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Engaging in 'reflexive practice' throughout the research process (Benson and O'Reilly, 2022) and a 'reflexivity of discomfort' (Hamdan, 2009) through an intersectional lens, this article presents a reflective account of accessing and conducting observations and interviews at a South Asian women's organisation, in North England, to explore Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim (PBM) lone motherhood. It critically explores how researchers' own subjectivities and intersecting identities – in this case, my intersecting identities and positionalities as a young British Pakistani Muslim women, researcher and volunteer – impact interactions in different circumstances with different groups of participants and the importance of having continuous critical self-awareness. Moving beyond simplistic insider–outsider debates, the paper contributes towards further developing reflexivity debates taking an 'intersectional reflexivity' approach. It argues for thinking about the research process and engagements in the field as socially constructed, changing, adapting and negotiated overtime and to utilise intersectionality to unpick broader categories. Finally, it encourages researchers to adopt reflexivity in their research practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd in America and a global Black Lives Matter response triggered anew the global struggle for racial justice. Using cyber, remote, and in-person ethnographic methods, this paper explores racial identity, allyship and processes of becoming during the spring and summer of 2020. Building on theories of 'the struggle for recognition', I situate becoming within the interplay of what I call epistemic, affective and reciprocal authenticity. Within this project, I address identity, redistribution and the reconfiguration of conceptual distinctions between justice and dignity. The analysis reflects a time of racial tension in a provincial Northeastern town in England, UK – a predominantly white and marginalised location. I amplify the personal testimonies, conversations and written words of three quite different activists to highlight the nuanced refractions of lived experience and a developing antiracism. These collaborators reveal how their antiracist becomings, in the light of 2020 events, incorporate affective, epistemic and reciprocal authenticities that bring to the fore new potentialities for racial justice, white allyship and recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fieldwork encounters are not only contingent to biographical subjectivities, but are mediated by a confluence of identity, place and embodiment. This paper offers reflexive accounts of researchers with various socio-cultural and disciplinary backgrounds, who collaborated as a team to examine the varied funerary experiences and needs of established minorities and recent migrants in England and Wales. Focusing on the researchers' varied personal experiences with death and bereavement and on their performances of minority and majority ethnic and migrant identities, the paper highlights the mediated and embodied nature of fieldwork. It argues that reflection on the various aspects of intersectional researcher identity is necessary for a rigorous fieldwork practice that takes transparency and politics into account. This facilitates a deeper understanding of the positionality of both researchers and interlocutors, and the situated co-production of knowledge. In doing so, the paper illustrates that conducting research with a diverse team of researchers contributes to better understanding the complexity and multifacetedness of social phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have traditionally relied on institutionally-defined, native speaker conceptions of linguistic competence to define whether or not individual learners are multilingual. However, to better understand the relationship between language and identity in the context of additional language learning, there is a need to widen the definition of multilingualism by including a larger repertoire of semiotic competences and a wider range of levels of linguistic competence. To date, little systematic research has investigated the relationship between different key variables influencing language learners' construction of their multilingual identity (MI). Based on surveys completed by 1338 learners in seven secondary schools in England, this paper reports on a structural equation modelling of key latent variables influencing MI. The analysis suggests that MI is more strongly correlated with direct experiential contact with languages and with social interaction than with explicit beliefs about language learning. Similarly, the influence of parental beliefs is greater than those of teachers or friends. The paper also considers the significance of potential differences between EAL and non-EAL respondents and urban and rural school contexts. Having conducted SEM we offer support for our theorisation of MI as an outcome latent variable composed of three main components, namely, experience, evaluation and emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centering the identity‐related impact of spatial structures and physical environments in shaping the sense of being and belonging of people in the diaspora is a key decolonial feminist project for and within psychology. This paper presents an ethnographic study that combines observations at three Black hair salons in England with a total of 25 qualitative interviews with Black women (n = 18) and experts such as hairdressers (n = 7). The question this study seeks to answer is: ''How are Black women's racial identities constructed, structed and shaped by and through their interactions with and navigation of the Black hair care and beauty landscape in England?" This paper shows that participants reflected on the navigation of space as an identity‐relevant experience. Moreover, racial identity construction happens in place through encounters and socio‐spatial