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This paper describes one part of a feasibility study carried out in England which examined the costs, quality and effectiveness of continence services in areas with different approaches to provision. It involved the design of instruments to collect the views and perceptions of patients and an investigation of ways to develop a methodology to implement comparative studies. It is the design and piloting of the questionnaires and the way patients responded that forms the focus of this paper. The main sample group recruited for the study were women who had recently sought formal help with urinary incontinence and were likely to receive conservative treatment or management in the community. They were interviewed and asked to complete four questionnaires at two points in time. A smaller sub-group of disabled women, interviewed only once, were included to compare cost profiles for different client groups. The questionnaires which were developed address the impact of urinary incontinence (using a standard scale), the effectiveness of service provision in terms of patients’ clinical history, expectations and hoped-for outcomes, service receipt and its cost, and patients’ satisfaction with several aspects of service provision. In total 118 women were interviewed, including 28 disabled women. The study generated a set of survey instruments which might be used for a variety of purposes including audit and future research and which could inform purchaser and provider decisions by using patients’ perspectives of quality of life outcomes to enhance service development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The current food system in England promotes a population diet that is high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS). To address this, the UK government has implemented legislation to restrict the promotion of HFSS products in prominent locations (e.g. store entrances, checkouts) in qualifying retailers since October 2022. This study investigated the perceived impact of the legislation for affected stakeholders. Methods: A pre-implementation rapid qualitative evaluation of stakeholder interviews. One hundred eight UK stakeholders participated in the study including 34 consumers, 24 manufacturers and retailers, 22 local authority enforcement officers and 28 academic and charitable health representatives. A participatory conference was used to enable policy recommendations to be confirmed by stakeholders. Results: Stakeholders perceived the legislation to be a 'good first step' towards improving population diet but recognised this needed to be considered amongst a range of long-term obesity policies. Areas of further support were identified and these are presented as six recommendations for government to support the successful implementation of the legislation: (1) provide a free central HFSS calculator, (2) refine legislation to enhance intent and clarity, (3) conduct a robust evaluation to assess intended and unintended outcomes, (4) provide greater support for smaller businesses, (5) provide ring-fenced resources to local authorities and (6) create and communicate a long-term roadmap for food and health. Conclusions: This legislation has the potential to reduce impulse HFSS purchases and makes a solid start towards creating healthier retail outlets for consumers. Immediate government actions to create a freely accessible HFSS calculator, support smaller businesses and provide additional resources to local authorities would support successful implementation and enforcement. Independent evaluation of the implementation of the legislation will enable monitoring of potential unintended consequences identified in this study and support refinement of the legislation. A long-term roadmap is necessary to outline strategies to support equal access to healthier and sustainable food across the whole food system within the next 20–30 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we considered women's experiences of undertaking Higher Education (HE) study (Foundation Degree in Early Years (EY)) drawing on research based in the North of England, UK. The study, informed by a social constructionist approach, explored 10 women's experiences of work–life balance (WLB) and well-being alongside HE study through semi-structured interviews. A focus group explored women's personal perceptions of WLB and well-being. The findings were analysed thematically and we argue that the formation of a third sphere of commitment (HE study) disrupted WLB and created some disequilibrium, which impacted upon the women's well-being. The women underwent a transformative process as initial academic inexperience and lack of belonging in University was replaced by confidence and student identity. This transformation was made possible through personal adaptations, diverse strategies and motivation that indicated individual and collective resilience. One noticeable strategy involved the overlapping of commitment spheres, including HE study taking place at home. While being challenging to manage, this contributed to an important cultural shift as study became normal for households, creating the 'learning family'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When making decisions about whether to transfer residents to hospital, care home staff consider the possible benefits and risks of different courses of action. However, to date, an in-depth and theoretically informed engagement with these decision-making processes and their associated behaviours has been lacking. We conducted an ethnographic study of care home staff's decision-making about resident hospital transfers in England between May 2018 and November 2019. We combined staff interviews at six care home sites, with 30 members of staff, with 113 hours of ethnographic observation at three care homes sites. 