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Drawing on a Foucauldian theorisation and an in-depth study with eight disabled student activists in England, this paper explores how persistent marginalisation and ableism in higher education has triggered a wave of activism among disabled students, who, just before the advent of the pandemic, had organised a structured movement, Disabled Students UK. We employ Foucault's ideas of the care of the self and others to discuss the formation of disabled students as activist subjects fighting discrimination in English higher education, in a moment in which the intersection between inclusive policies and austerity measures exposed the ableism rooted in academic practices. This paper promotes discussion on the nurturing relationship that exists between the individual and the community in constituting disability activism and disabled activists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about the University of Brighton's third annual conference on Human Resource Management (HRM) in the Hospitality Industry, held in London, England on February 10, 1994. The focus of the conference was "Changing Structures and Changing Responsibilities." Gill Maxwell of Glasgow Caledonian University talked of "Competitiveness and Human Resource Management in the UK Hotel Industry." Her paper examined the case for a central role for HRM in the industry against the background of the general organisational status and structure of HRM. It discussed the structures and responsibilities of the HRM function in two units of international hotel chains where HRM is, untypically for the industry as a whole, viewed as centrally important. Sandra Watson and Norma D'Annunzio-Green of Napier University, Edinburgh, in their paper, "The Influence of Organisational Structure on Personnel Management: A Move to Human Resource Management," investigated the implications of organisational restructuring on labour management within the industry.

Inspired by feminist literature on the notion of 'dwelling', this paper asks: how does the personal dimension of dwelling relate to the political discourses of housing activism. The aim of this paper is to (re-)consider the political dimensions of housing activism and research through focussing on the intimate and private experiences of 'being at home', thereby extending and pluralising housing activism as 'dwelling activism'. Methodologically, this paper 'throws together' two data sets. The first is an arts-based study on the intimate experiences of feeling at home that was conducted with 18 mental health service users in the UK. The second study interviewed 14 urban community land trust activists in England about community engagement and housing activism. A plural, disintegrative analysis offers a symbiotic reading of the close entanglement between the inward-facing personal practices of dwelling like building shelter and security, and the outward-facing more public practices of dwelling, like building relations and togetherness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing shortages and construction delays characterize the current UK housing crisis, and housing need is not met. Modern methods of construction (MMC) are put forward as a solution to ensure quicker, safer, and greener delivery of new homes and are supported by the government, especially in the social housing sector. The paper explores the post-occupancy evaluation mechanisms used by housing associations delivering homes with traditional and MMC approaches. It argues that, alongside the digital and offsite transformation of housebuilding, the industry needs to reconsider the way customer feedback is collected and what purposes it serves. The paper argues that UK housebuilding in the social housing sector can benefit from re-purposing post-occupancy evaluation (POE) from only measuring customer satisfaction and detecting defects, which is currently the case, to using it to improve housing design and construction quality. This could be done by developing a systematic learning loop from residents of previous projects to the design, development, and construction teams across the housebuilding supply chain. It could particularly benefit housing associations pioneering MMC that, as long-term asset holders of developed houses, have a vested interest in improving the quality of homes and creating a better residential experience. The accumulated knowledge of such customer-centred approaches could also inform MMC technology development and help increase its uptake. However, as the paper further discusses, there are many challenges on the way to effective POE in social housing provision, including the nature of the MMC-based housebuilding supply chain and the industry's structural factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') was a controversial issue in the United Kingdom that sparked national and community-led groups to organise protest mobilisations. To date, however, the social science literature has largely focussed upon general anti-fracking discourse rather than on the physical, community-led mobilisations that emerged from the frustrations of people directly affected at a local level by threats to their community. This paper develops and applies a novel conceptualisation of political opportunity structures at the nexus of the national and local levels to more fully explore the usually overlooked role of local-level structures in interaction with the national level in shaping protest. It uses protest event analysis with data derived from two key activist-specific sources. The analysis draws on data from over 1,400 protests occurring across 69 counties from 2011 to 2019. In so doing, this paper observes and accounts for variance in the form and frequency of community-led anti-fracking protest events within and between different areas of England across the life course of the protest episodes. This paper finds that trends in protest frequency and form over time correlate to shifts in opportunity structures, particularly regarding local and national-level interactions, and that this can be usefully conceptualised through a local-national-state-nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'The Electoral Management of the Yorkshire Election of 1784'. In the general election of 1784 the Fitzwilliam Whig candidates for