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This paper critically examines the White Paper, Opportunity for all, published by the UK Government's Department for Education (DfE) in March 2022. This has a number of recommendations for schools in an attempt to 'level up'. In particular, there is a promise to deliver 'a fully trust-led system with a single regulatory approach [and] a clear role for every part of the school system'. Such a system provides a serious challenge to the way that Religious Education (RE) structures in England are currently built: in short, when Local Authorities no longer have schools under their control – what is the point of a SACRE? Arguing that the 'local settlement' for RE serves two purposes – a curricular purpose and support and monitoring purpose – this paper will suggest that future RE curricula will be planned at the Trust level, with the monitoring and support functions being moved from the local to the regional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Several cross-sectional studies have investigated the incidence of urinary Congo-red dye positivity in women with preeclampsia (PE), compared to unaffected pregnancies, and reported very high sensitivity and low false positive rate in the diagnosis of PE. Objective: To determine the performance of the urinary Congo-red dot paper test at 35–37 weeks’ gestation in the prediction of delivery with PE at ≤2 and >2 weeks after assessment. Methods: This was a prospective observational study in women attending for a routine hospital visit at 35+0 to 36+6 weeks’ gestation in a maternity hospital in England. Urine samples were collected and the Congo-red dot paper test was used to assess the degree of Congo-red dye positivity. The test uses a scoring system from 1 to 8 and the higher the score the greater the degree of Congo-red dye positivity. We examined and compared the degree of Congo-red dye positivity in the groups that delivered with PE at ≤2 and >2 weeks with those that remained normotensive. Reproducibility was assessed by examining the inter- and intra-observer reliability of scoring on stored images with the researchers blinded to previous results. Results: The study population of 2140 women included 46 (2.1%) that subsequently developed PE (2.1%). The urinary Congo-red dot test was positive in 8.3% (1/12) and 2.9% (1/34) that delivered with PE at ≤2 and >2 weeks from assessment and in 0.2% (4/2094) of the unaffected pregnancies when the cutoff for Congo-red dye positivity was ≥5. The respective values when the cutoff used was ≥3 were 66.7%, 23.5%, and 16.5%, respectively. The intraclass correlation coefficient for the inter-observer reliability was 0.926 (95% CI 0.890–0.953, p<.0001) and Cohen's kappa coefficient for the intra-observer reliability was 0.904, p<.0001. Conclusions: The performance of the urinary Congo-red dot paper test at 35–37 weeks’ gestation in the prediction of PE is very poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In principle, it is possible for a couple to get married in a register office in England or Wales for £127 (including the cost of giving notice and a certificate). In this article, we draw on empirical research to show how limited this option is in practice. Its availability is constrained by the scarcity of register offices limited slots for weddings, and the addition of other fees not provided for in the regulations. Its accessibility is often not obvious from local authorities' websites, and the administration of such a wedding varies hugely, with some local authorities treating it as a no-frills legal procedure, and others regarding it as a significant ceremony that is incomplete without music or a reflective introductory speech by the superintendent registrar – even if the couple wanted neither. With significant numbers of couples having a register office wedding because the marriage ceremony they choose to have to reflect their beliefs is not legally binding, there is a need to address these issues of availability, accessibility and administration so that couples are not put off or discriminated against. Further research is also needed to explore how these issues impact those with limited means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nineteenth century witnessed the creation of a 'paper Panopticon' designed to capture information about offenders in England, especially those who were transported to Australia. This article considers the effectiveness of this new record-keeping system and asks whether convicts had some agency within it. These questions are explored through a macroscopic analysis of the recording of convict ages in nineteenth-century England and Australia, made possible by the Digital Panopticon project. By using the methodological opportunities opened up by digital technologies, we can test the accuracy of historical records in new ways, and in the process develop a better understanding of the encounter between state authority and convict agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the "signs and tokens" described in alchemical texts relate to colour, from the Crow's Bill signifying putrefaction to the philosophical solvents disguised as Green Lions, Red Dragons, and Grey Wolves. While the process of yellowing, or citrination, often appears in medieval recipes, it seems to have interested commentators less than the more familiar processes of blackening, whitening, or reddening. Yet beyond these canonical colours, yellowness turns out to be ubiquitous in alchemy and its associated craft practices, both in Latin texts and vernacular translations. This paper uses source criticism and experimental reconstruction to interrogate the role of yellowness at the beginning, middle, and end of practice, focusing on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England. As starting ingredients, yellow vitriol and litharge offered the potential for transmutation but also posed problems for identification and preparation. As an intermediate stage, yellowness offered promising signs of future success, in the form of dramatic colour changes and unexpected products. But yellowness also offered an end in itself, as appears from the many citrination processes attested in recipe collections which aimed to imitate the properties of gold – suggesting that yellowing was prized as a significant indicator of chemical change across diverse areas of craft practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Digital Poverty (DP) in England by adopting the DP Alliance's theoretical framework that includes both Individual Determinants (individual capability and motivation) and Circumstantial Determinants (conditions of action). Such a framework is interpreted as an expression of Strong Structuration Theory (SST), by situating the connection between social structure and human agency in an intertwined relationship. We focus on new potential vulnerabilities that are connected to DP in England by drawing on a survey conducted on a randomised stratified sample (n = 1988) of parents aged between 20–55 with children at school. Exploring