12,094 research outputs found
Identifying and responding to people with mild learning disabilities in the probation service
It has long been recognised that, like many other individuals, people with learningdisabilities find their way into the criminal justice system. This fact is not disputed. Whathas been disputed, however, is the extent to which those with learning disabilities arerepresented within the various agencies of the criminal justice system and the ways inwhich the criminal justice system (and society) should address this. Recently, social andlegislative confusion over the best way to deal with offenders with learning disabilities andmental health problems has meant that the waters have become even more muddied.Despite current government uncertainty concerning the best way to support offenders withlearning disabilities, the probation service is likely to continue to play a key role in thesupervision of such offenders. The three studies contained herein aim to clarify the extentto which those with learning disabilities are represented in the probation service, toexamine the effectiveness of probation for them and to explore some of the ways in whichprobation could be adapted to fit their needs.Study 1 and study 2 showed that around 10% of offenders on probation in Kent appearedto have an IQ below 75, putting them in the bottom 5% of the general population. Study 3was designed to assess some of the support needs of those with learning disabilities in theprobation service, finding that many of the materials used by the probation service arelikely to be too complex for those with learning disabilities to use effectively. To addressthis, a model for service provision is tentatively suggested. This is based on the findings ofthe three studies and a pragmatic assessment of what the probation service is likely to becapable of achieving in the near future
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The Epidemiology and Genetic Architecture of Vitamin D Deficiency in African Children
Vitamin D deficiency is a common public health problem worldwide. However, little is known about the epidemiology of vitamin D deficiency in Africa. In this thesis, I aimed to determine: 1) the prevalence of and risk factors associated with vitamin D deficiency in studies conducted in Africa; 2) the prevalence and predictors of vitamin D deficiency in African children; 3) the association between vitamin D and iron deficiency in African children; and 4) genetic variants that influence vitamin D status in Africans.
In a systematic review and meta-analyses of previous vitamin D studies in Africa, the average prevalence of low vitamin D status was 18.5%, 34.2% and 59.5% using cut-offs of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels of <30 nmol/L, <50 nmol/L and <75 nmol/L, respectively. Populations at risk of vitamin D deficiency included newborns, women, and people living in high latitudes or urban areas.
In an epidemiological study of young children living in Africa, the prevalence of low vitamin D status was 0.6%, 7.8% and 44.5% using cut-offs of 25(OH)D levels of GC2 variant of the group-specific component (GC) gene, which encodes vitamin D binding protein.
Vitamin D deficiency was also associated with 80% higher odds of iron deficiency in these children. Adjusted regression models revealed that vitamin D deficiency was associated with higher ferritin and hepcidin levels suggesting lower iron status, and reduced sTfR and transferrin levels and increased TSAT and serum iron levels suggesting improved iron status.
Genome-wide association study (GWAS) in Africans revealed genetic variants that influence vitamin D status in vitamin D metabolism genes: DHCR7/NADSYN1, CYP2R1 and GC. However, the majority of SNPs from previous European GWASs did not replicate in the current GWAS.
Findings from this thesis indicate that vitamin D deficiency is prevalent in many African populations and should be considered in public health strategies in Africa
Implementing Health Impact Assessment as a Required Component of Government Policymaking: A Multi-Level Exploration of the Determinants of Healthy Public Policy
It is widely understood that the public policies of ‘non-health’ government sectors have greater impacts on population health than those of the traditional healthcare realm. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a decision support tool that identifies and promotes the health benefits of policies while also mitigating their unintended negative consequences. Despite numerous calls to do so, the Ontario government has yet to implement HIA as a required component of policy development. This dissertation therefore sought to identify the contexts and factors that may both enable and impede HIA use at the sub-national (i.e., provincial, territorial, or state) government level.
The three integrated articles of this dissertation provide insights into specific aspects of the policy process as they relate to HIA. Chapter one details a case study of purposive information-seeking among public servants within Ontario’s Ministry of Education (MOE). Situated within Ontario’s Ministry of Health (MOH), chapter two presents a case study of policy collaboration between health and ‘non-health’ ministries. Finally, chapter three details a framework analysis of the political factors supporting health impact tool use in two sub-national jurisdictions – namely, Québec and South Australia.