interactions and Black women's ways of seeing, being, and inhabiting the world. Lastly, this paper argues the centrality or marginality of Black hair salons is relative, dependent upon the location and situatedness of the person searching or visiting it. This paper thus highlights avenues for future research into the space‐ race‐identity nexus and invites an examination of the identity‐related significance that spatial arrangements carry for people in the diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper discusses how professionally qualified cisgender lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer (LGBQ) women youth workers present their self. The research examined how youth workers consciously or unconsciously shared their sexual identity with young people with whom they worked. Whilst this research focussed on youth workers, issues discussed are relevant for practitioners from a range of professional backgrounds such as therapists, social workers, teachers and health care practitioners. The research focused only on the experiences of cisgender LGBQ women as the experiences of men and trans women are different and so requires separate research. Design/methodology/approach: This research taking a qualitative approach, used in-depth interviews to discuss how respondents shared information about their identity. Findings: Some of fifteen youth workers interviewed reported not having choices about being out with the young people as their sexuality had been leaked. Others were able to pass and so choose when, or if, to be out with young people. Their different strategies to sharing information regarding their sexuality used by these participants reflected different approaches to being out. Originality/value: Although there is evidence in the literature of how being out or closeted impacts on teachers there is little written about the effect on youth workers or other professionals. The little research that has been undertaken in this area focusses on the impact of identity on the clients rather than on the professionals. This article contributes to filling this gap in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evangelical Christianity and healthcare work are two contexts in which vocation is often an important discourse. Exploring uses, understandings and implications of vocation for evangelical medics thus offers a rich opportunity to critically interrogate vocation from two important perspectives. In addition to identifying a three-tiered construction of vocation, on macro-, meso- and micro-levels, this paper suggests that to fully understand its manifestations among a sample of English evangelical medics, a critical, Weberian-style reading is valuable. This latter conclusion resonates with those drawn by scholars who extend a critical view across constructions of medical vocation more broadly, not least given concerns regarding workplace burnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on interviews and a focus group with fathers1 who attended four dads’ groups in the South of England, this paper introduces the concept of ‘dadness’. Dadness is in circulation in the public sphere and has been noted in a handful of published sources, yet it has not received academic attention. This article conceptualizes ‘dadness’ and presents it as a useful concept within contemporary fatherhood and family studies, as well as noting the term’s accessibility. The term dadness is understood by men in this study as combining their individual fathering identity and their values about the fathering role, with actual day-to-day fathering practices. Interpretation of the data infers eight aspects of dadness that draw together existing conceptualizations of fathering and fatherhood in terms of accessibility, engagement and responsibility; ‘active fathering’; warmth, positive engagement activities, decision-making, responsiveness, care; intimacy; and embodiment. Dadness describes both how men think about fatherhood and enact their fathering practices, and is accessible (it is a term men readily understand and feel able to use). This article invites a debate about whether the concept of dadness has a wider potential outside of the specific context of a small-scale study in southern England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores English national identity through qualitative interviews with English-identifying voters in rural South-West England, amidst post-Brexit and COVID-19 uncertainties. Analysing 16 in-depth interviews, the study uncovers micro-level foundations of English identity, revealing a multifaceted view where participants consider it an absent identity. As members of the dominant cultural group, they define Englishness by their perceived 'normal,' distancing anything diverging from their norms as foreign. The study suggests a connection between English identity and reactive resentment towards perceived asymmetrical identity norms compared to neighbouring devolved nations. These findings shed light on the nuanced nature of English identity in rural areas and contribute to discussions about fostering a progressive and inclusive English identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines why there are different thresholds for the offences of stirring up racial hatred and stirring up religious hatred in the UK's Public Order Act 1986. Concepts of genealogy, intertextuality and problematisation are used to structure a critical discourse analysis that traces different understandings of race, religion, and racial and religious hatred across legal texts. The analysis reveals a rift between assertions within parliament that race is an immutable characteristic, and much more flexible and inclusive judicial understandings of race. This finding challenges justifications for the legislative discrepancy and points to more progressive possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper explores Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles as an introspective novel of deceptive masculinity during the Victorian