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The last 20 years has witnessed the spread of corporatism in education on a global scale. In England, this trend is characterised by new structural and cultural approaches to education found in the ‘academies’ programme and the adoption of private sector management styles. The corporate re-imagining of schools has also led to the introduction into the curriculum of particular forms of character education aimed at managing the ‘emotional labour’ of children. This paper argues that character education rests on a fallacy that the development of desirable character traits in children can be engineered by mimicking certain behaviours from the adult world. The weaknesses in the corporate approach to managing ‘emotional labour’ are illustrated with empirical data from two primary schools. An alternative paradigm is presented which locates the ‘emotional labour’ of children within a ‘holding environment’ that places children’s well-being at its core. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The number and range of school types in England is increasing rapidly in response to a neoliberal policy agenda aiming to expand choice of provision as a mechanism for raising educational standards. In this paper, I seek to undertake a mapping of these school types in order to describe and explain what is happening. I capture this busy terrain from different perspectives: legal status; curricular specialism; pupil selection; types of academy; and school groupings. The mapping highlights the intersections between the current reform agenda and the historical diversity within the English school system to show the dialogue between past and present. Borrowing the geological metaphors of faulting and folding, I argue that long-established school types are not buried under sedimentary layers of reform, but are thrust into the present where they are discursively re-imagined through neoliberalism. Finally, I conceptualise the landscape holistically through the lenses of locus of legitimacy and branding, where I argue that current structural diversification policies enable the enactment of interests other than educational through transferring responsibility for education and related assets away from public and towards corporatised or religious actors and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lay participation in the form of the jury has been integral to the administration of justice in England at all levels and in both civil and criminal arenas since the Middle Ages and is popularly regarded as a legacy of Magna Carta by dint of the constitutional significance attributed to the Great Charter over the centuries. Arguably juries provide a bastion against the potential harshness of the state and a buffer against arbitrariness on the part of the judge as well as injecting an element of amateurism to combat the increased professionalism of the legal system. Yet, for all the perceived benefits, serious inadequacies in jurors and even in the apparent fairness of the system have been exposed. Jury decisions, too, have come under scrutiny. This paper examines the paradox of the jury in criminal trials and compares their role in the modern legal system with the historical past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates have persisted about the character of the East–West population flows that followed the EU expansions. Some of the discussions surround the extent to which the mobility has been temporal and hence how likely these migrants are to settle permanently or to stay for long periods in host countries. This paper enhances the understanding of such issues through examining survey data on 700 Polish recent migrants in seven English and Welsh towns and supplemented by an analysis of qualitative data. Three categories of migrants are initially identified on the basis of their intentions of stay in the UK. Multinomial logit models are then estimated to examine the characteristics of individuals in each category to establish the factors that influence migration strategies and changes in plans. Results indicate that although standard socio-economic characteristics tend to be insignificant, migration strategies and changes in intentions are affected by migrant's view of whether their job matches their expectations, the time of entry into the UK and remittances. Analysis of the qualitative information reinforces some of the key findings and also indicates the importance of migrants' ability to reference their experiences in two settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporatised leadership in schools in England is being promoted through new actors and new types of school, these latter with corporate structures, values, regulatory freedoms and contractual arrangements with staff. Corporatised leadership is characterisedinter aliaby the promotion of the interests of business through the curriculum, school structure, learning materials and pupil experiences, and the adoption of business-derived leadership practices and identities. Corporate leadership produces and is produced through new actors – here, Chairs of Governors, the alignment of whose symbolic capital with the privileged corporate discourse increases their influence. The paper draws on semi-structured interviews with nine school leaders from a range of school types. The data were analysed using Bourdieu's concept of fields to explore the cross-field effects of business/economics and educational leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The diversification of settings in which higher education is delivered has resulted in a growing proportion of lecturers entering teaching from professional backgrounds. This is a challenging transition as lecturers are rarely given the space to consider the implications of this move on their identities and practice styles. Writing is recognised as a powerful methodology through which individuals can make sense of experiences and conceptualise them in light of historical, theoretical