'Risk' and risk management emerged as important overarching themes. In this article we conceptualise staff decision-making about potential hospital transfers for residents as a form of risk work. In doing so, we identify the different forms of risk knowledge that staff used to conceptualise risk and explore the ways staff navigated tensions between different forms of risk knowledge. We highlight the ways individual understandings of risk were influenced by social interactions with others, both at an interpersonal and organisational level, before identifying strategies that staff use to manage risk. By understanding transfer decisions explicitly in terms of the different forms of risk that care home staff manage, our analysis provides new insights into hospital transfers from care homes and contributes to the wider literature around risk work, demonstrating the utility of this concept in researching organisations that fall under the umbrella of social care, which have been previously neglected in academic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The menstrual needs of girls and women are important to health, education, and well-being. Unmet need and harm from poor menstrual health in low-and- middle-income countries have been documented, but with little empirical research undertaken in high income countries. Continuing austerity in the UK suggests menstruators are likely more vulnerable to 'period poverty' than previously, with the COVID-19 pandemic assumed to exacerbate the situation. Aim: To explore the menstrual experiences and perceptions of women in the UK who are living under circumstances of deprivation, alongside views of staff working in organisations supporting these women, to understand whether women's menstrual needs are met. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted in an inner-city in NW England. Three focus group discussions and 14 in-depth interviews were conducted across three study sites supporting impoverished women. Data was analysed thematically. Results: Themes were: reflections on menstruation; affordability of products; access to public facilities; organisational support; potential solutions. Many women perceived menstruation as a burden in three aspects: physical discomfort and pain; psychological anxiety; and shame and stigma. Managing menstruation was difficult due to cost relative to low incomes, with food, heating and lighting prioritised, leaving women improvising with materials or wearing products for longer than desired. Most suggested that products should be free, often remarking if men required similar items this would happen. Most women were unaware supporting organisations provided free products. Staff felt the small range of products offered did not meet client needs and were ill-prepared to have conversations on products and clients' menstrual needs. Conclusion: Impoverished women lack the necessary resources to manage their menses well which negatively impacts their health and brings stress, embarrassment, and shame. Support, including access to free products, is needed at both local and national level to help impoverished women manage their menstrual hygiene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of proposals in the 2002 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill to replace the current system of development plans with a new generation of planning policy tools, this is an appropriate moment to reconsider the role of design policies within English planning practice. As the era of local plans, structure plans, and unitary development plans (UDPs) comes to a close, the author looks at one part of the remit that development plans aim to address—design. In doing so, he revisits the practice of a range of local planning authorities originally examined for research undertaken between 1992 and 1994. The author's aim is to gauge how the design-policy approaches of these authorities have fared: (a) twelve years after they were first required to prepare them by the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act, and (b) eight/nine years after they were initially examined in research undertaken for the then Department of the Environment and the Economic and Social Research Council. The research confirmed the benefits of a long-term commitment to better design, grounded within a well-established policy framework that is, nevertheless, responsive to lessons from local implementation experience. It revealed that there is no one right way to achieve this objective, and that the more flexible approaches to plan-making envisaged in forthcoming national legislation should encourage the best of local practice to spread beyond the limited number of local authorities that have so far made such a commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty is inherent in modelled projections of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), yet sometimes treated peripherally. One source of uncertainty comes from different climate and soil inputs. We investigated variations in 70‐year UK projections of Miscanthus × giganteus (M × g), BECCS and environmental impacts with input data. We used cohort datasets of UKCP18 RCP8.5 climate projections and Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) soil