Search

English free school policy, first introduced in the 2010 education white paper, advocated, among other things, opportunities for local people to establish new schools that served the needs of their communities (Department for Education, 2010). The assumption was that such a decentralised, flexible approach would generate new schools that better met the needs of those not currently provided for effectively by the education system. Although the Department for Education favoured a sponser model, the opportunity for parents to set up their own schools was included in the policy (Department for Education, 2010) and there are a few examples of new schools created by parents without the support of approved providers. This thesis plotted the efforts of various parties to position themselves in relation to one such, parent led, English free school: Ridgewell School. Purportedly created from within their community, the school actually generated many struggles and tensions as people attempted to colonise the emerging public space. The school was established in a rural area of England by a small group of parents who decided they wanted an alternative to the existing secondary school provision; an alternative that would provide better standards, and would be more sympathetic to the rural environment that their families lived in. However, the parents' appraoch was blind to the effects of existing class relations and they ended up struggling against a multitude of differing local interests and motivations. Education discourses played a critical role in this process as a reference point by which individuals legitimated and articulated their own positions. The founding parents were able to use existing education discourses to legitimate their claim for a new school whilst, at the same time, having to deal with the inflexible requirements of national legislative and regulatory procedures that made it difficult for the school to adapt to the local context. By contrast, other potentially interested parties (residents, parents, educators) were constrained by their existing sense of self (Archer, 2007) which in some cases excluded them from the emerging space entirely. Using an extended case method (Burawoy, 2009), the analysis attempts to provide a robust account of class struggle in the formation of the new school. With reference to Beverly Skeggs, I argue that attributions of value were essential to this struggle (2004: 186). In the case of the new school, value judgements were central to the creation of new forms of appropriation, exploitation and governance, and the formation of new selves (2004: 186). With reference to Anne Rawls, I go further and argue that the normative process was essentially moral in nature: judgements relating to what is good and bad were essential to all value judgements in the data analysed. I argue that this assertion of 'moral power' (Rawls, 2010) within the emerging social space can be seen as an aspect of discourse, which in turn is evident in the historical discursive formation that is state education (Olssen, 2010b). Put simply, one's ability to pass judgement on others, based on historical discourses of legitimation, was key to the colonization of the new educational space (Garfinkel and Rawls, 2002). Education policy has historically articulated state education with economic discourses (Green, 2013). The case study developed in this thesis provides opportunities for contributions to theoretical understandings relating to the normative dimensions of discourse in the formation of new educational spaces. As such, I hope that the theoretically driven accounts that have been produced will contribute to the assumptions that drive national education policy.

Background: Blood donors are required to exceed a minimum haemoglobin level before they donate; those who fail are temporarily deferred from blood donation. In this way, donor health, and that of the recipient (patient), is assured and a drain on blood collection resource is avoided. Knowing what factors contribute to donors failing to reach these levels and whether provision of iron supplements decrease deferral rates would prove beneficial to blood collection agencies. Methods: Two systematic reviews of available literature were conducted after searching on-line databases. The first looked at observational studies of demographic data, donation history and haematological and biological factors that might be associated with deferral from blood donation. The second review studied only randomised controlled trials and was carried out using the protocols and facilities of the Cochrane Collaboration to assess the efficacy and safety of iron supplementation to reduce iron deficiency and/or anaemia. Results: Fifty-five studies met the inclusion criteria for the first review, thirty studies were included in the second. Key findings are: 1. Females show a significantly greater risk (11-fold) of donor low haemoglobin deferral as compared to males. 2. Higher deferral rates were also associated with increasing age, higher ambient temperature, lower body mass, shorter donation interval or being of certain ethnicity. 3. Donor deferral is reduced by taking iron supplements but the evidence is moderate. 4. Those taking iron supplementation are subject to more frequent adverse events. Conclusions: These peer-reviewed and published works help define criteria that should be considered in large scale studies of donor deferral, especially any which attempt to address failure to meet low haemoglobin thresholds. Additionally, although donors may benefit from iron supplementation, the risk of side effects means it is unlikely to be a universal treatment. Together these reviews may help determine suitable donation intervals which decrease risk of donor iron-deficiency.

This thesis is the first full-length quantitative and qualitative analysis of the institutional and medical responses to sickness and disease in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, between 1750 and 1850 – the period conventionally ascribed to England’s first ‘industrial revolution’. Using a wide range of largely unexplored archival material it assesses the healthcare options available to the poor population of Newcastle. It proceeds to uncover the poor’s individual experiences, how sickness and disease impacted on their lives and the ways in which healthcare options and strategies developed across the century between 1750 and 1850. The thesis begins with a comprehensive examination of Newcastle’s demographic history. This involves an evaluation of the city’s published Bills of Mortality. Using this largely neglected demographic source, chapter one reveals new and crucial information about the changing size of the population in all of the city’s parishes and describes how the city grew between 1736 and 1850. Newcastle did not share in the rapid population expansion experienced by the country as a whole in the second half of the eighteenth-century. After reconstructing Newcastle’s demographic record, a second chapter analyses the living conditions in the city in order to contextualise its population history. This chapter provides evidence to show that Newcastle had many of the epidemiological characteristics of the pre-industrial city which enabled it to act as a reservoir of diseases and infections. The second section of the thesis examines the institutional responses to sickness and disease in the city. This section of the thesis is divided into two chapters: the first looks at the role of the Newcastle Infirmary founded in 1751 for the poor of Newcastle, Durham and Northumberland and the second analyses the Newcastle Dispensary founded in 1778. Both of these institutions played important but different roles in the city’s medical landscape – collectively admitting over half a million patients during the century under study. An examination of the characteristics of these individuals reveals that both institutions provided healthcare to different elements of the population. The analysis also provides key information on the types of diseases and ailments which were commonly experienced by the working poor in the city. Both studies reveal an intertwining relationship between the role of the Infirmary and the Dispensary. While both provided care to the ‘deserving’ poor, the former ii treated mainly accidents and surgical cases and the latter catered specifically for chronic, infectious and sometimes lethal maladies. After having analysed those who turned to the city’s voluntary hospitals, the last section examines the experience of the pauper population, focusing on the healthcare delivered to the sick poor under the Old Poor Law. Attention here is paid to both outdoor medical relief and also to that provided in parish workhouses. This chapter shows that medical services were an important part of the ‘relief culture’ in the city and that the workhouse system in Newcastle played an integral part in what has been described as the pauper ‘economy of makeshift and mend’. High levels of sickness and disease amongst the city’s inhabitants meant that overseers of the poor were constantly dealing with relief applications which were sickness related. The chapter provides abundant evidence that even with the growth of alternative healthcare institutions in the city, Poor Law medical services developed rather than declined in the period. It is concluded that Poor Law medicine played a very significant part in the lives of Newcastle’s poor.