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This paper examines how life story books were used in two care settings in the UK for people with complex support needs. The context of the research was the transition of six people from a long stay hospital to a community home. Discourse analysis was used to analyse talk and texts in the care settings including staff interviews, meetings and the written text in the life story books themselves. Three uses of the books are highlighted in the analysis. They were used as a resource for: getting to know the person; defining the person; and displaying personality and uniqueness. Mutual identities of the various participants were constantly changing with reference to the life story books. It is suggested that the books encourage acceptance in the care relationships. The analysis demonstrated that despite the different uses of the life story books, highlighted by the care staff, there is an underlying assumption that what is written in the books is a direct representation of the person. It appears that once this type of information is committed to paper the identity of the person becomes reified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The controversial events of 2001 (9/11) and 2005 (7/7) have led Britain's media and policy makers to view the proliferation of orthodox Islamic seminaries, Dar-ul-Ulooms (DUs), and their graduates (Ulamaa) with suspicion, further exacerbating the marginalisation of an already marginalised Muslim minority within mainstream British society. Due to ethnic, sociocultural, and religious differences, the identity of Ulamaa in modern-day Britain has become increasingly complex and supposedly contradictory due to the perceived differences between orthodox Islamic values proselytised in DUs and 'liberal' British values. Using an interpretive phenomenological analysis, this paper reports on data collected in 2020 through three in-depth interviews with an Aalim who graduated from a DU in England after 2005. It explores how he constructs and negotiates his religious and national identities. The interviews were undertaken by one of the authors, himself an Aalim, and the paper also provides reflection on the barriers of access to this under-researched group. Data suggest that although DU identity might not contradict British identity, and Islam is not seen as incompatible with British values, the perceived contradictions between DU orthodoxy and British values appear to be conflated with cultural resistances emanating from Britain's colonial legacy in India; the birthplace of DUs. Thus, analysis of the data reveals, through an Aalim's personal voice, issues of identity involving culture, religion, and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a paucity of research into female-identifying dancers as parents, how the transition from dancer to pregnancy to parent is managed, and whether and how a dancing parent can maintain a career in dance. This paper shares findings from a qualitative interview study with (n = 30), predominantly female professional contemporary dancers that have become parents and are working within the contemporary dance industry in the UK. It uses Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual framework of belief and practice to make greater sense of how the dancers navigate becoming parents and the disruption to their dancer's habitus and embodied identity, as they attempt to manage work-family conflicts within contemporary dance. Findings reveal that when the dancers became a parent the disrupted taken-for-granted norms and expectations of the dancer's habitus and identity as a dancer, intensified the fragility of lives and livelihoods and brought new physical, psychological, social and economic vulnerabilities. The dancers in the study shared experiences of barriers, but also enablers for dancers that are parents within the contemporary dance industry in the UK, with examples of managing transition, evolution of identities and capital gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research nurses, midwives and allied health professionals are members of an important emergent profession delivering clinical research and, in the United Kingdom, have been the focus of considerable investment by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). This paper considers the experiences of research nurses, midwives and allied health professionals in relation to professional identity work, recognizing these are coproduced alongside others that they interact with (including patients, clinical staff and other research staff).Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 45 nurses, midwives and allied health professionals in the UK about their experiences of working in research delivery. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically coded and analysed.Results: Our analysis highlights how research nurses, midwives and allied health professionals adjust to new roles, shift their professional identities and undertake identity work using uniforms, name badges and job titles as they negotiate complex identities.Conclusions: Research nurses, midwives and allied health professionals experience considerable challenges as they enter and transition to a research delivery role, with implications for their sense of professional identities. A change in the work that they undertake and how they are (or perceive they are) viewed by others (including clinical non-research colleagues and patients) has implications for their sense of professional and individual identity. The tensions involved extend to their views on symbols of professional identity, such as uniforms, and as they seek to articulate and demonstrate the value of their conjoined role in research and as a healthcare professional, within the unfolding landscape of health research. We embed our study findings in the context of the newly emerging clinical research practitioner workforce, which further exacerbates and complicates the role and identity complexity for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals in research delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 15 semi-structured interviews with UK-based early/mid-career academics, this paper offers an empirically informed assessment of how lecturers teaching/researching the sociology of sport are managing their careers in a changing higher education landscape. Those interviewed were involved in the delivery of sociological content to a range of sports-themed courses with the interviews focusing on the changing fashions in studying sport (including a rapid increase in enrolment on certain sports-themed courses), and on the nature of the relationships with colleagues working in the same area (i.e. sport), but who teach/research it from a different discipline. The paper draws upon the