sequences, as inputs to the MiscanFor bioenergy model. Low annual yield occurred 1 in 10 years as a UK‐average but yield uncertainty varied regionally, especially south and east England. BECCS projections were similar among cohorts, with variation resulting from climate cohorts of the same database ensemble (3.99 ± 0.14 t C ha−1 year−1) larger than uncertainty resulting from soil sequences in each grid block (3.96 ± 0.03 t C ha−1 year−1). This is supported by annual time series, displaying variable annual climate and a close yield–BECCS–climate relationship but partial correspondence of yield and BECCS with maximal soil variability. Each HWSD soil grid square contains up to 10 ranked soil types. Predominant soil commonly has over 50% coverage, indicating why BECCS from combined soil sequences were not significantly different from BECCS using the dominant soil type. Mean BECCS from the full climate ensemble combined with the full soil sequences, over the current area of cropping limits in England and Wales, is 3.98 ± 0.14 t C ha−1 year−1. The bioenergy crop has a mean seasonal soil water deficit of 65.79 ± 4.27 mm and associated soil carbon gain of 0.22 ± 0.03 t C ha−1 year−1, with bioenergy feedstock calculated at 131 GJ t−1 y−1. The uncertainty is specific to the input datasets and model used. The message of this study is to ensure that uncertainty is accounted for when interpreting modelled projections of land use impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article provides a novel insight into how earlycareer scholars in the UK may combine different theoretical tools in their research, and the implications that this may have for the socio-legal discipline. This Article draws upon the author's experience of combining theoretical tools from different schools of thought: Feminist legal theory, Bourdieusian theory, and Actor Network Theory, within the context of recent research into experiences of those representing themselves in family court hearings in England and Wales. Combining these theories for the first time, this Article explores the difficulties, tensions, and benefits of combining tools within socio-legal research and reflects upon the influence of the pedagogical and institutional resources that characterize the socio-legal research environment in the UK. This Article argues that the task of combining different tools provides scholars with the opportunity to work politically, because the process of reconciling tensions between different approaches requires researchers to reflect upon the worldviews that underpin their selected theories. In this sense, it argues that combining different theories within socio-legal research is a political activity, because researchers are required to reflect not only on how theoretical choices may contest, expand, or develop dominant assumptions that characterize socio-legal scholarly traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last quarter century, non‐medical prescribing in the UK has grown significantly; eight non‐medical professional groups now have authority to prescribe a wide range of medicines, suggesting it could be a potent driver of pharmaceuticalisation. In this article, we present data from a case study of physiotherapists' prescribing practices. UK physiotherapists have had legal rights to prescribe medicines since 2005, but relatively little is known about the contribution they make to expanding patient access to medicines. We approached our study through a lens of governmentality to capture the mentalities and micro‐practices governing physiotherapist non‐medical prescribing. Ethnographic methods were used to gather data from an outpatient orthopaedic service in an NHS Trust in England employing physiotherapist prescribers. From the data, we identified a grid of intelligibility – an organising framework formulated by powerful discourses and technologies of government through which physiotherapist prescribing was acted into being. A primary effect of this grid was the constitution of new physiotherapist subjectivities, mostly as non‐prescribers of medicines contrary to policy intentions, underpinned by a familiar and enduring template of medical professionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims: Youth alcohol consumption has declined significantly during the past 15 years in many high‐income countries, which may have significant public health benefits. However, if the reductions in drinking occur mainly among lighter drinkers who are at lower risk, then rates of alcohol‐related harm among young people today and adults in future may not fall in line with consumption. There is conflicting evidence from Swedish school studies, with some suggesting that all young people are drinking less, while others suggest that alcohol consumption among heavier drinkers may be stable or rising while average consumption declines. This paper extends the geographical focus of previous research and examines whether the decline in youth drinking is consistent across the consumption distribution in England. Design Quantile regression of 15 waves of repeat cross‐sectional survey data. Setting: England, 2001–16. Participants: A total of 31 882 schoolchildren (50.7% male) aged 11–15 who responded to the Smoking Drinking and Drug Use among Young People surveys. Measurements Past‐week alcohol consumption in UK units at each fifth percentile of the consumption distribution. Findings Reductions in alcohol consumption occurred at all percentiles of the consumption distribution analysed