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This article analyses, mingles and blends divergent and complementary strands from the thinking of Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Sir Alec Clegg (1909-1986), two contemporaneous but different influential public figures and thinkers in the post-World War Two period. The paper uses these strands to construct a critique of the current colonisation of education by neo-liberal economic logics and performative architecture. Their ideas emerge as bulwarks against populist discourse, reductivist, authoritarian framings of education policy and the restrictive and prescriptive direction of education practice. Conceptions of pluralism, imagination, the location of children and young people's perspectives in the adult world, citizenry and engagement with the world are illuminated for their refreshing power to replenish and sustain the conditions for an education that supports human flourishing.

This paper examines and evaluates some aspects of the legacy of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Council and its long serving Chief Education Officer, Sir Alec Clegg, who held the post between 1945 and 1974. Against a subsequent political discourse of markets, choice and autonomy which portrays local authorities as the cause of poor educational outcomes and school failure, political developments have led to a diminution of the role of local authorities, destruction of local democratic accountability and greater centralisation of power and control of education. Drawing on interviews and email correspondence with former pupils, teachers, officers and others of the West Riding, its successor authorities and beyond, we explore the context, tensions, successes and lasting impact of Clegg's ideas and practice, particularly in relation to support for community development and the arts and creativity. The paper also looks at Clegg's influence and legacy with regard to selection for secondary education and the role of middle schools, the development of primary education and the impact on successor authorities to the West Riding and beyond.

Examining the entanglement of democracy and social justice in education and the relationship to social mobility, this paper critiques the individualising nature of social mobility in policy discourse as inimical to human flourishing and education as a public good. The rhetoric of social mobility which responsibilises individuals for their success, without due regard to the systemic changes needed to enable this and the societal barriers to social mobility experienced disproportionately by some groups in society, is detrimental to social justice. A conception of education as a pathway to social mobility must be located in a wider vision of civic engagement in a more inclusive and fairer society. Yet civic engagement in education at the local level has been eroded, as illustrated in this paper by the example of an evolving model of school governance in England. As a corporatist, market driven reform, this model exemplifies how local democratic ties between schools and engagement with their communities can be undermined. Social mobility to enable opportunities, access and participation in democratic civic society becomes a fantasy when society is riven with systemic inequalities, lacks the necessary conditions to enable human flourishing and links to community engagement in education for democratic renewal are downplayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article recalls a time when local government infrastructure was strong and a Chief Education Officer's (CEO) vision could be realised across a region, in Clegg's case the West Riding of Yorkshire, one of the largest of the pre-1974 counties in England. It is timely to revisit Clegg's educational leadership and practice from 1945 to 1974, as a valuable source of learning, and challenge to the current ideologically-informed policy rhetoric which has undermined the framework of democratic educational decision-making. The authors identify four possible areas to learn from Clegg's work. Firstly, the need for CEOs or their modern-day equivalents or successors, to consider their potential as political and community leaders; secondly, Clegg's leadership style prefigures some of the recent discussion about the leadership of public services in uncertain times; thirdly a re-evaluation of administration and bureaucracy; and lastly the need for supportive partnerships to enable schools to thrive.

