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Previous research exploring how working-class women experience UK Higher Education (HE) work has made evident recurring themes around social segregation and corresponding difficulties with feeling they belong. This paper develops this work by exploring the ways in which UK, HE based working-class women lecturers talk about their sense of belonging. It was found that, in contemporary UK HE, lecturing work is located within a marketised space where caring for students is central and the deployment of emotional labour to seen to be a necessary requirement to meet those demands. In addition, this labour is understood to be work that working-class women can readily take up, and as one of the few vehicles to enable feelings of value and belonging. However, this work is also devalued, unaccounted for and potentially harmful to those who do engage in it, therefore shoring up/ reinforcing a class and gender stratified UK academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the origins of Tivers' 1978 paper "How the other half lives: the geographical study of women," tracing these through a consideration of societal expectations at the time, which were mirrored in the content and approach of 1970s Geography in the UK. Attention is given here both to this original context of the paper and to its context in subsequent publications and in the overall career of the author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arguments presented here are offered in critical appraisal of Guy's contribution to the scholarship of colonial Natal and are informed by two primary concerns: the first is a politics of producing desegregated historiography, and the second is the need for local historical studies to relate to areas of wider scholarly concern, in this instance relating Shepstonian politics to liberalism and the nineteenth-century British Empire.Theophilus Shepstone and the Forging of Natal(2013) is Jeff Guy's magnum opus and a meticulously researched and richly detailed book. Guy's finely considered archival narrative builds a vision of a colony forged out of the local contingencies of Native administration centred around Shepstone's mediations of power. In this telling, it is out of the struggles between the powerful Shepstone; a small, fractious settler elite – his friends and enemies; and an intricate network of chiefly authorities that Natal is made. It is clear from this tome, as it is in his considerable body of earlier work, that Guy was not one to countenance theoretical generalisations about Shepstone's Natal. It is the contention of this essay that Guy's writing of this history of the colony is, at best, a history in part, and that connections and generalisations beyond these groups and beyond the colony are political and scholarly imperatives. In addressing this, I will draw on instances of my own research on race, sex, marriage and state-making to demonstrate the necessity of, and the possibilities for, a broader, more complex telling of the history of colonial Natal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea for this Special Issue, ‘Gender, Physical Education and Active Lifestyles: Contemporary Challenges and New Directions’ developed from the interest generated by a one day conference held at Leeds Beckett University in September 2017. The conference marked 25 years since the publication of Sheila Scraton’s ground breaking, feminist analysis of Physical Education. As a pivotal text that has contributed to the growth of gender research within the UK and more broadly, it seemed fitting to mark this occasion. The reach of Sheila’s work was perhaps realised through the delegate body. Early career researchers mingled with established scholars from America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the UK. Building on this conference and a wider call for papers, we are delighted to offer two Special Issues of Sport, Education and Society. The first issue engages explicitly with the challenge of theorising and understanding gendered subjectivities and embodiment across a range of contexts. These papers reflect the diversity of theoretical approaches being employed with some drawing on feminist perspectives, and others using Bourdieu, intersectionality, critical whiteness studies, and masculinity studies. The collection of papers in the second issue seek to examine the different ways in which gender becomes implicated in pedagogical relations and practice. These range from accounts of teachers’ struggles to use critical pedagogies to address gender inequities in PE classes, to analyses of the wider pedagogical ‘work’ of the media in constructing understandings about gender, with several papers exploring these two aspects in combination. We hope you enjoy reading the papers across these two Special Issues as much as we have enjoyed the journey as the editorial team. Collectively the papers raise alternative questions and provide new insights into gender and active lifestyles, and importantly, all seek to make a difference in moving towards more equitable physical activity experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One proposed strategy to overcome labour shortages in male-dominated jobs is to attract female workers. This has been the case for lorry driving in the UK. These efforts, however, often work to reproduce binary gendered stereotypes, or seek to include women without questioning how working conditions and everyday embodied work itself constructs gender roles and difference and is differentially experienced. In this paper, we highlight differentiated lorry driving bodies at work, centring lorries as an essential part of global logistical systems. Empirically drawing from interviews and mobile ethnographies with freight drivers in England, we tell a series of composite stories which uncover gendered ideals of worker-bodies, and embodied experiences of mobilities. With the gendered, embodied life's work of lorry driving remaining largely invisible and poorly understood, we illustrate the complex intersections between places, people, materialities and forms of work. Through this paper, we show how (gendered) narratives and bodily difference are both reproduced and disrupted through lorry driving work. We argue that only through recognising – and destabilising - the gendered re/production of mobile work will other logistical futures be made possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on the role of stress and work from home and their influence on the frequency of praying (spirituality) and attending ritual services (religiosity). Design/methodology/approach: Drawing from a data set from Understanding Society (COVID-19 study) in the UK from 5,357 participants, this study specifies a two-level mixed-effects ordered-probit regression to test the main hypotheses and chi-square (x2) analysis, gamma (γ) and tau-b (τb) for checking the robustness of this study results. Findings: The findings of this study exhort with statistical confidence that spirituality is positively related to religiosity. Working from home positively influences individuals' spiritual and religious needs, while attending religious services in person is associated with less stress. Females have been found to be more likely to pray rather than attend religious services. Originality/value: This study investigates the role of work from home and stress on spirituality and religiosity, two key elements often forgotten in personal life and copying. This paper considers spirituality as the frequency of praying, while religiosity is the frequency of attending rituals, which religion has institutionalised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a rich new data source, we explore the selection of economics lecturers into the last UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise. Only some one‐in‐two (54%) of these lecturers were submitted to REF2014; 57% of men and 46% of women. The decision making of