between 2001 and 2016, but the magnitude of the decline differed across percentiles. The decline in consumption at the 90th percentile [β = −0.21, confidence interval (CI) = −0.24, −0.18] was significantly larger than among either lighter drinkers at the 50th percentile (β = −0.02, CI = −0.02, −0.01) or heavier drinkers at the 95th percentile (β = −0.16, CI = −0.18, −0.13). Conclusions: Alcohol consumption among young people in England appears to be declining across the consumption distribution, and peaks among heavy drinkers. The magnitude of this decline differs significantly between percentiles of the consumption distribution, with consumption falling proportionally less among the lightest, moderate and very heaviest youth drinkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on UK data from an international, comparative project involving eight countries. The study examined how social workers' conceptions and definitions of family impact on the way they engage with complex families, and how social policies that frame social work context impact on the way social workers engage with families. Focus groups were held in which social workers from four service areas (child welfare, addictions, mental health and migration) were asked to discuss a case vignette. Several factors were embedded in the vignette to represent a realistic situation a social worker may come across in their day-to-day work. Social workers clearly identified the complexity of the family's situation in terms of the range of issues identified and candidate 'causes'. However, typical first responses were institutional, looking for triggers that would signify certainty about their, or other agencies' involvement. This resulted in a complicated story, through which the family was disaggregated into individual problem-service categories. This paper argues that understanding these processes and their consequences is critical for exploring the ways in which we might develop alternative, supportive professional responses with families with complex needs. It also demonstrates how organisational systems manifest themselves in everyday reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mistrust of women has been an enduring feature of trials for sexual offences, both historically and in the present day, but is not a transhistorical phenomenon. This article explores the late-Victorian and Edwardian courts, in which there was a renewed tendency to question female respectability and to judge complainants for failing adequately to resist a man's sexual advances. Scholars have identified broad social trends that led to greater interrogation of female sexual behaviour during this period, but there remains limited understanding of the mechanisms by which these concerns entered the courtroom. This article focuses on the rise of a medico-legal framework for investigating sexual violence as one such mechanism. Drawing upon newspaper reports and court cases from Middlesex, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Devon in the period 1850–1914, it shows that medical witnesses often implicitly reinforced social models of 'real' victimhood — which excluded many complainants — through their testimony on female chastity and resistance. Forensic medicine operated as an important, and increasingly unique, bridge between English social change and local courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the market for teachers in England, in particular teacher turnover. We show that there is a positive raw association between the level of school disadvantage and the turnover rate of its teachers. This association diminishes as we control for school, pupil and local teacher labour market characteristics, but is not eliminated. The remaining association is largely accounted for by teacher characteristics, with the poorer schools hiring much younger teachers on average. We interpret this market equilibrium allocation as either deriving from the preferences of young teachers, or as reflecting the low market attractiveness of disadvantaged schools. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Marginal spaces are increasingly being taken up for commercial use in London. This includes railway arches, which are appropriated for many different social and economic activities. This article presents the findings of a study on 165 arches in three London neighbourhoods (Hackney, Bethnal Green and Bermondsey), which found the arches to host a disproportionate amount of manufacturing, in addition to concentrations of sectors such as food and drink; and taxi services. Despite being part of Britain's industrial heritage, the arches have proved highly adaptable 'hybrid' spaces supporting office, retail, wholesale and production. They are also modular - businesses move into neighbouring arches as they expand. The arches are therefore well-suited to the postfordist economy of the inner city, which incorporates a highly networked system of small-scale manufacturers and retailers that require flexible and affordable small spaces close to commercial centres. Being arranged side-by-side, and open onto the street, they support knowledge-sharing between firms, while also bringing life to neighbourhoods. The arches have a spatial/functional configuration that might be copied in new forms of industrial development. Indeed, they suggest the possibility of a new spatial form - 'industrial streets' as opposed to industrial estates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Studies 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.)