MOE respondents (N=9) identified four components of policymaking ‘due diligence’, including evidence retrieval, consultation and collaboration, referencing, and risk analysis. As prospective HIA users, they also confirmed that information is not routinely sought to mitigate the potential negative health impacts of education-based policies. MOH respondents (N=8) identified the bureaucratic hierarchy as the brokering mechanism for inter-ministerial policy development. As prospective HIA stewards, they also confirmed that the ministry does not proactively flag the potential negative health impacts of non-health sector policies. Finally, ‘lessons learned’ from case articles specific to Québec (n=12) and South Australia (n=17) identified the political factors supporting tool use at different stages of the policy cycle, including agenda setting (‘policy elites’ and ‘political culture’), implementation (‘jurisdiction’), and sustained implementation (‘institutional power’).
This work provides important insights into ‘real life’ policymaking. By highlighting existing facilitators of and barriers to HIA use, the findings offer a useful starting point from which proponents may tailor context-specific strategies to sustainably implement HIA at the sub-national government level
Building body identities - exploring the world of female bodybuilders
This thesis explores how female bodybuilders seek to develop and maintain a viable sense of self despite being stigmatized by the gendered foundations of what Erving Goffman (1983) refers to as the 'interaction order'; the unavoidable presentational context in which identities are forged during the course of social life. Placed in the context of an overview of the historical treatment of women's bodies, and a concern with the development of bodybuilding as a specific form of body modification, the research draws upon a unique two year ethnographic study based in the South of England, complemented by interviews with twenty-six female bodybuilders, all of whom live in the U.K. By mapping these extraordinary women's lives, the research illuminates the pivotal spaces and essential lived experiences that make up the female bodybuilder. Whilst the women appear to be embarking on an 'empowering' radical body project for themselves, the consequences of their activity remains culturally ambivalent. This research exposes the 'Janus-faced' nature of female bodybuilding, exploring the ways in which the women negotiate, accommodate and resist pressures to engage in more orthodox and feminine activities and appearances
Incentivising research data sharing : a scoping review
Background: Numerous mechanisms exist to incentivise researchers to share their data. This scoping review aims to identify and summarise evidence of the efficacy of different interventions to promote open data practices and provide an overview of current research.
Methods: This scoping review is based on data identified from Web of Science and LISTA, limited from 2016 to 2021. A total of 1128 papers were screened, with 38 items being included. Items were selected if they focused on designing or evaluating an intervention or presenting an initiative to incentivise sharing. Items comprised a mixture of research papers, opinion pieces and descriptive articles.
Results: Seven major themes in the literature were identified: publisher/journal data sharing policies, metrics, software solutions, research data sharing agreements in general, open science ‘badges’, funder mandates, and initiatives.
Conclusions: A number of key messages for data sharing include: the need to build on existing cultures and practices, meeting people where they are and tailoring interventions to support them; the importance of publicising and explaining the policy/service widely; the need to have disciplinary data champions to model good practice and drive cultural change; the requirement to resource interventions properly; and the imperative to provide robust technical infrastructure and protocols, such as labelling of data sets, use of DOIs, data standards and use of data repositories
TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF EFFORTFUL FUNDRAISING EXPERIENCES: USING INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS IN FUNDRAISING RESEARCH
Physical-activity oriented community fundraising has experienced an exponential growth in popularity over the past 15 years. The aim of this study was to explore the value of effortful fundraising experiences, from the point of view of participants, and explore the impact that these experiences have on people’s lives. This study used an IPA approach to interview 23 individuals, recognising the role of participants as proxy (nonprofessional) fundraisers for charitable organisations, and the unique organisation donor dynamic that this creates. It also bought together relevant psychological theory related to physical activity fundraising experiences (through a narrative literature review) and used primary interview data to substantiate these. Effortful fundraising experiences are examined in detail to understand their significance to participants, and how such experiences influence their connection with a charity or cause. This was done with an idiographic focus at first, before examining convergences and divergences across the sample. This study found that effortful fundraising experiences can have a profound positive impact upon community fundraisers in both the short and the long term. Additionally, it found that these experiences can be opportunities for charitable organisations to create lasting meaningful relationships with participants, and foster mutually beneficial lifetime relationships with them. Further research is needed to test specific psychological theory in this context, including self-esteem theory, self determination theory, and the martyrdom effect (among others)
The company she keeps : The social and interpersonal construction of girls same sex friendships