parents' experience in the COVID-19 era, we identified economic factors and having children with disabilities as important predictors connected to Digital Poverty. Additional socio-demographic traits (such as age and education), parental status, lifestyles and digital behaviours also play a role in predicting some of the determinants linked to Digital Poverty. This paper adds to SST by empirically exploring how individuals use the Internet according to their metabolised embodiment of external determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve education performance at home, countries cross nationally policy-borrow from jurisdictions ranked highly in international league tables. This paper examines a practical example of one such instance of policy borrowing, Teaching for Mastery (TfM). Over a six year period, interviews were conducted with teachers working in primary schools in the East Midlands region of England. The focus of these interviews was to explore informants' experiences of enacting TfM and their analysis of the UK government's motives for undertaking this borrowing. Applying Baudrillard's ideas around hyperreality and image to these data indicated two key themes: 1) TfM discourses masked crucial aspects of the original policy, with the result that 2) TfM became non-relational to the original and thus hyperreal. The paper suggests strategies that might mitigate against policy becoming hyperreal and concludes that government must carefully consider its motives for engaging in the borrowing process from the outset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex and enduring mental health problems require greater treatment resources, usually in the form of multidisciplinary support, including providing psychological therapies. This paper reports on an NHS, tertiary-level specialist psychotherapy service offering Psychodynamic therapies with longer-term, exploratory transdiagnostic approaches to support complexity and sustained personality functioning. This paper adopts a naturalistic study design evaluating the effectiveness of Psychodynamic therapy using pre- and post-outcomes across a 10-year period. A total of n = 474 participants self-report pre- and post-outcome measures were used as the marker of effectiveness along with therapist assessments during intake and engagement. The findings showed that Psychodynamic therapy was effective in reducing psychological distress based on service-user self-report and therapist assessments. While intake scores varied by socio-demographic factors, the rate of change across most groups was similar. There were several limitations relating to data quality and completeness which reflect the naturalistic design. Despite the limits of a naturalistic design, this study provides evidence of support for the place of Psychodynamic therapies within NHS mental health care, catering to those with complex and enduring mental health problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a wider study into the educational attitudes and experiences of white, working-class male pupils in the north of England, this paper explored the ways that male pupils in years 10 and 11 navigated and experienced the six-level (A-F) academic banding system present in their British mainstream secondary school (Ayrefield Community school – ACS). Following an initial four-week period of both covert and overt observations (including guided conversations), three distinct groups of male pupils emerged. Influenced in part by Paul Willis' seminal study (1977) of males in a working-class school environment, these three 'lads' groups were representative of pupils in the top, middle, and bottom academic bands and were subsequently named Performers, Participants and Problematics respectively by the researcher. Following this initial phase of observations, a total of 74 male pupils from these top (n = 29), middle (n = 26) and lower (n = 19) academic bands were specifically selected to take part in a total of 14 group interviews with the aim being to explore the lads' experiences of, and attitudes towards, being taught in academic bands, as well as their views on education and qualifications more generally. Passages from these group interviews are combined with guided conversation responses to make up the findings presented in this paper which are then explored and explained using some key concepts from Norbert Elias's field of figurational sociology alongside key academic literature linked to the use of academic banding in schools. The paper suggests that despite the fact that all male pupils at ACS were exposed to very similar working-class upbringings and social pressures as part of their wider social figuartions, members of each of the three lads' groups became part of, and were subsequently influenced by, the specific, school-based figuartions that emerged as a result of their allocation to their respective academic group. Influenced by the increasingly diverse and complex social relations within these school-based figuartions, the lads from the three different groups seemed set to achieve relative 'success' at school, albeit on route to different destinations, for different reasons, and towards quite starkly different end goals – all whilst still being very much aware of, and influenced by, the wider social figuration of which they were inextricably a part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing rates of gender-based and sexual abuse, coupled with a rise in misogynistic influencers online, have become a growing issue in UK and Irish schools. This paper reports on the findings of a postlockdown study in England and Ireland that piloted workshops on gender-based and sexual violence. While most student responses were positive, we found that roughly 10% of girls and 20% of boys were resistant. In this paper, we explore these critical responses, focusing specifically on male resistance. Our findings indicate that new strategies, which avoid the concept of 'toxic masculinity', are needed to help boys move from defensive to empathetic engagements. We also find that the neoliberal, meritocratic ethos of many schools has fostered a problematic framing of gender-based violence as genderneutral. We conclude that it is vital to adopt an intersectional, whole-school approach to educating about sexual violence, which acknowledges male victimhood, while also emphasizing gendered privileges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human geographers have analyzed the co-constitutive relationship between race, gender and sexualities across different spaces and social contexts and have called for intersectional approaches in discussions of identities, power and space. This article applies an intersectional framework to the processes of sexualization, racialization and exoticization that shape the daily lives and erotic/romantic encounters experienced and narrated by participants to two different projects: gay and bisexual men from a North African background living in Belgium; Italian gay men living in England; non-White gay men living in Italy. By discussing