Aim To explore ethnic inequalities in periodontal disease among British adults, and the role of socioeconomic position ( SEP) in those inequalities. Methods We analysed data on 1925 adults aged 16-65 years, from the East London Oral Health Inequality ( ELOHI) Study, which included a random sample of adults living in an ethnically diverse and socially deprived area. Participants completed a questionnaire and were clinically examined for the number of teeth with periodontal pocket depth ( PPD)≥4 mm and loss of attachment ( LOA)≥4 mm. Ethnic inequalities in periodontal measures were assessed in negative binomial regression models before and after adjustment for demographic (gender and age groups) and SEP indicators (education and socioeconomic classification). Results Compared to White British, Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and Asian Others had more teeth with PPD≥4 mm whereas White East European, Black African and Bangladeshi had more teeth with LOA≥4 mm, after adjustments for demographic and SEP measures. The association of ethnicity with periodontal disease was moderated by education, but not by socioeconomic classification. Stratified analysis showed that ethnic disparities in the two periodontal measures were limited to more educated groups. Conclusion This study showed considerable ethnic disparities in periodontal disease between and within the major ethnic categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When historians discuss the impact of examinations on elementary education in mid-Victorian England and Wales they typically focus on the Revised Code of 1862. The Revised Code is famous for instituting a policy of "payment-by-results" for teachers in state-supported voluntary schools. "Payment-by-results" made government grants to schools -- and, by extension, for teachers' salaries -- contingent upon student attendance and pass rates in reading, writing and arithmetic. As this article emphasises, however, "payment-by-results" was not the first, or even the most significant, instance in which competitive examination was used by the state as an instrument for establishing the pedagogical fitness and salaries of teachers. Less often explored by historians is the formative role that state-mandated competitive examinations for teachers played in developing a professionally aspirant body of schoolteachers and, consequently, the schoolteachers' later role in developing competitive examination as a broad-scale national accreditation apparatus. But while the use of competitive examinations came to shape modern British academic and professional life in fundamental ways, the strengthening effects that they had for certain occupations and institutions, such as physicians, civil servants and middle-class secondary schools, were in fact ultimately denied to state teachers and the elementary education sector generally. With the introduction of "payment-by-results" in 1862, competitive examinations were converted into an instrument that weakened rather than strengthened teachers' professional identity and policy influence. This article explains how the nineteenth-century English state structured examinations and examination results to manipulate the professional status of teachers in order to suit state priorities during different stages of national development. This historical narrative is framed in reference to present-day examination-based reforms of teacher compensation systems such as performance-related-pay and value-added modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hospital discharge is a vulnerable transitional stage in patient care. This qualitative study investigated the views of healthcare professionals and patients about the threats to safe hospital discharge with aim of identifying contributory and latent factors. The study was undertaken in two regional health and social care systems in the English National Health Service, each comprising three acute hospitals, community and primary care providers and municipal social care services. The study focused on the threats to safe discharge for hip fracture and stroke patients as exemplars of complex care transitions.Methods: A qualitative study involving narrative interviews with 213 representative stakeholders and professionals involved in discharge planning and care transition activities. Narratives were analysed in line with 'systems' thinking to identify proximal (active) and distal (latent) factors, and the relationships between them.Results: Three linked categories of commonly and consistently identified threat to safe discharge were identified: (1) 'direct' patient harms comprising falls, infection, sores and ulceration, medicines-related issues, and relapse; (2) proximal 'contributing' factors including completion of tests, assessment of patient, management of equipment and medicines, care plan, follow-up care and patient education; and distal 'latent' factors including discharge planning, referral processes, discharge timing, resources constraints, and organisational demands.Conclusion: From the perspective of stakeholders, the study elaborates the relationship between patient harms and systemic factors in the context of hospital discharge. It supports the importance of communication and collaboration across occupational and organisational boundaries, but also the challenges to supporting such communication with the inherent complexity of the care system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stenhouse's original vision of teacher research incorporated a strong emphasis on curriculum construction, interpretation and evaluation. This curricular emphasis is less prevalent in the present in the dominant 'professional development' and 'what works' traditions of teacher research. It is shown here, however, that this curricular focus has been maintained in the published discourse of history teachers in England. Using a citation analysis to illuminate the growth of professional knowledge, this paper shows how curricular issues drove history-teacher published discourse between 2004 and 2013, and how this discourse drew upon a highly subject-specific knowledge base in this period. Research by teachers in a tradition of 'curriculum theorising', it is argued here, could prove to be a powerful component in establishing a more systematic knowledge base for the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses early years education policy in England from 1918 to 1972, applying the theoretical ideas of John Kingdon. Throughout this period, the educational