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Bourdieu argued that class-based inequalities influenced educational outcomes and this paper illustrates the relevance of Bourdieu's concepts in understanding one specific community. A wider study by the authors used the concept of habitus to identify factors which impacted on the participants—predominantly white working-class mothers'—perceptions of their engagement with schools. This paper provides two selected case study examples from the wider study which describes the ways these mothers interpret different habitus in relation to education and discusses how habitus can inform understandings of different parental perceptions towards education and how this affects engagement. Schools can use this insight to ensure that parents from such backgrounds feel better able to engage with their children's education. Schools use this insight to inform to ensure that parents from such backgrounds feel able to engage with their children's education, both at home and in school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Levelling Up' has come to dominate debates around regional inequality in England, but has been criticized for lacking clarity and definition. This paper addresses this critique by providing an early assessment of the concept. It summarizes and critically reviews Levelling Up, arguing that the concept offers a mix of marginal and familiar policies, alongside aspirations for industrial policy and research and development. Furthermore, Levelling Up begins to diverge from recent policy in its spatial focus and approach to governance and devolution. As governments in Europe and the United States grapple with similar challenges, the paper has value beyond a UK audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the universities in England publicise statements of their values, separately from other mission statements, aims or goals. This paper compares universities whose value statements contain direct references to diversity, inclusion or equality, with those that do not and seeks to explore whether such values are reflected in these institutions' student intakes. Although a relatively broad-brush approach, by focusing on the characteristics of student bodies (in terms of ethnicity, disability, and prior background in terms of school type attended and local area) the paper shows that in general there are minimal differences according to whether a university publically claims to value diversity according to available quantitative data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper dissected the role of leaders in implementing equality, diversity and inclusion in UK higher education. Since most Higher Education Institutes are now monitored on their graduate outcomes, it is important that they are inclusive within planning curriculum design so as to give their students better chances and outcomes at completing their studies and being competitive in the global jobs market. The UK law and legislation worldwide is stepping up to value inclusion and now moving away from passive social exclusion. The research used ethnographical research in order to find out if equality, diversity and inclusion is being effectively implemented in curricula design. The results are based on one organisation in the Northwest of England using data collected over a 4-year period. A mixed method research design was also devised to use in-depth unstructured interviews to tutors of HND and degree programmes regarding curriculum design on their programmes. The findings show that there has been significant changes based on social and political influences, such that leaders are therefore working within standardised frameworks as a result of legislation. The primary research confirms that leaders have more understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion and it has the potential to self-sustain the UK higher education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rights that guarantee public passage across private land are known as rights of way. In this paper, we argue that rights of way are a literal manifestation of a politics of space. The paper's purpose is to suggest rights of way are central to issues surrounding social and spatial inequality, specifically with regards to public access to urban and rural space. They are a neglected topic in geographical research, despite their relevance to many sub‐branches, including landscape studies, urban natures, GIS, and open‐source geospatial research. Rights of way in England and Wales are currently facing their biggest legal threat to date. On 1 January 2026, unregistered rights of way are set to be extinguished. Path extinguishment threatens thousands of kilometres of footpaths, bridleways, restricted byways, and byways open to all traffic. The paper concludes by examining how geographical approaches help reveal the cultural and historical value of two at‐risk footpaths in Coventry, England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Review of Contract Law is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Home education is a phenomenon that has been increasing globally over the past decade, particularly for families of children with special educational needs or disabilities. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this phenomenon with many families continuing to home educate even after their children can officially return to school. This paper reports on a small-scale design-based research project that explored the needs of families who are home educating children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). Working in partnership with educational settings, practitioners, and families during the second year of the pandemic, academic researchers in Malaysia and England designed, implemented and evaluated a home learning pack for children with ASD aged 6–12 years old. The findings emphasised the role of economic, social and cultural capital for the families involved and how this impacted their ability to work and educate their children successfully. This raises crucial questions in relation to the place of home education within the wider international inclusive education debate and matters of social equality whilst also highlighting key questions for future research in this field on how policy and provision might develop to meet a growing diversity of need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – An increasing number of countries have introduced duties for public-sector organisations who, in addition to addressing discrimination, are now also required to promote equality of opportunity between different groups. The purpose of this paper is to explore the limited progress of gender equality policies, through a study of the local implementation of equalities policies. The authors highlight the role of equalities leads in the public sector as local “agents of change”, and explore explanations of the implementation gap between policy and practice. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports on a small-scale qualitative study with equalities leads in the health sector in England. The study comprised semi-structured interviews with equalities leads from nine health organisations which were purposively selected to include a mix of areas and populations. The interviews focused on the leads’ backgrounds and their perceptions of barriers to their work. Findings – The equalities leads had a range of experience prior to their current post, though most had little formal subject-specific training. They highlighted a number of barriers to effective implementation of gender equality strategies, including resource issues, the impact of organisational change, the increased the number of equalities they were expected to address, organisational perceptions that gender was no longer a priority and resistance to what are seen as “tick box” exercises. Originality/value – The value of this paper is that it adds to the understanding of the challenges facing the implementation of gender equalities policies in the health sector, the reasons for these and the role of local policy implementers in the effectiveness of national equalities policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), used widely in England, is an important tool for social need and inequality identification. It summarises deprivation across seven dimensions (income, employment, health, education, housing and services, environment, and crime) to measure an area's multidimensional deprivation. The IMD aggregates the dimensions that are differentially weighted using expert judgement. In this paper, we test how close these weights are to society's preferences about the relative importance of each dimension to overall deprivation. There is not agreement in the literature on how to do this. This paper, therefore, develops and compares three empirical methods for estimating preference-based weights. We find the weights are similar across the methods, and between our empirical methods and the current IMD, but our findings suggest a change to two of the weights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent educational reforms in England have sought to reshape public education by extending central government control of curriculum and assessment, while replacing local government control of schools with a quasi-private system of academies and multi academy trusts. In this paper, we resist reading this as the latest iteration of the debate between "traditional" and "progressive" education. Instead, we note how, despite the mobilisation of the rhetoric of the public and public education, schooling in England has never been public in any deeply meaningful sense. We develop a genealogical reading of public education in England, in which ideas of British universalism – "the public" – and inequality and exclusion in education and society have not been opposed but have gone hand-in-hand. This raises the question whether it is possible to envisage and enact another form of collective – one that is based on action rather than fantasy and that is co-authored by, comprising, and exists for, the people. The final part of this paper seeks to grapple with this challenge, in the context of past, present and future potential developments in education, and to consider possibilities for the imaginary reconstitution of public education in England in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers to substantiate a claim about the so-called Meritocratic Conception of how educational opportunities ought to be distributed. Such a conception holds an individual's prospects for educational achievement may be a function of that individual's talent or effort levels but should not be influenced by their social class background. The paper highlights the internal tension in the Meritocratic Conception between on the one hand a prohibition on the influence of social class on educational opportunities and on the other a permission to allow unequal educational opportunities on the basis of talent and effort. This tension obtains because individuals' talent and effort are themselves subject to influence by social class. The paper makes a positive case for an interpretation of the Meritocratic Conception that resolves this tension in favour of an egalitarian version, such that social class represents an objectionable determinant of unequal educational prospects even when its influence is mediated through the cultivation of talent and effort. This argument is further supported through an explanation that the character of social class as a systemic social source of the structure of individuals' opportunities makes it an objectionable influence on educational opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fire that erupted in Grenfell Tower in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in west London on 14 June 2017 is widely acknowledged to be the worst experienced during UK peacetime since the nineteenth century. It is confirmed to have resulted in 72 casualties and 70 physically injured. It has also left a community physically and emotionally scarred. That the catastrophe occurred in the country’s wealthiest borough added to the shock while the circumstances surrounding it also begged questions relating to political and corporate responsibility. The UK Prime Minister swiftly established a public inquiry which is ongoing and anticipated to stretch well into 2019. This paper offers a preliminary analysis of what some are interpreting to be a national atrocity. It begins by describing the events at the time of the fire while also identifying the key controversies that began to surface. It then examines the local geography of Grenfell Tower and the surrounding Lancaster West Estate revealing an astonishing landscape of inequality across the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The paper then uncovers how such inequality was combined with a malevolent geography of injustice whereby for several years residents raised regular warnings about the building’s safety only to be disregarded by the very organisations which were there ostensibly to protect and safeguard their livelihoods: the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea municipal authority and the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation. The paper then deepens the analysis identifying how these organisations disavowed the local democratic process, in doing so dishonouring so tragically the Grenfell residents. It then finds this democratic disavowal to be multiscalar: for amid an incremental neoliberal political assault on the national welfare state, public housing across the country has become wretchedly devalued, stigmatised, and the subject of scandalous maladministration. A final section offers some preliminary analysis of the early stages of the Grenfell Inquiry, while also revealing the dignified resistance of Grenfell community in the face of London’s increasingly plutocratic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a