This thesis begins a critical analysis of girls' 'private' interpersonal and social relations as they are enacted within two school settings. It is the study of these marginal subordinated worlds productivity of forms of femininity which provides the main narrative of this project. I seek to understand these processes of (best) friendship construction through a feminist multi-disciplinary frame, drawing upon cultural studies, psychoanalysis and accounts of gender politics. I argue that the investments girls bring to their homosocial alliances and boundary drawing narry a psychological compulsion which is complexly connected to their own experiences within the mother/daughter bond as well as reflecting positively an immense social debt to the permissions girls have to be nurturant and ; negatively their own reproduction of oppressive exclusionary practices. Best friendship in particular gives girls therefore, the experience of 'monogamy' continuous of maternal/daughter identification, reminiscent of their positioning inside monopolistic forms of heterosexuality. But these subcultures also represent a subversive discontinuity to the public dominance of boys/teachers/adults in schools and to the ideologies and practices of heterosociality and heterosexuality. By taking seriously their transmission of the values of friendship in their chosen form of notes and diaries for example, I was able to access the means whereby they were able to resist their surveillance and control by those in power over them. I conclude by arguing that it is through a recognition of the valency of these indivisiblly positive and negative aspects to girls cultures that Equal Opportunities practitioners must begin if they are serious about their ambitions. Methods have to be made which enable girls to transfer their 'private' solidarities into the 'public' realm, which unquestionably demands contesting with them the causes and consequences of their implication in the divisions which also contaminate their lives and weaken them
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Constraints on a potential aerial biosphere on Venus: II. Ultraviolet radiation
Despite the harsh conditions in the atmosphere of Venus, the possibility for an aerial habitable zone exists. A thermal habitable zone is predicted to exist at an altitude range of 62 to 48 km, above which temperatures drop below the lower thermal limit of cell growth and below which temperatures exceed the evaporation temperature. Many biocidal factors must be considered for the complete definition of an aerial habitable zone; in this study we consider the constraint specifically from the perspective of biocidal solar ultraviolet (UV) intensity in the atmosphere. We simulated the penetration of solar ultraviolet and visible light through the atmosphere using a radiative transfer model, to determine the spectral environment (and thus the UV biocidal effect) as a function of altitude in the atmosphere of Venus. At the top of the thermal aerial habitable zone (62 km) the incoming solar irradiance creates a severely challenging UV environment, with extremophiles such as Deinococcus radiodurans expected to be able to endure these UV conditions for approximately 80 s. At an altitude of around 59 km the biologically-weighted UV irradiance drops below that calculated for the Archean Earth, and continues to fall with decreasing altitude until at 54 km it is less than that found currently at the surface of Earth. Crucially, longer wavelength photosynthetically active light continues to penetrate to these altitudes and below, resulting in a solar radiation environment in the venusian atmosphere below around 54 km that screens biologically-damaging UV radiation yet permits the process of photosynthesis. Whilst not claiming to suggest the existence of an aerial habitable zone in general, by considering thermal conditions, ionising radiation and the UV flux environment of the venusian cloud deck alone, we define a potential habitable zone that extends from 59 km to 48 km. This region should form the focus of future remote and in situ astrobiological investigations of Venus
Epistemologies of possibility: social movements, knowledge production and political transformation
Urgent global problems - whether military conflicts, economic insecurities, immigration controls or mass incarceration-not only call for new modes of political action but also demand new forms of knowledge. For if knowledge frameworks both shape the horizons of social intelligibility and chart t he realms of political possibility, then epistemological interventions constitute a crucial part of social change. Social movements play a key role in this work by engaging in dissident knowledge practices that open up space for political transformation. But what are the processes and conditions through which social movements generate new ways of knowing?'What is politically at stake in the various knowledge strategies that activists use to generate social change? Despite a growing literature on the role of epistemological dimensions of protest, social movement studies tend to neglect specific questions of epistemological change. Often treating knowledge as a resource or object rather than a power relation and a social practice, social movement scholars tend to focus on content rather than production, frames rather than practices, taxonomies rather than processes. Missing is a more dynamic account of the conditions, means and power relations through which transformative knowledge practices come to be constituted and deployed. Seeking to better understand processes of epistemological transformation, this thesis explores the relationship between social movements, knowledge production and political change. Starting from an assumption that knowledge not only represents the world, but also works to constitute it, this thesis examines the role of social movement knowledge practices in shaping the conditions of political possibility. Drawing from the context of grassroots queer, transgender and feminist organizing around issues of prisons and border controls in North America, the project explores how activists generate new forms of knowledge and forge new spaces of political possibility. Working through a series of concepts-transformation, resistance, experience, co-optation, solidarity and analogy - this thesis explores different ways of understanding processes of epistemological change with in social movement contexts. It considers processes that facilitate or enable epistemological change and those that limit or prohibit such change. Bringing together a range of theoretical perspectives, including feminist, queer, critical race and post-structuralist analyses, and drawing on interviews with grassroots activists, the thesis explores what is politically at stake in the different ways we conceptualise, imagine and engage in processes of epistemological change