and social perspectives. In this paper we consider the experiences of 10 college lecturers who used writing to explore this transition as part of a professional development initiative to promote their writing skills. They were providing higher education in further education colleges across South West England. This project ran over two years, involving a year-long professional development intervention and a subsequent evaluation. Over this time the lecturers produced a number of written pieces. We present the different styles and forms of writing used, and how these engaged with their emergent voices and growing sense of legitimacy. We highlight how writing can provide a reflexive medium and assist in the identification of developmental goals, something particularly valuable during professional transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social scientists, and geographers in particular, have long been interested in examining spatial patterns of offending in order to generate a “geography” of crime and criminality. This paper examines what value, if any, a geographical approach to the study of sexual offending might offer. Utilising published official data from England and Wales it presents for the first time geographical analyses of the registration, risk assessment and management of Registered Sexual Offenders (RSOs) across 42 Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangement (MAPPA) areas. In doing so it considers and evaluates the methodological issues pertaining to the use of such data and such a geographical approach. We conclude that geographical interpretations of both the incidence of RSOs and the rates of risk allocations between MAPPA areas provide valuable insights and raise new questions about the way in which RSOs are managed nationally and are thus worthy of further exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether the institutional hierarchies defined by ‘golden triangle’, other Russell Group, other pre-1992 and post-1992 universities in England, and by ancient, old and new universities in Scotland, have become weaker since the 1990s. Using indicators constructed from Universities and Colleges Admissions Service data for 1996–2010, the article finds a stable hierarchical relationship among the sectors within each country, with some indicators showing a slight widening of status differences between sectors towards the end of the period. The main exception was a slight ‘upgrading’ of new (post-1992) universities in Scotland early in the period. There was little change in the association of institutional sector with social class, but in England the association with private secondary schools became slightly stronger and the association with ethnicity weakened. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The study of how policy processes shape religious education as a curriculum subject, rather than within faith schooling, is relatively unexplored. This paper applies a policy analysis perspective to an important distinction in non-confessional English religious education, which has also been adopted internationally: ‘learning about religion’ and ‘learning from religion’. The changing nature of the distinction in English policy documents from 1994 is examined in the light of three main voices of influence on educational policy: neo-conservatives, neo-liberals and progressives. These changes are also analysed through three policy contexts: influence, text production and practice. Revisions to policy wording are interpreted in the light of this theory, showing the growing significance of neo-liberalism, and the nature of compromise, amendment and ambiguity.The implications for an understanding of the inter-relationship between policy, pedagogy and practice are then considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Northumberland, a third-rate man-of-war was lost with all hands during the Great Storm of 26-27 November 1703 on the Goodwin Sands-famously known as 'the ship swallower'. It was rediscovered in 1980 by local divers following the location of a sister ship, the Stirling Castle. Since, the primary concern has been to record exposed structural remains, ordnance and artefacts, and interpret the wreck formation of the site. This paper describes the results of this work, and discusses in particular the size of the keel, the use of chocks, and standardization of ordnance in the Restoration Navy through reference to comparable ship-finds and historical records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English education has recently experienced radical policy reform in the areas of school autonomy and accountability. The key focus of this paper is on how schools might best navigate through these policy moves. It highlights how these moves have constructed schools, teachers and students in problematic ways but also how they are offering possibilities for improving the quality of schools and schooling. The focus here is on the promise and scope of school collaboration. The difficulties of creating socially responsive and responsible collaboratives in the current ‘heterarchical’ and market-oriented policy environment are acknowledged. Guided by quality democratic governance, they are, nonetheless, presented as crucial in supporting schools to productively deal with the demands of this environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Duke of Somerset v Cookson (1735) occupies an important place in English legal history as a leading authority for Chancery jurisdiction to order specific delivery of movable property where an award of damages would be inadequate. The property at issue was the Corbridge lanx, now in the British Museum, but then claimed as treasure trove by the duke of Somerset as lord of the manor of Corbridge. This paper re-examines Cookson as the first reported English decision relating to treasure trove, and uses later treasure trove claims by the duke of Somerset's successors to the manor of Corbridge, the dukes of Northumberland, to shed