institutions is found to be well approximated by a simplified selection approach; focusing on working papers and higher quality journal publications. Our results also reveal sizeable conditional differences in the probability of selection, especially so in departments with higher research rankings. More than half of the variance in selection probability remains unexplained, revealing considerable idiosyncrasies in the management of submissions and uncertainty across the discipline in this research assessment process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on gender in fisheries often argue that women's contributions are important to the functioning of fisheries and are worthy of recognition. However, this has so far failed to consider how women experience and practice belonging to fisheries. This paper structures the analysis of women's narratives around three conceptualisations of belonging: i) how women perform place-belongingness; ii) the politics of belonging; and iii) more-than-human co-constructions of belongings. To develop the conceptual approach, the paper synthesises these three concepts with an understanding of belonging as fluid and adaptable to particular situated relationships. In doing so, the paper explores how women's gendered belongings are co-constructed and performed in the male-oriented UK fisheries contexts. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews, the paper finds that women's practices of belonging make and maintain fishing communities and places, and that women's practices of belonging both confirm and challenge longstanding notions of who belongs in the fishery – with women fishers challenging socio-spatial exclusions in fishing. Women's belongings in fishing were further co-constructed in relation to the more-than-human such as fishing materialities, smells, non-human animals and the ocean. The concept of belonging helps to highlight the processes of becoming with fish, fishing and the fishery – even when there are no clear identities and identifications available for the women involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the pattern and attitude of the UK government towards international frameworks that promotes humane treatment of domestic workers and the respect of their human rights. This paper also examines the UK government continued refusal to adopt ILO Convention 189 that consolidates the framework for regulating domestic work. Design/methodology/approach – Using the concept of human rights, this paper conducts an extensive literature review on domestic workers; migrants in particular. Findings – This paper concludes that the best way to deal with the problems faced by domestic workers in the UK is the inclusion of them in all aspects of employment and health and safety protection, the regulation of domestic work, and a review of the domestic workers visas. Research limitations/implications – The Home Office has commissioned a panel to look into the effect of the current domestic workers visa on the vulnerability of the workers. The panel’s report is yet to be released as at the time of drafting this viewpoint. Practical implications – This paper contains useful informational for policy makers, NGOs, and academics. Social implications – This papers is a useful tool for a symposium, seminar, or conference. Originality/value – This paper contains original work of the author; except where copyright is acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the UK a polarised and politicised discourse exists that attempts to pitch transgender identities in opposition to discourses on sexual orientations. This suggests that interventions assisting clients in their understanding of one, would be detrimental on exploration of the other i.e., to be affirming of gender identity is to cause conversion of sexuality and vice versa. This paper attempts to address some of the problems with this oppositional critique and solve some of the practical problems that the theorist and/or clinician may encounter while attempting to help their clients within the realm of psychological therapies. It does so through Deleuzian ontologies of difference, coupled with Bhaskarian critical realism. We aim to present a (re)consideration of the biopsychosocial model of Health. The recent publication of the International Classification of Diseases 11th Edition and its reclassification of trans aetiology as a Disorder of Sexual Development has presented a conceptual shift from gender dysphoria towards a gender incongruence model (WHO 2022). The aim of this article therefore is to develop practice by enhancing the conceptual toolbox of the clinician and therapist working with Gender Sex and Relationship Diversities (GSRD). Thereby enabling them to better approach a wider diversity of clients safely. This paper explores current conversations and ideas around the phenomenon of trans gender identities and minority orientations. It aims to present an ethical model which can inform the clinical practice of therapists and is underpinned by a critical realist interpretation of biological, psychological and sociological aspects of the mind and body. Overall, the paper acts as a call to action against conversion practices which aim to position trans experience and sexual attraction in opposition to each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bringing together insights from feminist political economy and everyday financialization, this paper explores the complex nature of women's pension decisions. Women in the UK experience structural constraints originating from a pension system which ignores socially reproductive activities, and they face limitations in pension planning due to prevalent gender norms. Both aspects have a significant impact on women's long-term financial wellbeing and yet little attention has been paid to how they operate within these constraints, ultimately leading to women's behaviors being construed as passive or irrational. Drawing on 61 interviews, our paper conceptualizes pension practices adopted by women through gendered finance rationality, defined as variegated financial practices shaped by the gendered context in which they arise. Rather than being irrational or passive victims of an unequal welfare system, women actively engage with the limitations of the pension system and seek out asset strategies which seem more suited to their life trajectories, but implicitly reinforce gendered wealth inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Few sectors are more ethically contentious than dairy, with debates tending to be polarised between "intensification" and "abolitionist" narratives which often drown out alternative voices operating in-between. This paper examines the marginal spaces occupied by a group of farmers in the United Kingdom who are attempting to move towards what they see as "more ethical" dairying. Drawing on findings from ethnographic research on five farms which have adopted "cow-calf contact rearing"—which focuses on keeping calves with their mothers longer, in opposition to conventional practices of removing them shortly after birth—it asks what values underpin this alternative approach, and how and why "ethical" dairies seek to dairy ethically. To do this, it draws on a feminist epistemology and methodology that sees ethics as situated and contextual, and finds an "ethics of care" to be central to changing entanglements between humans and nonhuman animals. Instead of casting dairy as either "good" or "bad", it explores the activities of farms which are trying to move towards what they perceive to be "better", and draws three conclusions: (a) "ethical" dairying demonstrates a heterogeneity of dairy practices which are grounded in "care" and are happening between narrative extremes of intensification versus abolition; (b) although this practice may be, and could be, commodified, farmers are primarily guided by strong ideological principles and influenced by affective and empathetic "entanglements" with cows and calves, the agency of bovines themselves, and their social and ecological environment; and (c) "cow-calf contact rearing" represents a significant shift from a focus on the broader welfare environment towards centring the quality of individual cows' lives. Ultimately, the paper argues that we should pay greater attention to alternative economies built on an "ethics of care" when envisaging new sustainable food and agricultural systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we seek to understand feminization of the dentist workforce moving beyond previous research that has looked at gender in isolation. We contend that little consideration has been given to how gender interacts with other important social identities such as race/ethnicity to influence the opportunities and barriers that female dentists encounter during their dental career. We argue that the scholarly debate about the feminization of the dentistry has not acknowledged the intersectionality of women's lives. Intersectionality describes how multiple social identities (such as race/ethnicity, gender, and class) overlap and interact to inform outcomes, creating disadvantages and/or privileges. Our thesis is that the increasing feminization of the dentist workforce is complicated and paradoxical, creating both opportunities for women and gender imbalances and blockages within the profession. To support our thesis, we critically reviewed the literature on feminization and analysed UK and US workforce data. While the female dentist workforce in both the UK and the US has increased significantly over the past decade, the growth in the number of female dentists was not equal across all racial/ethnic groups. The largest increase in the number of female dentists was among White and Asian women. Viewing the feminization of the dentist workforce through an intersectionality lens exposes the multiple and complex experiences of women, as well as the power dynamics in dentistry. Feminization in dentistry demonstrates the importance of presence, privilege, and power. Based on our assessment of the dentist workforce, dentistry may be less inclusive, despite being perceived as more diverse. Further research should explore how power and privilege may operate in dentistry. Dentistry should embrace intersectionality to provide an inclusive evaluation of equity in the workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This In Perspective paper reflects on the use by men and women of entrepreneurship support organisations (ESOs). It arose through an inquiry conducted in partnership by London South Bank University and Shared Enterprise, the latter being an ESO based in London. As part of the inquiry, a small number of other ESOs in London were interviewed, who revealed that the majority of their participants were women, although the gender imbalance is not as extreme as is the case with Shared Enterprise. On the other hand, far more enterprises in Britain are led by men than are led by women. According to the Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS), only 20% of very small businesses (no employees) were led by women, and 60% were led solely by a man. A similar proportion – 19% – of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with employees was defined as led by women. A combination of interviews with Shared Enterprise participants and a desk review leads to a (tentative) solution to this seemingly puzzling paradox: women who aspire to entrepreneurship use ESOs more than men because they need them more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Corporate success depends partially on the quality of knowledge accessible to the executive board. One route of access to such knowledge is the appointment of directors who already hold directorships with prominent other corporate actors. Such director appointments provide interlocks to a corporate knowledge ecosystem (Haunschild and Beckman, 1998). The purpose of this paper is to examine how linkages between companies belonging to different sectors impact firm performance and to examine how linkages created by female directors, as opposed to male directors, shape performance. Design/methodology/approach: This paper investigates the interlocks created between UK FTSE 350 companies from 2010 to 2018. It draws on network analysis to map the roles that male and female directors play in linking firms with varying sector classifications. The paper provides an examination of the impact of these roles on firm performance, through a panel data regression analysis. Findings: This paper finds that there is an increase of inter-industry brokers over the period, and that men are still dominant in both the network and creating inter-industry ties amongst companies. However, the role of women in establishing these ties appears to be changing, and women are more important when it comes to create inter-industry ties among key economic sectors. Originality/value: This paper provides a novel approach to examine the interplay between gendered inter (and intra) sectoral linkages and firm performance. It provides an original application of the two-mode brokerage analysis framework proposed in Jasny and Lubell (2015). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the contexts in which this special issue developed, along with the wider context in which research such as that included is conducted. It is believed that without the persistence of researchers in this field, the situation would be even worse. Design/methodology/approach – Papers were selected from those submitted following a call for papers which went out after the Inaugural Equal Opportunities International Conference held at the University of East Anglia in July 2008. Two of the selected papers use qualitative, and two use quantitative, methodologies. The research was conducted in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Each seeks to develop theory based upon fresh empirical work. Findings – Compelling evidence provides insight to ways in which majority and minority ethnic employees experience organizations differently, along with the resultant differential outcomes, including career paths, quality and opportunities. Research limitations/implications – This paper maintains that each paper in this special issue (within its own context and as it currently stands) represents a robust example of qualitative or quantitative research in the field. Practical implications – From the evidence of each paper published here, it is clear that academics and practitioners alike will gain insights to employer and employee behaviours at the level of the labour market and within the workplace itself. Such insights should encourage further action on the part of both. Employers should be prompted to review their polices and practices in the light of anti-discriminatory legislation in such a way as to minimize discrimination therein. Social implications – This paper draws attention to matters of persistent inequality which remain so even in enlightened times wherein quite extensive legislation is in place to outlaw such inequality. As such, the guest editors would like to see, as a result of both academics and practitioners reading the work within this, and all other, editions of the journal, concerted efforts, in the case of the former, to continue to conduct and disseminate high-profile research in the area of discrimination and equal opportunity, and, in the latter, to address their policies and practices. In the latter context, the guest editors would like to see an impact on public and private employment policies and the seriousness with which corporate social responsibility is undertaken. In that respect, public attitudes might eventually be seen to be changing for the more equitable. Originality/value – The paper brings together the findings of four different pieces of original research in such a way as to demonstrate the commitment of researchers to addressing inequality in today's