Yorkshire declined the poll the night preceding the county election and conceded victory to the pro-Pitt nominees who received organisational support from the Yorkshire Association. This paper uses the Yorkshire county election to provide a detailed case study of electoral organisation and management. It outlines the national and regional political contexts of the election and examines the political and religious prejudices of the protagonists. Furthermore, it details the costs involved and explores the logistics of bringing the enfranchised freeholders, in England's largest constituency, to poll. This paper compares the organisations set up by both sides to direct the election, demonstrating the increasingly professional approach taken by election committees towards the end of the eighteenth century. It demonstrates how in this election the experienced and near-professional committee established by the Yorkshire Association overwhelmed the amateur committee of aristocrats convened by the Earl Fitzwilliam, prompting the latter to make significant changes to his electoral organisation and electioneering strategy for future elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the Colleges of Advanced Technology (CATs), specialist providers of advance science and technology which existed in England and Wales for ten years after the 1956 White Paper Technical Education. Its central argument is that recasting the CATs as broader-based universities following the 1963 Robbins Report was a significant error which attenuated the progress of science and technology, and prevented the Colleges' development as viable providers of higher education (HE) outside the university sector. This decision, it is argued, was shaped by typically English views about the relative value of different forms of learning, the nature and purpose of HE, and particular beliefs about the primacy of the university. It also conflated the general desire to increase participation in higher education with the wish to promote science and technology in particular. A bolder option, it is proposed, would have been to build the CATs up as prestigious institutes of technology, along the lines of those found in the USA and continental Europe – although this, it is recognised, would have entailed a substantial shift in the role of the state and reduced the individual and collective autonomy of HE institutions in England and Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One proposed strategy to overcome labour shortages in male-dominated jobs is to attract female workers. This has been the case for lorry driving in the UK. These efforts, however, often work to reproduce binary gendered stereotypes, or seek to include women without questioning how working conditions and everyday embodied work itself constructs gender roles and difference and is differentially experienced. In this paper, we highlight differentiated lorry driving bodies at work, centring lorries as an essential part of global logistical systems. Empirically drawing from interviews and mobile ethnographies with freight drivers in England, we tell a series of composite stories which uncover gendered ideals of worker-bodies, and embodied experiences of mobilities. With the gendered, embodied life's work of lorry driving remaining largely invisible and poorly understood, we illustrate the complex intersections between places, people, materialities and forms of work. Through this paper, we show how (gendered) narratives and bodily difference are both reproduced and disrupted through lorry driving work. We argue that only through recognising – and destabilising - the gendered re/production of mobile work will other logistical futures be made possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the four UK jurisdictions, there are distinct disparities in exclusion rates of school students. Northern Ireland, alongside Scotland and Wales, has demonstrated over time, lower rates of permanent exclusions and temporary exclusions compared with England. This paper examines these disparities from the perspectives of representatives from various system-level educational bodies and third sector organisations representing children and families who experienced the exclusion process. The paper will also present policy and legal frameworks associated with exclusion in Northern Ireland. We interviewed 9 stakeholders, associated with practices of school exclusion in Northern Ireland, from a range of system-level education bodies and advocacy groups. Findings include positive strategies perceived to keep exclusion levels low, types of obstacles or resistance to anti-exclusion policy, participants' perspectives on unofficial exclusion practice, and perspectives on official exclusion data. What emerges from interviews is a series of tensions between implementing a child-centred approach and diminishing support services and resources. We conclude that those working within the Northern Ireland education system, are committed to an inclusive approach. However, the development and implementation of effective supporting frameworks take time and consultation, and there is evidence of tension between the perceptions of those working at a system-level and those working in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport has crept up the political wish list in recent years, with growing concern over pollution (health) and congestion (economy). In July 1998, the Government published its transport White Paper, "A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone," in an atmosphere of high expectations. The White Paper ranged widely over problems in the national transport system, set out many proposals, and received a widespread welcome as a landmark document. But despite some welcome new steps, the Government has also missed some key opportunities. The government is spelling out policy in more detail or inviting views on consultation, as a basis of implementing policies. Devolved governance is being brought in for Scotland and Wales, and more powers given for regional development in England: all have specific new responsibilities for transport strategy. A comprehensive national information system for public transport will be established by 2000. The new Commission for Integrated Transport will advise on transport integration, set targets and monitor progress.