fresh light on the 1735 decision and on the development of treasure trove practice from the eighteenth century onwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates E. P. Thompson and the attraction and influence of his major study,The Making of the English Working Class(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), within his insistence on constructing history as argument. Often polemical, Thompson's approach to history also appreciated paradox. In writing as he always did, against the grain of conventional wisdoms, be they of the right or the left, Thompson understood that he would always be situated awkwardly in terms of how his interpretation challenged established orthodoxies. This awkwardness, and its rootedness in refusal to accommodate too easily to established analysis, has proven Thompson's lasting contribution. It nurtured unique historical sensibilities, creative and rigorous use of source materials, and writing marked by panache and passion. The result is thatThe Making of the English Working Classremains as relevant today as it was 50 years ago, a landmark study whose arguments and their implications are with us yet, and whose suggestions have spawned countless fresh studies and endless research questions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the last 40 years, teacher education in England has been the focus of a stream of ‘reforms’ with the ultimate aim of placing provision into schools, the justification for such a radical policy being that higher education is alleged to be failing to provide good quality teachers thereby compromising the social and economic development of the country. The process whereby these reforms have been introduced is described and then used as a way of comparing and contrasting the way in which similar reforms can be identified in the international teacher education communities represented in this special issue of theJournal of Education for Teaching(JET). The paper closes by identifying lessons that can be learned from international comparators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since coming to power in 2010, the UK Coalition government in power has implemented a range of reforms in relation to assessment at all stages of education in England. This paper focuses on two assessment reforms relating to children aged five and six years old, and considers their evolution from manifesto commitments to practice in classrooms. These reforms are the introduction of the Phonics Screening Check at age six, and the revised Early Years Foundation Stage Profile at age five. The main focus is on the coherence of these policies, both over time and as part of an overall government strategy on assessment in early years and primary education. It is argued that, despite claims of reducing bureaucracy, these assessment policies are driven by an agenda of increasing accountability in the first years of primary school. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the relationship between stream placement and the academic progress made by children in England in Year 2 of primary school, drawing on data from the longitudinal Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). The MCS is a sample of 19,000 children born across the UK around the turn of the century and their families. Academic progress was compared between children in England in the ‘top’, ‘middle’ or ‘bottom’ streams, and among the majority of non-streamed children. Multiple regressions took into account child, family and school characteristics and showed that stream placement significantly impacted on the academic progress made by children. Children in the ‘top’ stream achieved more and made significantly more academic progress than children attending schools that did not stream, while children in the ‘middle’ or ‘bottom’ streams achieved less and made significantly less academic progress. The reasons for this and the educational implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Educational and occupational aspirations have become an important reference point in policy debates about educational inequality. Low aspirations are presented as a major barrier to closing educational attainment gaps and increasing levels of social mobility. Our paper contributes to this on-going debate by presenting data on the educational aspirations of students from the Effective Provision of Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education Project in England. We analyse factors that help predict students holding high aspirations. Our findings reveal generally high aspirations across all students but also differences by income group and other background factors. We evaluate the significance of these findings for the existing literature and public policy discussions about the importance of raising educational aspirations. In particular, we question the way in which low aspirations are framed by policy-makers as a major problem in debates around educational inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition is one of the mostly hotly (and vociferously) debated periods of British prehistory. Chronology has been key to this discussion. Informal 'visual' interpretations of radiocarbon data used both to argue for a rapid uptake of Neolithic practices by indigenous Mesolithic populations, and for the introduction by Continental settlers and then the rapid acculturation by local populations. This paper offers new evidence for the timing of the beginning of the Neolithic in Yorkshire and Humberside, an area with a range of monuments that have been a focus of research into early Neolithic communities. From this new synthesis it is possible to suggest implications for our understanding of 'neolithization', but also as to provide the basis for critical future research themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volunteer trainee teachers (trainee teachers who teach on an unpaid basis and not on a pre-service course) are present in a number of institutions across the lifelong learning