processes of individualisation which lay at the root of reflexive modernisation to better understand the lived experiences of those interviewed. Using the metaphors of tribes, doors and boundaries, I assess the extent to which those interviewed felt there were opportunities for an interdisciplinary pedagogic approach to ‘sport’. The paper explores the relationship between the sociology of sport and its parent discipline (i.e. sociology) and where it might feature in a future (post-disciplinary?) landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act marked a watershed moment for the politics of asylum in the UK, setting the discursive groundwork for the now infamous 'hostile environment'. This article is the first to compare the discursive framings of this formative act by the Home Office and UK government with those of the then newly devolved Welsh political institutions. While exploring the dominant visions of asylum as fear, unease and hostility marking the act, this paper highlights contrasting national narratives and imaginaries of welcome and hospitality in Welsh institutions. Drawing on a discourse analysis of archived policy documents, newspapers and interview material, the paper argues that these emerging hospitable imaginaries constituted a form of Welsh national identity formation against a less hospitable 'Other'- the UK sovereign state. This article contributes to the critical migration literature by questioning if the notion of hospitality involves more than the ambivalent framing of non-citizens as guests and others, or if instead it is more intended to differentiate from sovereign responses to asylum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a qualitative discourse analysis of food‐related interactions in four U.K.‐based Polish–British families. The data include the families' video‐recorded celebratory meals and audio‐recorded interviews. The analysis explores how food talk projects 'stance' (Du Bois) – that is, how it indexes the speakers' positioning towards their sociocultural field, thus shaping their identities. The data reveal that, as the speakers negotiate their stances in the culinary context, they recurrently 'other' their interlocutors' foodscapes – represent them as different, abnormal and/or inferior. This othering could be interpreted as distancing from other speakers. However, the analysis shows that by humorously highlighting differences between their culinaro‐celebratory repertoires, the family members also reaffirm their sharedness. The speakers' discursive collaboration during their difference talk demonstrates how othering can be unifying in these transnational families, the potential of which is understudied in face‐to‐face interactions and in the context of food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study highlights the importance of international spectator sports in the maintenance of collective identity among international students. No research has been conducted on the international student experience of sport fandom away from home and on the impact of such a following on national identification. Using qualitative findings from interviews with international postgraduate students in England, this paper shows how the FIFA World Cup tournament in 2010 offered the opportunity to celebrate and consolidate national and regional identity, as well as to heal wounds. Far away from the home country, the televised football matches galvanised students into forming temporary conational communities in a bid to recreate some of the atmosphere of celebration taking place at home, and to bond at a distance with the home culture. This paper offers an important contribution to the literature on international education by pointing to the role played by sport in the international student experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports on a recent research project undertaken in the UK that investigated how young people negotiate their identities and relationships online, including how they experience interventions by adults. Drawing on qualitative interviews with young people in two schools and a voluntary youth organisation in England, we argue that young people engage rather successfully in practices of self-governance. Our findings based on this sample of young people’s agentic practice and care for their peers challenge some dominant perceptions of young people’s online practices as risky and/or harmful to themselves and/or others. Furthermore we found a lack of evidence concerning the effectiveness of, and need for, interventions orientated around surveillance and zero tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social psychological aspects of British national identification among British South Asians, which constitutes the largest ethnic minority group in Britain. Identity process theory can elucidate the social and psychological ‘functions’ of Britishness for social actors, offering a holistic account of national identification within this population. The paper provides a discussion of nationhood and the construction of national identity, temporal factors in national identification, its cognitive and affective aspects, the psychological ‘functionality’ of Britishness, and its social representations. It is argued that a civic, instrumental conception of Britishness might facilitate access to this identity among British South Asians. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholarly interest has increasingly focused on the predicament of second-generation counter-diasporic return migration to an ancestral homeland. The present paper portrays two generations of Pakistani middle class women migrants: two mothers, who arrived in Manchester in the 1970s, and their daughters, who both returned to live in Pakistan, one at the age of 11 and the other in her twenties, to marry. The latter in particular experienced Pakistan as culturally alien and unhomely. In Britain one mother has become extremely pious after 9/11. The paper looks at the moral careers of mothers and daughters, starting from the fact that migration initiates an irreversible process in which everyday, taken-for-granted intimacies and socialities of home and identity are subverted. Refuting simplistic theories of a continuous 'transnational field', it argues that migrants experience 'double consciousness', an awareness of competing rules, expectations and a doubling up of a subject's sense of belonging and alienation, which no return home can reverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores identity issues facing British-born Muslims and examines the interrelationships between British identity, culture and religious devotion amongst British men of South Asian origin. The paper is divided into three parts. Firstly an overview of key literature is given. This is followed