A number of estate archives in the UK are held in private hands, owned by the family that created them, and preserved at their expense. They are often stored in a historic property attached to the landed estate. These archives document the history of the family and estate that they belong to; modern records often continue to be transferred to the archives, documenting the current activities of the estate and associated businesses. This article discusses the ways in which an estate archive can contribute towards the financial success of a modern landed estate, through business support (in the form of records management), or by generating income through commercial activities in the archives itself. Hatfield House is used as a case study to illustrate how an archival collection (the Cecil Papers) can be used to provide an income to help to offset the costs of managing and preserving these important historic collections. The article argues that an archive in a historic house must engage with the commercial nature of the organisation within which it sits to remain viable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses conflicts associated with policies to protect the built heritage. Such conflicts relate to a host of tensions between private and public concerns and specifically between pro-development and pro-conservation approaches. To examine these cleavages, the paper operationalises private and public concerns over heritage by asking if there is a recognisable set of justifications that policy-makers use for supporting a pro-conservation or alternatively a pro-development approach? To do this, the paper looks at appeals decided by Her Majesty’s Planning Inspectors in London. The findings show that although they are not dichotomous, public and private interests in heritage development can be factually recognised in the setting of appeals. Moreover, the paper finds that Planning Inspectors often channel conflicts through the prism of certain public interests, namely, protecting architectural and physical attributes of the building and its surroundings. Although inspectors are instructed to actively weigh in other (potentially overriding) considerations in heritage appeals, such as socio-economic and proprietary issues, these considerations do not appear to have the same standing within the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between public houses or pubs, and crime rates in England and Wales. The impact of pubs on local communities is generally studied and investigated within the context of third places, thus physical places that facilitate the accumulation of social capital within communities. We estimate Poisson Fixed-Effects (PFE) and a frontier Spatial Autoregressive (SAR) model on a unique panel dataset for 375 local authorities in England and Wales between 2003 and 2018. Results from the analysis indicate that the presence of pubs progressively relates to a higher incidence of major crimes when transitioning from rural to urban areas, mainly due to weaker level of community cohesion and a lack of resources to support formal policing in more urbanized centres. These findings highlight the importance of place-based strategies in tackling rising incidences of crimes, indicating that recent pub closures may have contributed to severing community ties that act as a deterrent to crime in certain areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a detailed overview of the Manchester Jacobite trials of 1694, looking at the origins of the allegations that prompted them and why the defendants were able to escape punishment. A discussion of Jacobite papers discovered after the trial and the insight they give into the machinations of northern Catholics and their links to genuine Jacobite intrigue is also provided. It is argued that, while the claims of the informers whose alleged insights brought about the trials may have been corrupted by exaggerations and outright lies, the links between northern Catholics and Jacobitism were more complex than had been presented by the defence. Examination of the Manchester Jacobite trials and the events surrounding them shows that a significant element of the northern Catholic community retained an active loyalty to the exiled Stuart Court. The support that the defendants received also forces a review of the relationships many Catholics shared with their Protestant neighbours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

However, based on epidemiological research, data that was available during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that closing schools only had a limited effect on COVID-19 infections:[70] 'With such varied evidence on effectiveness, and the harmful effects, policymakers should take a measured approach before implementing school closures; and should look to reopen schools in times of low transmission, with appropriate mitigation measures'. The closure of schools has worsened the divide, and while it was a consequence of closing schools that was entirely obvious and foreseeable to policy makers, there is no evidence that it was given any proper consideration on the multiple occasions when the Government decided to close schools. A further November 2020 paper compiled jointly by Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) and the Department for Education (DfE) further illustrates how aware the Government was about the damage they were inflicting on children and young people through school closures.[60] And yet, the Government went on to impose two further mass closures of schools. 1. On 18 March 2020, the Secretary of State for Education (SSE) announced to Parliament the first ever nationwide closure of schools in England.[1] Schools were closed between 23 March and September 2020 for most of England's nearly nine million enrolled pupils and then closed again between January and early March 2021 in connection with the third national lockdown. [Extracted from the article]

This paper advances a households-in-place perspective to understanding socio-spatial disadvantage in energy-carbon restructuring. This reflects evidence that the costs and benefits of low carbon restructuring will not be distributed evenly or fairly between people and places. Some households and localities will benefit from decarbonization but others will be disproportionately affected by rising energy costs and job loss. In this paper we use the example of England to explore different dimensions of advantage and disadvantage in low carbon restructuring and how they might be reinforced or mediated by intervention by governments, NGOs and citizens. The paper makes a distinctive contribution by linking different sites and policy areas in the distributional politics of decarbonization from the perspective of individuals and households. Emphasis is placed on understanding just energy-carbon transitions from a households-in-place perspective. The analytical framework is exemplified through case studies of the coming to ground of different strands of