personal view of the problems that archaeologists will face as a result of the UK leaving the EU (Brexit). These problems will affect all levels of our discipline, including students, researchers and academics, as well as field archaeologists, and impact equally on both non-domiciled archaeologists working in the UK and UK archaeologists working in other EU countries. The paper suggests that there are opportunities for archaeologists from many different sectors to unite in tackling the difficulties that may arise through the Brexit process, and such opportunities should also embrace tackling other problems affecting our discipline, particularly with regard to issues of diversity and equality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores issues of equity and group identity at ‘Hamilton Court’, a large comprehensive multi-faith and multi-cultural school located in England. The exploration draws on data gathered from a study that examined the conditions, structures and practices associated with productively addressing issues of justice and cultural diversity. The paper focuses, in particular, on the voices of two learning mentors, ‘Rosanna’ and ‘Yasmeen’. With reference to a cultural event at the school based around an Asian-inspired Bollywood Dance Festival, the school's approach to absence requests on the basis of religious observance, and the disadvantage experienced by a particular White British working class boy, the paper highlights tensions and problematics associated with issues of equity, schooling and group identity. The paper makes a theoretical contribution to debates in this area. Further illustrating the limitations of distributive understandings of equity that begin with group identity politics and fail to consider matters of context in struggles against cultural oppressions, it examines the possibilities of an equity approach that instead begins with a focus on overcoming these relations of oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2008, the EU Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP-AHA) set a target of an increase of two healthy life years by 2020. More recently, in 2018, the UK Government set a target to "ensure people can enjoy at least 5 extra healthy, independent years of life by 2035, while narrowing the gap between the experience of the richest and poorest". This paper reviews the progress the EU member states have made towards meeting this target, and what the UK can learn from their experiences. I conclude that, although the EU target is likely to be reached, the gap in healthy life years between the member states has increased. Past trends in and projections of disability-free life expectancy in England suggest that it will be difficult to achieve an increase of five healthy and independent years of life by 2035. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A combination of development constraint, low wages in seasonal employment and market intrusion by more affluent households generates housing access and affordability difficulties in many rural amenity areas. In response, residents' groups and public planners have sometimes sought to prioritise 'local needs', restricting the occupancy of new housing to key workers or others deemed 'local'. Drawing on examples from England, this paper illustrates how these down-stream interventions are often rendered ineffective by the upstream and structural drivers of housing access inequality, revealing a need for up-stream reforms focused on community control of land and the tax treatment of housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Española de Sociología is the property of Federacion Espanola de Sociologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

• Associations between transport noise and socio-economic factors are mixed. • Each city presents different patterns of social inequalities in environmental noise. • Contextual factors of the urban area may influence the relationship. • Inequalities in transport noise depend on the noise source and indicators used. Noise from transport is a major environmental problem in urban areas. The distribution of noise in cities may be linked to socio-economic characteristics and evaluating the social distribution of noise is important for planning more equal, liveable and sustainable cities. However, to date, there is no strong base of evidence pointing towards a positive or a negative relationship between transport noise and socio-economic disadvantage. Results across studies are mixed and have mainly focused on road noise. Little information is available on other sources of noise or combined exposures. This paper examines associations between socio-economic factors and transportation noise at a small-area level in four different urban areas in England. To this end, the paper investigates associations across different city characteristics, individual and combined noise exposures (i.e. road, rail, air), different noise levels, as well as different socio-economic indicators. The results show non-homogeneous and complex patterns of socio-economic inequalities in exposure to transport-related noise across the urban areas studied. The relationships are influenced by the type of socio-economic indicator, the noise indicator, the noise source, the noise level as well as by the area's local characteristics. This highlights that inequalities in noise exposure should be considered along with other contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specialization serves an important purpose in health services, ensuring resources are used efficiently and patients can access specialized skills and interventions. However, specialization also results in services being concentrated in fewer locations, with less patient choice. Focussing upon the example of gender-identity services for trans people in England, this paper outlines contemporary debates regarding hormone prescription pathways and argues that concepts of 'specialization' in health care may at times disadvantage minority populations who have needs that are uncommon but not clinically complex. Supplying gender-identity services in specialized clinics has sometimes been presented as avoiding discrimination that may occur in wider health services, but may reinforce perceptions that other health providers do not need to engage with trans populations. Primary care-led models for providing trans health care operate internationally and are being explored in the UK. However, reform processes may be helped by further critical attention to the purposes and implications of specialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational and occupational aspirations have become an important reference point in policy debates about educational inequality. Low aspirations are presented as a major barrier to closing educational attainment gaps and increasing levels of social mobility. Our paper contributes to this on-going debate by presenting data on the educational aspirations of students from