by two qualitative surveys: one on allegiances to national sports teams among British Muslim men of South Asian origin (based on the infamous "Tebbit Test" of 1990), the other on contemporary issues facing the same group. The findings of the survey revealed religious conviction, loyalty to Muslim countries, a desire for unity amongst Muslims from different cultural and sectarian groups in Britain, disdain and mistrust of those responsible for the portrayal of Muslim minorities living in Britain including the media and a want for the abandonment of South Asian cultural practices which conflict with Islamic teachings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now in operation for 12 years, Facebook comes to serve as a digital record of life for young people. With significant parts of their lives played out on the site, users are able to turn to these profiles to reflect on how their use of Facebook has come to constitute a life narrative. In this paper, we report on findings from qualitative research into sustained use of Facebook by young people in their twenties in Australia and the UK. We focus on the ‘editing’ or re-ordering of narratives that our participants engage in while they scroll back through their years of disclosures – and the disclosures of others – that make up their Facebook Timelines. We present our analysis through three arenas (employment, family life and romantic relationships) subject to what we argue is a reflexive re-ordering of life narratives. We argue that Facebook profiles represent visual manifestations of Giddens [1991.Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press] reflexive project of the self, that serve not only to communicate a sense of self to others, but that also act as texts of personal reflection and of growing up, subject to ongoing revision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since its beginnings in the late 1970s, punk culture has been associated with counter-mainstream ideology and anti- institutional antagonism. In particular, formal education has been criticised in punk for sustaining oppressive social and conceptual orders and associated behavioural norms. Drawing on literature and interviews, this paper focuses on the experiences of higher education teachers who self-identify as punks, and considers how they negotiate and reconcile their subcultural and academic identities in their academic practice. The findings reveal that participants' affiliations with punk subculture give rise to counter-cultural pedagogies in which both the ethics and aesthetics of punk are applied in classroom contexts. Furthermore, the participants draw upon subcultural ethical and epistemological narratives to formulate and rationalise their responses to the state of contemporary UK higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has become increasingly clear that social activities play an important role for many UK undergraduate students in informing identity and place attachment through interactions with their term-time location. While attention has been given to the ways in which students construct 'exclusive geographies' through self-segregation from non-students, thus far there has been very little discussion of how students' identities may be affected by their changing activity spaces and how this may blur the boundaries between student and non-student spaces. Exploring these transformations over the duration of the degree is important as they highlight how identity performances may be influenced by students' transitions through university and their changing mobility patterns. This paper will address such matters by considering the following: (1) how first year activity spaces may constitute a student bubble for new undergraduates; (2) how, in subsequent years, these activity spaces adapt as students hone their social practices and explore environments less associated with student life; and (3) how 'local' student's activity spaces can become complex as they contemplate locating their multiple identities during term time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how young people experience territoriality in six British cities. It challenges the prevailing view within existing literature that young people derive important benefits from their ability to shape their identities by occupying public spaces. The paper is based on an exploratory study using semi-structured interviews, focus groups and cognitive mapping with young people. The origins, motivations and impacts of territoriality among groups and ‘gangs’ are examined, especially among those groups who possess an acute sense of place attachment and rivalry with groups from other neighbourhoods. It finds that territoriality is a form of cultural capital passed from one generation to the next, often with rich, heavily mythologised histories. Territoriality comes from the close affinity between young people and place and is often expressed through periodic violent confrontations. The paper illustrates how territoriality limits mobility and subsequently imposes sanctions on access to leisure, education, employment and social opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that the ‘turn to organising’ in British unions over the past decade has largely ignored the broader questions of the purpose of such activity. As a consequence, unions have mainly focused on building solidarities between workers in their individual workplaces rather than developing a wider view of workers’ interests and the objectives of that solidarity. Using Hyman’s typology of union identities (2001), it is evident that ‘class’ identity has largely been sidelined in debates about union renewal in Britain. The paper argues that this limits the scope of union renewal both in practice and in theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we explore some of the negative aspects of friendship. In so doing we do not seek to join the debate about whether or not friendships are more or less important than other relationships but rather to explore precisely how significant friendships can be. Based on written accounts submitted to the British Mass Observation Project, we analyse how friendship, when it goes wrong, can challenge one's sense of self and even produce ontological insecurity. Friendship, it is argued, is tied into the process of self-identification and so staying true to friends, even when the relationships becomes uneven or tiresome, can be a sign of ethical standing. Meeting 'old' friends can also become very challenging, especially if one does not wish to be reminded of the self one once was. The paper contributes to the growing interest in relationships beyond kin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a recently completed qualitative study in a northern English city, this paper explores motivations