needs of young children were a low political priority, but they did occasionally rise on the agenda. When the issue gained prominence, politicians considered two key policy alternatives for potential investment: the expensive, self-governing nursery school, orientated towards promoting children’s physical health, and the cheaper nursery class, attached to an infant school, perhaps better at easing transition to formal education. After an initial period of damaging indecisiveness, the choice fell first on nursery schools and then on nursery classes. The reason that such fundamental changes in approach were possible was that an underlying lack of political commitment meant policies were only ever partially implemented. This chaotic pattern of development has had a damaging effect on the coherence of early years services offered today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The contract for the construction of the chapel of the Blessed Virgin in the cemetery of Holy Trinity, Southchurch, Essex, is probably the earliest surviving building contract in England. It dates from 1293 and recounts the instructions of Sir Peter de Southchurch for the construction of a large, freestanding chapel for his father's burial. The chapel does not survive, if it was ever built, and the contract has been almost entirely disregarded by scholars, including L. F. Salzman, with the exception of some local historians of the 1920s–40s. Its significance for our understanding of contracting for building work, gentry culture and the construction of detached chapels has been wholly overlooked. This paper includes a new transcription and translation of the document. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In April 1981, Black youth in the South London neighborhood of Brixton participated in a two-day riot that resulted in numerous injuries and widespread property damage in an already economically depressed area. Immediately after the event, many politicians, including new Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, labeled the ‘disorder’ as wanton lawlessness; a framing that has, in many circles, scholarly and popular persisted. However, activists at the time attempted to locate the Brixton riot within a history of institutional racism endemic to all levels of English society. This paper situates the Brixton riot within the context of Section IV of the 1824 Vagrancy Act, which shaped the lives of Black youth in the 1970s and early 1980s, and demonstrates the level to which Black people were historically marginalized in English society in the post-World War II period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented which discusses the English legislation known as the Heresy Ordinance of 1648, including its role in limiting religious freedom and religious toleration during the English Civil War of 1642 through 1649. An overview of the debate in the British Parliament's House of Commons over the Heresy Ordinance, including the role that Presbyterian members of parliament (MPs) played in this regard, is provided.

English courts are frequently criticised for their flexible approach to the finding of implied choice and the use of the escape clause in the context of the Rome I Regulation/Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations. This paper argues that such criticism is misplaced. Based on empirical evidence, the article shows that those choice of law decisions are directly influenced by their procedural context and respond to the need to balance the multiple policy issues generated by international commercial litigation. In particular, English decisions need to be assessed in light of three distinct factors: the standard of proof required at different stages of the procedure in England, the national policy to promote England as a center for commercial dispute resolution and the incentives to export English law in certain strategic industries. The use of implied choice and the escape clause to achieve these ends constitutes a legitimate practice that does not frustrate the aims of the EU choice of law regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Post-Medieval Archaeology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd 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.)

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]

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]

In January 2012, Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond announced a radical measure that would see every Scottish school student study a Scottish text from a prescribed list. In 2010, Michael Gove announced that ‘Our literature is the best in the world’ and that every pupil should study particular authors. The ‘cultural heritage’ model of English is increasingly dismissed by teachers and students However, it is this ‘cultural heritage’ model which is preserved in the discourse of politicians. This paper explores the role that literary heritage texts play in the discourse of education policy in the context of devolution in twenty-first century Britain and considers the drivers and differences which can be seen in England and Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that direct control of the early years literacy curriculum recently exercised by politicians in England has made the boundaries between research, policy and practice increasingly fragile. It describes how policy came to focus most effort on the use of synthetic phonics programmes in the early years. It examines why the Clackmannanshire phonics intervention became the study most frequently cited to justify government policy and suggests a phonics research agenda that could more usefully inform teaching. It argues that, whilst academics cannot control how their research is eventually used by policy-makers, learned societies can strengthen their ethics policies to set out clearer ground rules for academic researchers working across knowledge domains and with policy-makers. A stronger framework to guide the ethical interpretation of research evidence in complex education investigations would allow more meaningful conversations to take place within and across research communities, and with research users. The paper suggests some features for such a framework. [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]