sector (LLS) in England, giving the opportunity to gain entry into the teaching profession to those who might otherwise face difficulties in accessing paid teaching. Whilst statistics on volunteer trainee teachers are not collected, it is difficult to determine whether the numbers of such trainees are a constant across the sector or if they are a minority or a substantial proportion of total trainee numbers. However, the backdrop of a severe economic recession and consequent public expenditure cuts to education, resulting in real or perceived threats to employment for teachers in the LLS (IFS 2011), may have increased the numbers of volunteer trainee teachers. The paper explores the introduction of voluntary teaching practice in a large university/college partnership and raises questions about the consequences for the organisation and teacher educators in terms of the profile, motivation and experience of the volunteer trainee teachers and any differing perceptions of their teacher educators. These include tensions around the professionalisation agenda, the equality of access (including those with disabilities) agenda, and whether voluntary teaching opportunities facilitate this. Questionnaires and interviews with volunteer trainee teachers, teacher educators and mentors were undertaken. This study contributes to the discussion about the evolution of professionalism within the context of increased pressures on staff arising from cuts and strains on the present teaching qualification system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the admissions criteria used by the first two waves of secondary Free Schools in England. The type of criteria and their ranked order is explored and their potential impact on the school composition is considered. The findings demonstrate the diversity of criteria being used by this new type of school and give some insight in to how Free Schools appear to be prioritising access. As Free Schools operate outside Local Authority control with regards to admissions procedures they are able to choose their own feeder schools, set their own catchment areas, prioritise particular postcode districts, guarantee places for children of the school’s founders or opt to use banding systems. Whilst the admissions policies of the majority of secondary Free Schools appear to be adhering to the 2012 Admissions Code legislation, this study highlights the influence that such criteria may have in creating intakes which are less balanced in terms of socioeconomic status, ethnicity or religious affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides an assessment of the excavation of an apparently ordinary space in Bristol (UK) in 2009. Although the space appears unremarkable to most passers-by, it is unusual in being a place used routinely by many of the city's street-drinking and homeless community. Homeless people were 'colleagues', involved in excavation, finds processing and interpretation. The collaborative nature of this project goes further than merely attempting to represent social groups who have traditionally been excluded from heritage practice and interpretation -- it lays methodological foundations for praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in Mathematics and Science Study are two highly respected studies of school pupils' academic achievement. English policy-makers have been disappointed with school children's performance on these tests, particularly in comparison to the strong results of young people from East Asia. In this paper, we provide new insight into the England-East Asia gap in school children's mathematics skills. We do so by considering how cross-national differences in math test scores change between ages 10 and 16. Our results suggest that, although average math test scores are higher in East Asian countries, this achievement gap does not increase between ages 10 and 16. We thus conclude that reforming the secondary school system may not be the most effective way for England to 'catch up' with the East Asian nations in the PISA math rankings. Rather, earlier intervention, during pre-school and primary school, may be needed instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author explores the development of school staff who are employed to support pupils in the classroom, specifically the teaching assistant/higher level teaching assistant role. These roles have undergone considerable change following the introduction of Workforce Reform and Remodelling in English schools and the National Agreement. In practice, the introduction of this agreement into schools appears to have a powerful gendered aspect which limits choice and agency for individuals and prevents the development of a coherent workforce. I argue that the discourse of maternality within which the school support role has evolved supposes a level of self-sacrifice and conscientiousness which is gendered and conceals the exploitative nature of the role in terms of poor pay and career prospects. Furthermore, the growth of support staff in English schools to undertake roles previously assigned to teachers has had the effect of disaggregating and de-professionalising the teacher role and weakening the traditional job boundaries which defined the work of support staff. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are long-standing achievement gaps in England associated with socio-economic status (SES), ethnicity and gender, but relatively little research has evaluated interactions between these variables or explored school effects on such gaps. This paper analyses the national test results at age 7 and age 11 of 2,836 pupils attending 68 mainstream primary schools in an ethnically diverse inner London borough. The groups with the lowest educational achievement and poorest progress were both Black Caribbean and White British low SES pupils. White British middle and high SES pupils made substantially more progress than White British low SES pupils, significantly increasing the SES gap over time. However low and high SES Black pupils made equally poor progress age 7–11. School effects on pupil progress were large, but there was no evidence of differential school effectiveness in relation to SES, ethnicity or gender. Low SES pupils in the more effective schools performed significantly better than high SES pupils in the less effective schools, but all pupils (both low and high SES) benefit from attending the more effective schools and so these schools do not eliminate the SES gap. The limits to change that may be achieved by schools alone are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late nineteenth century several projects for the publication of county and regional history have envisaged a series with complete national coverage (referring here to England only). They have met with varying degrees of success, both in terms of completeness and of quality. Their inspiration has been variously academic or commercial, sometimes ambitiously seeking to satisfy both aspirations, and they have been aimed at different markets. This paper reviews these various series insofar as they have concerned the seven northern counties, seeking to assess their value and to consider both contemporary responses and retrospective appraisals of their merits and defects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This article offers a detailed overview of the Manchester Jacobite trials of 1694, looking at the origins of the allegations that prompted them and why the defendants were able to escape punishment. A discussion of Jacobite papers discovered after the trial and the insight they give into the machinations of northern Catholics and their links to genuine Jacobite intrigue is also provided. It is argued that, while the claims of the informers whose alleged insights brought about the trials may have been corrupted by exaggerations and outright lies, the links between northern Catholics and Jacobitism were more complex than had been presented by the defence. Examination of the Manchester Jacobite trials and the events surrounding them shows that a significant element of the northern Catholic community retained an active loyalty to the exiled Stuart Court. The support that the defendants received also forces a review of the relationships many Catholics shared with their Protestant neighbours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes as its subject the gardens and gardening activities of the rural county gentry in early seventeenth-century England. Extant gardens from this period are extremely rare and current knowledge is largely limited to the well-documented, but unrepresentative, and extravagant showpieces of the nobility. However, close examination of manuscript collections, household accounts, and contemporary maps, plans and engravings has offered valuable insight into gardens at gentry level, providing new evidence about what was actually happening in the generality of such gardens during the period. Focusing here on the examples of two Midlands gentlemen, Sir Thomas Temple (1567-1636) and Sir Richard Leveson (1598-1661), who were both engaged in creating gardens during the early 1630s at their respective estates in Warwickshire and Staffordshire, it has been possible to add new facets to our fragmentary knowledge of gardens and gardening in the early modern period, as well as to give consideration to the idea that gardens were an appropriate way for a gentleman to demonstrate his standing in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modernization of governance systems continues to heavily impact the practice of planning in the UK, as in many, countries. The UK Coalition government has moved quickly to introduce a programme of planning reform, particularly in plan-making. Yet this was also a focus for major reforms introduced by the previous Labour government, namely, the local development framework (LDF) system which was meant to encapsulate a shift to a spatial planning approach in England. This paper draws on extensive empirical material to consider the views of frontline local authority planners to the new system as it was put into place. Drawing on implementation theory and highlighting differing conceptions as to where the cause of problems enacting the new system lay, I argue that detailed consideration of the frontline is vital if we are to better understand the contours of modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The secondary school system in England has undergone a radical transformation since 2010 with the rapid expansion of independent academies run by private companies (‘academy trusts’) and funded directly by central government. This paper examines the development of academies and their predecessors, city technology colleges, and explores the extent and nature of continuity and change. It is argued that processes of layering and policy revision, together with austerity measures arising from economic recession, have resulted in a system-wide change with private, non-profit-making companies, funded by central government, rapidly replacing local authorities as the main providers of secondary school education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Information about several papers discussed at the 2013 conference of the Family and Community Historical Research Society Ltd. held in Farnborough, Hampshire, England is presented. Topics include the history of charitable institutions in Odiham, England, a study of the Odiham War Memorial, and a discussion of Lady Jane St. John Mildmay, wife and widow of Sir Henry Paulet St. John-Mildmay, third baronet. The symposium featured several historians including Don Dickson, Anne Langley, and Sue Smith.