qualitative data collected during interviews with these men, and through a continued dialogue about this data between the authors, the paper explores both the effects of these processes on the lives of participants, and the strategies they enact to navigate their social worlds. The focus is on two elements, central to participants' narratives: the specificity of the intersectional experience of encountering men who expect a specifically gendered and racialized performance based on 'roughness' and 'wildness', and the capitalization on these exoticizing and racializing images to increase one's desirability on the dating/hook-up scene and everyday social and work life. By highlighting these elements, this paper shows the importance of applying an intersectional approach to analyses of the entanglements of racialization and sexualization in order to complicate linear accounts of these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the transition to parenthood reshapes foodwork in families by drawing on ethnographic, longitudinal research conducted with parents of young children in the south-east of England. It utilizes the conceptual framework offered by practice theory and unpacks how parents' interpretations, techniques, and emotions surrounding eating transform as feeding and eating become routinized. The findings demonstrate the profound influence of feeding young children on the perception and practice of commensality at home. Mealtimes are increasingly recognized as crucial moments for transmitting manners and tastes across generations. Moreover, the analysis reveals that caregiving and other practices have a ripple effect on adults' eating practices, leading to changes in their food priorities, meal schedules, practical arrangements, and even the division of labor along gender lines. The findings underline the complexity of implementing institutional advice, for instance on "good" child feeding, as it requires changes in parents' own food practices and emotional relationships with food. By emphasizing the lived experiences of practitioners, this paper supports the growing call to incorporate identities, such as gender, into practice theoretical analysis, ultimately enhancing our understanding of how practices evolve and endure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the risks to Early School Leaving (ESL) as perceived by young people who are Early Leavers or at-risk of Early Leaving, and their educators in one region in South England. It draws on 38 interviews and focuses groups with 39 young people and 53 adults working in various roles across 11 educational settings including mainstream and specialist schooling, alternative learning provision and vocational education and training, as well as the local authority. Guided by a holistic framework to examine risks to ESL [Brown et al. (2021. "A Conceptual Framework for Researching the Risks to Early Leaving." Journal of Education and Work 24 (7–8): 723–739. )], the paper analyses findings according to five different categories of risk: personal challenges; familial circumstances; social relationships; institutional features of school/work and structural factors of policy, economic disadvantage and the educational system. The findings highlight that while educators focused upon structural factors and personal challenges, young people themselves identified social relationships and institutional features of school as the most significant influencers on ESL risk. The contribution of this paper is two-fold; firstly, in presenting a comprehensive analysis of the multiple risk factors to Early Leaving; and secondly, in reflecting on the difference in emphases between young people's perspectives of the key constituents of risk and those of the educators who support them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

School-based education in England has undergone significant changes since 2010, with a huge expansion of academies, schools outside local authority control, funded directly by central government. Academies and local authority (LA) maintained schools are subject to different legislative and regulatory frameworks. This paper focuses on the governance of LA maintained schools, single academy trusts (SATs) and schools that are part of multi-academy trusts (MATs). The research involved analysing legislative provision, policy documents, and documents addressing the governance arrangements of a sample of 23 secondary schools. Our findings reveal a fragmented state-funded secondary school system as regards overall governance, school admissions, the curriculum, and the use of funding. Significantly schools in MATs, which are governed by the trust board, lack the autonomy of either SATs or maintained schools and are instead under the ultimate control of the trust board. The paper argues that there is a need for greater consistency regarding the governance of state-funded schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the creative group and individual interviews with young people aged 11–18 years old in England and Wales in 2018, this paper assembles data that addresses the changing nature of intimacies in young people's digitally-networked lives. Informed by Lauren Berlant's work (2008, viii), it maps how platforms such as Instagram and YouTube circulate certain 'fantasies of the good life' that orient young people towards heteronormative future imaginaries. It argues that publicising intimate relationships on social media works to both reify and unsettle fantasies of monogamy, marriage and domesticity by highlighting their inherent precarity. It also illustrates how smart technologies such as the virtual personal assistants Alexa and Siri reconfigure the good life fantasy. Moving beyond simplistic moral panics that seek to discipline young people's digital intimacies, this paper aims to engage with the nuances of young people's digital sexual cultures. Overall, this paper argues that attending to this complexity can enable practitioners to better attune to and support young people to navigate contemporary digital relationships and sexuality issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a lack of definition in policy of the term co-design, and yet local authorities and developers are increasingly using it. To avoid that this term becomes meaningless, it is essential to define how to run co-design processes ethically. Building on case studies, professional experience, collaborations with communities, and a Participatory Action Research approach, this paper defines a set of principles on how to run a co-design process ethically and genuinely including communities in decision-making. Departing from the legal Principles for Fair Consultation in England and Wales, the paper expands them and results into ten ethical principles for co-design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police education and training, in common with education at all levels, was seriously affected by the onset of lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Police organisations in England and Wales sought to cope by moving training