This paper provides an edition of a stray duchy of Lancaster building account currently located in the archives of the Spalding Gentleman's Society and relating to building works at Pontefract castle. The roll contains what are referred to as 'the parcells' of account for the year 1406-07. Few such accounts survive for this period. Pontefract was an important centre under Henry IV, having housed the deposed Richard II until his death. The work being done at the castle was part of the rebuilding of the quarters of Robert Waterton, constable of Pontefract. Robert de Gamelston of Nottinghamshire is known from other sources as a quarryman and master mason, but this account extends the period for which he is known to have been active. Details of the quarries and of the work and wages of the masons, carpenters and smiths are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the legal structures of the pre-modern common law which ensured that money generally passed at nominal rates in payment transactions. The English sovereign changed the monetary standard many times during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries so that the purchasing power of the English currency changed markedly at identifiable stages. These changes seem to have left very little trace in the contemporaneous law reports. The article considers why changes in the monetary standard rarely presented a legal issue for common law judges. It argues that English law had a well-defined set of legal structures which ensured that money passed at nominal rates despite a change in the monetary standard. Given the way that payment clauses in common forms of transaction were formulated and actions in debt were pleaded, it would be difficult for a party to raise the change in the monetary standard as an issue for argument in a common law court. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the origins and traces the history of the Social Fund, an ideologically-motivated social policy departure of the Thatcher era. It identifies the controversy, in research communities amongst others, which surrounded the establishment of the Fund, and considers the evidence of recurring difficulties in its practical operation over a thirty-year period. It then turns to the Coalition administration in Westminster’s decision to divest itself of responsibility for key parts of the Fund, devolving such obligations to local authorities in England, the Parliament in Scotland and the Assembly in Wales. The paper sets out a comparison of the approaches being developed to discharge the Fund’s prior responsibilities in the three nations. It concludes that the essential policy thrust lies in a determination to roll back central state obligations in poverty relief and income maintenance which had hitherto been accepted by all post-war administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses violence among workmen and employers in the light metal trades in Sheffield, England, during the 1850s and 1860s known as the "Sheffield Outrages." The article also examines manifestations of the violence resulting in petty violence, theft, and vandalism that were called "rattenings." The article also discusses relations between social classes in Sheffield during the 1850s and 1860s and the relationship between class relations and escalating violence. The article discusses the concept of the moral economy, social protest, and the labor movement during the Victorian era.

In this article, I examine the narratives of migrant Pakistani men in their fifties and sixties, who became chronically ill over the course of their working lives in London. The men's life histories show that the body, and in particular the labouring body, needs more sustained attention in migration studies. Their narratives tell of how the physical toll of industrial labour resulted in chronic ill health, unemployment and various forms of 'redundant masculinities'. Moreover, the impoverishment that frequently followed from ill health ate away at local social status and transnational relationships. I argue that the existing work on transnationalism has normalized the experiences of an entrepreneurial migrant elite and obscured those of migrants who are bound to one place by force of circumstance. Chronic ill health is not merely the experience of a minority who fall between the cracks of epidemiological studies on 'healthy migrants', as some have recently suggested, but rather, common to industrial labour migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the consequences for English planning and planners of reforms to planning and wider governance processes under the Labour administrations of 1997-2010. It reports on a research project concerned with planning as a profession, which included a literature review and interviews with practitioners to identify the main pressures on planning practice. It concludes that, despite the reform intentions to widen planners' remits, other governance processes such as managerialism, outsourcing and corporatism more commonly reduced the discretionary space for public sector planners to act. Such space was instead taken up by the private sector, intermediaries and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses upon the St Anns neighbourhood in Nottingham, a community first studied by Ken Coates and Bill Silburn in the 1960s which noted the great upheavals of the physical and social changes generated by the slum clearance programme of 10,000 back-to-back terraced houses, and the consequent building of the concrete council estate that is now St Anns. This paper draws upon both the physical and the social changes within the neighbourhood, and highlights what has remained constant despite the massive upheavals to working-class life over the last 40 years. This paper looks at the concept of belonging to a neighbourhood which has been stigmatized, finding value and an identity within the estate, and residents describing themselves as simultaneously and interchangeably as being from and simply being St Anns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of judge-made law (case law) by English royal justices during the thirteenth century and its impact on the common law in Great Britain in the twenty-first century. An analysis of the influence exerted by Roman law and canon law on the British common law system is also addressed, including an examination of the legal treatise "De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ" ("On the Laws and Customs of England") which is commonly referred to as the "Bracton."

Copyright of Imago Mundi 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.)

Copyright of Rivista Italiana di Educazione Familiare is the property of Firenze University Press 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.)