the Effective Provision of Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education Project in England. We analyse factors that help predict students holding high aspirations. Our findings reveal generally high aspirations across all students but also differences by income group and other background factors. We evaluate the significance of these findings for the existing literature and public policy discussions about the importance of raising educational aspirations. In particular, we question the way in which low aspirations are framed by policy-makers as a major problem in debates around educational inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are an estimated 50,000 LGBT teachers in English schools. In common with all workplaces, under the Equality Act 2010, schools have a responsibility to protect Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) teachers from harassment in the workplace. From September 2020, for the first time, schools in England have been required to teach Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) that is inclusive of LGBT relationships. Representatives of faith communities and parents of school children in Birmingham and other major cities have protested outside school gates in opposition to the introduction of LGBT inclusive RSHE. This article explores what is at the heart of the moral panic about the inclusion of LGBT identities in the curriculum. As schools introduce inclusive RSHE, we must consider the impact of protests on LGBT teacher health, well-being and identity. More than half of LGBT teachers have suffered from anxiety or depression linked to their sexual identity and role as a teacher and so supportive and unequivocal support and intervention is needed to ensure schools are safe places, free from hostility, for LGBT teachers, pupils and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article provides an overview of wealth inequality in England from the late thirteenth to the sixteenth century, based on a novel database of distributions of taxable household wealth across 17 counties plus London. To account for high thresholds of fiscal exemption, a new method is introduced to reconstruct complete distributions from left‐censored observations. First, we analyse inequality at the county level, finding an impressive stability across time in the relative position of the English counties, perturbed only by the tendency of the South and South‐East to become relatively more inegalitarian. Then, we produce an aggregate distribution representative of England as a whole, and we detect an overall tendency for inequality to grow from medieval to early modern times due largely to North–South divergence in average household wealth. We discuss our results in the light of the recent literature on historical inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fairness in assessment has become increasingly topical and controversial in recent years. Assessment theoreticians are writing more about fairness and assessment practitioners have developed processes and good practice to minimise unfairness. There is also increased scrutiny by students, parents and the wider public – not only of the fairness of assessments themselves and their outcomes, but of their use, notably for selection for college or university. This is in a context of continued awareness of inequalities in society and their impact on education and assessment. And on top of all these questions has been the impact – and the continuing long shadow – of Covid. Can there be fair assessment in such an unfair world? We consider three types of challenge to fair assessment: •Theoretical challenges •Challenges from thinking about social justice •Challenges from the way that statistics were used to award assessment outcomes in 2020 (particularly in England) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The draft Mental Health Bill, which amends the Mental Health Act 1983 for England and Wales, proposes protections for people with intellectual disability and/or autism (ID/A) to prevent detention in hospital in the absence of mental illness. This editorial critically appraises the positive impact and unintended consequences of the proposed reforms for people with ID/A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries, including Norway and England, there is a concern about the low number of students continuing with post-compulsory mathematics, and especially the low number of girls. Drawing on socio-cultural perspectives on the construction of identity, this paper explores the role of cultural models in choosing post-compulsory mathematics in the context of contrasts between Norwegian and English education systems, practices and policies. Specifically, we seek to interrogate the extent to which a Norwegian public discourse of egalitarianism, particularly gender equity, impacts on girls? and boys? accounts of choosing mathematics. We conclude that there are more similarities than differences between the two countries, and note the potential impact of neo-liberal discourses in eroding Norwegian equity discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that children of immigrants experience inequality. Less is known about how inequalities compare across multiple life domains and multiple generations. We conduct a case study of England and Wales, focussing on children of Caribbean immigrants (the 'Windrush generation'). We use large-scale census data to compare inequalities across five domains of life—education, employment, occupation, housing, and health—separately for women and men across three distinct generations: the one-point-five generation, second-generation, and two-point-five generation. The children of the Windrush generation experience social inequality in all life domains, relative to comparable groups of the White British population, although there is considerable variation according to sex and generation. Men of all generations are uniformly disadvantaged; children of the Windrush are more disadvantaged if they belong to the two-point-five generation. Inequality is pervasive, persistent, and strongly indicative of segmented adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A puzzle has emerged amidst rising inequality: why do people profess high levels of belief in meritocracy even as income gains are increasingly concentrated at the top? In light of contradictory theories and evidence, we undertake the first assessment of the relationship between local income inequality and meritocratic beliefs outside the United States, using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study. We find that the positive relationship between country‐level income inequality and meritocratic beliefs identified in the recent literature does not translate straightforwardly below country level: there is no robust relationship between local income inequality and meritocratic beliefs in England. However, there is a robust—and somewhat paradoxical—positive association between high local