This paper examines the extent, causes and nature of juvenile delinquency in Metropolitan London during and immediately after World War II. In response to a rising number of children and young persons being sentenced in the Metropolitan Juvenile Courts, magistrates and experts at the London Country Council favoured the continuation of a welfarist approach to delinquency that had operated before the war. War conditions reinforced the view that delinquency was the result of familial and social deprivation that eschewed retributive punishment. An increasing number of children and teenagers, mainly girls and often in need of care and protection, appeared before the Metropolitan Juvenile Courts. These delinquents were increasingly regarded in terms of welfare rather than as juridical subjects. However, this penal-welfarist practice, which embraced the rehabilitation of delinquents, was periodically challenged, as psychological treatment was regarded with suspicion, and the corporal punishment of boys gained in popularity in wartime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northumberland has a long history of public engagement surrounding its ancient rock-art. Recent advances in digital technologies have enabled archaeologists to enrich this engagement through the provision of open access to substantial rock-art datasets online. Building on these achievements, the Rock Art on Mobile Phones (RAMP) project allows Northumberland's countryside visitors to access in situ interpretation at three rock-art areas on their mobile phones. During the RAMP co-experience workshops it emerged that the key issues the public expected to be addressed by the mobile interpretation included locating rock-art, the desire for ambiguity and speculation about rock-art, and connecting to the landscape. The paper discusses, on the one hand, how these themes were incorporated into RAMP's conceptual design and, on the other hand, how RAMP themes compare with the Audience Development Plan produced by the archaeologists who created an online database. We consider the implications of these findings for the development of open-access online resources and in situ public interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper is devoted to exploring representations of colonial things in early eighteenth-century literature. In numerous literary and economic texts of this period, colonial luxuries come to represent the main objectives of imperialism. Literary representations of colonial things are engaged in negotiating the precarious relationship between England and its colonial others and express many of the uncertainties brought about by the emergence of imperialism and mercantile capitalism. Social positionings, class and gender relations were acted out in and through the world of objects, thus fashioning the imperial subject as a possessor of colonial goods. What is constructed in literature is, therefore, not so much a narrative of a specific colonial thing but rather a narrative of a subject's relation to that object. It is shown that the role of things in establishing an imperial ideology raises related questions about gender and thus provides an opportunity to consider the correlative workings of gender and empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2012 the Law Commission for England and Wales published a document entitled, unusually, a “Supplementary Consultation Paper”, on the subject of “Matrimonial Property, Needs and Agreements”.1 It was the second consultation within the Commission's current family law project. Rather than repeat what has already been said it may be easier to explain this process by reproducing here part of the Commission's summary of the paper.2 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Later Medieval England possessed over 300 documented leper hospitals, representing around a quarter of all hospital foundations, but to date a sustained discussion of this archaeological material is lacking. This paper synthesises and explores the present state of archaeological knowledge within the broader context of recent studies in other disciplines. It identifies some current issues and avenues for potential research, with particular reference to the recent archaeological work at St Mary Magdalen, Winchester, one of the most extensive excavations of a medieval leper hospital and almshouse to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the material benefits commonly received by almshouse residents from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and attempts to assess how well off alms-people were compared with other poor people in the community. It considers not only the stipends or financial allowances received by many almspeople, but also other benefits provided, such as the accommodation, food, fuel and practical help. The evidence points to the experience of almshouse life varying a great deal, and suggests that the standard of living for many almspeople did not differ greatly from that of the poor generally. Many almspeople received poor relief; some were so poorly off that even the workhouse offered greater comfort and security. Yet, for most, there were distinct advantages to an almshouse place. Free accommodation and a regular income, no matter how small, gave them a measure of security; while their position as almshouse residents gave them status, respectability and the opportunity to benefit from further donations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a Delphi methodology to generate a number of broadly consensual low carbon scenarios for 2050. This approach to ‘creating’ the future, rather than predicting, is useful when dealing with profound and uncertain change over a long period of time and is therefore suited to carbon management. The methodology is described, and the first stage of the consultation process is discussed with reference to its application in the UK city region of Bristol. Findings from the first round have resulted in the identification of seven working scenarios and patterns in the responses of individuals from different backgrounds, suggesting that strong world-views and agendas are present within groups. Subsequent rounds of a questionnaire and a backcasting workshop will refine these working scenarios and identify pathways to achieve them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The narrative