and experiences of Accession 8 (A8) migrants who have entered the United Kingdom following the expansion of the European Union in 2004. The paper considers commonalities and differences among the group of migrants routinely referred to as A8 migrant workers/labourers. Diversity is apparent in three particular respects: first, the motivations and forms of movement undertaken; second, their experiences of work within the UK paid labour market; and third, the extent to which the act and experience of migration offers new individual and collective opportunities and potentially opens up spaces for people to negotiate structural constraints and reconfigure aspects of their identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rather than focusing on either bounded conceptions of migrant assimilation or unbounded transnational linkages, this paper situates migrant experiences in broader "routes of identity." In the case of Malay ex-seamen in Liverpool, UK, all of whom are now in their seventies or eighties, this has meant tracing life geographies extending back well over half a century. During the middle decades of the twentieth century when these men arrived in Liverpool, the city was a major seaport with longstanding maritime connections to Southeast Asia and across the Pacific. Drawing upon fieldwork carried out in Liverpool and Southeast Asia between 2003 and 2008, the paper gives attention to four geographical dimensions of the shifting identities of Liverpool-based Malay ex-seamen: (1) the always-already fluid and mobile nature of their identifications which preceded long-distance migration; (2) shifting political geographies of identity (re)formation, particularly the establishment of post-colonial national boundaries which cut across prior modes of identification; (3) historically variable constitutive geographies of long-distance interconnection, most notably the transition from maritime socioeconomic networks to a post-maritime period; and (4) social sites through which individual and collective identities are emplaced. The intention is to sketch these four different dimensions in such a way as to allow them to speak critically to issues of transnationalism and migrant identity beyond the specific case of Malays in Liverpool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines young British people's conceptualisation of identity and citizenship. Data were gathered through a questionnaire survey from 442 young male and female citizens of majority and minority ethnic origins, aged 14-24 years and at different stages of education, employment and non-employment. This was followed up by in-depth interviews with a stratified sample of 40 participants. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, and by closely examining the two key concepts of identity and citizenship, the paper analyses the ways in which young Britons perceive their multiple identities and citizenship status. The research shows that education and career are the major priorities of these young people. They have clear notions of identity and citizenship and most are comfortable with their own identities and feelings of citizenship. However, some of those who are from a minority ethnic background have doubts about being viewed as British citizens because of racial harassment or stereotyping, particularly in the aftermath of terrorist attacks in the West. The research has implications for pedagogy, education policy, community cohesion and social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of school social class composition on pupil learner identities in British primary schools. In the current British education system, high-stakes testing has a pervasive effect on the pedagogical relationship between teachers and pupils. The data in this paper, from ethnographic research in a working-class school and a middle-class school, indicate that the effect of the 'testing culture' is much greater in the working-class school. Using Bernsteinian theory and the concept of the 'ideal pupil', it is shown that these pupils' learner identities are more passive and dominated by issues of discipline and behaviour rather than academic performance, in contrast to those in the middle-class school. While this study includes only two schools, it indicates a potentially significant issue for neo-liberal education policy where education is marketised and characterised by high-stakes testing, and schools are polarised in terms of social class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stuart Hall's observation that '... identity is formed at that point where the unspeakable stories of subjectivity meet the narratives of history, of a culture ...' (Hall 1987, 'Minimal Selves', in Identity: The Real Me, ICA, London, p. 44) has inspired much of our previous exploration of the lives of second generation Chinese young people in Britain. In this work we have drawn attention to the relative absence of British Chinese voices in public culture. Since 1999 the emergence of Internet discussion sites produced by British Chinese young people has provided forums for many of their previously “unspeakable stories” to circulate. In this paper we re-examine Stuart Hall's influential discussions of identity in the light of the Internet's role in transmitting the discourses he regards as formative, rather than expressive, of identities. The everyday interchanges of the Internet provide more spontaneous representations than the artistic practices prompting Hall's discussion of 'new ethnicities' 20 years ago. Accordingly, the online discussion forums we discuss in this paper address a number of issues often overlooked in appropriations of the new ethnicities terminology. In addition to ongoing debates about the 'place' and experiences of British Chinese people, we examine the growing off-line mobilizations engendered by online engagements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on one example of knowledge transfer conducted by the ESRC Identities and Social Action Programme which involved briefing Tony Blair for his December 2006 speech on multiculturalism and extremism. Two key themes in the report prepared for Blair and his speech-writer are described - the nature of contemporary complex multicultures and the 'fragility' of white English identities. These are contrasted with themes in Blair's speech which, in general, celebrated (white) British national character and took a traditional 'divided communities' perspective on UK multiculturalism while introducing further measures to encourage 'integration'. The paper describes the dilemmas and challenges faced in formulating a report for this context, in particular issues about developing a narrative in a highly contested field, complicity with power and credentials to speak. It argues, too, that although ostensibly an