workplaces, which themselves continue to be inequitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polish migration to the UK post European Union enlargement has been studied extensively but limited attention has been paid to women and their gendered mobility. In this paper, I argue that it is key to turn attention to women migrants as those who are often responsible for reproductive labour and who raise future generations of workers and citizens. This is pivotal to consider in light of ageing European societies and the need for workers and Brexit. Arguably, precarity is characteristic of contemporary life. This applies to the post-Brexit-vote UK and the uncertainty linked to the future after 2019. Precarity is inevitably characteristic of many migrants' lives often punctuated by a lack of job security which is linked to limited material and psychological well-being. For women migrants, this state of affairs is further compounded by their attachment to the private sphere which often constitutes a barrier to their engagement in the paid labour market on the same footing as men. This paper draws on qualitative primary data gathered from 32 Polish women migrants who were initially interviewed in 2012/2013 and subsequently some of them were re-interviewed in 2016/2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy-makers frequently neglect the ways in which social policies are funded through taxation. This relationship is of critical importance because misalignment can cause social policy failure and tax injustice. This is evident with National Insurance (NI): a tax used primarily to fund the UK's state pension entitlement. This paper explains how NI is failing women and poorer people, prompting questions of why such a poorly designed, unfair and ineffective tax has persisted for so long in the UK. The paper proposes a radical solution: the payment of a universal basic pension and the abolition of NI, with consequential adjustments in income and corporation taxes to compensate for revenue losses. This paper makes a rare contribution to understanding how taxation is used to fund social welfare, and the implications of that relationship. In the UK, National Insurance (NI) is a hypothecated tax used primarily to fund state old age pensions—a contributory welfare benefit. Through historical analysis, and the exemplar of the raising of the state pension age for women, this paper demonstrates that NI fails women and poorer people more than men and the better-off: creating serious problems of social equity. A solution is proposed: the abolition of NI with consequential adjustments to income and corporation taxes, and the introduction of a universal basic pension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political science asks how women navigate gender on the campaign trail – do they run "as women" or do they exhibit more "masculine" behaviours to increase credibility. The role of masculinity in men's campaigns has received less attention. Yet, men "play the gender card" too. This paper analyses the use of gender in the campaign imagery of the two male party leaders in the 2019 UK General Election campaign via an examination of their campaign tweets. It finds that the male leaders did, indeed, "play the man card". Both leaders overwhelmingly used masculine visuals on Twitter during the campaign. Johnson demonstrated elements of "hypermasculinity" exaggerating his strength and dominance in images of traditional, working-class masculinity. Despite calls for more compassionate, read feminine, politics, Corbyn's campaign remained located in masculine imagery through consistent displays of agency. This paper makes three main contributions to current understandings of gender and election campaigning. Firstly, it offers the beginnings of a framework of types of masculinity in campaigning. Secondly, it adds support to the thesis that men play the gender card, and that it can take different forms. Thirdly, it raises questions about the use of binary frameworks in studying gender's role in campaigning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides evidence of the trends in the emotional wellbeing of university staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on differences according to age, gender and ethnicity. From June 2020 to July 2021 a survey was circulated to University College London staff, capturing information on self-described demographic indicators (age, gender, and ethnicity), satisfaction with academic life, and mental and emotional wellbeing. Results show a moderate level of emotional wellbeing overall, with scores increasing after lockdowns were lifted. Some significant heterogeneity within the demographic variables demonstrates the need for disaggregating the categories within Black and Minority Ethnic individuals. Black Caribbean and Black African staff reported higher levels of emotional wellbeing (respectively, 0.60 and 0.81 higher wellbeing scores, on average) while staff who identified as Arab or "other" reported lower levels (on average -1.0 and -0.65) than staff who identified as White. There was a sharp increase in emotional wellbeing for Arab staff and a slight increase in Asian and "other" ethnic staff. Findings from this research provide evidence into the trends in emotional wellbeing of faculty and staff in a United Kingdom university context, contributing to the literature focusing on higher education during the pandemic period. We also flag the importance of disaggregating Black and Minority Ethnic categorization to describe and better understand the diverse impact on emotional wellbeing within different ethnic groups, which has rarely been explored in the literature assessing university staff wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Social Research & Behavioral Sciences / Sosyal Araştırmalar ve Davranış Bilimleri Dergisi is the property of Journal of Social Research & Behavioral Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The creativity of religious art and practice is largely ignored in discussions of urban creativity. In this paper the importance of religious creativity in the making of suburban space is explored through a focus on the role of artists in two Christian churches in West London. Drawing on an analysis of two female stained glass artists, working in different time periods and religious contexts, this paper suggests the significance of churches as sites of creative innovation in suburban landscapes. The paper traces the negotiations and collaborations of the artists in relation to gendered expectations and institutional hierarchies and also considers the role of stained glass as a distinctive artistic medium in the creation of spiritually significant worship space for suburban congregations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between weight loss, sex and beauty by analysing a corpus of 285 articles about celebrity weight loss published in the UK national press between 23 March 2020 and 6 July 2020. Taking a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis approach, we examine the use of the statistically salient lemma flaunt*. Ninety-seven per cent of the instances of flaunt* in our corpus are attributed to female celebrities, and the respective protagonists are reported by the UK press to flaunt their bodies and their weight loss on their social media pages. By critically analysing the use of flaunt*, we are able to demonstrate the manner in which celebrity social media posts are repackaged to sexualise female celebrities and to sexualise the process of weight loss in general. We argue that describing social media images shared by female celebrities as flaunting could at best, misrepresent their intentions, and at worst contribute towards the pervasive unsolicited sexualisation of women, and exacerbate adverse body image and mental health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic which in and of itself has exacerbated these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What