and education programmes online, almost overnight. This paper presents findings from interviews conducted with Learning and Development leaders in 17 police forces in England and Wales to gauge the capacity of organizations to provide blended learning (BL) in the pre COVID period and plans for the future. Findings indicated that although there are challenges, the appetite and capacity to adopt BL methods in forces range on a spectrum. The paper and makes recommendations to support the rollout and use of BL in police education generally and proposes a theory of change to assist the introduction of BL in police organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the role of private planning consultants as intermediary-actors and their implications in relation to planning theory and practice. To do so, the paper focuses on niche consultants involved in servicing neighbourhood scale plan-making in England, clarifying that they hold crucial agency in local planning processes and adding to the understanding of consultancy roles and co-production dynamics in planning. The paper draws together the literature on private sector consultancy and on intermediaries, along with theoretical work highlighting the diversification of planning, the rise of the collaborative turn and the effect of regulation on creating niche markets in planning expertise. The conclusions drawn help clarify the 'action on others' that planning consultants, as intermediary-actors, have in collaborative governance and planning in and beyond neighbourhood planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, government policy in England has positioned further education almost exclusively as employment-orientated training for school leavers whilst also imposing severe budget cuts. During this period, values-based pedagogies that foreground social justice for students, many of whom come from low-income households, have been undermined. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there is evidence that the mental health and well-being of further education students has suffered but little is known about the pandemic's effects on teachers.This paper presents analysis of primary research data drawn from interviews with a small sample of further education teachers and managers in the English West Midlands about their mental health and well-being during the pandemic. The paper frames the research data by acknowledging that both mental health nursing and further education teaching are currently riven by contradictions with an epistemological basis anchored in meritocratic and neoliberal policy. Using Lefebvrian theory, our analysis suggests that for further education staff, the pandemic has sharpened the tensions experienced in an already precarious professional role. Key findings were that the further education funding regime drove a 'business as usual' management attitude during the pandemic, and an intensification of work and the erosion of pedagogical practice negatively affected staff's mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores teachers' anxiety about work at 75 timepoints between October 2019 and July 2022, covering the period before, during and towards the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in England. We find the work-related anxiety of headteachers increased substantially throughout the pandemic – much more so than amongst more junior staff. Female teachers experienced a greater impact than men, particularly amongst those with young children. Differences were also observed in work-related anxiety between independent and state schoolteachers, though only during the first lockdown. We illustrate how providing onsite instruction, live online lessons and working longer hours were all associated with raised levels of work-related anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of geography in debates around education and labour market inequality is an enduring public policy concern. This paper argues that local economic contexts have a role in shaping the kind of university and career trajectories working-class young people are exposed to. Drawing on multi-sited data on working-class young people in different local contexts across England, it underlines the importance of regional economic development, the geography of elite universities and the spatial patterning of widening participation networks and activity. In the capital, a sophisticated widening participation infrastructure exists – including multiple partnerships between schools and the third and private sectors – which far exceeds the networks and support found elsewhere. Combined with London's high economic capital and elite career pathways, this infrastructure greatly facilitates systems of support designed to drive aspirations to elite universities and careers. Whilst advocating for a fairer distribution of educational opportunities nationwide, we argue that, without acknowledging the origins of spatial imbalances within the UK, any attempt at simply 'spreading out the same' opportunities risks offering a superficial response. If long-term change is to be truly advanced, a more systematic dismantling of how economic functions and social relations are configured spatially must first be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore how social work students can support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning (LGBTQ+) young people in schools. Drawing on the reflective practice portfolio documents of four students who worked with LGBTQ+ young people in a school as part of a social workers in school (SWIS) student placement project, the article uses thematic analysis to identify how the students were able to support young people identifying as LGBTQ+. The article subscribes to a poststructuralist theoretical framework which sees gender and sexual identities as multiple, fragmented and constructed in relation to others and within the systems of knowledge and power that exist in schools. The article demonstrates the benefit to schools of having social work students on practice placement. The students' own reflections critically contemplate the way in which they were able to spend more prolonged periods of time with young people than the teachers could, both with individuals and LGBTQ+ groups. The students' reflective portfolios show the value of the school placements to their own development of knowledge and skills [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers in Lady Agatha's Boarding School (Lady Agatha's) find teaching Sex and Relationships Education (RSE) uncomfortable. This paper investigates one aspect of the discomfort that they feel, namely the impact RSE has on their professional status as teachers. I use focus group data to reflect on the professional and personal location of teachers at Lady Agatha's and to explore their understanding of RSE through the recurring themes of professionalism and professional reputation as symbolic capital; deprofessionalisation and risk as symbolic violence; and the connects and disconnects between the doxa and illusio of the school. Findings suggest