exceptional opportunity, more mundane acts of knowledge transfer might be more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Home Office has adopted a reinvigorated policy of citizenship education and integration towards both new immigrants and settled minority ethnic communities. One of the cornerstones of this new policy is English language, which is seen as a key tool for the successful integration of Britain's diverse communities. This paper is divided into two parts. Firstly, it explores the changing role of English language in the current debates around citizenship, nationhood and belonging. It argues that English language is used symbolically as a cultural boundary marker, which both defines minority ethnic 'communities' and excludes them from the re-imagined national 'community'. Secondly, using empirical research from a recent study on 'Access to Services with Interpreters', the paper seeks to challenge the reification of national and minority versions of 'community' that lies at the heart of current discourses around nation and citizenship. Taking language as a key symbol of 'community', the paper explores the complex contours through which individual, familial, local and collective identities are lived. It concludes that minority ethnic 'communities' are best understood as arising out of systems of localised 'personal' networks which challenge reified and abstract ideas of 'imagined communities' and provide insights into the performance of citizenship and belonging 'from below'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to determine how socially excluded visitors to two museum exhibitions and two museum‐based community development projects use that experience to construct individual and social identities. In order to do this it will determine the ways in which the contexts of the exhibitions and community development projects were constructed and how and why visitors and participants make meaning in these contexts. To do this it uses the ‘circuit of culture’ as the basis of an analysis, the moments of which are representation, production, consumption, regulation and identity. The paper concludes that the process of defensive identity activity provides the mechanism through which participants and visitors mitigate their experience of exclusion and provides the basis upon which UK government policy using museums as agents of social inclusion might act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses upon ways in which National Lottery funding impacts upon aspects of identity for small- to medium-sized organizations in the United Kingdom, and highlights some of the less-anticipated difficulties that groups may experience after receipt of a grant. A large Lottery grant can facilitate rapid expansion and may necessitate a degree of organizational learning for which groups are often unprepared. The paper suggests that a Lottery grant may lead to changes in the ways in which an organization identifies itself, or is identified by stakeholders. However, these changes may not be accompanied by a corresponding change in the organization's capacity or underlying cultural ethos. On the basis of the primary research carried out in 2003, the paper examines the implications of these changes for individual organizations and for the sector more widely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, further education (FE) colleges play a key role in providing literacy programmes. This article draws upon our research in FE, with a focus on literacy, learning and identity, to explore how different learners are positioned differently depending on the value of the literacy practices they bring with them from home. Indeed, it is generally considered that recognising the literacies that learners bring into the classroom is an effective strategy to teaching and learning because purposeful and meaningful learning builds and expands on learners’ prior knowledge and experience to shape and construct new knowledge rather than seeing the learner as an empty vessel ready to be filled by the tutor. Learning is seen as a social activity embedded in particular cultures and contexts where assessment is based on the learners demonstrating competence in achieving specific learning outcomes. The achievement of these learning outcomes is situated in the learners’ real life and everyday practices. The paper concludes that New Literacy Studies and critical approaches to education are important to challenging prescriptive pre-set curriculum literacies driven by a neoliberalism agenda and to empowering learners in and out of the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Adult participation in higher education has frequently entailed mature students studying part time in lower-ranked institutions. In England, higher education policies have increasingly emphasised higher education provision in vocational further education colleges, settings which have extensive adult traditions but which mainly teach employment-based skills and are widely regarded as 'outside' higher education. This paper interrogates the significance of these dimensions of college higher education, through a qualitative study of identity formation by adult part-time students. Their accounts, developed through individual interviews and focus groups, emphasised the significance of work to their interpretations of higher education participation: these are compared here to a range of conceptualisations of identity that have been applied in relation to work organisations. This analysis indicates some of the ways in which pathways which adults may interpret as meaningful in terms of work-related identities may correspondingly be constrained by a narrow discourse of work-based skills and credentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrative enquiry has become increasingly popular in recent decades. Although James Wertsch has developed a well-theorized model of narrative as a sociocultural tool, his work has not been as influential on this narrative enquiry as it might have been. This may be, in part, because Wertsch has mostly applied his model to the collective memory of national communities rather than to other mental actions or to smaller or more local meso-level sociocultural contexts. This paper develops Wertsch's idea of the narrative template so that it might be more readily used in researching meso-level sociocultural contexts and for researching mental actions other than remembering, such as learning and the formation of professional identity. It draws on specific examples from education and from teachers' professional learning in England to do this. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the pursuit of home within a diasporic British Indian Punjabi community. It is argued that the British Asian transnational pursuit of home is significantly shaped by the dynamic social context of South Asia as well as social processes within Britain and across the South Asian diaspora. Drawing upon a decade of original, transnational, ethnographic research within the UK and India, I analyse the rapidly changing social context of Punjab, India, and the impact of this upon the diasporic Punjabi pursuit of home. I particularly argue that increasing divisions between the UK diasporic group studied and the non-migrant permanent residents of Punjab, which are intrinsically related to processes of inclusion and exclusion within Punjab, especially the changing role and significance of land ownership and changing consumption practices therein, in turn connected to the increasing influence of economic neoliberalization and global consumer culture within India, significantly shapes the (re)production of home and identity amongst the Punjabi diaspora. Recent manifestations of these social processes within Punjab are threatening the very lived Indian home of some diasporic Punjabis, their Indian 'roots'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on research conducted across an English higher education partnership to investigate the ways in which student voice was engaged in further education colleges offering university awards through partnership arrangements. Such collaborations are characterised by the marginal presence of higher education students in an environment that is dominated by further education structures, culture and practice. This provides challenges for both colleges and universities in developing higher education student identity and appropriate mechanisms of student engagement that comply with expectations within the higher education sector but also recognise the contextual situation of students within the college environment. It is argued that student partnership collaboration can be a positive driver in an increasingly marketised global environment, where student voice and feedback mechanisms are at the forefront of quality assessments and institutional reputation. An ideal types framework is suggested as a heuristic device for the evaluation of college strategies of engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The advent of a new inspection system in January 2012 has created new challenges for both the teaching profession and for the inspectors of education given the task of implementing it, as the new framework demands increased involvement by serving teachers and head teachers as part of the inspection process. This paper draws on evidence from a current funded research project to examine the implications of engaging current practitioners in the inspection role. It explores the professional values and skills that are required in order to successfully effect the new framework and considers whether these may conflict with professional teaching identities, thus raising the possibility of further tensions in the inspection – and governance – of education in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon Islamic epistemology to confront the challenges of a postcolonial world, some European Muslims are rejecting existing educational provision, seeking to formulate culturally-coherent pedagogy. This paper contributes to the debate on Islamic schools in Britain through the findings of a qualitative study of a British Muslim community education project initiated by home-schooling mothers who believe in ‘Holistic Islamic Education’. The study demonstrates parallels between the experiences and motivations of these mothers and indigenous education movements in that they seek to provide a ‘Qur’an-centred’ worldview, reviving classical Islamic education and synthesizing it with modern pedagogy as a defence against the dominant secular culture. Their pedagogy involves the nurturing of shakhsiyah (personality/identity) through tarbiyah (holistic upbringing) as a means to navigate the complexity of multiple identities and the challenges of modernity faced by Muslims in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We share a common interest in researching the experiences of doctoral students. Over time, as we conducted our independent studies, we became increasingly interested in the varied ways in which doctoral students constructed their identities in relation to their past experiences, present and shifting intentions and affect, personal and social resources and more general life contexts. In this paper we analyze a subset of data from two studies of doctoral students in the social sciences in two different research universities. Using the notion of identity-trajectory, we view doctoral student identity as under construction as students explore ways of thinking and interacting in their academic work within the fullness of their overall lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on research into academic identities amongst early-career academics in a UK post-1992, teaching-orientated university. Literature around academic identity suggests five major academic roles: teaching, research, management, writing and networking. However, this appears to be a picture of an established mid-career academic in a research-orientated university. Literature focusing on the process of assuming an academic identity proposes that academics, even early in their career, work within strong collegial and disciplinary structures. This research suggests that both notions are problematic, and that for early-career academics in this post-1992 institution it is relations with students, the teaching arena, and organisational practice that are much more central. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minorities may define themselves at a superordinate (e.g., national) level and also at a subgroup (minority) level. However, others' recognition of such dual identifications cannot be guaranteed. This paper investigates how members of a minority (Muslims in the UK) constructed their superordinate and subgroup identities in such a way as to assert a commonality with British non-Muslims whilst asserting their religious subgroup's distinctiveness. Reporting qualitative data obtained through interviews ( N = 28), the analysis explores how British Muslims negotiated concerns over commonality and distinctiveness through describing themselves as being British in a Muslim way. The implications of these self-definitions for the theorization of dual identities, their recognition, and intergroup relations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British Population retains a strong sense of regional identity, epitomized by periodic campaigns for Scottish and Welsh devolution, or for Cornish self-government. There have been few studies into the regionalization of British surnames and none that utilize any register that can claim to be nationally representative. The