accounts for the common perception that women have contributed little to advances in entrepreneurship and innovation in Britain during the early industrial era? This paper empirically examines the role of gender diversity in inventive activity during the first and second industrial revolutions. The analysis of systematic data on patents and unpatentable innovations uniquely enables an evaluation of women's creativity within both the market and nonmarket sectors. British women inventors were significantly more likely than men to focus on unpatentable innovations in consumer final goods and design‐oriented products that spanned art and technology, and on uncommercialized improvements within the household. Conventional approaches that fail to account for nonmarket activity and for such incremental changes in consumer goods and design innovations therefore significantly underestimate women's contributions to household welfare and overall economic progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negotiating the relationships influenced by a combination of identity markers during fieldwork is an important aspect of qualitative data co-creation. Based on ethnographic research with the canal boating and enthusiast communities in the UK, this paper focuses on the mundane power dynamics and hierarchies in research situations. The paper discusses the role of humour in negotiating the interpersonal dynamics and argues for the consideration of power (im)balances in the field beyond assumptions of the researcher as definitely the advantaged side. Joking plays an important role and is used by both research participants and researchers to level the researcher–participant hierarchies as well as to reproduce and reaffirm them. This takes place on a conceptual continuum: first, in terms of their relative rigidity, whereby certain norms, opinions or value systems are reinforced; and secondly, flexibility, whereby the notions about norms and preconceived ideas might shift during the research encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a series of anxieties about mixing at the Jewish Lads’ Brigade and Club (JLB & C) in Manchester, UK during the 1950s and 1960s, primarily focused on inter-faith activities, relationships and marriages. This paper explores how a powerful moral geography of gender and religion came to be shaped, regulated and negotiated at this youth work space. The concerns expressed by some adults over teenage encounters in the post-war city were articulated and understood through the notion of ‘atmospheres’, and this paper suggests how this idea and language captured some of the anxieties and emotions surrounding cultures of leisure at this time. This paper contributes an in-depth and sustained focus on the moral geographies of the post-war city in relation to young people, as well as addressing an important gap in scholarship on Jewish youthful religiosities. Furthermore, it pushes at ideas about meaningful encounters through the consideration of the JLB & C as a meeting space and arena for visitors. Overall, the paper examines how the JLB & C acted as both a mirror to the wider social changes of the post-war era, while also being an active contributor in shaping those same processes of social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the representation of suburbia in promotional material published by housing developers at the turn of the 21st century using a case study in the UK. The millennium offered an opportunity for housing developers to construct a narrative of 21st‐century suburban living by creating new developments and a new vision of suburbia. The research reviews a series of articles identifying several key changes taking place within culture and society, in particular with reference to gender and ethnicity. Using semiotic analysis, the research identifies what was presented within the developers' promotional material does not necessarily represent wider changes occurring in society. This paper reveals that housing developers are practising a restricted reimaging of the suburb often maintaining a nostalgic view of a suburban aesthetic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work contributes to the political economy literature by elucidating gendered socio-cultural practices germane to everyday financialisation. The financialisation of retirement provision in the UK expects individuals to negotiate risk and reward across diverse investments. Existing quantitative research highlights gender disparities in terms of who saves and how much, often interpreted as inherent behavioural traits which cast female behaviour as irrational. Yet, this ignores the dominance of masculine norms in shaping financial capitalism and the impact of gender-normative roles on everyday behaviours. Building on insights feminist political economy, this paper examines how constructions of gender, meaning socialised gender roles and norms, shape the ways men and women deal with financial risk when accumulating assets for later life. Drawing on 105 semi-structured interviews, we find that men and women understand and respond to risk in different and contradictory ways based on constructions of gender. These distinct approaches lead to divergent investment strategies: men tend to align with the gendered role of the risk-seeking investor, while women tend to feel alienated by models of investment which do not appear to fit feminine norms. This disparity compounds the effect of structural inequalities with implications for long-term welfare under financialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a research project designed to understand the work experiences and career opportunities of people working in higher education institutions (HEIs) across the UK, which received formal recognition for supporting gender equity between 2015 and 2020. The findings reveal multiple intersecting barriers to women's full engagement, inclusion, support and career success in higher education, despite the implementation of organization-based gender equity plans, and institutional inter/national recognition for advancing equity. Most axes of de/privilege that are based along lines of gender, race, ethnicity and religion are enacted as everyday sexism that resist gender equality policy. Moreover, our findings suggest that 'place' is a constitutive element of intersectional dis/advantage, not merely a context within which compounded barriers to inclusion and advancement may exist. In addition, the findings demonstrate that whilst inter-categorical intersectionality is based on the notion that all social categories (such as age, race and gender) are equally salient, the degree of importance of any category will likely depend on location or context of the phenomena being examined. Our findings therefore invite further, iterative and translocational research into the impacts of the intersections of gender, ethnicity, race and religion in spaces of higher education, particularly those with colonial legacies and presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical study incorporates social space and gender into consumer behaviour research to explore consumer identities and consumption practices within the UK spa marketplace. The paper contends that the relationship between gender, consumption and space is intertwined and reciprocal. Semi-structured interviews with ten men who visit spas reveal that spas influence the construction of men's consumer identities in multiple ways through empowerment, struggle and resistance that exist in the social spa space. The proposed theoretical framework reflects the dynamics between space, men's consumer identities and their consumption habits. The perceived, conceived and lived experiences that emerge through the data suggest that spas can transform into a gender-inclusive marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against a backdrop of increasing cultural visibility of people who identify across, between or