework. We examine their potential for problematising representations of sexuality and gender by reflecting on the knowledge produced and the transformative action they provoke. We rethink power relationships inherent in PAR concepts of 'participation' and 'empowerment' through a post-structuralist lens and argue that the achievements of PAR projects can be better understood as 'co-produced artifacts'. These (e.g. photo-exhibition) are co-owned by community members and researchers and their deployment in different settings (e.g. community or university) impacts on the meanings they convey and the action they provoke. Finally, we argue that through the use of post-structuralist methods PAR can enable effective transformative action, but caution against the practice of reinstating normative representations in the invitation to participate under specific identity categories (e.g. LGBT, Trans, mental health service user). PAR projects can do this by considering naturalized definitions of who is vulnerable or marginalized as the object and field of social transformation, and the starting point for collective and political action. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Social capital has been widely advocated as a way of understanding and building community participation in the interest of health improvement. However, the concept as proposed by Putnam, has been criticised for presenting an overly romanticised account of complex community relations. This paper presents analysis from a qualitative evaluation of a Healthy Living Centre (HLC) in the North of England, to examine the utility of the concept of social capital in this context. We found the concepts of 'bridging' and 'bonding' social capital were useful - though not without limitations - in helping to make sense of the complexities and contradictions in participants' experiences of community group participation. 'Bridging' helped provide an understanding of how the decline in shared social spaces such as local shops impacts on social relationships. 'Bonding' highlighted how community group membership can have positive and negative implications for individuals and the wider community. It was found that skilled group leadership was key to strengthening bridging capital. Politically, in the UK, community participation is seen as having an essential role in social change, for example, its centrality to the coalition government's idea of the 'Big Society'. A micro-examination of this HLC using the lens of social capital provides a valuable critical insight into community participation. It shows that this kind of initiative can be successful in building social capital, given conditions such as an appropriate setting and effective leadership. However, they cannot substitute for other kinds of investment in the physical infrastructure of a community. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first decade of the 21st century, British policing faced two new challenges in how it responded to social diversity: As well as instituting reforms in response to a highly publicized report describing the British police as 'institutionally racist' (Macpherson, ), they faced challenges associated with rapid increases in numbers of immigrants into the UK. Studying social representations at such times of change allows access into processes, themes and value systems that may otherwise remain hidden. This paper uses social representations theory to explore interview accounts provided by regular police officers of interactions with members of minority groups. Empirically, we focus on an area of diversity policing that has received relatively little previous attention: Police work in a rural context that has recently played host to large numbers of migrant workers. Our analysis shows that interviews operate as a site of resistance in which respondents attempt to rework hegemonic representations of the police as prejudiced and to re-present themselves and their work as able to respond appropriately to diversity. Fairness as a defining characteristic of good police practice is a central representational theme that links identity construction processes to police work with minority groups. Recent immigrant groups are represented as both needing and deserving help to assimilate into British culture: Their lack of acculturation and language difficulties provide additional challenges to police work and to how this is judged as 'fair'. We discuss the broader origins and implications of police officers' understandings of fairness and the use of social representations theory to study representational fields within organizational settings. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theorizing on citizenship encourages a broader consideration of the degree to which individuals are able to participate in social life without valued elements of their self-definition being compromised. This paper seeks to illustrate how social psychology can contribute to such an approach through providing an analysis of British Muslims' accounts of how others orient to their religious and national identities. The data are qualitative and derived from interviews with 28 Muslims. The analysis focuses on participants' accounts of how, in everyday interaction, others' assumptions about their religious identity affected their abilities to act on terms that were their own and how this constrained their abilities to speak and be heard in the public sphere. The wider significance of these data for struggles over citizenship and the recognition of identities are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores conceptions of commitment and styles of money management in heterosexual couples at two points in time: Just before the wedding (T1) and about a year later (T2). It also examines the potential effects of using FOCCUS as a form of marriage preparation (MP). Forty-two couples were recruited at T1 and randomly allocated to either A MP group and a group that would not be offered any marriage preparation - the Non-Marriage Preparation group (NMP). Individual, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were carried out at T1 and T2, recorded and fully transcribed. A thematic analysis (TA) yielded three themes or levels of commitment which were used to categorize couples at T1 and T2. Their money management styles were defined based on Pahl's (1989) typology. The results showed that conceptions of commitment had developed slightly overall by T2, and had been enhanced in the MP group. At T2, a more elaborated conception of commitment was associated with a greater tendency to treat money as a collective resource. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years concerns have been raised about the increase in alcohol consumption amongst young women in the UK. This paper presents a qualitative study of the experiences and relationship young, middle-class, female students have with alcohol. Interviews with five friendship groups were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings reveal the integral part alcohol plays in the young women's social lives and its importance in the staging of the young female self. Drinking can be seen as empowering and confidence boosting. However, the ‘friendship’ between femininity and alcohol is a contemptuous and fragile one. Loosing public self-control is seen as an invitation to unwanted sexual attention and even exploitation. The interviews not only illustrate the gendered and classed behavioural codes imposed on women, but also how the women have made these their own. We discuss how the young women's description of ‘problem drinking’ as being, for the most part, the preserve of men and so called ‘chavvies’, allows them to project an image of themselves as feminine and in control of their own drinking. We conclude that this could have implications for the extent to which they see the messages of public health campaigns about the dangers of ‘binge’ drinking as relating to them. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this short paper, we consider the partnership between psychology and the criminal justice system in Western societies and critically reflect on the notion of criminal justice as expressed in such a system. Focusing on how the criminal justice system operates in the UK, and in particular in Scotland, we consider the way the system criminalizes those who previously have been socially and economically disadvantaged. We ask whether community psychology has become negligent in the attention it brings to such a pernicious form of victim blaming and as such has shown insufficient critical engagement with systems that create social harm, and whether it is paying enough attention to the impact of a criminal justice system that is contributing to the creation of a more punitive, fractured and unjust society. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide preliminary insights into the relationship between clinical psychology and a socio-political approach known as Critical Community Psychology (CCP). Methodologically, it uses statements about CCP as stimulus material, and utilizes both quantitative and qualitative exploratory techniques, to survey the opinions of 354 UK trainee clinical psychologists. Participants' ratings of the stimulus material and their qualitative comments reveal many positive endorsements of the socio-political approach. However, themes from the qualitative data raise questions about how socio-political ideas can be incorporated into clinical practice and highlight uncertainty over the relationship between clinical psychology and politics. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workplace bullying is increasingly acknowledged as a major workplace stressor in the UK and Europe. However, identification and recognition of workplace bullying remain problematic, among targets and within organisations. This paper reports a qualitative study which explored experiences of bullying among ten British women targets, all public sector professionals. Data were collected using in-depth interviews and analysed using grounded theory methods. Findings showed how these targets struggled to identify and cope with bullying. Major themes or processes identified from targets' accounts included: minimising interpersonal difficulties; preserving self; maintaining commitments to professional and organisational values and cultures; sickness explanations; and naming the problem. This research has implications for the development of coping strategies by targets and organisations, and raises questions about the type of support needed to facilitate recognition of workplace bullying. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing more of a local public health focus, and involving local communities in Great Britain in health care decision-making, are key aspects of the radically changing face of primary care. Community-oriented primary care (COPC) is an international model for innovative primary health care delivery historically applied in developing or deprived communities, but increasingly seen as having broader relevance for a wider range of primary care settings. COPC has a long history of development in deprived communities, it is still however seen as innovative. It fits the current requirements of clinical governance and the ‘Modern and Dependable NHS’, but does its long history also provide information about it's pitfalls? COPC is promoted as an approach that is applicable to community mental health problems, community psychologists can provide the expertise to facilitate addressing community mental health in COPC programmes. This paper describes the COPC model and highlights the relevance of the COPC philosophy and the problems of its implementation for community psychologists in primary care. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns threats to identity experienced by migrants who have encountered radical socio-political upheaval. We argue that migration, following massive societal change, is associated with disruption that is likely to be undesired and, even when it is desired, because it is substantial, threatens identity definition and evaluation. There is relatively little empirical social psychological research on migrants' perceptions of the threats associated with migration and their impact upon identity. In this study, we investigate the emotional and cognitive experience of threat to identity described by immigrants to Britain (N = 24) from the former Yugoslavia, following the outbreak there of civil war. We examine how these interviewees engage in a meaning-making process, negotiating their position amid a complex system of group categorisations and cultural values in order to retain their sense of self-efficacy, continuity, distinctiveness and self-esteem. Identity Process Theory (Breakwell, 1986) is used to interpret the findings. We also show how strong emotional reactions surround alterations in identity meanings following severe threats that are consequent upon major life changes. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian diaspora has faced many obstacles including the challenge of navigating their dual identities, in order to belong in the UK. Music and dance are popular ways of practising cultural identities, which could mean that British Indians (BIs) use Indian Classical Dance (ICD) for maintaining cultural continuity and establishing a strong cultural identity. This qualitative study explores the reasons behind ICD practice, the relationship between ICD practice and the cultural identities of BIs, and the role served by themes of cultural continuity in their talk about identity. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with 10 UK‐based, Indian classical dance artists and analysed them using Thematic Analysis to identify the following themes: (1) Dual‐Identity Struggle (Sub‐themes: Confusion and Isolation and Racism and Stereotypes), (2) Parental Influence, (3) Embracing Dual‐Identity (Sub‐themes: Growth with Age and Impact of a Diverse Community), (4) Benefits of ICD (Sub‐themes: Education & Connection to Indian religion and history and Expressing & Understanding Identity) and (5) ICD: Authenticity versus Modernity (Sub‐themes: Authentic ICD in UK and Modernising ICD). The results from this piece of exploratory research have generated further data that improves our understanding of how BIs maintain a sense of collective continuity, and how they practise their Indian identity in daily life. Limitations of this study include the lack of balance between participants of different genders and dance styles. Therefore, further research can be developed including large‐scale studies on the role of ICD between genders, nationalities or generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epidemiological studies have suggested that the incidence of self-harm is on the increase in the UK especially amongst Asian young women. Explanations of ‘culture clash’ and Asian culture as pathogenic are prevalent in clinical psychological research. This paper reports findings from interviews with seven Asian young women with a history of self-harm and eight interviews with service providers. A discursive analysis of the accounts indicates diverse construals of self-harm, which include ‘release from distress’, ‘ending it all’, ‘effecting change’ and ‘(taking) control’, which are located within narratives of distressful circumstances. These accounts implicate ‘Asian’ culture in diverse ways including in relation to the creation and maintenance of distress and to the access of pathways to support and care. These accounts are used to explore some implications for service provision that include: sites and sources of support and forms of care. It is argued that clinical psychological research and practice should make central patients'/clients' meanings and needs (as located within broad socio-cultural circumstances) rather than privileging ‘culture’ to the neglect of other concerns. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the forms and contents of television representations of mental illness in the UK in 1992. The theoretical framework is provided by Moscovici's theory of social representations and some modifications are proposed for the case of madness. Quantitative and qualitative methods are used in the empirical analyses. It is shown that madness has multiple meanings on television, while at the same time violence is commonly included. It is also suggested that a partial reconfiguration of the representational field has taken place in recent years. Media stories about the responsibility of the policy of community care for scandals and tragedies are now commonplace. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing ties between psychology and law have familiarized psychologists with the standards by which law admits scientific evidence into the courtroom. In the USA, these include the general acceptance standard and the Daubert guidelines and, in the UK, the Turner Rule. However, the psychological literature has largely failed to make clear the degree of legal debate that exists concerning the clarity and effectiveness of such standards. This paper will focus on the general acceptance standard, examining key problems of this standard and placing them in a specifically psychological context. Such consideration is important precisely because the standard has become so well known within the psychological literature and because insufficient attention has been given to the way in which it operates implicitly within jurisdictions outside the USA. The authors argue that it is the responsibility of psychologists to become more involved in the debate concerning admissibility standards, given the credibility and authority that law accords to psychology when admitting it into the courtroom. In particular, psychologists need to become more self-reflective about their role in creating and maintaining such standards. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes an overview of the work of one NHS Staff Support Department, its history, development of a proactive and reactive model, and extent of the work involved. It goes on to give three case studies of bullying in the workplace, all of which are real and ongoing. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite moves towards more openness over the allocation of treatment in the National Health Service (NHS), the public remains dependent upon the media for most of its information. This paper concerns the issue of rationing and how this was represented in newspaper articles following a controversial decision by a health authority to withhold a particular treatment from a 10-year old girl suffering from leukaemia. Relevant articles on this issue from a cross-section of newspapers were subjected to analysis using the method of Grounded Theory. Three major themes emerged: (i) the criteria for allocating treatment; (ii) who should make the decisions; and (iii) the consequences of transparency in the context of the current ‘market’ ethos in the NHS. Views diverged depending upon how the issue was framed, with some taking a patient-centred perspective and others emphasizing the dilemma of priority-setting. Some welcomed greater transparency, but for others this underlined the incompatibility of two distributive domains, namely, the delivery of care and compassion vs. the more ‘rational’ cost–benefit calculations associated with the economic domain. Overall, the tone of debate was at a fairly superficial level with little consensus about how to begin to address these issues. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper was to examine meanings of the terms ‘individual’, ‘the community’ and ‘local community’ in Slovakia and Scotland. The social, cultural, political and economic histories of these two small European nations are quite different. Slovakia is one of the post-communist countries in which rapid changes have recently taken place. In contrast, Scotland has enjoyed a relatively stable parliamentary democracy within the UK. Two groups of respondents, 200 from Slovakia and 200 from Scotland, were presented with a word association task which included 38 political and economic terms and with two scales containing the same list of terms. They rated phenomena referring to these terms with respect to their importance for the well-being of the individual and to the well-being of the community. The results suggest that for Scots but not for Slovaks, the term ‘local community’ evokes positive associations and that local community is a meaningful concept. The data suggest that local attachments and loyalties were destroyed in Slovakia during communism. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been major changes in English Law with regard to confession evidence, which followed the implementation of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) in January 1986. This paper reviews the main legal changes that are relevant to the admissibility and reliability of confessions and their psychological importance within the contest of both research and expert testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discusses various reports within the issue on topics including social psychological work on impacts of refugee crisis in the European Union (EU), economic and international aid to refugee crisis and displacement services for refugees.