England. It employs textual analysis to explore masculinity and its misconceptions as depicted in the novel through its two male protagonists Alec and Angel, their attitudes and actions within the social norms of Victorian age. This paper aims to highlight the various incidents that Alec and Angel encounter in the Victorian world of England, which ultimately lead them to take desperate measures in order to defend their own masculine identity. The paper propounds the fluid fallacies in the Victorian identities of Alec and Angel and finds that these fallacies are due to their social consciousness and orthodox masculine behaviour. The paper accentuates the pro-Victorian attitude of the two protagonists who consider England as a land of male dominance and fulfillment where there prevails a legitimacy of patriarchy. However, this façade is soon broken when the two characters inflict extreme manipulation on Tess due to her socially and economical y subordinate position, thus leading to her tragic end and exposing their own deceptive identities. The paper employs Connell's hegemonic masculinity model signifying power, privilege and control as the dominant forms of masculinity in the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses Feminist New Materialist theoretical perspectives on time and temporality to critically explore the social work practice of life story work, designed to help children who are or have been in public care, or are adopted, assemble a coherent narrative of their care journey, adverse experiences and identity. Interview data presented here was produced with 17 participants (foster carers, adoptive parents and social work professionals in care or adoption teams) who were part of a project which sought to understand how aspects of life story work could be transformed into everyday care conversations between children and the adults who care for them (see www.difficultconversations.info). Our analysis highlights the way participants understood and constructed temporal elements of children's experiences and identities: their pasts, presents and futures, in the context of having conversations about care with them. Through the discussion, we indicate a need to loosen the configuration of children's life stories and identities as 'pre-care' and 'post-care', and instead move toward an acceptance of children's multiple selves and multiple important others as existing across time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to the limited evidence base around documentary representation of the wishes, feelings and views of children and young people involved in the child protection system. It presents the findings of a critical discourse analysis of 114 documents relating to 28 children and young people in the North of England who were the subject of a child protection conference (CPC) due to having experienced significant harm or the high likelihood of significant harm occurring. Three dominant and interlayering discourses were identified: a discourse of childhood, a discourse of participation and a discourse of professional social work practice. While some children and young people came to life in the reports and were afforded a unique identity, others were invisible and their views were marginalized. The findings support a dominant discourse of the unseen and unheard child, with participation normally mediated by power relationships between adults and children, and which marginalizes the experiences of children through a structurally constructed lens of risk and vulnerability. The findings signify the need to establish assessment practices and case reporting systems in which children are heard themselves as well as reported on by others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engaging with digital media is part of everyday living for the majority of children, yet opportunities to learn about, through and with media are denied many pupils in compulsory schooling. Whilst Media Studies in the UK is internationally reputed to be well established, changes made to the primary and secondary national curriculum in 2014 included removal of existing media study elements. We demonstrate what is lost by these actions in relation to the United Nations Rights of the Child and, in particular, the right of the child to express identity. We demonstrate how media literacy had previously been included in curriculum, enabling opportunities to address children's rights, and propose that the absence of media education is part of an overall trend of the non-prioritisation of children's rights in England and Northern Ireland. The paper calls for media literacy to be reintroduced into primary and secondary curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the ways in which African Caribbean families communicate with each other and the outside world in the context of post migration. The Big and Small Story in narrative inquiry was used to make sense of the data as it pays attention to the manner and style in which this story is told, and what identities are being claimed post migration. The key findings are set out using three archetypal positions: the trickster, passer/conformer and resister/revolutionary. These were used to capture different ways people responded to power and identities claimed within their daily life. Findings in part of reflect Du Bois' concept of double consciousness to consider the way black people carry out their negotiations with power. These African Caribbean participants were having to think about what is acceptable to the power base and how can this be negotiated. This paper is intended to be helpful to practitioners interested in indigenous knowledge of self and its clinical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This scoping review seeks to understand the knowledge and evidence which exists in literature and research to support black African social work students who have additional support needs in England. In recent years, increasing numbers of social work students from Black Asian and other Minority