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This article presents information on the fourth "Work, Employment and Society (WES) Conference," which was held in Manchester, England during September 1-3, 2004. The conference was hosted by the University of Manchester of England. WES 2004 was a lively and international three-day event. Over 200 delegates attended from 20 countries across Europe, North America and Australasia. They came from a variety of disciplines. The papers presented by the delegates represented subjects like anthropology, economics, geography, history and applied psychology.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the methodological challenges to evaluating one of the 50 vanguard sites of the new care model (NCM) programme for integrated care in England, and make the case for a modified realist approach to this kind of evaluation. Design/methodology/approach: The paper considers three challenges to evaluating the NCM in this particular vanguard: complexity, strategy and rhetoric. It reflects on how the realist approach negotiates these philosophical challenges to delivering integrated care, in order to provide contextualised accounts of who a programme works for, in what context, and why. Findings: The paper argues that, in the case of this particular vanguard site, the tangible benefit of the realist approach was not in providing a firm epistemological basis for evaluation, but rather in drawing out and articulating the ontological rhetoric of such large-scale transformation programmes. By understanding the work of the NCM less as an objective "system", and more as a dynamic form of persuasion, aimed at securing the "adherence of minds" (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 2008, p. 8) in multiple audiences, the paper suggests that realist evaluation can be used to address both the systematic issues and localised successes the NCMs encountered. Originality/value: The paper identifies a number of aspects of new models of integrated care for evaluators to consider. It offers ways of negotiating the challenges to conventional outcome-focused evaluation, by drawing attention to the need for contextualised, time-situated and audience-sensitive value of NCMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of resilience, loosely defined as the ability to withstand or to bounce back from adversity and disruption, is attracting increasing attention within the social sciences. Within the policy arena, local and community based resilience strategies are playing an important part in responses to the challenge of unpredictable and disruptive events. This short exploratory paper looks to add to the literature on community resilience by exploring the work of the Local Resilience Forums in England. The Local Resilience Forums are multi-agency partnerships made up of a range of agencies including the police authority, local authorities, the fire and rescue services, the National Health Service and the Environment Agency, that serve communities defined by the boundaries of police areas. The paper outlines definitions of resilience and of community resilience, provides an exploratory review of the characteristics and workings of the Local Resilience Forums and offers some concluding reflections on the employment of the concept at the community level and by the LRF's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an academic subject of study, death has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. Yet unlike other topics in the social sciences, death occupies a rather unique status as a research topic. A universal concern that affects everyone, this paper asks whether it is therefore ever possible to achieve a scholarly 'critical distance' from studying a place or people associated with death. Drawing on the author's experience of undertaking an ethnographic study of a London cemetery, the paper reflexively recounts the ways in which the author managed their own critical distance both in and outside of the field. The paper concludes that it is somewhat unrealistic to suggest that a scholar researching death can maintain a complete sense of detachment in light of their awareness of the mortal human condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual methods are often used in social science because of the potential for inclusivity and accessibility. In disability studies in particular, inclusive research is widely viewed as best practice and visual methods are often considered more accessible than traditional research methods. However, visual methods can encounter challenges at the stage of analysis: it is at this stage that either rigour or inclusivity are most likely to be compromised. This paper focuses on the use of interpretive engagement to overcome such challenges in the analysis of photovoice findings. Drawing on experience of using this method of analysis with 16 people with learning disabilities in the England, we first briefly outline some of the tensions that can emerge when attempting to improve inclusion in research, before going on to describe the analytic process used as way of addressing some of these tensions. The inclusiveness of interpretive engagement contributed to the rigour and meaningfulness of the findings by revealing layers of meaning which gave access to a multi-dimensional understanding of the phenomenon in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the specific institutional arrangements for realizing democratically accountable policing in England & Wales and the Netherlands. It assesses each accountability system against a set of "democratic criteria" and considers the implications for democratic policing of the current reform trajectories in both jurisdictions. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a cross-national approach exploring the relationship between policing and democratic institutions by comparing the democratic credentials of the police governance systems in England & Wales and the Netherlands. Findings – Current reforms to the police governance system in England & Wales aim to increase local elected influence over policing. By contrast, the Dutch system deliberately limits the degree of local electoral control over policing. The paper argues that there is a range of elements to democratic policing, and that "democratic accountability" should not be conflated with control of policing by elected bodies. Whilst the trajectories of reform in England & Wales and the Netherlands are going in opposite directions, each raises a number of "democratic" concerns. Research limitation/implications – The research is limited to only two developed European parliamentary democracies in the European Union. Further comparative research on democratic policing is required to expand the analysis to a wider variety of democratic contexts. Originality/value – To date, there has been little attention paid by policy makers or by academics to the form and nature of police governance in continental European countries. By drawing comparisons between England & Wales and the Netherlands, the paper aims to provide a democratic assessment of the two police accountability systems (and their current reform trajectories) and discuss some broad policy implications for police governance in each jurisdiction. Practical implications – Comparative analysis of police accountability in both England and Wales and the Netherlands provides potential for policy learning in each jurisdiction. The analysis suggests that both systems, in different ways, are currently at risk of over-emphasizing particular democratic criteria (such as electoral participation, or delivery of service) to the exclusion of others (such as concerns with equitable and fair policing and the protection of minority rights). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-national collaboration has been shaped by internationalization of scientific relationships. To study the synergic network of high quality research patterns, this paper collects a total of 300 top 50 items, in each indicator from the big database, Essential Science Indicators, which lists top-ranking papers, scientists and institutions from 2005 to 2015. First, the country level relations of co-authorship addresses in five indicator variables are extracted in the field of social sciences to build international collaboration networks. The social network analysis (SNA) method was applied to calculate the metrics of vertices, edges, average degree, average shortest path, diameter, clustering coefficient and betweenness centrality to illuminate the structural characters and collaboration patterns. Based on the international collaboration similarities, this paper also visualizes the endemic clustering groups of six networks, as cluster dendrograms, using Hierarchical Clustering (HC) method. Findings illustrate that USA, England and Canada are outstanding countries in the international collaboration networks of five indicators. There are geographical groups in European countries in the collaboration networks of scientists, institutes and countries/territories. It is also found that international collaboration contributes to both highly cited papers in the recent 10 years and hot papers in the recent 2 years in this field, rather than geographical similarity does. Those conclusions are critical for policy makers to produce guidelines on how to encourage researchers to build collaboration networks with high-level scholars in different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate social mobility processes affecting the lives of 15 young adults in Loughborough (aged 20-30) who experienced poverty and disadvantage as children. Using biographical narrations, the interactions between the labour market, welfare, educational institutions and familial relationships will form the framework for assessing the applicability of poverty 'transmission' theories and mechanisms. The paper's concluding comments highlight the complexity and vulnerability of young people's lives, reveal the structural and individual constraints on social mobility and address the role that institutions play in constructing the past and current life experiences of those young adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the treatment of ontology offered by critical realism. It addresses much of the material elaborated upon in two editions of this journal. Three main groups of criticisms are made here of the critical realist treatment of open systems. It is argued that critical realism, particularly in the project in economics emanating from Cambridge, UK, tends to define systems in terms of events. This definition is shown to be problematic. The exemplar of a closed system provided by critical realism of the solar system is shown to be flawed in that it is not closed according to the closure conditions identified by critical realism. Second, the negativity of the definitions adopted is problematic for heterodox traditions attempting to build positive programmes. Furthermore, the dualism of the definitions is also inconsistent with Dow's approach, which has ramifications for the coherence of post Keynesianism. Third, the definitions tend to polarize open and closed systems and ignore the degrees of openness evident in reality. The polarization of systems leads to polarized methodology and unsustainable arguments to reject so-called “closed-systems methods.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two significant moments in sexual minority citizenship in England and Wales in relation to one of the Marshallian sets of rights, namely, civil or legal rights, focusing specifically on the Sex Offences legislation and policing practices. The first moment that will be examined here is the process whereby homosexual acts were decriminalized in the 1950s and 1960s: here special attention will be paid to the recommendations made by the Wolfenden Committee. The second moment is one we are currently experiencing, which is associated with the inclusive policing of sexual minority communities (especially lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities) under the provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and in the review of Sex Offences, especially in the consultation paper (Home Office 2000) and White Paper (Home Office 2002) associated with this review. Privacy and toleration dominate the first moment, at the same time it shall be demonstrated that privacy is also central to the British Sexual Citizenship literatures that have emerged in sociology in the post Wolfenden context. However, as the title suggests, the second moment under examination points to the emergence of a rather more extensive sexual minority citizenship beyond the boundaries of ‘homosexual privacy’ (which British Sexual Citizenship Studies is not currently engaging with) and perhaps even beyond the boundaries of toleration through ever more ‘inclusive’ policing strategies and