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Many Western governments have sought to encourage people to adopt more active lifestyles, as a way of reducing the growing costs of a seemingly infinite demand for health care. In this regard, sport, exercise and physical activity are often seen as equivalent tools to achieve the same goal. The central object of this paper is to subject such claims to a critical examination. More specifically, the paper seeks to examine: (i) the assumptions underlying what is one of the stated objectives of government sport programmes in Britain and the United States, namely to improve the nation's health; (ii) some of the key social differences between sport and physical activity, (iii) some of the health consequences of these social differences and (iv) some of the health implications for public policy designed to encourage greater participation in sport. It is argued that, while the health benefits of physical activity are clear, the health arguments in favour of competitive sport, and especially contact sport, are not persuasive and that public health policy should focus on promoting regular, moderate-intensity physical activity rather than competitive sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Western governments have sought to encourage people to adopt more active lifestyles, as a way of reducing the growing costs of a seemingly infinite demand for health care. In this regard, sport, exercise and physical activity are often seen as equivalent tools to achieve the same goal. The central object of this paper is to subject such claims to a critical examination. More specifically, the paper seeks to examine: (i) the assumptions underlying what is one of the stated objectives of government sport programmes in Britain and the United States, namely to improve the nation's health; (ii) some of the key social differences between sport and physical activity, (iii) some of the health consequences of these social differences and (iv) some of the health implications for public policy designed to encourage greater participation in sport. It is argued that, while the health benefits of physical activity are clear, the health arguments in favour of competitive sport, and especially contact sport, are not persuasive and that public health policy should focus on promoting regular, moderate-intensity physical activity rather than competitive sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deficiencies of technocratic approaches to governing emergent risks and technologies in the face of radical uncertainty, political controversy and public distrust, has brought about increasing calls, and in some quarters concerted action, to democratise science across western democracies. This paper discusses some recent Uk examples of participation in contested science and technology decision-making, focusing on a number of high profile cases which are helping policy-political, business and civil society actors gain a better understanding of what precisely may be gained from bringing a much wider range of know ledges and values into the process. The Uk experience suggests that pressures are growing for more "upstream" (i.e. very early) engagement in opening up contentious issues to much wider societal framings than hitherto. The paper explores the contributions being made by an emerging epistemic community of academics and practitioners in the design, implementation and evaluation of participatory processes that are fit-for-purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural capital analysis, or class analysis more generally, exacerbates rather than resolves the anomaly of why non-white ethnic minorities in Britain are over-represented in higher education. Some of these groups have a disproportionate lower, socio-economic profile and yet at least some of these groups are more likely to pursue and achieve entry into higher education than whites, especially, their white working-class peers. They also suffer additional disadvantages such as racism and cultural marginality. Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital is designed to explain why members of a disadvantaged class achieve less educational success than an advantaged class. It is not helpful in explaining why some disadvantaged groups do better than one would have predicted on the basis of a class (and/or racism) analysis. On the other hand, US sociological studies which deploy the concept of social capital in combination with ethnicity to explain the trajectories of `second generation' migrants seem promising. This conclusion is offered on the basis of a brief literature review and a suggestion that the "motor" of the British South Asian and Chinese overcoming of disadvantage lies in migrant parents getting their children to internalize high educational ambitions and to enforce appropriate behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the contemporary Western context in which men become fathers and ideals of fatherhood are constructed. The parameters of fatherhood are much less clearly drawn than those associated with motherhood, but both are shaped by gendered "choices" and constraints which operate across the home and work spheres. The article examines European policy changes which have helped to shape societal ideas and ideals about fatherhood (and motherhood) responsibilities as well as tracing the changes in the focus of research agendas in relation to men's lives as fathers and constructions of caring responsibilities. An overview of the theoretical and methodological tools used to explore how paternal involvement is anticipated, practised and narrated amongst a group of UK men becoming fathers for the first time is also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of poverty dynamics based on large-scale survey data shows that there is limited mobility across the income distribution for most individuals and families. Some people may get better-off over the lifecourse, as their careers develop and wages rise, but overall most poor people do not become very rich and most rich people do not become very poor. Lone parents are at high risk of poverty in the UK, but this poverty risk is reduced for those who are in employment and who receive state financial support through Tax Credits to supplement their wages. This article reports on longitudinal qualitative research which has involved repeat interviews with lone mothers and their children over a period of three to four years. The analysis here explores the experiences of sustaining employment while living on a low, but complex, income and highlights the challenges faced in seeking financial security in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that our understanding of income and poverty dynamics benefits from taking a life-cycle perspective. A person's age and family circumstances - the factors that shape their life cycle - affect the likelihood of experiencing key life events, such as partnership formation, having children, or retirement; this in turn affects their probability of experiencing rising, falling, or other income trajectories. Using ten waves of the British Household Panel Survey, we analyse the income trajectories of people at different stages in their lives in order to build a picture of income dynamics over the whole life cycle. We find that particular life events are closely associated with either rising or falling trajectories, but that there is considerable heterogeneity in income trajectories following these different events. Typically, individuals experiencing one of these life events are around twice as likely to experience a particular income trajectory, but most individuals will not follow the trajectory most commonly associated with that life event. This work improves our understanding of the financial impact of different life events and provides an indication of how effectively the welfare state cushions people against the potentially adverse impact of these events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits of a longitudinal or dynamic approach to research are now widely accepted. In recent years, the availability of such data continues to improve, covering administrative based sources (including population registers) as well as sample surveys. Further features of this research field include; (a) a growing recognition of the usefulness of qualitative approaches to the collection and analysis of longitudinal data, and (b) an emphasis on the policy implications from longitudinal analysis given analysts' increased familiarity with the technical challenges posed by such data. Theoretical developments have examined the concept of 'resilience', and continue to address questions of structure and agency and the unfolding of differentiated life-courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay aims to deepen the theme of reconciliation between family and work, a very relevant problem for the western societies, with a special concern on the case of the United Kingdom. In the first theoretical part the Author tried to provide a complex overview of the measures and the policies taken in this regard in the last decades. In the second empirical part, Mazzucchelli analyzed the organizational contexts of some of the most important British multinational companies. The aim was to examine and identify the reconciling measures utilized by the companies. The analysis was carried out through a careful review of the each company's web page. The companies were selected from the list "Fortune Global 500", a worldwide ranking of 500 companies with the highest annual turnover. This list is compiled and published annually by Fortune magazine (www.money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/), the second most important American magazine in the field of economics and financial affairs. The Author finds that the balancing instruments for the conciliation between family and work, in UK, concerns many areas and measures. We can distinguish between: flexibility measures that reduce or articulate in many ways the work time (i.e. parttime, flexibility, job sharing, teleworking, term-time work, hour bank, work shift); childcare services (i.e. daycare centres, nurseries, infant schools, company nurseries, post schools); leave or tools which release time (maternity leave, paternity leave, parental leave, leave for familiar reasons, adoption leave; maternity interruption of career with right to hold down the job place after the return, part-time right after the son's birth) and tools which create a different time culture (on the job training, mentoring). The essay shows many and interesting ways to reconciliate work and family, starting from what one could call the new "corporate welfare", embedded in a innovative culture of "corporate citizenship". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]