The Research Commission on Poverty and Policy Advocacy: A Report from One of the BERA Research Commissions. Final Report

No abstract available

The Research Commission on Poverty and Policy Advocacy: A Report from One of the BERA Research Commissions. Summary Report

No abstract available

Caught in the conundrum: Neoliberalism and education in post-conflict Northern Ireland – Exploring shared education

Northern Ireland (NI) is emerging from a violent period in its troubled history and remains a society characterized by segregation between its two main communities. Nowhere is this more apparent than in education, where for the most part Catholic and Protestant pupils are educated separately. During the last 30 years there has been twofold pressure placed on the education system in NI – at one level to respond to intergroup tensions by promoting reconciliation, and at another, to deal with national policy demands derived from a global neoliberalist economic agenda. With reference to current efforts to promote shared education between separate schools, we explore the uneasy dynamic between a school-based reconciliation programme in a transitioning society and system-wide values that are driven by neoliberalism and its organizational manifestation – new managerialism. We argue that whilst the former seeks to promote social democratic ideals in education that can have a potentially transformative effect at the societal level, neoliberal priorities have the potential to both subvert shared education and also to embed it.</jats:p

Poverty and policy advocacy

No abstract available

Poverty policy and practice themes

No abstract available

Assessment and Social Justice

First paragraph: Social justice refers to the concept of a society affording individuals and groups fair treatment and an impartial share of the benefits of that society. It is crucial in relation to children and young people who have little control over their environment or circumstances, and have little say over much of what happens to them in schools in the name of testing and assessment

Relationship between emergency presentation, systemic inflammatory response, and cancer-specific survival in patients undergoing potentially curative surgery for colon cancer

Background Emergency presentation is recognized to be associated with poorer cancer-specific survival following curative resection for colorectal cancer. The present study examined the hypothesis that an enhanced systemic inflammatory response, prior to surgery, might explain the impact of emergency presentation on survival. Methods In all, 188 patients undergoing potentially curative resection for colorectal cancer were studied. Of these, 55 (29&#37;) presented as emergencies. The systemic inflammatory response was assessed using the Glasgow Prognostic Score (mGPS), which is the combination of an elevated C-reactive protein (&gt;10 mg/L) and hypoalbuminemia (&lt;35 g/L). Results In the emergency group, tumor stage was greater (P &lt; 0.01), more patients received adjuvant therapy (P &lt; 0.01) more patients had an elevated mGPS (P &lt; 0.01), and more patients died of their disease (P &lt; 0.05). The minimum follow-up was 12 months; the median follow-up of the survivors was 48 months. Emergency presentation was associated with poorer 3-year cancer-specific survival in those patients aged 65 to 74 years (P &lt; 0.01), in both males and females (P &lt; 0.05), in the deprived (P &lt; 0.01), in patients with tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage II disease (P &lt; 0.01), in those who received no adjuvant therapy (P &lt; 0.01), and in the mGPS 0 and 1 groups (P &lt; 0.05) groups. On multivariate survival analysis of patients undergoing potentially curative surgery for TNM stage II colon cancer, emergency presentation (P &lt; 0.05) and mGPS (P &lt; 0.05) were independently associated with cancer-specific survival. Conclusions These results suggest that emergency presentation and the presence of systemic inflammatory response prior to surgery are linked and account for poorer cancer-specific survival in patients undergoing potentially curative surgery for colon cancer. Both emergency presentation and an elevated mGPS should be taken into account when assessing the likely outcome of these patients