through the review of sex offences in which many discriminatory laws are being ‘de-homosexualized’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For pilot or experimental employment programme results to apply beyond their test bed, researchers must select ‘clusters’ (i.e. the job centres delivering the new intervention) that are reasonably representative of the whole territory. More specifically, this requirement must account for conditions that could artificially inflate the effect of a programme, such as the fluidity of the local labour market or the performance of the local job centre. Failure to achieve representativeness results in Cluster Sampling Bias (CSB). This paper makes three contributions to the literature. Theoretically, it approaches the notion of CSB as a human behaviour. It offers a comprehensive theory, whereby researchers with limited resources and conflicting priorities tend to oversample ‘effect-enhancing’ clusters when piloting a new intervention. Methodologically, it advocates for a ‘narrow and deep’ scope, as opposed to the ‘wide and shallow’ scope, which has prevailed so far. The PILOT-2 dataset was developed to test this idea. Empirically, it provides evidence on the prevalence of CSB. In conditions similar to the PILOT-2 case study, investigators (1) do not sample clusters with a view to maximise generalisability; (2) do not oversample ‘effect-enhancing’ clusters; (3) consistently oversample some clusters, including those with higher-than-average client caseloads; and (4) report their sampling decisions in an inconsistent and generally poor manner. In conclusion, although CSB is prevalent, it is still unclear whether it is intentional and meant to mislead stakeholders about the expected effect of the intervention or due to higher-level constraints or other considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Audio recording interviews, focus groups, and naturally occurring interactions have been utilised by social researchers for decades. Yet, the use of audio recordings as a tool to elicit participant responses has received less attention in social science research. This is despite heightened interest in non-traditional techniques such as the use of visual methodologies, and arts-based methods. In this article, I describe how I advanced a known method, vignettes, into an audio narrative to explore perceptions of sex work. This article reports on the methodological rationale for the novel use of audio vignettes, and the capacity they have for memory retrieval, eliciting reflections on lived experiences, and for providing richer attitudinal data. By drawing on 'accessibility theory', this article argues that audio vignettes are a powerful elicitor of attitudes. Furthermore, I claim that audio methods as I define them, can enhance the social scientists' toolkit and that, what I term 'audio sociology' needs further development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results from a questionnaire on academic writing which was sent to a representative sample of 75 academics at the University of Keele, England, and 100 academics at the University of Waterloo, Canada. The response rate from each institution was low (41 and 34% respectively) but higher than that reported in earlier research. An analysis of the results obtained, comparing arts, social science and science faculties is presented, together with a discussion of the findings, their instructional implications and their limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the magnitude of urban-rural differentials in infant mortality in England during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and also compares the timing of decline for a selection of towns of varying size, and their immediate rural hinterlands. Most towns continued to experience short-term fluctuations in infant mortality until the very end of the nineteenth century; however, in some of the adjacent rural communities - where levels of infant mortality were much lower - conditions were sufficiently favourable to allow a continuous decline in infant mortality from at least the 1860s, if not before. The final part of the paper considers the causes of these patterns and their implications for explanations of infant mortality decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patient and public involvement (PPI) is a requirement for UK health and social care research funding. Evidence for how best to implement PPI in research programmes, such as National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaborations for Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs), remains limited. This paper reports findings from an action research (AR) project called IMPRESS, which aims to strengthen PPI within CLAHRC East of England (EoE). IMPRESS combines AR with Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) to explore PPI within diverse case study projects, identifying actions to implement, test and refine to further embed PPI. Methods: We purposively selected CLAHRC EoE case study projects for in-depth analysis of PPI using NPT. Data were generated from project PPI documentation, semi-structured qualitative interviews with researchers and PPI contributors and focus groups. Transcripts and documents were subjected to abductive thematic analysis and triangulation within case. Systematic across case comparison of themes was undertaken with findings and implications refined through stakeholder consultation. Results: We interviewed 24 researchers and 13 PPI contributors and analysed 28 documents from 10 case studies. Three focus groups were held: two with researchers (n = 4 and n = 6) and one with PPI contributors (n = 5). Findings detail to what extent projects made sense of PPI, bought in to PPI, operationalised PPI and appraised it, thus identifying barriers and enablers to fully embedded PPI. Conclusion: Combining NPT with AR allows us to assess the embeddedness of PPI within projects and programme, to inform specific local action and report broader conceptual lessons for PPI knowledge and practice informing the development of an action framework for embedding PPI in research programmes. To embed PPI within similar programmes teams, professionals, disciplines and institutions should be recognised as variably networked into existing PPI support. Further focus and research is needed on sharing PPI learning and supporting innovation in PPI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the centrality