National Social Map presented in this paper is the first comprehensive attempt to create a regional geography of Great Britain based upon the clustering of surnames. The resulting map illustrates a strong relationship between the populations surnames and geographic location. The homogeneity within each of the surname regions identified is striking given that spatial contiguity constraints were not included within the clustering process. The map will hopefully set a bench-mark for future work by geographers in the field of surname research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the years between 1860 and 1920, this paper considers how newspaper archives can contribute to our knowledge of the livelihoods of working black men and women. Although the empirical material comes predominately from the classified advertisement pages of digitalised English newspapers, references to Irish, Welsh and Scottish newspapers are also made. The types of advertisements highlighted here form two main areas for discussion. Firstly, men and women advertising their availability to work in a wide range of domestic roles. Secondly, employers who were looking for black men and women to perform particular roles. The adverts are short, no more than a few lines, but they mark out spaces in the archives where black men and women become temporarily visible. The reasons why these men and women appear in these advertisements raise complex questions about race, identity and the ways in which racism may have impacted upon their ability to work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While identity construction continues to be a widely discussed and researched area in contemporary social sciences, the existing theories have overlooked the importance of understanding why and how identities as semiotic constructions emerge in individuals’ consciousness in the flow of their everyday functioning. This article seeks to address this limitation in the theorizing by proposing an alternative conceptualization of identity, according to which identity construction is triggered by rupturing life-experience, which surfaces another perspective and makes the person aware of a possibility to be otherwise or of the reality of being different. Theoretical claims put forward in the paper are drawn from data gathered in a recent study, which explored lived-through experiences of young Estonians, who made study-visits to the United Kingdom. The discussed data will also highlight some interesting aspects in Estonians’ self-definition as it is constructed in relation to Eastern-European identity in the context of contemporary Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Multiculturalism', 'globalisation' and 'the European Union' have become the magic words that define our contemporary lives. It is no wonder that, for quite some time now, writers have tried to exploit the newly found pro-European Union theme of cultural diversity sans frontières, in an attempt to catch up with their times. Therefore, my paper will focus on the analysis of the British society as it appears in Rose Tremain's latest novel, "The Road Home" (2007). This wonderful depiction of nowadays Britain presents the reader with all ingredients favoured by contemporary tastes: describing the migrant experience of Easterners going West in search of work, a touch of human understanding and a sense of belonging, as well as an attempt at redefining one's values and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon a narrative study investigating the personal experience of 20 non-resident mothers in the UK, the paper discusses how the atypical nature of their situation poses a potential threat to women's identity at both the personal and the social level. It is argued that more constructive adjustment is linked to women's ability to maintain a positive view of themselves as a ‘good’ mother in spite of their non-resident status and that providing opportunities for women to ‘tell their story’ may be helpful in this respect. In addition to the cathartic effect of openly sharing an atypical mothering experience and defending against negative social judgements, exploring narratives can open up space, creating opportunities for new meanings and possibilities to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst the UK's National Health Service (NHS) offers a solid structure of service provision for people with learning disabilities, sexuality issues are often overlooked. This paper offers an examination of how it may be possible that gay men with learning disabilities (GMLD) experience a complex set of increased difficulties in forming a functioning identity. A clinical case example is presented which allows the implications of below average functioning and stereotyping by the majority group to be explored. To conclude, suggestions are made regarding how practitioners could offer the best psychological service to gay men with learning disabilities. It is hoped practitioners will be more proactive and creative in helping gay men with learning disabilities explore their sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports a study that investigated the construction of a common identity in an online Italian forum of psychologists based on asynchronous CMC. Discourse analysis was carried out on 20 discussions, and three Interpretative Repertoires were identified: (i) Professional Boundaries, (ii) disempowered psychology and (iii) psychology and health, which refer to three recurrent modalities of constructing the psychological profession. The study suggests that a framework drawing on social constructionism and Bourdieu's critical theory can help understand some aspects of identity in, and across, communities of practice. The main conclusion is that analysing critically how identities are constructed in learning environments, virtual or not, allows reconsidering the role of the cultural context in the production of those identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupational discrimination and segregation along gendered lines continue to be seen as problematic throughout the UK and the USA. Women continue to be attracted to occupations that are considered to be women's work, such as clerical, secretarial and personal service work, and inequalities persist even when women enter traditional male domains such as management. Work psychology's chief, though indirect, contribution to this field has been through personnel selection research, where methods aimed at helping organizations to make more fair and unbiased selection decisions have been carefully examined. Our aim in this paper is to argue that, on their own, such methods can make very little difference to the position of women (and other minorities) in work organizations. The processes that are fundamental to