beyond the categories of male and female, young people have been positioned within the wider social imaginary as radical trailblazers for a new, progressive gender order. This paper provides original insights that empirically ground and interrogate such claims. Drawing on findings from focus group interviews held with 136 young people (aged 16–24) in the UK, the paper demonstrates how young people's understandings and narrations of gender diversity both support and contest linear progress narratives. We show how young people position their acceptance of gender diversity in contradistinction to older generations. However, this narrative of generational progress was undermined and complicated by tensions and ambiguities within young people's talk. Our findings suggest that, alongside being accepting of gender diversity, young people also experience confusion and misunderstanding which may mean that they are more comfortable with stable and binary forms of gender diversity. Moreover, some young people express ideological resistance to gender diversity, informed by wider debates around 'identity politics'. Overall, we stress the importance of situating young people's gender talk amidst multiple discursive constellations through which increasingly politicised struggles around the meanings of 'gender' are currently playing out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finding safe spaces to perform one's identity is a widely acknowledged issue for individuals who cross-dress because it remains a taboo practice in much of society. It is therefore often kept a 'closeted' secret from family, friends, and colleagues. Prior work in other contexts has shown that domestic materiality underwrites identity work, and through their careful display and arrangement possessions can reconcile fractured selves. However, whilst home is a key site for the (re)construction of self, it is not necessarily a safe, private and autonomous haven for all of its occupants. This paper builds on the concepts of identity management and home-making, by focusing on the ways self-storage acts as a quasi-domestic space in which to safely store, conserve and try on material aspects of self which are 'out of place' in the user's domestic life. Drawing on an in-depth, object elicited interview with a cross-dressing man, this paper argues that self-storage is a place of transformation and performative potential, a sanctuary in which to be or become somebody else. Furthermore, it uses the example of cross-dressing to scrutinise and subvert the conceptualisation of 'man caves'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern day Britain, the discourse of national heroification is routinely utilised by politicians, educationalists and cultural industry professionals, whilst also being a popular concept to describe deserving 'do-gooders' who contribute to British society in a myriad of ways. We argue that although this heroification discourse is enacted as a discursive device of encouraging politically and morally desirable behaviour, it is dissociated from the largely under-explored facets of contemporary popular heroism. To compensate for this gap, this paper explores public preferences for heroes using survey data representative of British adults. This analysis demonstrates a conceptual stretching in the understanding of heroism, and allows identifying age- and gender-linked dynamics which effect public choices of heroes. In particular, we demonstrate that age above all determines the preference for having a hero, but does not explain preferences for specific hero-types. The focus on gender illustrates that the landscape of popular heroism reproduces a male-dominated bias which exists in the wider political and cultural heroification discourse. Simultaneously, our study shows that if national heroification discourse in Britain remains male-centric, the landscape of popular heroism is characterised by a gendered trend towards privatisation of heroes being particularly prominent amongst women. In the conclusion, this paper argues for a conceptual revision and re-gendering of the national heroification discourse as a step towards both empirically grounded, and age- and gender-sensitive politics of heroes and heroines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore what has happened to the notion and reality of equal pay over the past 50 years, a period in which women have become the majority of trade union members in the UK. It does so in the context of record employment levels based upon women’s increased labour market participation albeit reflecting their continued over-representation in part-time employment, locating the narrowed but persistent overall gender pay gap in the broader picture of pay inequality in the UK. Design/methodology/approach – The paper considers voluntary and legal responses to inequality and the move away from voluntary solutions in the changed environment for unions. Following others it discusses the potential for collective bargaining to be harnessed to equality in work, a potential only partially realised by unions in a period in which their capacity to sustain collective bargaining was weakened. It looks at the introduction of a statutory route to collective bargaining in 2000, the National Minimum Wage from 1999 and at the Equality Act 2010 as legislative solutions to inequality and in terms of radical and liberal models of equality. Findings – The paper suggests that fuller employment based upon women’s increased labour market activity have not delivered an upward pressure on wages and has underpinned rather than closed pay gaps and social divisions. Legal measures have been limited in the extent to which they have secured equal pay and wider social equality, whilst state support for collective solutions to equality has waned. Its replacement by a statutory minimum wage initially closed pay gaps, but appears to have run out of steam as employers accommodate minimum hourly rates through the reorganisation of working time. Social implications – The paper suggests that statutory minima or even voluntary campaigns to lift hourly wage rates may cut across and even supersede wider existing collective bargaining agreements and as such they can reinforce the attack on collective bargaining structures, supporting arguments that this can reduce representation over pay, but also over a range of other issues at work (Ewing and Hendy, 2013), including equality. Originality/value – There are then limitations on a liberal model which is confined to promoting equality at an organisational level in a public sector subject to wider market forces. The fragmentation of bargaining and representation that has resulted will continue if the proposed dismantling of public services goes ahead and its impact upon equality is already suggested in the widening of the gender pay gap in the public sector in 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in sport and Physical Education (PE) has historically been heavily gendered, and the glorification of masculinity and sporting prowess is viewed as a potentially negative influence on participation for both males and females. This paper explores male and female experiences of sport and PE to grasp how the field of physical culture represents a space for the development and enactment of gendered behaviours and norms within an active identity. Fifty-one individual or paired semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 young men and 37 young women in Year 11 (aged 15-16) at three demographically varied schools in North East England. Using Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, capital and doxa, this paper demonstrates that these young people identify feeling trapped in gendered norms and beliefs which recreate rigid notions of acceptable behaviours for young men and women. Interviewees often described gender in biological terms through a belief that masculinity is associated with maleness and femininity with femaleness. Through encouraging reflexivity as part of the interview process, young people were able to identify the (usually) non-conscious elements of their gendered habitus, which represent the taken-for-granted assumptions about masculinity and femininity which direct practice. Perceived gender pressures lead to self- and peer-surveillance within PE environments, whereby capital is allocated to gender- and sport-appropriate bodies. These findings suggest that PE and school structures regulate adolescent bodies, affecting participation in sport and physical activity in heavily gendered ways. Therefore, limited opportunities are available for young people to transgress the restrictive social norms which normalise the role of sport and PE for a successful male identity whilst simultaneously undermining the presence of an athletic female. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of care and its associated practices remain a key subject of debate in human geography, as they continue to evolve in response to changing norms and expections of who does and should provide care, how, and where care takes place. With the growing politics of austerity shaping welfare and support provision across the Global North, these norms and expectations are once again being reviewed and reconfigured. New spaces and relationships of care are unfolding, as austerity intensifies many debates over the role of the state vis-a-vis the private, informal and third sectors. This paper examines the changing geographies of care that are unfolding within this context of austerity and frames a collection of papers on this subject. It offers a short review of the concept of care in the discipline of geography before examining the shifting landscapes of care provision overtime. It considers where these new spaces of care are unfolding. After identifying the boundaries of this scholarship, it then outlines the key themes within and across the four papers in this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women coaches have remained underrepresented within sports coaching at all levels. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to describe the factors surrounding the development, progression, and retention of women coaches within the United Kingdom. The study involved semistructured interviews with 15 women coaches who were coaching female athletes in team sports. Content analysis of the qualitative data identified barriers and enablers at individual, interpersonal, organisational, and sociocultural levels. Results indicated that women coaches face several barriers because of their gender, which their men counterparts do not often encounter. Practically, individuals and organisations can both take action to reduce damaging stereotypical ideologies that produce challenging predicaments for women within the coaching landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its classical form, ballroom dancing constitutes heterosexual dance couples enacting conservative forms of masculinity and femininity. A normative focus, both in scholarship and in practice, on the classical form in competitive ballroom dancing (also known as Dancesport) excludes the lived narratives of LGBT + dancers practicing the sport outside of the mainstream. Equality Dancesport is one such example, with dancers performing in diverse partnership typologies and adopting less gender-segregated dance roles and movements. Drawing on the photo-elicitation exercise, embedded within in-depth interviews, conducted as part of a broader ethnographic study on the equality Dancesport scene in the United Kingdom, I demonstrate how the strategy informed a ground-up emergence of a queer theoretical framework for understanding masculinities and femininities across the sex, gender and sexuality categorical divides. Four key opportunities afforded by photo elicitation are identified, namely (1) invoking new queer knowledge which blurs the binary divide in how concepts of masculinities and femininities are investigated in existing dance scholarship, (2) facilitating the development of more egalitarian researcher/participant relationships, (3) enabling affective, detailed and fluid narrations of lived experiences of dancing, and (4) positioning interviewees as dance spectators and inspiring reflections on the community. The paper concludes with three recommendations for negotiating the pitfalls of using a photo elicitation technique in dance studies. First, researchers need to recognise the limits of inclusivity offered by photo elicitation and practice sensitivity towards participants. Second, integrating photographs with other visual methods such as videos can enable researchers to leverage the strengths of different visual tools to inspire talk about broader topics. Third, before using the method, researchers need to develop mental strength for coping with negative talk, to achieve more holistic understanding of participants' sentiments and motivations and as a duty of accountability towards them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This paper examines the co-occurrence of drinking alcohol and eating in Great Britain. Applying a practice-theoretical framework, it attends primarily to the nature and characteristics of events – to social situations. It asks whether drinking events involving food are significantly different from those without, whether differences are the same at home as on commercial public premises, and whether differences are the same for men and women. The focus is especially on episodes of drinking with meals at home, an infrequently explored context for a substantial proportion of contemporary alcohol consumption. Data: Employing a secondary analysis of commercial data about the British population in 2016, we examine reports of 47,645 drinking events, on commercial premises and at other locations, to explore how eating food and consumption of alcoholic beverages affect one another. Three types of event are compared – drinking with meals, with snacks, and without any food. Variables describing situations include group size and composition, temporal and spatial parameters, beverages, purposes, and simultaneous activities. Basic sociodemographic characteristics of respondents are also examined, with a special focus on the effects of gender. Results: Behaviours differ between settings. The presence of food at a drinking episode is associated with different patterns of participation, orientations, and quantities and types of beverage consumed. Gender, age, and class differences are apparent. Conclusions: Patterns of alcohol consumption are significantly affected by the accompaniment of food. This is a much-neglected topic that would benefit from further comparative and time series studies to determine the consequences for behaviour and intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade union density increased for three consecutive years in the United Kingdom between 2017 and 2020. This contrasts with a general decline in union membership since 1979. Since union density continued to fall amongst male employees in 2017–2020, the overall increase was entirely attributable to females. This paper explores the factors which explain why there was an increase in overall union density after a period of decline (for males and females) and why union density evolved so differently for males and females. Using decomposition methodologies, we find that the increase in union density in 2017–2020 was not due to a higher propensity to unionise within particular groups or across all employees. Instead, the principal driver of the overall rise in 2017–2020 was an increase in the proportion of employment in certain public sector organisations. The largest contributor to the difference across males and females was increases in the share of employment in more unionised occupations amongst female employees and decreases amongst male employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to the literature on cultural stratification