of Lady Anne Clifford’s marriage to Richard Sackville, later Earl of Dorset, has remained unquestioned in discussions concerning Clifford’s legal disputes with her uncle Francis Clifford, fourth Earl of Cumberland over the inheritance of the Clifford land holdings in Westmorland and North Yorkshire. However, Anne Clifford’s marriage was a vitally important component in the strategy for securing these lands for her. Margaret Russell, the Countess of Cumberland and Anne Clifford’s mother, understood that in order to outmanoeuvre successfully Francis Clifford, and his powerful ally Robert Cecil, she would need an equally powerful ally who would champion Anne Clifford’s claims to the Clifford estates. Russell thus entered into negotiations with several possible candidates including William Cecil, Lord Roos and Robert Carr, later Earl of Somerset. Even Anne Clifford’s eventual marriage with Richard Sackville was complicated by concerns related to her inheritance dispute — its validity only confirmed nine months after it had taken place. This paper explores the motivations and strategies employed in the marrying of Anne Clifford and considers the way in which these negotiations both conformed to contemporary practice and yet were affected by the particular goals of Margaret Russell and Anne Clifford. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Print culture during the Civil War era has been extensively studied in recent years. Scholars are currently debating the conditions that the producers of print - authors, booksellers, and printers - operated under, their relationship to ideologies and political factions, and the status of the public sphere during the period. This paper examines the output of the most prolific booksellers and printers in London from 1648-1649 in an effort to understand these issues. It argues that while the characteristics of a rudimentary public sphere existed in the publications of certain printers and booksellers with Independent political leanings, the manipulation, opportunism, and political fanaticism of others ensured that any rational political debate would be the minority of the public discourse in print. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade higher education policy in England has gradually switched from a stance of ‘government as purchaser’ to ‘government as informer’. During 2012 this policy stance has been intensified through new requirements for the advice provided by schools and the introduction of ‘Key Information Sets’ which are intended to ‘drive up quality’ through informed choice. This paper documents this policy shift and subjects it to critical scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Excavations at Meadowsfoot Beach, Mothecombe, south Devon, between 2004 and 2011 focused on two main areas. In the first, evidence for occupation in a sand dune included successive hearths and imported early medieval finds. In the second, three phases of early medieval structures were uncovered, along with more imported finds including amphora sherds. At least one of the structures was very large, and is presently unique in Devon. The landscape context of the site is considered along with the impact of sea-level change and coastal erosion. The paper concludes with a discussion of the site and its relationship to post-Roman networks of trade and communications with late Antique Atlantic Europe and the Mediterranean. We argue that Mothecombe helps us towards a better understanding of these networks by furnishing new insights on their social foundations in western Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the first work to explore the cases of the small number of identifiable Jewish women tried for infanticide at the Central Criminal Court between 1890 and 1918. Although the Jewish population of London (and indeed Britain) was facing increasing anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the cases discussed here were treated with equivalent leniency to those of other women charged with newborn child murder and concealment of birth in this period. Despite the very different circumstances of each case, the defendants were able to fit the story of their crime into a highly recognizable script that dovetailed neatly with the dominant discourse of 'the infanticidal' shared by both popular and elite British society. In examining these trials, a forgotten aspect of Jewish metropolitan life is revealed, and new light is thrown on the complicated way in which ethnicity might - or might not - play out in criminal justice proceedings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If women in London in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries sought the perfect crime in which to participate, selecting receiving stolen goods provided excellent opportunities for profit and little chance of punishment. Low conviction rates, combined with the fact that no behaviour outside of gendered expectations was required in its commission, made dealing in stolen goods relatively easy for women in the metropolis. Although this particular offence has not been deeply analysed by historians of crime, its commission did alarm contemporaries, including members of the legal community and social commentators. This paper explores accusations against females in London for receiving, as well as the important roles that familial relationships and work played in their indictments for the crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses judicial records of the Sheriffs' Court of London and the royal Court of Common Pleas at Westminster to investigate whether the concept of a later medieval 'Golden Age' of female opportunity, as Caroline Barron has posited, is indicated by London's legal customs, as reflected in quantitative evidence of London women's court appearances and the types of cases in which they were litigants. It offers an introduction to economic and legal aspects of the 'Golden Age debate' and other quantitative investigations of women in later medieval