energy-carbon restructuring in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the factors central to the practices and realities of historical educational support for destitute and neglected children in the Manchester Certified Industrial Schools (MCIS) to determine how the schools acted to support the lives of children who were removed from parental guardianship. In nineteenth-century England, the most vulnerable children, destitute and often neglected (specifically, those considered to have improper guardianship), posed a serious challenge to public order in urban society. This study employs primary records to trace the experiences of four children during and after MCIS enrolment. Prior to the current study, none of these records had been used in research. The analysis of records demonstrates that MCIS officers supported and followed up students even after they were discharged to help them survive without their parents and become conventional members of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policing of young people, especially through stop-and-search, has been rigorously debated in the context of rising violence in the UK. While concepts based on procedural justice theory and perceptions of police fairness are directly relevant to these debates, these have rarely been tested on young people, nor have they taken account of the impact of stop-and-search. This paper examines young people's experiences of stop-and-search in two Scottish and two English cities, and tests the relationship between these experiences, their trust in the police, their perceptions of police legitimacy and their compliance with the law. The study finds that Scottish adolescents, who experienced higher volume stop-and-search, had more negative attitudes to the police and perceived them to be less procedurally fair than English adolescents. Structural equation modelling confirms that principles of procedural justice theory do apply to young people in this UK sample. However, our findings suggest that stop-and-search may damage trust in the police and perceptions of police legitimacy, regardless of the volume of police stop-and-search, and this may result in increased offending behaviour. With ongoing calls to increase the use of stop-and-search in response to recent increases in knife crime in England, we argue that its use needs to be carefully balanced against the, as yet poorly evidenced, benefits of the use of the tactic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the response of the English heritage sector, in particular Historic England, to the impact caused by the initial lockdown and restrictions introduced to protect lives during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. This response, headed by the Heritage Sector Response Group, relied on effective cross-sector working in order to both make the case for targeted support for the heritage sector to the UK Government and to provide advice and support for organisations during the lockdown and the limited reopening of the economy which followed. This included gathering intelligence in order to understand the impact of restrictions on the sector, which was used to swiftly develop emergency grant schemes funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic England. The paper also considers the Historic England Heritage Online Debate around the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on the sector, which gathered case studies from across the sector to capture and share qualitative information. The paper then looks at other long term challenges facing the sector, such as climate change, and considers how a collaborative approach and lessons learned from the sector's response to the COVID-19 restrictions may provide models for building resilience for the future and developing solutions to other issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As in many European states, a shortage of housing in England has resulted in some families who are 'waiting for' adequate and secure housing in England while also having the 'weight of' their children being placed outside their care hanging over them. This paper reports on the development of a practice guidance document that included an online survey with 38 children's social services practitioners in England regarding their practice experiences of responding to family homelessness. Findings suggest the complexity of the issue of family homelessness and implicitly highlight its neglect within contemporary research and policy in the UK. Homeless families are caught between the constraints of housing shortages and the complexity of the needs underpinning their homelessness. Despite these constraints, social work practice has an important role to play in providing, or facilitating families' pathway to, housing advocacy and advice. Most importantly of all, social work practice can maximise families' access to statutory family support provision so that families can be helped to remain together wherever this is safely possible. Suggestions for practice, policy, and research development are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution and role of psychologists, psychiatrists or mental health practitioners in working alongside forced migrants may take many forms. The guidance on which this paper is based, came about when several members of the British Psychological Society (including those with lived experience and insight and those who had set up services); became aware of the need for good practice guidance for clinicians working with refugees, asylum seekers including forced migrants across Britain. These guidelines cover a range of areas where clinicians work with individuals in clinical contexts, schools, nurseries, colleges and within community organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although housing crises are rooted in both demand-side pressures and supply-side blockages, perceived regulatory impediments to building new homes are the softest target for policy reform. Critics argue that the English planning system's case-by-case consideration of development applications hands excessive power to existing homeowners, who regularly veto those applications, thereby generating uncertainty for the development sector, impeding supply, and amplifying wealth inequalities. Drawing on interviews with planning and development actors, this paper explores the potential of rules-based zoning, in which consultation is restricted to plan-making and compliant applications proceed 'automatically', to address the supply sub-component of the housing crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2012 the Law Commission for England and Wales published a document entitled, unusually, a “Supplementary Consultation Paper”, on the subject of “Matrimonial Property, Needs and Agreements”.1 It was the second consultation within the Commission's current family law project. Rather than repeat what has already been said it may be easier to explain this process by reproducing here part of