income inequality and meritocratic beliefs among those with the lowest incomes. On average, respondents with annual household incomes of £10,000 are five points more likely (on a 100‐point scale) to believe their hard work will pay off if they live in the most rather than the least unequal places in England. We also show that this applies beyond the specific case of meritocratic beliefs: low‐income respondents in unequal places are also notably more satisfied with their own (low) income than similar respondents in more equal localities. In line with system justification theory, we argue that belief in meritocracy serves as an important tool of psychological resilience for low‐income individuals who regularly come into contact with others more economically fortunate than themselves: though it legitimates their current position at the bottom of the status hierarchy, this belief also offers the promise of future advancement. While this reduces concern about the psychological effects of growing local income inequality on the most economically vulnerable, it also suggests that there is little prospect of demand for systemic economic change emerging from what might have been considered the most likely places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The past two decades has seen widespread academic and public concern about boys' academic achievement and the emergence of discourses that identify girls as academic 'winners' in the primary classroom; however, this article aims to problematise these trends. Drawing on ethnographic research carried out in a primary school classroom in London, this article draws attention to 'boysplaining,' a set of behaviours carried out by certain boys which constituted a form of hegemonic masculinity in this classroom. Boysplaining, a younger version of mansplaining, manifested both verbally and physically, and appears to affect how girls navigate the classroom. This research indicates how boysplaining disadvantages girls, raising questions about the extent to which girls are 'winning' in primary school classrooms today. The article calls for further research on boysplaining in other classrooms, in particular to examine the academic, social and emotional consequences of these behaviours on girls and non-hegemonic boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws upon quantitative and content analysis of 585 reports of rape recorded within two police force areas in England in 2010 and in 2014 tracking individual incidents to eventual outcome to examine the impact, if any, of intersecting inequalities on trajectories of rape cases reported to police. The data were collected as part of the wider Economic and Social Research Council funded Justice, Inequality and Gender-Based Violence research project which examined victim-survivor experiences and perspectives on justice. Building on existing distinctions between types of rape case based on the relationship between victim-survivor and accused, the results suggest age and gender are significant factors in how sexual violence, and the criminal justice system, is experienced. While younger women and girls were disproportionately affected by certain types of sexual violence case and more likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system compared to men and older women, they were not necessarily more likely to achieve a conviction. The findings also confirm that some of the most vulnerable victims-survivors of sexual violence, especially those with poor mental health, are still not achieving criminal justice. Victims-survivors from Black and minority ethnic group or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer groups are underrepresented within the criminal justice system, implying these groups are not seeking a criminal justice response in the same way as 'white' heterosexual victims-survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As nations continue to use OECD data to ensure preparedness for global competitiveness, questions concerning how inequality is constructed and maintained in different nations are critical. Drawing on Bourdieu and Savage, I argue that social capital continues to perpetuate social inequality both prior to and during university attendance despite decades of widening participation policy in the US and UK. A nested case study of thirty underrepresented students across the US, England, and Scotland is used to illustrate three findings: students who identified as being from the poorest backgrounds indicated having fewer social ties both prior to and during their university experience. Second, widening participation students do not receive the same social advancement from attending an elite university as their peers. Finally, differences in how each of these universities organise students provide clues to how universities can ensure the social acceptance, inclusion and cohesion of the underrepresented student. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does engagement with markets affect socioeconomic values and political preferences? A long line of thinkers has debated the nature and direction of such effects, but claims are difficult to assess empirically because market engagement is endogenous. We designed a large field experiment to evaluate the impact of financial markets, which have grown dramatically in recent decades. Participants from a national sample in England received substantial sums they could invest over a 6‐week period. We assigned them into several treatments designed to distinguish between different theoretical channels of influence. Results show that investment in stocks led to a more right‐leaning outlook on issues such as merit and deservingness, personal responsibility, and equality. Subjects also shifted to the right on policy questions. These results appear to be driven by growing familiarity with, and decreasing distrust of markets. The spread of financial markets thus has important and underappreciated political ramifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research is fundamental to high-quality care, but concerns have been raised about whether health research is conducted in the populations most affected by high disease prevalence. Geographical distribution of research activity is important for many reasons. Recruitment is a major barrier to research delivery, and undertaking recruitment in areas of high prevalence could be more efficient. Regional variability exists in risk factors and outcomes, so research done in healthier populations may not generalise. Much applied health research evaluates interventions, and their impact may vary by context (including geography). Finally, fairness dictates that publically funded research should be accessible to all, so that benefits of participating can be fairly distributed. We explored whether recruitment of patients to health research is aligned with disease prevalence in England.Methods: We measured disease prevalence using the Quality and Outcomes Framework in England (total long-term