courts; presents a comparative pre-plague to post-plague analysis of London women in the London Sheriffs' Court and royal Court of Common Pleas; and places trends regarding London women within a national context. It is concluded that women in London, as elsewhere in England, were less likely to act as litigants in the post-plague era, suggesting a general tightening up of patriarchal control over women's public activities that is inconsistent with a socially expressed 'Golden Age' of women in later medieval London. But, some evidence is presented that London women may nevertheless have enjoyed slightly enhanced economic opportunities in the fifteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 14th Olympiad took place in London in 1948. Post-war reconstruction had barely started in the battered host city and all the venues for the Games were lent by private or public organizations with little expenditure for rebuilding allocated. This paper addresses the emergence and after-lives of the venues of the 1948 Games and examines their significance to the United Kingdom's capital city as it prepares for its third Olympiad: the 2012 Games in Stratford. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, the first citizenship ceremony was conducted in the London Borough of Brent. These compulsory ceremonies for those who have been granted British citizenship had been proposed in the government white paper and then in the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act. They were designed to celebrate the moment of achieving citizenships and were one response to a perceived ‘crisis of citizenship’ in Britain. This study examines the texts of the ‘local welcome’ which is given by a local dignitary at every ceremony as a moment of invention of tradition and of narrating citizenship and thereby narrating the nation-state. The study explores how and what the speeches tell us about understandings of citizenship and its relationship to diversity. It explores how history is also represented within the speeches. Finally, the study interrogates the texts' telling of a multi-cultural story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the connections between the school building programme in England and the raising of the school leaving age (ROSLA) from 14 to 15 in 1947 and then to 16 in 1972. These two major developments were intended to help to ensure the realisation of ‘secondary education for all’ in the postwar period. The combination led in practice to severe strains in the education system as a whole, with lasting consequences for educational planning and central control. ROSLA was a key issue for the school building programme in terms of both finance and design. School building was also a significant constraint for ROSLA, which was marred by temporary expedients in building accommodation both in the 1940s with ‘HORSA huts’ and in the 1970s with ‘ROSLA blocks’, as well as by the cheap construction of new schools that soon became unfit for purpose. Together, school building needs and ROSLA helped to stimulate pressures towards centralisation of planning that were ultimately to undermine postwar partnerships in education, from the establishment of the Ministry of Education’s Architects and Building (A&B) Branch in 1948, through the Crowther Report of 1959 and the Newsom Report of 1963, to the assertion of central state control by the 1970s. The pressures arising from such investment and growth in education again became a key issue in the early twenty-first century with the Labour Government’s support for raising the participation age to 18 combined with an ambitious ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme. The historical and contemporary significance of these developments has tended to be neglected but is pivotal to an understanding of medium-term educational change in its broader policy and political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although a great deal of previous literature has explored the ways in which social class affects parental engagement in educational processes, there has been surprisingly little discussion of the way in which social class shapes the parent–professional interaction that occurs in school exclusion processes specifically. School exclusion processes are complex and those parents who become involved in them have to negotiate not only the formal processes that surround the use of permanent and fixed-term exclusion but also the less well-regulated and increasingly favoured processes that are associated with the use of alternatives to exclusion from school. This paper draws on the perspectives of professionals working in a wide variety of roles and contexts in one local authority in England and on those of a small number of mothers of children with longer and more complex histories of involvement in school exclusion processes. It argues for greater recognition of the impact of social class on parent–professional interaction in school exclusion processes because of the way in which it helps to perpetuate an intergenerational cycle of social and educational disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the variety of foods sought by the well-to-do increasing significantly in early modern England, there was a reappraisal of the status of animal by-products. This paper investigates the development of offal from a food that was traditionally associated with the poor loan esteemed fashion-food that adorned the dining tables of the English gentry during the early modern period. It does this by analyzing changes in purchasing patterns at the homes of the social elite, and comparing the foods that they bought with the ingredients specified in fashionable cookbooks. With reference to these and other historical sources it will be seen that offal, after it had been suitably prepared, enabled the well-to-do to broaden the range of culinary tastes available to them, and add this food to their expanding range of cultural identity markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]