the Commission's summary of the paper.2 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Watermills have been an essential source of mechanical power for over two millennia. Their careful siting often took into account local hydrology, topography, and economic demand, attesting to the important place they held in premodern and early modern societies. This paper highlights the significance of Paul Bishop's work on mills over the last 20 years, which revealed that numerous historical watermills along Scottish rivers were closely located near overly steep stretches of river to maximize waterpower and minimize cost. Termed 'knickpoints', many of these steep erosional features formed thousands of years ago during and after melting of the British–Irish Ice Sheet. Post-glacial isostatic rebound caused rivers to erode into bedrock at rates set by river catchment size and sediment availability. Although bedrock knickpoints along the Scottish coast are relatively stable over human timescales (<103 years), knickpoints generated by milling in England have been invoked as potential hazards due to their potential to migrate over similar timescales. Bishop's observations on the colocation of knickpoints and watermills encouraged a more comprehensive investigation of the relationship between natural and human systems over the last 250 years and invited re-evaluation of prevailing narratives for the history of water technology and patterns of water-powered industrialization in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to think aloud about the current policy proposals in circulation in England that address pre-service teacher education. Rather than dealing with details of policy and points of specificity in practice, the focus of this paper is with how propositions are justified and the overall ways in which meanings are being managed; a fundamental aspect of policy analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data from in-depth interviews with refused asylum seekers from Zimbabwe and Kurds from Turkey, who have stayed in Britain as irregular migrants, this paper examines everyday lives, strategies and fears. The paper focuses on four main areas: individual experiences of the asylum system leading to irregularity; living as an irregular migrant with the constraints on economic participation and limited housing options; social lives, relationships and community activities alongside the ways in which decisions about social interactions intersect with irregularity and subsistence support; the fears and everyday struggles faced by irregular migrant's living in England, and the ways in which this translates into relationships with place and space. The paper draws out both the commonalities and the diversity of experiences among refused asylum seekers living in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying tenets of legal origin theory, this paper traces the origins of banking financial accountability resting behind paragraphs 78 to 82 of the First Schedule of the Companies Act 1862 (UK), where the timely disclosure of a balance sheet and statement of income and expenditure to stakeholders are scrutinised. Comparative legal analysis of 503 banking enactments of the US, Canada and England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveals that expectations of formal accounts raised by the Companies Act 1862 (UK) were informed by the Colombia Banking Act 1817 (CO) in the US, the Canadian Mauritius Regulations 1830 and the Joint Stock Banks Act 1844 (UK). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on UK data from an international, comparative project involving eight countries. The study examined how social workers' conceptions and definitions of family impact on the way they engage with complex families, and how social policies that frame social work context impact on the way social workers engage with families. Focus groups were held in which social workers from four service areas (child welfare, addictions, mental health and migration) were asked to discuss a case vignette. Several factors were embedded in the vignette to represent a realistic situation a social worker may come across in their day-to-day work. Social workers clearly identified the complexity of the family's situation in terms of the range of issues identified and candidate 'causes'. However, typical first responses were institutional, looking for triggers that would signify certainty about their, or other agencies' involvement. This resulted in a complicated story, through which the family was disaggregated into individual problem-service categories. This paper argues that understanding these processes and their consequences is critical for exploring the ways in which we might develop alternative, supportive professional responses with families with complex needs. It also demonstrates how organisational systems manifest themselves in everyday reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers gender and social class in relation to teacher education through an episodic study of the development of adult educational institutions in Huddersfield. It briefly discusses nineteenth-century mechanics' institutes in the town before moving to a consideration of school teacher training college students in the twentieth century, highlighting aspects of the gendered and cultural ethos of teacher training. Local efforts to establish teacher training, and the wartime presence in the town of an evacuated women's teacher training college, provide a prism for the examination of transitions in social attitudes towards teaching as a profession, as do the educational aspirations of local working-class grammar school girls and boys during the 1940s/1950s. The paper then focuses on the establishment in 1963 of a 'new kind' of non-residential teacher training college and, in particular, on its introduction in the late 1960s of part-time provision designed specifically for 'married women'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The preparation of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) inclusive sustainability appraisals (SAs) for neighbourhood plans (NPs) in England may be required when significant environmental effects are expected to arise from an NP. In this paper, we report on the result of a Ph.D. project, conducted between 2012 and 2015, in which all 15 NP SEA inclusive SAs that had been completed at the time were evaluated. In this context, the quality of SA practice was found to differ substantially. SAs were prepared either 'in-house' (i.e. by neighbourhood planning steering groups) or by consultants. The quality of SAs was found to be associated with their overall perceived degree of influence on the underlying NPs. Whilst the focus of this paper is on practice in England, findings are expected to be of interest to a wider international audience, in particular to those experimenting with voluntary neighbourhood/local level plan SA/SEA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores collective memory in Newham, East London. It addresses how remembering East London as the home of whiteness and traditional forms of community entails powerful forms of forgetting. Newham's formation through migration – its ‘great time’ – has ensured that myths of indigeneity and whiteness have never stood still. Through engaging with young people's and youth workers' memory practices, the paper explores how phantasms of whiteness and class loss are traced over, and how this tracing reveals ambivalence and porosity, at the same time as it highlights the continued allure of race. It explores how whiteness and class loss are appropriated across ethnic boundaries and how they are mobilized to produce new forms of racial hierarchy in a ‘super-diverse’ place. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper makes a twofold contribution. Firstly it presents a typology of eco-clubs that can be used to contextualise eco-club observations by researchers and can support management of eco-clubs by practitioners. Secondly it explains how participation in eco-clubs provides a space for a child to both enact and develop as a citizen, a place for being-as-becoming. It shows how children navigate adult behaviours in these settings and how these experiences afford opportunities for the development of attributes including critical and analytical thinking that are commonly associated with citizenship education in England. In conclusion the paper makes links between these unintended outcomes and the liberal underpinnings of educational institutions in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a common perception that infrastructure megaprojects are difficult to implement, as they face many obstacles (cost overruns, political barriers and time delays). This was particularly the case in the UK where many projects were difficult to develop given a complex, centralized and turbulent financial context (e.g. the jubilee Line extension, the Eurostar project). Despite this complex British system, London is developing the Crossrail mega infrastructure project which is recognized to be on time and built within a planned budget. The paper aims to analyse the reasons for the development of this project in a turbulent political and financial British system. The main argument I defend is that Crossrail benefited from the constitution of a specific and localized growth coalition. Revisiting the notion developed by Logan and Molotch, I show how the aggregation of different interests (political and economic) has been essential in the concretization of this project. Actors motivated by the will to promote the growth of London and to sustain the growth of population and jobs have been at the forefront to defend Crossrail. These elements have put Crossrail on a route of success. The paper concludes by characterizing and analysing such a success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use a UK case study to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the mental health (emotional, psychological, social wellbeing) of farmers. We outline the drivers of poor farming mental health, the manifold impacts of the pandemic at a time of policy and environmental change, and identify lessons that can be learned to develop resilience in farming communities against future shocks. We undertook a survey answered by 207 farmers across the UK, focusing on drivers of poor mental health and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also conducted 22 in-depth interviews with individuals in England, Scotland and Wales who provide mental health support to farmers. These explored how and why the COVID-19 pandemic affected the mental health of farmers. These interviews were supplemented by 93 survey responses from a similar group of support providers (UK-wide). We found that the pandemic exacerbated underlying drivers of poor mental health and wellbeing in farming communities. 67% of farmers surveyed reported feeling more stressed, 63% felt more anxious, 38% felt more depressed, and 12% felt more suicidal. The primary drivers of poor mental health identified by farmers during the pandemic included decreased social contact and loneliness, issues with the general public on private land, and moving online for social events. Support providers also highlighted relationship and financial issues, illness, and government inspections as drivers of poor mental health. Some farmers, conversely, outlined positive impacts of the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is just one of many potential stressors associated with poor farming mental health and its impacts are likely to be long-lasting and delayed. Multiple stressors affecting farmers at the same time can create a tipping point. Therefore, there is a need for long-term support and ongoing evaluation of the drivers of poor mental health in farming families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools in England have a statutory duty to contribute to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development of children. This paper reviews its historical background before considering the judgements of Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) inspections undertaken in the three academic years 2008-2011 of this aspect of the responsibilities in both primary and secondary schools. There are variations in the inspectors' assessment of pupils' spiritual, moral and cultural development across different school sectors and phases. The proportion of Catholic schools judged to be outstanding or good in this aspect of pupils' learning is noticeably higher compared to that of'other' schools in both pri-mary and secondary phases. Secondary schools are judged as more effective than primary schools in both sectors. While this paper does not attempt an exhaustive analysis of the nature of SMSC development or critique its understanding by Ofsted, it does review the ways in which Ofsted inspectors come to their conclu-sions and the significance and limitations of their findings. It then speculates upon the possible reasons for their judgements and suggests areas for further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the 2001 Census Special Migration Statistics, this paper explores ethnic variations in the propensity to migrate, the effectiveness of net migration in redistributing ethnic populations, and the connectivity between places that results from ethnic migration. London has by far the largest concentration of ethnic minority populations in Great Britain and plays a key role in the national internal migration system. By decomposing the net migration balances of boroughs into those within and across London's outer metropolitan boundary, the paper reveals different spatial processes of decentralisation and dispersal as well as centralisation when comparing ethnic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the future of Schools Library Services in the North West region of England based on a research project recently undertaken by the Centre for the Public Library