In the north of England, during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Whit walks represented a public celebration of religious witness by individual Sunday schools, holding colourful processions through industrial streets. Little academic work has previously been done on this phenomenon, although there is scattered evidence available at the local level. The existence of sets of interviews with elderly people, however, has enabled a systematic analysis of their recollections to be carried out, supported by local newspaper reports over an extended period. This article highlights the changing nature of these religious celebrations, set against the social and cultural background of the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What effect did the dramatic expansion in long distance trade in the early modern period have on healthcare in England? This article presents new evidence on the scale, origins and content of English imports of medical drugs between 1567 and 1774. It shows that the volume of imported medical drugs exploded in the seventeenth century, and continued growing more gradually over the eighteenth century. The variety of imported drugs changed more slowly. Much was re-exported, but estimates of dosages suggest that some common drugs (for example, senna, Jesuits' Bark) were available to the majority of the population in the eighteenth century. English demand for foreign drugs provides further evidence for a radical expansion in medical consumption in the seventeenth century. It also suggests that much of this new demand was met by purchasing drugs rather than buying services. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the 1930s, Labour-dominated boroughs in central London embarked on an experiment in health and social transformation, at the centre of which was the construction of new health centres. The ‘all-in’ state-run health centres in Bermondsey, Finsbury, Southwark and Woolwich attempted to provide a comprehensive array of primary and preventive health services to working people and families, close to home or work. The centres shared a model of health with several principles in common: a notion of health improvement as linked to broader social transformation through the enhancement of urban space; a seamless integration of preventive and curative health services; care delivered by multidisciplinary teams; accessibility (spatially and economically); didactic education in self-care; and democratic local governance. This paper argues that these Labour borough councils, with the support of the London County Council after 1934, played a key role in ‘making real’ what had been an amorphous health centre ideal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented which discusses the commercialization of leisure in eighteenth-century England and the rhetoric of diversion throughout English literature at the time. An overview of English leisure, including the patronizing of coffeehouses, reading, and the differences between popular and polite leisure, is presented.

Background: With increased governmental interest in value assessment of technologies and where medical device manufacturers are finding it increasingly necessary to become more familiar with economic evaluation methods, the study sought to explore the levels of health economics knowledge within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to scope strategies they employ to demonstrate the value of their products to purchasers. Methods: A short questionnaire was completed by participants attending one of five workshops on product development in the medical device sector that took place in England between 2007 and 2011. From all responses obtained, a large proportion of participants were based in SMEs (N = 43), and these responses were used for the analysis. Statistical analysis using non-parametric tests was performed on questions with approximately interval scales. Qualitative data from participant responses were analysed to reveal emerging themes. Results: The questionnaire results revealed that 60% of SME participants (mostly company directors or managers, including product or project managers) rated themselves as having low or no knowledge of health economics prior to the workshops but the rest professed at least medium knowledge. Clinical trials and cost analyses or cost-effectiveness studies were the most highly cited means by which SMEs aim to demonstrate value of products to purchasers. Purchasers were perceived to place most importance on factors of safety, expert opinion, cost-effectiveness and price. However many companies did not utilise formal decision-making tools to prioritise these factors. There was no significant dependence of the use of decision-making tools in general with respect to professed knowledge of health economics methods. SMEs did not state a preference for any particular aspect of potential value when deciding whether to develop a product. A majority of SMEs stated they would use a health economics tool. Research and development teams or marketing and sales departments would most likely use one. Conclusion: This study points to the need for further research into the education requirements of SMEs in the area of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and also for investigation into how SMEs engage with existing HTA processes as required by assessors such as NICE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The making of worsteds was critical to the economic success of Norwich from 1400 to 1550, replacing woollens as the town's main industry. Critical to this success was the development of very high quality double worsted, woven and finished to give it qualities similar to silk. It was used for both clothing and home furnishings. In the second half of the fifteenth century double worsted became an important and profitable export. Double worsted declined in the second quarter of the sixteenth century as cheaper, continental light draperies entered the market. Historians have underestimated the importance of the double worsted, and have incorrectly viewed the early sixteenth century as a period of rapid decline. However, there is evidence that Norwich was reasonably successful in diversifying its worsted cloths to sustain its textile manufacturing, and that this prepared it for even greater success in the seventeenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]