Ethnicities (BAME) have enrolled on social work programmes in England (Skills for Care, 2019). In this paper we attempt to understand what support mechanisms exist to enable a positive learning experience for this student group. Existing literature which explores the experiences of these students is noted. This scoping review undertakes a thematic analysis eight articles, and offers in-depth explorations of the subject. It is proposed that the evidence and knowledge generated from this review will work towards providing a provisional evidence base for supporting effective social work training and practice education for black African students who have additional support needs. Discussions on the interplay of race and racism, cultural identity and how having some additional needs impact learning experiences are analysed. Through connecting intersectionality, conclusions, and recommendations for good practice for supporting students of BAME origins as they navigate their social work training and practice education are made with a view to create new knowledge and inform practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article maps the (shifting) boundaries of professional legitimacy, identity and practice in probation in England and Wales. Probation established itself in the 20th century as a core institution in the modernist pursuit of offender rehabilitation; however, changing political economic priorities in recent decades have prompted a new consensus that also incorporates mentalities of punitivism, managerialism and risk. With a particular emphasis on the reunification of services after the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, the article presents a practical and moral case for how the Government's (re)professionalisation agenda can be developed. It draws upon the sociology of the professions literature to emphasise the service's 'interstitiality' as a professional jurisdiction that operates between different social spheres. The article argues that reunification provides an opportunity to remake the boundaries of professional practice in such a way that people on probation can take ownership of their desistance, while reasserting the service's internal self-image and external legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship has highlighted the heterogeneity of second-generation Irish identities in Great Britain, yet the varieties of self-identification espoused by the English-raised children of Northern Irish parents remain almost wholly unexplored. This article redresses this neglect by examining the relationship between parentally transmitted memories of the Northern Ireland Troubles (c.1969–1998) and the forms of identity and self-understanding that such children develop during their lives in England. Drawing on original oral history testimony and using the concepts of narrative inheritance and postmemory as interpretive tools, it demonstrates the complex correlation that exists between parents' diverse approaches to memory-sharing and their children's negotiation of inherited conflict memory as they position themselves discursively within contemporary English society. Based on a close reading of five oral history interviews, the analysis reveals a spectrum of creative postmemory practices and identity enactments, whereby narrators agentively define themselves in relation to the meanings they attribute to inherited memories, or the dearth thereof, as they navigate their tangled transnational affinities and allegiances. The article also explores how these practices and enactments are subtly responsive to narrators' changing relationships to their narrative inheritances as their experience and awareness of their own and their parents' lives deepen over the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Care home staff working during the COVID‐19 pandemic experienced higher levels of stress and increased workloads. People from diverse ethnic backgrounds were disproportionately affected by the COVID‐19 pandemic. This study explored the identity experiences of care home staff from diverse ethnic backgrounds in the context of working during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Methods: Fourteen semistructured interviews were conducted between May 2021 and April 2022 with ethnic minority care home staff in England, who worked during the pandemic. Participants were recruited using convenience and theoretical sampling. Interviews were conducted via telephone or online platforms. A social constructivist grounded theory methodology was utilised in analysing the data. Findings: Participants described five key processes which facilitated or hindered the impact that their experiences had on their identity: dealing with uncertainty and transitioning into a COVID‐19 world; difficult emotions; experiences of discrimination and racism; the response from the care home and societal systems; and the personal vs collective responsibility. When participants' physical and psychological needs went unmet by support structures within the care home and/or society, they experienced a sense of injustice, lack of control and being unvalued or discriminated against by others. Conclusions: This study highlights the importance of recognising the unique needs of staff from diverse ethnic backgrounds working in care homes and adapting working practices to improve impact on identity, job satisfaction and staff retention. Patient and Public Involvement: One care home worker was involved in developing the topic guide and helping to interpret the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK's decision to leave the EU was partly influenced by a desire to reduce immigration. This followed a period of increased Euroscepticism, and an 'othering' of those of a different background, nationality or religion, and ultimately the EU itself. Post-Brexit, this has been linked to a rise in hate crime in England, and the referendum decision has been characterised as an expression of a strengthened English identity. Hostility towards those