and Information in Society at the University of Sheffield on behalf of MLA North West. The research has revealed somewhat of an identity crisis for Schools Library Services in the region, encouraged by educational policy, changing public library service priorities and subsequent issues surrounding service perceptions, awareness and ownership. The research has revealed a desire within the sector for a more visible alignment of Schools Library Services within the empirical services to children and young people agenda. Particular opportunities exist within the literacy development remit, building upon best practice examples in the region concerning reader development projects and family learning initiatives. Recommendations include the formation of a regional professional network designed to promote a seamless library service to children from early years to young adulthood including staff training, advocacy and proactive service marketing under a strong and identifiable regional brand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three main programmes of the Geneva-registered International Baccalaureate (IB) have grown substantially worldwide over the past decade, although the programmes have found a natural ‘home’ in the United States. This paper charts the growth of the IB in the United Kingdom (UK) revealing that involvement there, mainly in England and mainly with the original pre-university Diploma Programme (IBDP), peaked at about 230 schools in 2010, but since then the IBDP has begun suddenly to decline. Yet, in no other country has there been a fall in IBDP provision. This paper offers some key explanations for this phenomenon, where a lack of funding and continued lack of university recognition in the face of Advanced Level (A-Level) reform and numerous ‘baccalaureate’ developments has led to many state-funded schools in particular dropping the IBDP. Thirdly, this paper discusses a number of implications, both for the IB itself and education in the UK in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Conservative trends across western schooling contexts are signalling an explicit devaluing of social and moral learning within their official curriculum mandates. These mandates are increasingly privileging the ‘academic rigour’ of traditional subject disciplines. This paper draws on interview and observation data from a case study of a large and highly diverse English secondary school to explore this school’s prioritizing of social and moral learning. Such prioritizing is supported at this school by its ‘Academy’ status—which in the English context allows schools a measure of freedom over curriculum as part of broader government moves to increase school autonomy. The paper’s focus is on how these conservative trends are understood and disrupted to support a critical view of existing curriculum and a desire to modify and re-shape it to support more relevant and connected learning for students. The paper describes particular examples of practice at the school in the areas of Citizenship and Religious Education to illustrate this approach. Engaging with social and moral learning along these lines is argued as productive in working within and against the constraints of current conservative curriculum priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teachers are often portrayed as the recipients of information about widening access initiatives and cast in the role of encouraging their students to engage in these activities. However, recent research has corroborated what might constitute an expected association, given the time pupils spend at school: teachers can have a significant impact on the higher education [HE] intentions of young people. Yet, few studies have considered the classroom practices that may account for this. This study seeks to do this by drawing on the insights and experiences of students and teaching professionals based in two schools and a post-16 college. All three institutions have catchments that encompass educationally deprived neighbourhoods. What this investigation reveals is that certain practices can make a significant difference to educational ambitions. Prominent are those that nurture subject interest, link the school curriculum to HE options, and introduce learners to higher-level study skills. In turn, the effectiveness of these practices is influenced by the ability of teaching professionals to build rapport with their students, most prominently by sharing their own learner journeys. The paper concludes by arguing for the wider recognition of these practices since they have the potential to open up HE to more young people from backgrounds that are underrepresented in HE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocational qualifications in England are undergoing another round of reform. This paper starts by reviewing the alleged weaknesses of English vocational qualifications, but argues that these do not necessarily establish a case for radical reform. The issue is not so much whether the system needs to be changed as the nature of the change that is needed. The paper argues for a more deliberative and incremental approach and proposes five principles upon which this should be based. These are the following: that the process of change is as important as the content of change; that institutions matter; that the purposes of reform need to be clear, consistent and realistic; that reforms should help to create a more unified qualifications system; and that the interests of the UK’s other home countries should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the strengths of using ethnographic research methods in cross-national comparative research. It focuses particularly on the potential of applying such methods to the study of migrants and minority ethnic youth in education, where large-scale quantitative studies or single-sited ethnographies are currently dominant. By linking findings and methodological reflections from a research study into the schooling experiences and life projects of migrants and minority ethnic youth in England and Spain, the paper shows how cross-national comparative ethnographies enable researchers to (1) contextualise and compare topics identified by research participants in the course of the fieldwork, (2) analyse topics, which only appear in one research setting and (3) explore and challenge how concepts and categories are employed by research participants in different settings. This, it is argued, makes such research methods particularly well placed to identify issues, which young people themselves find important to their schooling, and explore how these interlink with local practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