conditions, mental health and diabetes). We measured research activity using data from the NIHR Clinical Research Network. We presented descriptive data on geographical variation in recruitment rates. We explored associations between the recruitment rate and disease prevalence rate. We calculated the share of patient recruitment that would need to be redistributed to align recruitment with prevalence. We assessed whether associations between recruitment rate and disease prevalence varied between conditions, and over time.Results: There was significant geographical variation in recruitment rates. When areas were ranked by disease prevalence, recruitment was not aligned with prevalence, with disproportionately low recruitment in areas with higher prevalence of total long-term and mental health conditions. At the level of 15 local networks, analyses suggested that around 12% of current recruitment activity would need to be redistributed to align with disease prevalence. Overall, alignment showed little change over time, but there was variation in the trends over time in individual conditions.Conclusions: Geographical variations in recruitment do not reflect the suitability of the population for research. Indicators should be developed to assess the fit between research and need, and to allow assessment of interventions among funders, researchers and patients to encourage closer alignment between research activity and burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the impact on earnings inequality of a selective education system in which school assignment is based on initial test scores. We use a large, representative household panel survey to compare adult earnings inequality of those growing up under a selective education system with those educated under a comprehensive system in England. Controlling for a range of background characteristics and the current location, the wage distribution for individuals who grew up in selective schooling areas is substantially and significantly more unequal. The total effect sizes are large: 24% of the raw 90–10 earnings gap and 19% of the conditional 90–10 earnings gap can be explained by differences across schooling systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Explain or change" was a key term that came into currency in the UK from 2016 onwards to put the onus on public institutions to account for disparities in outcomes on the basis of class, gender, and ethnicity in the main. One of the most prominent outcomes of this policy initiative was the government Race Disparity Audit. This article aims to go behind the headline figures to understand what it means to either "explain" or "change" figures and policies around race/ethnicity in particular. It outlines the findings of a survey and some interviews with staff working in the NHS in London and in universities in England. The findings point to difficulties with the quality of data generated by these organisations, as well as the uses of data. Practitioners feel that data is incomplete and do not provide the routes to policy measures that will make a clear difference to outcomes. At the same time, there is a feeling there is a lack of will to use data to either explain or change their organisation's response to race inequality. Thus, this article concludes that the use of ethnicity data remains the main concern for many participants in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is controversy regarding trends over time in the association between social origins and educational outcomes in the UK. An explanation may lie in different methods of analysis. This article provides new evidence about trends in inequality between the 1980s and 2010s and informs the debate about the conceptualisation and operationalisation of social origins. It expands the multidimensional conceptualisation of social origins proposed by Bukodi and Goldthorpe (2013) by adding a separate indicator of family income to those of class, status and education of parents. Results from two UK age cohorts born in 1970 (BCS70) and 1989/90 (Next Steps) show that social class, social status, education and income all have independent effects on educational attainment and can show different patterns of stability or variability over time. Moreover, the study highlights the importance of transitions to upper secondary education for a more comprehensive understanding of inequalities in educational progression and attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The opening of new state schools by non-state actors has intensified debates about social selection and inequality in quasi-markets. This article examines the case of England, where the government allows anyone to apply to open a new 'free school', arguing this will improve social equity. Using data from the National Pupil Database for all 325 free schools established between 2011/12 and 2015/16, we analyse whether the students attending free schools are representative of their local neighbourhoods. We develop the first analysis of whether the specifics of who opens and provides a free school impacts on who attends the school. We also analyse whether opening a free school has an impact on neighbouring schools. We find that free schools are located in areas with above-average deprivation but admit intakes that are more affluent than the average for the neighbourhoods from which they recruit. This is particularly the case for primary free schools, which also recruit students with above-average prior attainment. There is no evidence that free schools become more representative as they admit additional year groups. Significantly, we find that all categories of free school providers have opened schools whose populations are more affluent than their neighbourhoods, with the exception of academy chains. We also find that the opening of a free school leads to a concentrated loss of pupils at the closest school, except in cities, but we do not identify an impact on the student composition of neighbouring schools. Discussing the reasons for this, we conclude that free schools are socially selective and reproduce socio-economic inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the Francis Report, a public conversation has arisen in England about the place of compassion within healthcare settings, particularly regarding the causes of failures in the provision of adequate healthcare, and the desirability and possibility of fostering compassion in the NHS. A contribution to this conversation, this article takes as a starting point an oft-overlooked socio-historical phenomenon: social expectations of compassion in healthcare practice have shifted in comparison to what was the case at the NHS’s inception in 1948, so that both healthcare professionals and the public have come to perceive and expect compassion as an intrinsic component of healthcare. We argue that this expectation can be partly explained drawing on Elias’s concept of ‘functional democratisation’: as power asymmetries between