that by interrogating the sites of symbolic violence which generate RSE discomfort, we can start to unpick the fabric which creates discomfort about RSE, allowing both for a deeper understanding of RSE discomfort in teachers and an opportunity to address this discomfort as a barrier to RSE delivery at Lady Agatha's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper investigates the level of LGBT+ representation among staff and students in higher education in England and Wales. We compare data from the 2021 England and Wales Census to Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data. We find that LGBT+ people are more highly represented in higher education among all staff groups and students than in relevant comparator groups according to age and educational level in the general population. LGBT+ representation among students and STEM academics is modestly higher than the general population comparator group, while representation among non-STEM academics is substantially higher than one would expect from the general population comparator group. We found no statistically significant under-representation in any particular higher education institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of threats to their financial sustainability, this paper uses Resource Dependency Theory to explore the challenges being faced by a sample of 10 small new public universities in England. It discusses the responses being taken and prospects for the future in this segment of the sector. It concludes that some of the most important elements of income and expenditure are also areas where institutions have amongst the lowest levels of autonomy, including tuition fees, staff salaries and pension costs. It suggests that institutions are proactively seeking ways to both adapt their strategy and influence the environment in which they operate, including the introduction of new organisational forms, models for employing staff, the diversification into new programmes and markets, and greater use of domestic and international partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In shallow water off the coast of West Sussex in England lies the wreck of a French built, English warship, lost in 1706. The remains represent a hybrid of French construction and armament with English organisation and adaption. This paper brings the site's investigations up to date, discussing new records relating to the structure and internal layout of the main site, as well as the discovery of several new areas, rich in guns and other artefacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the archaeological recording and recovery of a MK II Fairey Barracuda from the Solent, Hampshire, off the south coast of England. As its location precluded the aircraft being left in situ, the decision was made to recover the aircraft. Despite adverse visibility, and a significant amount of overburden, the extant remains of the aircraft were successfully recovered and delivered to the Fleet Air Arm Museum for conservation, as part of an ongoing project to rebuild an example of a Fairey Barracuda. In being recovered for reuse and exhibition some of the Barracuda's value to the wider community changed from that of a lost military aircraft to that of an historic object, drawing out the social history around it, and giving insights into military aircraft construction during the World War II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2023, the UK Government published its long-awaited reform strategy for England's children's social care system. Whilst the strategy set out planned reforms for several aspects of the wider system, an area requiring particular 'priority' was the purported workforce instability seen within child protection social work. However, the strategy has subsequently faced criticism on the basis that the suggested reforms were not satisfactorily informed by the testimonies of practicing social workers. This paper draws from a mixed-method study to report on the lived experiences of a sample of 201 child protection social workers practicing across England, in the context of better understanding the factors which they believed were impacting on workforce stability within England's child protection system. Implications that emerge are the need for an increase in the monetary commitment offered by the UK Government (especially in the context of tackling high caseloads, and improving local authority pay scales to reduce the allure of agency work); a targeted emphasis on challenging local cultures preoccupied with evidencing compliance over time spent with children; and the Government taking a more assertive role in tackling the often-counterproductive commentary perpetuated by politicians and media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England and Wales, fee-charging independent schools can be legally classified as charities and, therefore, receive associated benefits, the most obvious being taxation advantages. The high fees charged by many of these schools create financial exclusivity, which, it will be seen, confers significant social and cultural capital to those who can meet the economic barrier to entry. High fees lead to increased wealth for the schools, which is augmented by their charitable fiscal benefits. In exchange for receiving these charitable benefits, one might expect charity law to place significant social contribution requirements on these schools. However, this paper will argue that this is not the case: the law, in fact, requires very little from charitable independent schools. In practice, charity law cannot mitigate inequalities within elite education nor justify their taxation advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher shortages are a significant global problem disproportionally affecting "hardest-to-staff" schools and subjects. To better understand (inter)national policy responses to teacher shortages, this paper uses a Bacchian-inspired approach to critically examine proposals suggested as solutions in policy documents from England and Australia, and thus how the problem is being thought about especially in relation to hardest-to-staff contexts. We contend that the problem representations in the policy documents are narrowly conceived and need to be considered differently through the lenses of (re)professionalisation and social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of researchers are trying to provide explanations for continuity and change in drug policy in different contexts. Such research predominantly falls in the pluralist realm of public policy where various actors compete to have their policy proposals accepted. Using a critical framework called Policy Constellations (PC), developed by Stevens and Zampini, this paper attempts to explain reactions of the British Government to Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) between 2008 – 2016. Qualitative data comes from in-depth interviews with stakeholders (N = 15), including NGO workers, a former Home Secretary, drugs ministers, governmental advisors, a former senior police officer, former