Towards thinking classrooms: foundation stage possibilities in Northern Ireland
The integration of thinking skills programmes into primary and secondary school curricula has gained increasing prominence in global educational policy over the past two decades. This research investigated the factors that influence how a particular approach to the development of thinking skills adopted in the Northern Ireland (NI) context is interpreted and implemented by teachers in early years classrooms. The Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities Framework (TSPC) was introduced as a statutory component of the revised NI curriculum in 2007 and this study explores its enactment through the perceptions of key groups that interface with the policy from a range of different contexts: teachers and Head Teachers, Curriculum Advisory and Support staff, university academics and Initial Teacher Education staff. The study adopted an interpretive approach, utilising interviews with members of these key groups to explore their perceptions of the factors that influence the effective and consistent implementation of the TSPC and to explain possible reasons why it has embedded effectively in some NI primary schools and not in others. In addition to interviews, policy analysis of key texts that shape teachers’ approaches to the TSPC was undertaken using a framework based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional approach to critical discourse analysis. The purpose of this analysis was to explore the connection between the discourses used in these texts, and the extent to which the ideological cues that underpin them exert an influence on how teachers interpret and implement thinking skills in their practice. The study also explored how human capital theory, and an ecological approach to the enactment of the TSPC based on Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model (1979), provide different frameworks for understanding how the TSPC is interpreted and implemented in practice, with particular reference to Northern Ireland.
The findings suggest that there are a number of significant factors that both enable and constrain the effective implementation of the TSPC across schools. The region’s political, social and historical context was viewed by participants as playing a key role in how policy reforms are interpreted and implemented. School leaders can play a central role in mediating the impact of these reforms to ensure that they are implemented in ways that take account of diverse and specific school contexts. From the perspective of participants, Head Teachers and school leaders also play a pivotal role in nurturing teachers’ professional learning, skill, and motivation in the teaching of thinking skills. Consistent opportunities for professional development, including collaborative working, and sharing of practice, both in and beyond the school, was viewed as the primary means of ensuring the development of a shared vision and language about thinking skills, and participants agreed that this is central to its consistent implementation across all schools.
Analysis of the participants’ understandings of the purpose of teaching thinking skills, and the aims of education more broadly, highlighted a tension between approaches to education that focus on children’s holistic development, and policy discourses, especially those related to Human Capital Theory that view education as a mechanism for achieving economic goals. The influence of these discourses across a range of public policy areas, as well as the disconnect between what participants and policy-makers viewed as the purpose of thinking, was highlighted in the analysis. For participants, the integration of thinking skills into the curriculum was about developing autonomy, criticality, and independence in children’s thinking, whereas policy-makers viewed it from a human capital perspective and strongly linked it to discourses of ‘lifelong learning’, ‘employability’ and ‘skill’.
From the perspective of participants, the findings indicate that for policy makers in Northern Ireland to better understand how to embed the TSPC as a core component of the curriculum in all schools a number of cross-system actions need to be undertaken. These include a baseline review of the impact of the TSPC in the ten years since its inception as part of the comprehensive review of education announced by the Minister for Education in January 2021. The data suggests that this review should ensure that teachers and school leaders are central to its design and approach and that it is fully inclusive of all schools in Northern Ireland that sit within its scope. A return to more localised support and advice services with a coordinated approach to the development of the TSPC in all schools was also viewed by participants as essential to its development and embedding in all schools.
A more coordinated, multi-disciplinary approach to implementation would, it was argued, ensure that ongoing professional learning in thinking skills was accessible, including the establishment of more strategic, collaborative partnerships with higher education, ITE and Inspection Services. This changed focus, I conclude, requires a move away from human capital and sector specific approaches to the consistent development of thinking skills programmes in all Northern Ireland schools. Recommendations also centre on future policy reforms that are inclusive and that give teachers their professional place as the primary implementers for the development of thinking skills programmes in schools
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