E. P. Thompson's work on the making of the English working class is recalled in this paper for its continued relevance to historical materialist perspectives on global movements and class formations. Much commentary on Thompson's work confirms divisions between a first and second British New Left and largely confines the working class to an insular, English phenomenon, one which may present significant insight to a particular account of historical movement and change, but lacks wider spatial and conceptual resonance. This paper questions this view, and its wider implications for the writing of contemporary British history, while pointing towards the greater significance and application of Thompson's work on the making of the English working class than previously acknowledged. This has further implications for recent expressions of ‘global class formation’ as seen in the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In England and Wales government pressures to raise attainment has led many schools to implement structured “ability” grouping in the form of setting. The introduction of selective grouping has been justified with the assumption that the differentiation of students by “ability” advances students’ motivation, social skills, independence and academic success in national tests and examinations because students are “better engaged in their own learning”. This paper critically engages with this assumption. Drawing upon qualitative research conducted in primary and secondary mathematics, science and English setted classrooms in England the aim of this literature review is to consider how teachers’ pedagogic practices with low, middle and high “ability” sets facilitates and/or constrains students’ learning and potential achievement. We also explore why, despite strenuous criticism and moves towards egalitarianism in schools, the segregation of students on the basis of “ability” continues to be a common feature in schools in England and Wales. This literature review draws attention to a number of substantive issues including (but not restricted to) fixed and permanent grouping; the potential misplacement of students to sets and a culture of stereotyping where learners within a set are taught as a single homogenous unit. We conclude the paper by suggesting foci for future research in the hope of eliciting renewed critical interest in and investigation of setting by “ability” in a broader range of subjects of the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) are construed by policy-makers as a pressing problem about which something should be done. Such young people’s lack of employment is thought to pose difficulties for wider society in relation to social cohesion and inclusion, and it is feared that they will become a ‘lost generation’. This paper draws upon English research, seeking to historicise the debate whilst acknowledging that these issues have a much wider purchase. The notion of NEETs rests alongside longstanding concerns of the English state and middle classes, addressing unruly male working-class youth as well as the moral turpitude of working class girls. Waged labour and domesticity are seen as a means to integrate such groups into society thereby generating social cohesion. The paper places the debate within it socio-economic context and draws on theorisations of cognitive capitalism, Italian workerism, as well as emerging theories of antiwork to analyse these. It concludes by arguing that ‘radical’ approaches to NEETs that point towards inequities embedded in the social structure and call for social democratic solutions veer towards a form of comfort radicalism. Such approaches leave in place the dominance of capitalist relations as well as productivist orientations that celebrate waged labour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sir Peter Soulsby, a Member of Parliament, resigned from office to fight for what he called ‘a proper job’: the elected mayor of Leicester City. He was elected on 5 May 2011, but before that event a series of political interactions and actions had to be taken and shifting alliances had to be formed to generate a critical mass of support to change the governing arrangements of the city council to an elected mayor. This paper explores the way existing patterns of political behaviour and preferences were altered to lead to the introduction of the new office. The paper examines how, through a careful, if condensed, process of preference-shaping and the use of context, timing and authority-building, political leaders can construct a system of government that matches a personalized agenda for further political action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the mid-1990s third-sector professionals and organizations have come under increasing pressure to help enforce restrictive and punitive policies towards refugees and asylum seekers. This paper presents one response, using an empirical case study to develop an Independent Anti-Racist Model for asylum rights organizing. This combines data from a three-year study comparing four organizations in a major city in England and reflections on the author's experience as a member of the case study organization, contextualized in the literature. The paper identifies a related set of features distinguishing this model from other types of organization and the conditions making it possible, and concludes that it offers wider lessons for work with groups in a conflictual relationship with the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper’s focus is on an alliance of schools in England that came together as part of the National Teaching Schools initiative. Drawing on interviews from Head Teachers within the alliance, the paper explores issues of school collaboration from a premise that such collaboration is paramount to school improvement within the current climate of increased school autonomy and increasingly rigid accountabilities. The Head Teachers highlight key factors that supported effective school-to-school collaborations associated with sharing their expertise and fostering active and cooperative connections. They also, however, highlight factors that undermined genuine collaboration associated with a prioritising of the performative demands and economic imperatives of the audit culture. The impact of this prioritising should, it is argued, be considered in any analysis of school collectives within the current English education system – particularly given their proliferation and the responsibility placed on them in terms of school improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article concerns the educational philosophy of S. Margery Fry (1874–1958) and its impact upon the design, organisation and functions of university residences for women in the twentieth century. According to Carol Dyhouse, Fry, the only woman on the University Grants Committee from 1919 to 1947, 'exerted considerable influence over the shape of provision for women across the country'. Taking a biographical approach based on Fry's personal papers and institutional archives, this article explores her ideas and locates the origins of them in her early experiences, both as a student and subsequently as the first warden of University House, Birmingham. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]