of regions in social movements, politics and public administration, here we aim to quantitatively study regional identity, cross-region communication and sentiment. This paper presents a new methodology to study social interaction within and between social-geographic regions, and then applies the methodology to a case study of England and Wales. We use a social network, built from geo-located Twitter data, to identify contiguous geographical regions with a shared social identity and then investigate patterns of communication within and between them. In contrast to other approaches (e.g. using phone call data records or online friendship networks), use of Twitter data provides message contents as well as social connections. This allows us to investigate not only the volume of communication between locations, but also the sentiment and vocabulary used in the messages. For example, our case study shows: a significant dialect difference between England and Wales; that regions tend to be more positive about themselves than about others, with the South being more ‘self-regarding’ than the North; and that people talk politics much more between regions than within. This study demonstrates how social media can be used to quantify regional identity and inter-region communications and sentiment, exposing these previously hard-to-observe geographic concepts to analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthworms are primary candidates for national soil health monitoring as they are ecosystem engineers that benefit both food production and ecosystem services associated with soil security. Supporting farmers to monitor soil health could help to achieve the policy aspiration of sustainable soils by 2030 in England; however, little is known about how to overcome participation barriers, appropriate methodologies (practical, cost-effective, usefulness) or training needs. This paper presents the results from a pilot #60minworms study which mobilised farmers to assess over >1300 ha farmland soils in spring 2018. The results interpretation framework is based on the presence of earthworms from each of the three ecological groups at each observation (20 x 20 cm x 20 cm pit) and spatially across a field (10 soil pits). Results showed that most fields have basic earthworm presence and abundance, but 42% fields may be over-worked as indicated by absence/rarity of epigeic and/or anecic earthworms. Tillage had a negative impact (p < 0.05) on earthworm populations and organic matter management did not mitigate tillage impacts. In terms of farmer participation, Twitter and Farmers Weekly magazine were highly effective channels for recruitment. Direct feedback from participants included excellent scores in trust, value and satisfaction of the protocol (e.g. 100% would do the test again) and 57% would use their worm survey results to change their soil management practices. A key training need in terms of earthworm identification skills was reported. The trade-off between data quality, participation rates and fieldwork costs suggests there is potential to streamline the protocol further to #30minworms (5 pits), incurring farmer fieldwork costs of approximately £1.48 ha-1. At national scales, £14 million pounds across 4.7 M ha-1 in fieldwork costs per survey could be saved by farmer participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community gardens are enjoying a renaissance, thought to be due to people's desire to reconnect with food, nature and community. This paper presents results from an exploratory investigation of two community gardens in Nottingham, supported by regional and national contextual analysis. It examines the nature and construction of 'community' in community gardens and how they benefit their local communities. Results from case-study work show how community gardens help to build cohesion and vitality in a community, contributing to the generation of bonding, bridging and linking social capital. The composition of these capitals varies between the case-study gardens, dependent on the type of community formed. Two categories of community garden are identified in the paper: 'place-based' and 'interest-based'. The former are more territorially embedded in the local community, while the latter may span across diverse communities, with the social capital generated remaining within an 'interest community'. These categories may not always map neatly on to one community garden, although one category may be more immediately evident. The article also suggests directions for future research, including complementary research frameworks to further develop understandings of social capital metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an account of the general political strategy behind the new 14-19 diplomas in England. It considers the rationale and the design process associated with one particular diploma - the Diploma for Humanities and Social Sciences - a qualification that is intended to combine vocational and academic content and purposes. The article reviews the research and consultation activity that supported the design and examines what it contributed and how this bears upon the future success of the diploma. By way of conclusion, it is argued that the increased role for research and consultation in diploma design suggests the way forward for more democratic models of qualification making which, if done well, could lead to more valid qualifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers relationships between landscape, transport technology and mobility in order to explore how the making of landscape, engineering practice and geographical knowledge are mutually constituted in landscapes of improvement. It examines work by the engineer William Jessop (1745–1814) and focuses specifically on his plans to make the River Trent navigable in the period 1781–91. The paper adopts metaphors of region, fluid and network from the sociology of mobility. It argues that these metaphors usefully inform the study of transport technologies and their related practices and knowledges, in the context of landscape as a mode of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the political revolution of 1835 in England. The Great Reform Bill of 1832 has had electoral impact. The reform bill has altered England's political landscape by politicizing the electorate to a degree and on a scale unimaginable. Municipal reforms in 1835 have changed the politics of towns in England.