perceived as 'foreigners' or 'others' seems also to have affected people from the other nations within the British Isles, with speculation that Brexit might lead to the break-up of the UK. Here, we focus on Scots living or who have lived in England and, while their experiences are mixed, it appears that some hostility towards Scots (and indifference to Scotland) has grown. We speculate that this and additional political tensions may, eventually, bring about the end of the union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how pharmacists legitimise the expansion of their clinical work and considers its impact on pharmacists' professional identity work. In the context of pharmacy in the English NHS, there has been an ongoing policy shift towards pharmacists moving away from 'medicines supply' to patient‐facing, clinical work since the 1950s. Pharmacists are continuously engaging in 'identity work' and 'boundary work' to reflect the expansion of their work, which has led to the argument that pharmacists lack a clear professional identity. Drawing insights from linguistics and specifically Van Leeuwen's 'grammar of legitimation', this study explains how the Pharmacy Integration Fund, a nationally funded learning programme, provides the discursive strategies for pharmacists to legitimise their identity work as clinicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research looked at the management of identity change within Physical Education and School Sport (PESS) at one of the first Free schools in England. Opened as a new institution within an unfamiliar setting, the school had to contend with limited resources for an ambitious programme based upon a full complement of examination courses and an emphasis on prestigious team sports using a traditional public-school model. A single case study methodology revealed that subsequent changes in identity stemmed from staffing issues, alongside a shift in personal philosophies towards a more inclusive ideology. Both senior management and middle management agreed that PESS needed to offer more sports to more pupils while still contributing towards the school's "knowledge rich" achievement-based ethos. Using Goffman's concept of "impression management", changes are explained by the analysis of a team "performance" communication to parents, identified by interviewees as key policy actors in the life of the school. This approach has been successful in justifying change, a finding that will help to understand the extent to which parental expectations are managed at Free schools. However, elements of traditionalism remain within the school's games-based PESS programme and possibilities for innovation are interpreted by policy actors as necessitating changes in content rather than within pedagogy or curriculum design. Recommendations for future study include the need to fully understand the freedoms associated with Free schools, particularly expectations for curriculum innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If migration between 1851 and 1911 is to be analysed using individual‐level census data, it must be proven that individuals' place of birth was reliably recorded. However, existing studies have primarily been concerned with establishing only the level of absolute error, rather than how such errors were introduced. Through assessing the determinants of inaccuracy in the 1851–1911 censuses, this article finds that while birthplaces were generally reported accurately, the errors which did exist were not only the fault of the individual in question, but also of the householder whose responsibility it was to fill in the census form, and of those charged with transcribing the original, handwritten schedules into a machine‐readable format. By demonstrating that individuals' ability to identify their place of birth was a function of their age and the distance they migrated from their place of birth, rather than either their intelligence or familiarity with their place of birth per se, shows that individuals' ability to identify their birthplace accurately was a function of the relevance it held in their lives. Consequently, this article argues that individuals' ability to identify their place of birth reflected its role as a component of their identity, becoming less relevant the further from it they became, but increasingly relevant as they aged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bram Stoker's Dracula presents an investigation of identity from multiple perspectives: the political stance of the Victorian fin de siècle intersects with questions of identity and their liminal articulation through narrative control. The count becomes a "thick" synecdoche for the East and his arrival to England symbolises a reverse political and cultural colonisation that leads to a new image of the individual, revealing the innermost recesses of Western culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages with issues of identity construction and maintenance as expressed by a group of young British Pakistanis living in the North-West of England. Drawing on primary data from a qualitative study, we examine the ways in which Muslim identities are maintained, negotiated, and protected in relation to everyday situated cultural experiences. Nested within a context in which Islamophobia is pervasive, we discuss four salient processes of identity management articulated by participants: cherry picking; strategic adaption; ambassadorship and active resistance. Whilst these processes are to be considered as porous rather than mutually exclusive, our analysis elucidates evidence of both nimble and creative individual identity management and also an entrenchment of collective pride. We posit that, for the participants in this study, such practices constitute a grounded, pragmatic response to living in an environment in which their religious beliefs, political values and cultural commitments are frequently questioned within public life, the media and the political sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]