different social groups (e.g. doctors and patients) have declined in recent decades, so have norms and expectations of compassionate care increased. Failures to provide compassionate care in some specific settings can also be partly understood as an outcome of a wider erosion of functional democratisation resulting from the growth in social inequality witnessed in England and much of the world since the 1970s. We thus call for addressing failures of care within healthcare settings through broader social policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The framework for equality and the multiple aspects of identity that are protected in law, including on the basis of religion and belief, are continuously being redefined and reshaped through ongoing legal claims in England and Wales. In this article, we examine how religious organizations view equality and the extent to which different identity rights can be protected. We conducted a survey of religious organizations in England and Wales to examine attitudes and experiences in relation to changes in the equality laws. We found that equality is variously understood and many religious organizations give only limited recognition to certain legally protected characteristics including gender, sexual orientation and also the identities of other religious organizations. If the integration of equality in the form of identity rights is to be fully achieved within the legal framework of a liberal democratic state and alongside so-called British values, both religious and non-religious citizens alike need to take a greater responsibility for the understanding and recognition of identity differences. Equalities legislation is creating a constitutional framework for citizenship and it is important this new citizenship is structured around equality in practice at the individual and organizational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools in England have recently become subject to new requirements regarding the active promotion of 'fundamental British values'. This concept has controversially been defined to encompass sexual orientation equality. In this article, we argue that the inclusion of sexual orientation equality within the scope of British values has given new impetus to debates about the appropriate balance between children's rights, the right of parents to provide religious direction to children, the prerogatives of faith schools, and the state's legitimate interest in protecting sexual minorities. We trace the evolution of the current legal and policy framework related to British values, including its alignment to the Prevent counter-extremism strategy, and then draw on recent of sted reports to critically examine claims that the new requirements undermine the ability of faith schools to teach about sexuality from the perspective of a particular religious ethos. Using the example of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, we also highlight ambiguities that exist in relation to the British values requirements as applied to faith schools. We conclude that current controversies over British values and schooling show important continuities with debates from the Section 28 era (1988-2003), during which local authorities were prohibited from intentionally promoting homosexuality. Specifically, a key source of contestation remains the still indeterminate border between the promotion of a particular sexual orientation and the promotion of tolerance for individuals and groups. Overall, the article contributes to a broader understanding of the ways in which schools in diverse international contexts have become involved in the governance of sexual and religious difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Health services face the challenges created by complex problems, and so need complex intervention solutions. However they also experience ongoing difficulties in translating findings from research in this area in to quality improvement changes on the ground. BounceBack was a service development innovation project which sought to examine this issue through the implementation and evaluation in a primary care setting of a novel complex intervention.Methods: The project was a collaboration between a local mental health charity, an academic unit, and GP practices. The aim was to translate the charity's model of care into practice-based evidence describing delivery and impact. Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) was used to support the implementation of the new model of primary mental health care into six GP practices. An integrated process evaluation evaluated the process and impact of care.Results: Implementation quickly stalled as we identified problems with the described model of care when applied in a changing and variable primary care context. The team therefore switched to using the NPT framework to support the systematic identification and modification of the components of the complex intervention: including the core components that made it distinct (the consultation approach) and the variable components (organisational issues) that made it work in practice. The extra work significantly reduced the time available for outcome evaluation. However findings demonstrated moderately successful implementation of the model and a suggestion of hypothesised changes in outcomes.Conclusions: The BounceBack project demonstrates the development of a complex intervention from practice. It highlights the use of Normalisation Process Theory to support development, and not just implementation, of a complex intervention; and describes the use of the research process in the generation of practice-based evidence. Implications for future translational complex intervention research supporting practice change through scholarship are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Between 1997 and 2010, the English government pursued an ambitious programme to reduce health inequalities, the explicit and sustained commitment of which was historically and internationally unique. Previous evaluations have produced mixed results. None of these evaluations have, however, compared the trends in health inequalities within England with those in other European countries. We carried out an innovative analysis to assess whether changes in trends in health inequalities observed in England after the implementation of its programme, have been more favourable than those in other countries without such a programme.Methods: Data were obtained from nationally representative surveys carried out in England, Finland, the Netherlands and Italy for years around 1990, 2000 and 2010. A modified difference-in-difference approach was used to assess whether trends in health inequalities in 2000-2010 were more favourable as compared to the period 1990-2000 in England, and the changes in trends in inequalities after 2000 in England were then compared to those in the three comparison countries. Health outcomes were self-assessed health, long-standing health