This paper describes the evaluation of a three year Initiative run by the YMCA. The aim of the Initiative was to set up 30 different projects in YMCA centres in England, to provide help and support to the parents of teenagers. The Initiative was evaluated by the Trust for the Study of Adolescence. Funding was agreed for 29 projects, which included group-based courses, ‘Dads and Lads’ projects, mediation schemes, transition evenings, and families and computing courses. A variety of outcomes from these projects are identified, both for parents, young people, project workers, and the YMCA as an organisation. Key issues and learning points from the Initiative are also identified. Finally, some general comments are made about strategies to provide support to the parents of teenagers. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the seventh one-day symposium on social aspects of death, dying and bereavement on November 27, 1997 at the Open University, Milton Keynes, England. The morning's program included ethnographically based studies into the management of death in three distinctive settings such as residential and nursing homes for elderly people, in intensive medical care units and in hospital and hospice care for members of South Asian communities in Great Britain. The early afternoon's program presented two theoretical papers exploring the cultural construction of death in contemporary society.

This paper was originally planned as an abstract of the introduction to a book on the coordination of the social sciences. It was written out in its present form as a contribution to the discussions at the conference on the same topic, held at Oxford, England, in October 1922. Unfortunately it arrived just too late for use at the conference; but it was kept in hand. The task of preparing the paper for the printer has not been altogether easy; for the author is now in India, and it has been impossible to consult him on a number of points, some of them important. The author has not hesitated to make slight changes in choice and order of words, and arrangement of matter, where he seemed to see clearly that improvement was possible. In some other respects slight changes have been necessary to meet printing difficulties. The author trusts, however, that the ideas, which the author is earnest to place before his readers, have in no way been obscured by these changes. It is impossible to foretell how far a contribution on such original lines will have authority with the sociologists of to-day.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted ethnic minorities in the global north, evidenced by higher rates of transmission, morbidity, and mortality relative to population sizes. Orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods in London had extremely high SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence rates, reflecting patterns in Israel and the US. The aim of this paper is to examine how responsibilities over health protection are conveyed, and to what extent responsibility is sought by, and shared between, state services, and 'community' stakeholders or representative groups, and families in public health emergencies. The study investigates how public health and statutory services stakeholders, Orthodox Jewish communal custodians and households sought to enact health protection in London during the first year of the pandemic (March 2020–March 2021). Twenty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted across these cohorts. Findings demonstrate that institutional relations – both their formation and at times fragmentation – were directly shaped by issues surrounding COVID-19 control measures. Exchanges around protective interventions (whether control measures, contact tracing technologies, or vaccines) reveal diverse and diverging attributions of responsibility and authority. The paper develops a framework of public health relations to understand negotiations between statutory services and minority groups over responsiveness and accountability in health protection. Disaggregating public health relations can help social scientists to critique who and what characterises institutional relationships with minority groups, and what ideas of responsibility and responsiveness are projected by differently-positioned stakeholders in health protection. • COVID-19 produced diverse responses and relations around health protection in London. •Pandemic preparedness can be enhanced by mapping possible partners in localities. •Establishing public health partnerships requires adequate resources. •Public health services cannot defer responsibility entirely to local partners. •Households are key constituents of public health relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper draws on a case study of led group walks in the South-East of England to explore the affective potency of shared movement for producing therapeutic landscapes (landscapes that through placed practices become associated with health and healing). The paper addresses the lack of attention to embodiment and movement in work on therapeutic landscapes through an exploration of how shared movement can produce supportive social spaces that are experienced as restorative. Drawing on an expansive conception of mobility inspired by the ‘mobilities turn’ in the social sciences in the last decade, the paper explores how the therapeutic landscape concept can be enriched by being approached through the lens of the body in movement. A complimentary concern in the paper is the ways in which supportive socialities and group dynamics are integral to many therapeutic landscape experiences. Walking together is found to have a significant impact on social interaction and together embodied mobilities and supportive socialities transform the countryside walkscape into a mobile therapeutic landscape and a site for shared therapeutic body work. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents interview survey data by social scientists using established health measures on the health effects of flooding for residents in 30 locations in England and Wales. Firstly, it examines the extent to which flooded residents reported suffering physical and psychological health effects during and after the event. Secondly, it explores the issue of whether these effects were long-lasting by comparisons with the general population and with those at risk but not flooded. In the study, about two thirds of the flood victims were found to have scores on the General Health Questionnaire-12 scale indicative of mental health problems (scores of 4+) at their worst time after flooding. The evidence of the study also suggests that some flood victims suffered long term mental health effects as a result of their experience of flooding. The study examines the influence of a wide range of factors: characteristics of the flood event, types of property, and socio-demographic and the intervening factors such as the extent of family or community support that may explain the health effects of flooding. It finds that a complex set of social and other factors are involved and that some factors susceptible to human intervention such as having adequate flood insurance cover are important factors in the stress experienced by flood victims.