Deputy Drug Coordinator, and a former Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) member. Two 'constellations' competed in British NPS policy setting. The PC framework illustrates power imbalances between these competing stakeholders. Abstinence orientated actors (the conservative constellation) enjoyed strategic advantages and media power which allowed them to create a favourable policy setting. These advantages were not enjoyed by the liberal constellation who struggled to access the policy setting and influence policy developments. The prohibitive nature of the policy used to counter NPS can be explained with the domination of actors whose values align with the conservative constellation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last ten years the use of the internet as a health resource has transformed, and while patients increasingly consult online resources for health decision-making, less is known about how healthcare professionals (HCPs) currently discuss decision-making with internet informed patients (IIPs). In this paper we examine how HCPs perceive IIPs and specifically how bringing online information into appointments can prompt different communicative strategies around decision-making. Ten HCPs with experience working across different healthcare roles, took part in semi-structured interviews and discussed their interactions with IIPs around decision-making. Vignettes based on descriptions of real patients bringing online health information to their HCPs were used to prompt further discussion. The analysis identified two themes in relation to communication: (i) being honest about information sources and (ii) from compliance to coconstruction: improving communication around decision-making. HCPs were overwhelmingly positive toward IIPs and encouraged patients to be transparent about their online searching to understand their motivations, priorities, and concerns. Although compliance remains part of the narrative, HCPs recognized practical ways in which discussing online health information could improve HCP-patient communication around shared decision-making. We discuss the findings in relation to early work on communicative strategies between HCP’s and patients bringing resources to their consultations. We argue that for HCPs the concept of the internet as a provider of health information is no longer seen as inherently damaging or risky. There is growing acceptance of pre-consultation internet searching with the caveat that any information sourced online should inform rather than dictate decision-making with HCPs. [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]

Legal definitions of sexual consent emphasise 'freedom' as central to valid consent; however, power inequalities may complicate freedom. This paper discusses findings from a two-stage focus group study with young people (aged 13–23) in England exploring the implications of power inequalities for sexual consent. In Stage 1, 77 participants explored and ranked the types of power inequalities they felt were common within young people's sexual relationships, with age, gender and popularity being identified as the most common power inequalities. In Stage 2, 43 participants discussed power inequalities using scenarios based on the Stage 1 findings and considered their implications for sexual consent. Thematic analysis of the data produced two themes: powerless and powerful roles in consent communication and power inequalities implicitly constrain freedom to consent. Consent communication was constructed as a unidirectional process whereby those with more power initiate, and those with less, gatekeep. Such roles require deconstruction to position consent as mutual and actively negotiated by partners. Further, since power inequalities were seen to place implicit constraints on freedom to consent, we advocate for an explicit exploration of power and privilege within Relationships and Sex Education to equip young people to recognise, challenge and negotiate these constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea defence policy in England has proven contentious in the early twenty-first century, with government willing to defend the coast only where it is considered cost effective and not minded to compensate people for any resulting abandonment of homes. Additional focus is brought to this position by the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which reflect a growing emphasis on climate change effects and other environmental hazards, and the wellbeing of the current generation and those to come. This requires policy makers to seek to balance economic, social and environmental dimensions, and to tackle inequalities; with a central commitment of the goals to "leave no one behind". Subsequent to publication of the SDGs, England was promised a revolution in the government's approach to Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM). This paper seeks to understand the nature of this revolution with particular regard to extant issues around just governance. It finds that policy fails to deal with issues over the local acceptability of proposals for change and the bearing of risk, and instead lies principally in the elevation of the problematic concept of resilience and an accompanying ambivalence towards ideas of sustainability and sustainable development. International agreement that compensation should be paid to those countries suffering the worst effects of climate change, including sea level rise, suggests that adoption of a similar approach to vulnerable homeowners might be the more appropriate revolution and bring policy more into line with the aspirations of the SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I present contextualizing factors, dimensions, and key markers of algorithm literacies, paying attention to the context of parenting and parenthood amidst datafication. Analyzing data from "think-aloud" interviews with 30 parents of children aged between 0 and 18, across England, I draw upon media and digital literacies scholarship to focus, first, in this paper, on the competencies, conversations, and events which contextualize parents' literacies with algorithmic interfaces. Next, I draw out four dimensions of parents' algorithm literacies including algorithm awareness, technical competencies, critical capacities, and championing their and their children's best interests, identifying practical markers for each dimension. I reflect on the broader implications of these for parenting and parenthood in datafied societies, and note that algorithm literacies are, forever, a work in progress, in fluidity and flux across the diverse courses of parenting journeys, deeply contextualized in the resources and restraints that parents encounter in their daily lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses qualitative data from a survey of Higher Education students, who are also parents, to reveal changing attitudes towards, and perceptions of, education during the pandemic school closures in England. Thematic analysis reveals the stresses of 'homeschooling' and how