This article analyses, mingles and blends divergent and complementary strands from the thinking of Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) and Sir Alec Clegg (1909–1986), two contemporaneous but different influential public figures and thinkers in the post-World War Two period. The paper uses these strands to construct a critique of the current colonisation of education by neo-liberal economic logics and performative architecture. Their ideas emerge as bulwarks against populist discourse, reductivist, authoritarian framings of education policy and the restrictive and prescriptive direction of education practice. Conceptions of pluralism, imagination, the location of children and young people's perspectives in the adult world, citizenry and engagement with the world are illuminated for their refreshing power to replenish and sustain the conditions for an education that supports human flourishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines and evaluates some aspects of the legacy of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Council and its long serving Chief Education Officer, Sir Alec Clegg, who held the post between 1945 and 1974. Against a subsequent political discourse of markets, choice and autonomy which portrays local authorities as the cause of poor educational outcomes and school failure, political developments have led to a diminution of the role of local authorities, destruction of local democratic accountability and greater centralisation of power and control of education. Drawing on interviews and email correspondence with former pupils, teachers, officers and others of the West Riding, its successor authorities and beyond, we explore the context, tensions, successes and lasting impact of Clegg's ideas and practice, particularly in relation to support for community development and the arts and creativity. The paper also looks at Clegg's influence and legacy with regard to selection for secondary education and the role of middle schools, the development of primary education and the impact on successor authorities to the West Riding and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study exploring the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on secondary school children's mental health and well-being in the North of England. It explores three research questions: to what extent has the Covid-19 pandemic affected secondary school children’s mental health and wellbeing in England? What did students value most for their mental health and wellbeing in a secondary school context during the Covid-19 pandemic? What are the implications for the post-pandemic future? A qualitative multi-method research design was used consisting of an online questionnaire survey (n = 605) and follow-up focus group interviews (n = 16). The findings of the study show that the pandemic and associated restrictions had a detrimental effect on the lives of a very large proportion of the young people in our study, with greater impact on girls than boys. From the analysis the resilience and ability of the participants to “bounce back” from the upheavals caused by the restrictions was apparent. However, for a significant minority the adverse impacts on their mental health and wellbeing continue to affect their lives. The idea of returning to “normal” following a period of crisis and turmoil such as the Covid-19 pandemic, emerges as an unhelpful concept because of the implied associated expectation of a smooth return to the routines prior to the pandemic crisis. This assumption is problematic as this study’s findings demonstrate. The “new” normal is experienced differently by students, especially girls, to what was “normal” experience before the pandemic and this has significant implications for schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background In many countries, those with lower socioeconomic status are disproportionately affected by poor oral health. This can be attributed, at least in part, to differences in preventive dental visiting. While several theories have been applied to the area, they generally fail to capture the recursive nature of dental visiting behaviour, and fall short of informing the design of complex interventions to tackle inequalities. Objective To undertake a systematic review and synthesis of theory in order to provide an overview of the pathways which bring about socioeconomic inequalities in early dental visiting, and identify possible intervention points. Methods Electronic searching identified 8947 titles and abstracts. Paper screening and citation snowballing left 77 included papers. Drawing on the tenets of Critical Interpretive Synthesis, data extraction involved capturing concepts and relationships and translating these sometimes into synthetic constructs. Results We theorize that at the individual (micro-level), dental visiting behaviour is influenced by: the ' Importance of obtaining care', ' Emotional response' and ' Perceived control', which feed into a balancing of ' Competing Demands' against ' Internal resources' (coping, self-identity), although attendance is tempered by the effective ' Affordability and Availability of services'. Positive Care experiences are theorized to lower the demands and increase internal resources associated with dental visiting. We also outline meso-level factors ' Social norms and sanctions', 'Obligations, expectations and trust', 'Information channels', 'Social structures' and theorize how these can exert an overwhelming influence in deprived areas. Conclusions Socioeconomic inequalities in early dental visiting emerge from several stages in the care-seeking process. Dental visiting behaviour should be viewed not just as a one-off event, but extending over time and social space. Since there is recursivity in peoples' most recent dental experience any future visits we identify that interventions which make care a positive experience for low socioeconomic patients may be particularly beneficial in reducing inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composite slabs using cold-formed profiled steel sheeting are widely used in multi-storey steel-framed buildings. This paper presents the results from a comprehensive test programme that considers the longitudinal shear resistance of composite slabs with two types of trapezoidal profiled sheeting, where the only parameter that was varied was the yield strength of the steel. Although the ductility of high-strength steel material used in two of four test series was low, the longitudinal shear behaviour for all of the composite slabs was deemed to be ductile according to Eurocode 4, which meant that the partial connection method was permitted. However, the longitudinal shear resistance was shown to be significantly lower in the specimens that used the higher-strength steel, which clearly demonstrates that the rules given in Eurocode 4, annex B.3.1 for reducing the number of tests lead to unconservative design values. To remedy this situation, an amendment is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]