The article discusses the highlights of the 1st International Visual Methods Conference held at the University of Leeds in England from September 15 to 17, 2009. The papers presented in the conference went beyond the orthodox social science disciplines and crossed into fields such as computer science and medicine. The event's keynote speaker, Professor Claudia Mitchell from McGill University in Canada, explored the way in which visual methods can be used to inform and help construct social policy agendas.

This paper was transcribed from a talk presented by David Kynaston at a seminar on Social Science Data Archives for Social Historians: creating, depositing and using qualitative data, organised jointly by the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) and the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), held at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London on 25 November 2003. This paper presents the author's experience of doing research for a social history of Britain between 1945 and 1979 using data and documentary evidence drawn from some of the classic sociology studies archived at ESDS Qualidata (University of Essex). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its formation in the early 1960s, the Northern Mine Research Society has been recording both surface and underground sites in the Yorkshire Dales and has maintained a list of sites, initially as a card index, now in the form of a database which has made a significant contribution to both the North Yorkshire and Yorkshire Dales National Park SMR records. Since the 1970s members of the society have developed methodologies for recording and understanding mining landscapes. In recent years this has involved using GPS to record significant areas of Grassington Moor, Greenhow Hill and Arkengarthdale. This is now being combined with detailed three dimensional underground surveys and historic mapping in a GIS environment to provide an integrated landscape record. This paper will outline the work done by the society and how it compares and relates to work carried out by the National Park. It will also detail the current methodology and approach to recording surface and underground sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many governments have introduced policies aimed at improving social mix, particularly in urban areas. In this article we develop a model of moving and location decisions, which demonstrates how cumulative processes of growth, decline and segregation occur that conflict with the aims of policies aimed at improving social mix. A nested multinomial logit model is estimated, using a micro data set for London and South East England to illustrate the likely outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the presence of anthropological reports and data in the National Archives at Kew in England. Preservation of unpublished materials in the archive that provide some interesting sidelights on the history of anthropological studies in Great Britain; Proliferation of items relating to anthropology in the Colonial Office papers; Relationship between anthropologists and government officials in the country.

Creative industries development has been underway in the city of Stoke-on-Trent for the past fifteen years. Two urban quarters, a creative industries network, 'design-led' regeneration initiatives, and live-work spaces for craft businesses are some of the main projects undertaken in this period. In the past year, this raft of developments has been augmented by a creative industries mapping exercise, and a subsequent funding bid that seeks to draw on UK government and European structural funds in order to act on the research findings, and to put their recommendations into operation. This paper reviews this process both in terms of the political, economic, social, cultural and spatial context of the city, and in terms of broader urban agendas. It provides something of a corrective to the rather 'rose-tinted' picture often drawn of the role and significance of the creative industries for future economic and cultural well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines four main themes with respect to some problematic issues concerning the discipline of nursing, nursing scholarship and the social sciences. First, attention is directed to the controversial issues concerning nursing's search for a knowledge base. Second, a historical context is provided by drawing attention to some key developments between the quantitative and qualitative approaches to research in nursing. Third, the issue of the fundamental and attested difficulties in the application of qualitative methodologies is addressed. Finally, it is submitted that in the interest of nursing's future as a scholarly endeavour, the discipline should focus polemic attention on the body of knowledge already accumulated.