parents reacted and adapted to these, including adjusting ideas around education. This adaptation mirrors the changing attitudes of parents found in pre-pandemic home education. The paper suggests that post pandemic education could be enriched by taking forward some of these ideas, particularly greater flexibility, personalisation and child autonomy in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we deploy data collected through a Q study with educators in south-west England. The mixed methodology involved the two stages of forced choice statement sorting by educator participants and subsequent factor analysis. Through abductive analyses, four views regarding aspirations and young people in peripheral communities are identified. Of these, only one viewpoint, named 'acknowledge the barriers to finding employment', aligns with taken for granted narratives on encouraging school students to pursue careers in the knowledge economy, with transition to higher education being the acknowledged pathway to flourishing futures. Three further viewpoints are identified and discussed. The paper contributes new insights to understanding educational landscapes in peripheral places through employing a novel approach, that of Q method, to illuminate educators' lived experiences in such communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the fracturing of civic and moral virtue within curricular policies pertaining to Citizenship in England since the late 1990s. A longstanding aim of education and schooling, the teaching of citizenship gained a more secure base in the English curriculum with the introduction of Citizenship as a statutory subject for 11–16 years olds from 2002, which owed a great deal to the Report of the Advisory Group on Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools (Crick Report). The report drew intimate connections between civic virtue, moral virtue, and personal character. These connections have become seriously fractured over the years since the Crick Report. In charting this fracturing, the paper will examine how the character-influenced direction taken in the early/mid-2000s was replaced by, at first, a more general emphasis on British Values before morphing into a more specific, though no less problematic, concentration on Fundamental British Values. While character education has gained significant policy attention in England over the last six years, the civic dimensions have been at best underplayed, with little connection to education for citizenship. It is argued that without greater clarity and consistency about how the moral – including moral virtues – intersects with the civic in contemporary Britain, official curricular policy (whether for Citizenship education, character education or more generally) will restrict rather than encourage the education of young citizens who are informed, wise, responsible and active participants in their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the learning experiences of lower attaining boys attending Stone Acre, a non-selective state Secondary school in England, and how these were shaped by teachers' gendered beliefs and practices. It argues that despite changes in our theoretical understandings of gender, those found in the context of everyday practice in schools may continue to be rooted in biological understandings of masculinity that tend to reinforce rather than challenge assumptions of deficit. It argues that these interactions form part of a gender regime that also includes the lower-status learning spaces disproportionately occupied by lower attaining boys, with selective grouping practices and the curriculum both contributing to the limiting understandings of boys' educational potential that are ultimately reflected in persistently gendered patterns of attainment. The small number of boys who took part in this study clearly recognised the less favourable positioning of boys as a group. Despite this, they went on to achieve beyond expectations, suggesting that they maintained some agency as learners. Teachers at Stone Acre were also under pressure to ensure achievement against performance threshold levels, suggesting that there may have been some mitigating, trickle down effects. The paper concludes that there is a continuing need for teachers to develop more inclusive understandings of masculinities and of the effects of these on everyday practices in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to solve perceived policy problems in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) have seen national and international jurisdictions increasingly centralising ITE curricula, coupled with monitoring and auditing of outcomes against defined sets of professional standards. This paper reports the findings of a documentary analysis of 75 items of publicly available literature generated by stakeholders between 2 July and 30 September 2021, in response to a Market Review of Initial Teacher Training in England. The paper outlines how online platforms and networks can serve as Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoP), which can mobilise teacher educators to engage with and critique policy making. Discourse emerging from the analysis of the 75 items focuses on key concerns associated with teacher supply, quality and questions the evidence for wholesale changes to ITE. This paper highlights that the voice of teacher educators in England is marginalised and offers a cautionary tale for colleagues currently immersed in international efforts to "reform" and "review" ITE. We argue that this case study illustrates the potential for the international sector to form a VCoP and through these, to challenge postulated "solutions" to espoused policy "problems" in ITE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School mealtimes, for many schools, are characterized by behavioural difficulties, a problematic time of day requiring much attention and resources. Yet for many school food reformers, those wanting food environments to be educative and pleasant, strict behavioural interventions are contrary to the ideals of social learning. This paper presents an ethnographic case study of Peartree Academy, an all-through academy school in England, to explore how school personnel used the dining hall simultaneously as a community space and as surveillance mechanism. We deliberate on causes and variations of how this manifests. A Foucauldian lens, viewing dining space as 'heterotopia' and 'heterochronies' [Foucault, M. 1986. "'Of Other Spaces." Translated by J. Miskowiec. Diacritics 16 (1): 22. ], highlights tensions that shape the everyday for both students and staff in the school. As counter-spaces used differently by administrators, pupils, and food reformers, we show how rules and regulations imposed by staff work against the original intentions to develop the dining hall into a community forum in which children develop positive eating behaviours and good citizenship. The children became subjected to power relations through which bodies became docile or resistant, with less opportunity for social learning. True