problems, smoking status and obesity. Education was used as indicator of socioeconomic position.Results: After the implementation of the English strategy, more favourable trends in some health indicators were observed among low-educated people, but trends in health inequalities in 2000-2010 in England were not more favourable than those observed in the period 1990-2000. For most health indicators, changes in trends of health inequalities after 2000 in England were also not significantly different from those seen in the other countries.Conclusions: In this rigorous analysis comparing trends in health inequalities in England both over time and between countries, we could not detect a favourable effect of the English strategy. Our analysis illustrates the usefulness of a modified difference-in-difference approach for assessing the impact of policies on population-level health inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is consistent evidence that individuals in higher socioeconomic status groups are more likely to report exceeding recommended drinking limits, but those in lower socioeconomic status groups experience more alcohol-related harm. This has been called the 'alcohol harm paradox'. Such studies typically use standard cut-offs to define heavy drinking, which are exceeded by a large proportion of adults. Our study pools data from six years (2008-2013) of the population-based Health Survey for England to test whether the socioeconomic distribution of more extreme levels of drinking could help explain the paradox.Methods: The study included 51,498 adults from a representative sample of the adult population of England for a cross-sectional analysis of associations between socioeconomic status and self-reported drinking. Heavy weekly drinking was measured at four thresholds, ranging from 112 g+/168 g + (alcohol for women/men, or 14/21 UK standard units) to 680 g+/880 g + (or 85/110 UK standard units) per week. Heavy episodic drinking was also measured at four thresholds, from 48 g+/64 g + (or 6/8 UK standard units) to 192 g+/256 g + (or 24/32 UK standard units) in one day. Socioeconomic status indicators were equivalised household income, education, occupation and neighbourhood deprivation.Results: Lower socioeconomic status was associated with lower likelihoods of exceeding recommended limits for weekly and episodic drinking, and higher likelihoods of exceeding more extreme thresholds. For example, participants in routine or manual occupations had 0.65 (95 % CI 0.57-0.74) times the odds of exceeding the recommended weekly limit compared to those in 'higher managerial' occupations, and 2.15 (95 % CI 1.06-4.36) times the odds of exceeding the highest threshold. Similarly, participants in the lowest income quintile had 0.60 (95 % CI 0.52-0.69) times the odds of exceeding the recommended weekly limit when compared to the highest quintile, and 2.30 (95 % CI 1.28-4.13) times the odds of exceeding the highest threshold.Conclusions: Low socioeconomic status groups are more likely to drink at extreme levels, which may partially explain the alcohol harm paradox. Policies that address alcohol-related health inequalities need to consider extreme drinking levels in some sub-groups that may be associated with multiple markers of deprivation. This will require a more disaggregated understanding of drinking practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attainment data on England’s school pupils are more extensive in coverage, detail, quantity, accessibility and of higher quality than monitoring statistics routinely available in other European countries. These data facilitate investigation of low attainment in England’s schools and its relationship to ethnicity, gender and poverty. This article reviews longitudinal sample studies and extends this with simpler presentations of England’s national attainment statistics for education over 5 years up to 2014. The analyses show recurrent correlations of low attainment with specific ethnic minority groups, with gender and most strongly with low-income sections of society. There is a strong case, from these data and other research, that these inequalities are rooted in social and economic factors outside the school, created and sustained by neoliberal economic practices and elitist structures. It is argued that reducing the proportion of children growing up in poverty will have a bigger impact on raising average attainment levels than focusing on in-school factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the riots that took place in London, England in 2011. Topics discussed include the psychological, economic, financial and political problems experienced by individual protestors due to which the riots took place; and the causes and the issues that resulted in the London riots which were inequality and injustice.

Concern with perceptions of disproportionality on the grounds of ethnicity in internal police misconduct proceedings surfaced in England and Wales in the early 2000s. This article commences with a discussion of the meaning of disproportionality and two forms, numerical and procedural, are identified. A brief review of existing research is followed by presentation of research on the experiences of serving and former Greater Manchester Police ethnic minority officers of procedural disproportionality in misconduct proceedings. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research for equality and diversity and attempts to create more representative police services. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that contradictory forces affect teachers' work in the neo-liberal school system in England, with a diversity of governance models alongside increasingly dominant orthodoxies of what constitutes ‘effective practice and leadership’. School reforms in England have focused on increasing overall attainment and on closing the achievement gap for pupils from ‘disadvantaged communities’; whilst there is evidence that reforms have delivered on the former, evidence is inconclusive on the latter, with some critics arguing that some reforms have increased social inequality. The future for teachers’ professional identity and practices in this landscape is uncertain. Whilst this article broadly concurs with many studies of teacher identity which argue that the ever-extending reach of performative mechanisms has restricted teachers’ opportunities to develop as activist professionals with ‘a moral purpose’, it also argues that the diversified landscape may provide the opportunity for new autonomous spaces. It goes on to suggest that further research is needed into the forms of locally determined values and practices emerging in ‘quasi-privatised’ academies and free schools in England, to explore whether these professional communities will be entirely managerialist/entrepreneurial in character, or whether models of practice underpinned by a concern with social equity and social justice issues may emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]