Constrained by estimated population totals and observed totals of births and deaths, estimates of age-structures from inverse projection have been widely used in historical demography. Back Projection attempted, by using hypothetical constraints on net- migration, to estimate the population totals as well, and has been used to derive `censuses' for England from 1541 to 1871. A wider formulation, called Generalised Inverse Projection, is proposed in this paper, which replaces back-projection and establishes its relation to Inverse Projection more clearly. Under the same assumptions as back projection, but using the new method, the estimates for England are virtually unchanged. This new method is capable of performing population projections, subject to a wide variety of hypothetical and empirical constraints, for contemporary as well as historical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the papers in this symposium were presented at a conference on the economics of information held at Stanford in April 1975, under the auspices of the National Science Foundation—National Bureau of Economic Research (four of the papers, those by Heal, Salop, Spence and Stiglitz, had been submitted to the Review earlier, but because of the similarity of topic, are published with the conference papers). The papers, though all related to the problems arising from costly information, are diverse both with respect to the question addressed, the techniques of analysis employed and the particular markets investigated. A basic theme running through most of the papers is that imperfect information alters, in a fundamental way, the conventional notion of a market, with buyers and sellers coming together to trade; in a full information equilibrium there is a single price, markets clear and all individuals and firms view themselves as price takers. The price charged is independent of the quantity purchased. Although the notion of the market-place is often thought of as an idealization, even when there is not a single market-place at which all transactions occur, the economy behaves as if there were a single market-place; this will be true so long as there are some arbitrageurs to make sure that the "law of single price" prevails. Finally, conventional theory has shown that under fairly weak conditions such a competitive equilibrium exists and is Pareto Optimal. Recent developments in the economics of information, including the papers presented here, have shown that ail of these statements are questionable. In the papers presented here, there is not a single price in equilibrium; firms do not act as price takers; prices do more than just clear markets—they convey information; prices charged may depend on the quantity purchased; competitive equilibrium may not exist and may not be Pareto Optimal. The basic character of how we ought to view the competitive economy is altered if we take seriously imperfections of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing social science interest in the potential for images to facilitate access to embodied experience, this study re-examines the relative value of visual and verbal methods in body-oriented research. Taking one lead from Kyrölä's (2016) idea of body image as the relationship between representation and corporeality, and another from Gendlin's (1993, 1995, 1997) methods for attending to and articulating from pre-reflective experience, we develop a method that juxtaposes words and images to explore the role of pre-reflective understanding on body image among teenage girls. The study highlights both an influencing role for pre-reflective understanding in body image and the availability of pre-reflective understanding to participants. While recognising persistent challenges in communicating embodied experience, we propose a method for engaging and working with embodied or pre-reflective experience in social science research by integrating the verbal and the visual in a specific way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In this viewpoint article, the authors consider the challenges in implementing restrictive policies, with a particular focus on how these policies are experienced, in practice, from alternative standpoints.Design/methodology/approach: The authors draw on social science studies of decommissioning work to highlight how patient and official versions of value often vary, creating difficulties and distrust as restrictive policies are implemented. Patients and the public are well aware that financial calculations are somehow embedded in concepts of "evidence" and "value" but are usually unfamiliar with the social infrastructures that produce and utilise such concepts. The authors discuss with reference to a contemporary restrictive programme in England.Findings: While policymakers and researchers frequently present restrictive policies as "win-win" scenarios (achieving both cost-savings for healthcare services and improved patient care), social science analyses highlight the potential for tensions and controversies between stakeholders. The authors recognise that cost containment is a necessary component of policymaking work but argue that policymakers and researchers should seek to map (and make visible) the socially organised reasoning, systems and processes that are involved in enacting restrictive policies. Although transparency may pose challenges, it is important for informed democratic engagement, allowing legitimate scrutiny of whose voices are being heard and interests served (the "winners" and "losers").Originality/value: The authors argue for social science analyses that explore overuse, value and restrictive practices from alternative (e.g. patient) standpoints. These can provide important insights to help identify priorities for intervention and support better communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention toward climate adaptation has been growing among governments over the past decade. In the European Union (EU) alone, nine countries have national plans for adaptation (with more in preparation), there are some 30 sub-national plans, and every Member State has policies to address adaptation. Given the recent attention given toward this subject a question that arises is: can climate change adaptation be considered a policy field? As a unit of analysis, policy fields are widely studied in the social sciences. However, the definition of policy fields such as environmental policy or agricultural policy is taken for granted. Oddly for such a common concept, very little attention is paid to what policy fields are in and of themselves or how they can be identified. Given these shortcomings, this article first attempts to fill this gap by theoretically defining what a policy field is by identifying and assigning their characteristics and dynamics. Based upon a literature review, it shows that policy fields are three-dimensional entities comprised of substantive authority, institutional order, and substantive expertise. The second task of this article is to apply this definition to adaptation policy activity in England and determine whether adaptation can be considered a policy field there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is in five parts. A discussion of the flaws in social science as seen from the viewpoint of medical science is followed by a consideration of what they hold in common--the shared institutions and ideal programme of Science. The major differences that still remain are then characterized in two further sections; the first concentrates on the issues raised by the human species' distinctive place in evolution, while the second discusses the problems and advantages created for social science by its necessary closeness to lay thought. We conclude with a summary of the difficulties involved in scientific progress in social science and some speculation concerning disciplinary re-alignment.