progressive food reform thus requires, ultimately, deeply understanding and negotiating the multiple, overlapping functions of dining spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores English national identity through qualitative interviews with English-identifying voters in rural South-West England, amidst post-Brexit and COVID-19 uncertainties. Analysing 16 in-depth interviews, the study uncovers micro-level foundations of English identity, revealing a multifaceted view where participants consider it an absent identity. As members of the dominant cultural group, they define Englishness by their perceived 'normal,' distancing anything diverging from their norms as foreign. The study suggests a connection between English identity and reactive resentment towards perceived asymmetrical identity norms compared to neighbouring devolved nations. These findings shed light on the nuanced nature of English identity in rural areas and contribute to discussions about fostering a progressive and inclusive English identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on coupling and systems frameworks to investigate the relationships between two English Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) and their member schools in how decisions are made around budgeting, recruitment processes, and curriculum and assessment. Findings demonstrate when and under what conditions executive leaders and specifically CEOs, as primary agents of coupling, created greater consistency across schools either through centralization or deliberate alignment of school improvement planning, while operating within their complex institutional environments. Implications for practice, policy, and research on system-wide reform are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a small-scale, qualitative study, located in England and Wales, with the goal of advancing fairer teacher representation. Deploying a positive lens, the research shines a light on the lived experiences of 12 individuals from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, all of whom successfully entered the teaching profession for a period of up to 5 years before the study. Against the current backdrop of unfair teacher representation, the achievements of these individuals in becoming teachers are deconstructed and analysed, to determine whether there are any commonalities in their circumstances. Drawing on the theoretical frames of capital and critical race theory, the study aims to establish whether a set of protective factors exists that may have supported and facilitated their journey into teaching. The study finds that the achievements of these individuals in joining the teaching profession can be attributed, in part, to the nature of the cultural wealth each possesses. It concludes that these teachers, acting as critical pedagogues, are not the sole benefactors of their cultural wealth, with benefits afforded both the minority and majority population. In spite of intentions to frame the teachers' narratives positively, the study reveals troubling evidence of embedded racial processes, which serve to threaten the teachers' sense of belonging in the profession and inhibit others from joining. Recommendations to further boost teacher representation for minority groups are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around 28 per cent of state primary school children attend 'faith' establishments in England, the majority in Catholic or Church of England schools. Research suggests 'faith' schools tend to educate proportionally fewer children from low-income families (proxied by eligibility for Free School Meals [FSM]). This paper examines whether they also under-admit children 'disadvantaged' according to another key dimension: having special educational needs and/or disability (SEND). Descriptive statistics and modelling use the National Pupil Database census and span 2010–2020. Across years, 'faith' primary schools are less likely to include children with SEND, and less likely to admit children with SEND to the first (Reception) year. Accounting for area-level factors, indications of under-admission to Catholic schools become more pronounced. Some disproportionality for Church of England schools is explained by confounders – but even after attenuation, they remain less likely to serve children with SEND than non-'faith' schools. Together, FSM and SEND predict a substantively meaningful lowered likelihood of children attending 'faith' schools, so these schools, at the national level, seem to have become hubs of relative 'advantage'. Findings therefore demand interrogation of whose interests these institutions serve, and of their part within the current English system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under-representation of women in policing is a global phenomenon, with considerable commonality in barriers to career success and differential career experiences compared to men. Through a comparative analysis utilising unique survey and interview data with female and male senior police leaders in England and Wales, this paper considers whether cultural and structural barriers persist and how they are experienced by gender; examines the challenges encountered en route to senior rank; and considers how similarities or differences by gender impact upon careers. The findings are considered to have world-wide relevance, demonstrating that those officers achieving seniority tend to share similar career experiences whatever their gender, particularly at the highest ranks. Leadership styles emerge as homogenous with agentic traits and traditional styles persisting. Costs to achieving higher rank appear to differ by gender however, and access to senior rank is revealed as dependent upon engaging in traditional behaviours including a long-hours culture and ensuring family does not reduce work capacity, effectively promoting a 'child-tax' upon female policing leaders. It thus appears that a widespread and global tacit acceptance of policing as a male-dominated profession endures, impacting on female advancement compared to men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classroom music teachers in England design their own music curricula for Key Stage 3 (11 − 14 year olds, 6th – 8th Grades). These curricula are designed in a context where policymakers define, regulate and legitimate curriculum formulations. This study traced curriculum development in England, where government has validated a policy driven approach. It explored programs of study, which music teachers in England design as summaries of musical learning for Key Stage 3. The research consisted of documentary analysis in a two-phase study of 13 secondary (high) schools in the English midlands, exploring musical knowledge for musical learning, which is analyzed utilizing qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The paper concludes with a discussion which explores the impacts of music education policy on classroom practices, and presents a proposed model which captures this interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]