The DWP’s Updated Statistics on JSA Sanctions: What do they show?, Further supplementary evidence submitted to the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee Inquiry into the Role of Jobcentre Plus in the reformed welfare system, Second Report of Session 2013-14, HC 479, Vol. II, pp. Ev w111-w121

The delayed JSA sanctions statistics for the period 22 October 2012 to 30 June 2013, published by DWP on 6 November 2013, have remarkable implications which ought to be known to the Committee before finalising its report. The number of sanctions in the year to 30 June 2013 was 860,000, the highest for any 12-month period since statistics began to be published in their present form. Sanctions for not actively seeking work and for non-participation in training and employment schemes have risen further, while those for missing an interview and for refusing a job have fallen, the latter very sharply indeed. The latter suggests a dwindling focus within DWP on finding people jobs. Up to 30 June 2013, the number of job outcomes achieved by the Work Programme has been greatly exceeded by the number of sanctions imposed for non-participation. Contrary to what was claimed by Lord Freud prior to their introduction, 3-year sanctions have built up very quickly, with the 700 to date understating the rate now reached. In the two years since June 2011 there has been a massive rise in the number of ‘reserved’ or ‘cancelled’ JSA sanction decisions, suggesting that people are being driven off JSA by the sanctions regime. This in turn could explain why there has been a sharp increase in the gap between the number of unemployed people identified by the official Annual Population Survey, and the number in the claimant count. This has very serious implications and the DWP should be asked to provide a full explanation for the rapid increase in reserved and cancelled decisions. The total of reconsiderations under the Coalition has increased by 15,000 per month to a new high of 20,000 per month, representing a substantial redirection of DWP resources away from other tasks. Claimants’ success rate at reconsideration has reverted to its long-term level of about 50 per cent. However, Tribunals, which are not under the control of the Secretary of State, have raised the proportion of appeals decided in claimants’ favour from a long-term level of 17.0 per cent, up to 42.2 per cent in November 2012 to June 2013. This remarkable increase is strong evidence that large numbers of claimants are being wrongly sanctioned even in terms of current legislation. The fact that only 1.7 per cent of claimants appeal to a Tribunal – the only independent element in the system – indicates the need for urgent reform. Finally, the format used by DWP for its new statistics is wholly inadequate and involves a serious loss of information and accountability

Australian Legends: historical explorations of Australian masculinity and film 1970-1995.

The twin purpose of this research is to explore films as historically specific cultural texts, rather than representations of one historical moment, and to engage with historiographical debates surrounding representations of masculinity in Australian history. I do this to create a way of engaging with film and history where film is culturally representative of the past, not simply a depiction of a specific point in time. This study considers two films, George Miller's Mad Max (1979) and Stephan Elliot's The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) to explore the relationship over time between violence, masking and landscape with the representation of performative masculinity in an Australian context

Pedagogy : reconsiderations and reorientations.

This dissertation is a critical intervention into the question of student agency. An interdisciplinary project that draws upon philosophy and linguistics, it reviews four major tendencies that have animated composition pedagogy over the last several decades— process theory, social-constructivism, procedural rhetoric, and trans-lingual pedagogies— and identifies some of the key tensions that both motivate and problematize these approaches. First, it examines the debate between Peter Elbow and David Bartholomae, and the interplay between teachers’ authority and student agency. Second, it explores the imbrications between representation and materiality in social constructivism. Third, it uses Alain Badiou’s Being and Event to analyze the tensions between (nominally) formulaic composition strategies and the elusiveness of kairos. Fourth, it investigates non-standard English dialects, Suresh Canagarajah’s concept of “code meshing,” and the competing conceptualizations of language as a static system, and as a dynamic, emergent process of sedimentation. Rather than attempting to resolve these tensions, my dissertation dramatizes them, painting a fuller, clearer picture of the contradictions that every classroom inhabits. In doing so, I do not privilege any single approach over the others. Instead, I call for a particular pedagogical disposition that can productively inform all of them: a resistance to closure, an openness to critical puzzlement, a negative capability that invites the rupture of rigid structures and schemas. With regard to composition studies more broadly, my dissertation dissects the key terms and assumptions of the debates surrounding these pedagogical tendencies, forwarding a more nuanced theoretical platform on which they can transpire. Ultimately, my dissertation aims to inform pedagogical practice and curriculum development more generally, and lead to an enriched understanding of how student agency can vitalize the classroom

Are track recommendations dependent on schools and school boards? A study of trends in the level of track recommendations, number of double recommendations and reconsiderations in Dutch urban and rural areas

Track recommendations provided to students in the final grade of primary education lead the allocation to specific school tracks in secondary education in the Netherlands. Where the results of a standardised test indicate that students are able to go to a higher track level, primary schools are required to reconsider and potentially adjust the track recommendation to a higher level. The current research aimed to (1) investigate trends in the level of track recommendations, double track recommendations and reconsiderations over the years 2014–2015 to 2018–2019, (2) explore the variation in (trends of) track recommendations between Dutch primary schools and their school boards, and (3) assess the association between track recommendations and the school level variables degree of urbanisation and type of primary education. We used multilevel growth curve modelling for continuous and count data based on publicly available school-level population data regarding track recommendations and school leavers tests from 2014–2015 to 2018–2019. The number of double track recommendations has increased over the cohorts, with a slightly decreasing gap between schools in rural and urban areas. The number of reconsiderations first decreased and then increased. The differences in reconsiderations between rural and urban areas are increasing over time. An initial trend towards higher average recommendations stabilising in the later cohorts appeared with no clear pattern for degree of urbanisation. The current study adds to the existing knowledge by assessing longitudinal trends instead of cross-sectional analyses and including multiple stakeholders and factors simultaneously.</p

Research Reconsiderations Concerning Cultural Differences

‘Minority children’ experience a lot of shifts in their cultural contexts. The author’s work as a professional teacher in multicultural classes enabled her to focus on the research questions presented in this article. These questions concern the need for some minority children to achieve equal opportunities in the Norwegian educational system. The author uses her teaching practice and ethnographic notes to put forward two particular cases that illustrate the issues of her concern. Informant interviews with teachers in the same school inform the methodology. Positions outlined by Stephen May discussing degrees of essentialism in theory and practical work with children are used when discussing the cultural challenges involved in these cases. Following this, critical multiculturalism raises the question of cultural differences and of how to theorise and do research without creating culturally essentialising categories. This article alerts readers to the plight of children in shifting cultural contexts, to the challenges they are facing, and to the skills and competencies they are developing. It seeks to contribute to two current areas of debate, namely inclusive education and internationalisation