This paper reports on a project carried out by the author to assess strategies for hospital location in the Durham Health District, England. This project was set up in the context of a dispute on hospital strategy between the relevant Regional and Area Health Authorities and so the development of the dispute is outlined. This is followed by a summary of the work carried out in which some reservations about the techniques employed are put forward. The subsequent debates between the Regional and Area Health Authorities are also discussed. The paper concludes by raising more general issues concerning the role of the state and the use of knowledge in planning.

European conference on fieldwork for graduate students and junior researchers, will be held at the University of Oxford, from December 17-19, 2003. This conference on anthropological fieldwork organized by the Oxford University Anthropological Society and Anthropology Matters, drew over 70 postgraduate students from more than 25 British and European universities. There were 36 papers addressing a variety of issues and methodological problems, dominant among which were questions of place and ethical issues. Ethical issues were also raised in accounts of research in conflict situations. In her keynote lecture Judith Okely argued that textbooks and methodology courses often leave the people underprepared for the complexity of life and learning "in the field."

An established role for statistical social science is to try to uncover the extent to which aggregate behaviour is conditioned by context as exemplified by the work of Durkheim. A decade prior to Durkheim's seminal work, eleven 'laws' of human migratory behaviour were proposed by Ravenstein. In this paper we suggest an extension to this work, that: migration balances the relative worth of people to places over the course of human lifetimes; not in days, month or years: people follow the tides of life. We explore the concept of net cohort migration to demonstrate this for England and Wales, for which long-term quality datasets are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing realisation among scholars and policymakers of the role of local contextual factors and circumstances in influencing the behaviour of key economic agents, including the entrepreneur. This approach has stretched the boundaries of academic inquiry welt beyond mainstream conceptualisations of economic agency as isolated from its setting. An assumption that underpinned research and policymaking in the new learning is that economic activity is typically socially embedded, which is generally taken to imply local embeddedness. In our paper, drawing upon the findings of extensive research in rural Cumbria, we question this assumption. We argue that in the context of rural Cumbria, the conceptualisation of locality may go beyond territorial notions. This argument does not support a return to the notion of the isolated economic agent, but advocates a move forward to the detailed exploration of the interface between agency and context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Medicine finds human blood infinitely useful. It is a source of important and sometimes controversial information about individuals, their relatives and the general public. Blood also has economic value, carries a heavy cultural freight, and can transmit dangerous diseases. Yet there is precious little sociological analysis of how these radically different applications, potentials and significations are managed in health care settings where, it is no exaggeration to claim, everyday a vast quantity of blood is produced by venepuncture. This paper focuses on blood produced in hospitals for tests. The data were derived from 19 focus groups of patients, health care professionals, and members of the public, held between 2002 and 2003, in and around the obstetrics and gynaecology department of a large London teaching hospital. Not surprisingly, all the participants had had a blood test at some time or other. Yet their responses suggest no template exists for talking about them. No-one—lay or professional—had a full picture of how blood produced for tests circulates around the hospital. Lay people tended to envisage it as remaining in a liquid form whereas health care professionals saw it as materially and substantially transformed. Participants deployed a variety of ritual and rhetorical devices that devalue blood produced for tests. Nonetheless, blood left over from tests emerged as a significant anomoly, simultaneously an excess (waste), a challenge (to use wisely), or a potential crime (illegitimate research). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Focuses on the teachings of economics to university students at Cambridge University in England. Interests of students in mastering the theory and practice of the economic science; Benefits of economic studies; Importance of economics.

The article presents information on the "Eighth IHPST Group International Conference, to be held during July 15-18, 2005, in Leeds. The conference is being held in conjunction with the British History of Science Society conference. Sessions of both conferences will be available to participants, and there will be some shared social events. Professor Harry Collins, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Cardiff, will be one of the plenary speakers. He is the author of numerous papers in Science Studies and Science Communications.