by revisiting cultural voraciousness, nearly two decades after it was first introduced as a measure of cultural participation designed to capture inequalities in the pace and variety of cultural activities. Specifically, using the UK 2014–15 Time Use Survey, we compare measures of cultural voraciousness in the UK in 1998 and 2015, focussing in particular on the way cultural voraciousness is associated with both gender and class. We find continuity over time in the patterns of relationship between cultural voraciousness, gender and class, which are not explained by income or hours worked. While women at the bottom of the class scale are still the most disadvantaged in terms of unequal access to cultural participation, high level managerial women now equal equivalent men in their voracious cultural participation. We conclude that not only is cultural voraciousness still useful in depicting cultural inequalities delineated by gender and class, and not only do gender and class gaps in cultural voraciousness persist over time, but also that there is evidence for accentuated class inequality over time in cultural voraciousness among men and among women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining academics 'engagement with non-academics in industry, public agencies and charities, this paper examines gender gaps between men and women. Using a large-scale survey of UK academics, we find that although there is difference between women and men in the commercial areas of engagement, with men being more active in this domain than their women colleagues of a similar age and experience and of the same rank, discipline, and university, this pattern is reversed for academic engagement with the third sector, with women more likely to engage with charities, regardless of career stage and research field. We explore the gendered nature of academic engagement, and discuss policy implications arising from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to understandings of how Athena SWAN (AS) is shaping contemporary equality work in the context of the neoliberal university, and whether it is contributing to performative ways of doing equality work. We center our research on the exploration of the question of how the gender‐agenda is being captured by the neoliberal agenda, drawing on 35 in‐depth qualitative interviews with AS champions across the UK and Republic of Ireland. The core aim of the study is to explore how AS has been co‐opted and mobilized as a vehicle for contemporary (neoliberal) equality work. We argue that rather than contributing to transformational change, AS serves as an effective tool for institutional reputation gains and (extended) virtue signaling, conceptualized and coined here as "institutional peacocking." This in turn, functions and is implemented in diverse institutional settings, with primarily institutional benefit, at the cost of AS champions who carry out gender equality work. We contribute empirically and conceptually to theorizations and current understandings of gender equality work in higher education, especially through AS champions' experience and the institutional benefits that present opportunity costs for some individuals, potentially serving to further entrench stereotyped perceptions of who should be doing equality work in universities, and critically, how institutions benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers in this special issue make an important contribution to a growing body of work, exploring not only the ways gender and property were co‐constituted in Britain and the British colonies in the long eighteenth century but also the sources scholars must work with in uncovering women's lives and experiences. In this afterword, I explore some of the possibilities and prospects for developing research in this area, highlighting new directions and themes, as well as teasing out some of the wider implications of this persuasive and fascinating collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seafaring, as a traditionally male-dominated industry, continues to have very few female seafarers, with approximately 2% globally being women. This paper draws on the findings of a study that considered both the experiences of women seafarers working in the UK shipping industry and the views of key industry stakeholder representatives, and asks what must be done to improve those experiences? Responses across the industry suggest that all women seafarers will experience some form of harassment during their careers, which has significant implications for their occupational health, safety and wellbeing. These experiences reflect failures of leadership in developing and promoting a safe and inclusive onboard culture. This paper calls for fundamental change within the industry, including improvements in training and leadership to reflect modern seafaring and diversity on board. It also calls for relevant policy and strategic changes to be based on the views of seafarers and their representatives. It concludes that improving the experiences of women on board will improve the occupational health, safety and wellbeing of all seafarers, regardless of gender or any other characteristic or classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of machine learning as an input into decision-making is on the rise, owing to its ability to uncover hidden patterns in large data and improve prediction accuracy. Questions have been raised, however, about the potential distributional impacts of these technologies, with one concern being that they may perpetuate or even amplify human biases from the past. Exploiting detailed credit file data for 800,000 UK borrowers, we simulate a switch from a traditional (logit) credit scoring model to ensemble machine-learning methods. We confirm that machine-learning models are more accurate overall. We also find that they do as well as the simpler traditional model on relevant fairness criteria, where these criteria pertain to overall accuracy and error rates for population subgroups defined along protected or sensitive lines (gender, race, health status, and deprivation). We do observe some differences in the way credit-scoring models perform for different subgroups, but these manifest under a traditional modelling approach and switching to machine learning neither exacerbates nor eliminates these issues. The paper discusses some of the mechanical and data factors that may contribute to statistical fairness issues in the context of credit scoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing longevity has led to a rising number of adult children who are at higher ages when they provide care for their parents. Drawing on the lifecourse approach and exchange theory, the paper addresses similarities and differences in parent care between late middle-aged and older adult children. The study uses the UK Household Longitudinal Study, restricting the analysis sample to individuals aged 50 and older with a living parent or parent-in-law. It presents multivariate models to examine differences between late middle-aged (aged 50–64) and older (aged 65+) children in being a parent carer, providing intensive care, the duration of parent care and providing selected types of help to parents. The involvement in parent care increases among women up to the end of their seventh decade of life and for men up to their eighth decade of life. At higher ages, the proportion of parent carers decreases more strongly for women than men. Older carers have shorter care-giving episodes than younger carers, but there is no significant difference in the type of care provided. Even past retirement age, parent care remains classed and gendered, with women from lower social classes having the highest likelihood of providing intensive parent care in old age. Having dependent children or living in a non-marital union depress the likelihood of caring for a parent even past retirement age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]