organizational attraction and adjustment cannot, we contend, be understood adequately through reductionist approaches that treat organizational and individual characteristics as context independent realities. Drawing on critical management research and using the specific example of police work, we argue that work roles and work identities can be more fruitfully understood as social constructions that, when deconstructed, illuminate more powerfully how processes that lead to the relative subordination of women (and other groups) are both reproduced and challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although research into family therapy training is increasing it has so far mostly focused on the process of the teaching and acquisition of certain concepts and skills. In contrast, the experience of training as family therapists has rarely been investigated. This paper reports on the impact of family therapy training at one training institution in the UK on the personal, relational and professional identities of trainees. Six family therapy trainees were interviewed using semi-structured interviews at regular intervals over a period of approximately twenty months. Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) was employed to analyse the interviews. The results suggest that participants often found the experience of training as a family therapist overwhelming and de-skilling, but that it nevertheless provoked a re-evaluation of some of their established personal, relational and professional identities. In many cases these re-evaluations seemed to have preceded a process of individuation, of assuming a different or more complex identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Information Society an individual may take on an identity for each electronic service with which he or she engages. As a consequence, an individual may accumulate a vast array of personal identifiers for such 'services' and is also likely to accrue a range of physical representations of such multiple identification: credit card, debit card, driving licence, passport, library card, parking permit etc. Hence, multiple identity management is a significant issue for individuals and organisations. In this paper we unpack this issue in terms of a semiotic framework consisting of three interrelated processes – authentication, identification and enrolment. These processes serve to locate the three elements of the person, identifiers and identity that help define the socio-technical network which comprises the issue of personal identity in the Information Age. We test the explanatory utility of this framework against a contemporary and prominent case from the UK – an attempt by the government to introduce a national identity card. Such an identity token offers numerous potential benefits for individuals and organisations but raises major challenges to data protection, data privacy and public trust in the information governance of the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses upon the learning of two young people in the UK during a critical and transformatory period of their lives, in a time of widespread social, economic and other global change. The analysis centres on processes of identity transformation including work identification, and raises a number of questions about relationships between these and the learning opportunities made available to young people, particularly through formal education. Consideration is given to the implications for work preparation as well as for the broader lifelong learning agenda. It is concluded that the technical-rational basis of compulsory and post-compulsory education in the UK ensures its failure to articulate with the needs of learners in search of themselves and, as such, provides an inadequate basis for prevocational, vocational and lifelong learning. Finally, a reconstruction of curricula is called for, whether pre-vocational or any other, around principles that allow it to be conceived as a practice in which the agency of the learner is a central driving force, rather than as something which is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a field study conducted in Scotland. Participants from one Scottish town stereotyped those from their own town and from another 30 miles away in England. These stereotypes were elicited in three conditions: after stereotyping the English and the Scottish; after stereotyping the Germans and the British; without any explicit reference to national categories. We predicted that the act of national stereotyping would have implications for the perception of intertown similarity and the residents' stereotyping; this was confirmed. Relative to the control condition, the two towns' inhabitants were seen as more similar when the inclusive "British" identity was invoked and as less similar when the more exclusive "English"/"Scottish" identities were invoked. Furthermore, the adjectives selected as town-defining, and the differential applicability of these adjectives to the two towns, were affected. We discuss these data in relation to the literature on the relativity of similarity/difference judgments and the context dependence of stereotypes, and in relation to the literature on national identity, especially the "nationalization" of self and other perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using questionnaire data concerning perceptions of the European Community (EC) in Scotland and Andalucia we explored how the EC is perceived, and a European identification adopted as a function of the salience of these ‘regional’ identities. Drawing on the work concerning the concept of ‘comparative identity’ (Ros, Cano & Huici, 1987) it is argued that disidentification with the ‘nation-state’ (i.e. Britain and Spain respectively) is a useful way of measuring the salience of such regional identities in the self/concept. We predicted that such identities would be more salient in Scotland than in Andalucia and that in Scotland the salience of subjects’ regional identities would be associated with beliefs concerning the need for strategies of regional empowerment in its relation to the nation (Britain). We further predicted that the EC would be judged as a function of this comparative identity so that in Scotland (but not in Andalucia), a European identification would be associated with what may be called ‘social change’ beliefs (e.g. beliefs concerning the need for changing aspects of the region's relationship with the nation). Supportive evidence is found for all these predictions. However, no support was found for our prediction of a correlation between the Scots’ regional identification and their European identification. The paper concludes with a discussion of the utility of the concept of comparative identity. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]