Variations in duty arrangements to respond to concerns about children's welfare

Historians and philosophers of mathematics share an interest in the nature of mathematics: what it is, what features affect its growth, how it informs other disciplines. But much of the work done in history and philosophy of mathematics suggests that the two groups largely work in isolation. A reconsideration of the history of mathematical analysis in the 19th Century suggests that history and philosophy of mathematics can be done together to the advantage of both, and also how legitimately different enquiries need not drive them apart

Children's understandings of obesity, a thematic analysis

Childhood obesity is a major concern in today’s society. Research suggests the inclusion of the views and understandings of a target group facilitates strategies that have better efficacy. The objective of this study was to explore the concepts and themes that make up children’s understandings of the causes and consequences of obesity. Participants were selected from Reception (4-5 years old) and Year 6 (10-11 years old), and attended a school in an area of Sunderland, in North East England. Participants were separated according to age and gender, resulting in four focus groups, run across two sessions. A thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) identified overarching themes evident across all groups, suggesting the key concepts that contribute to children’s understandings of obesity are ‘‘Knowledge through Education,’’ ‘‘Role Models,’’ ‘‘Fat is Bad,’’ and ‘‘Mixed Messages.’’ The implications of these findings and considerations of the methodology are discussed in full

Asylum in Ireland - a public health perspective

This report has two elements, first a review of the literature on refugees and asylum seekrs, with particular to the legal and practical situation in Ireland, and secondly a report of a survey of refugees and asylum seekers carried out in part fulfillment of the requirments for the MPH. The survey had two elements, one a quantitaitve stuy carried out in Dublin and Ennis, and the second a series of focus groups

Creativity and authenticity: perspectives of creative value, utility and quality

This paper is written from the perspective of creative practitioners in sound, music and the visual arts teaching in UK higher education. Primarily concerned with the understanding of creativity as a developmental capacity and identifiable and measurable process and outcome, what began initially as a focused discussion about the assessment of creative artefacts developed progressively into a more general analysis of creative value in terms of reception and developmental experience. Recognising the impact of new technologies and the changing conceptions of creative technique and craft, collaboration and origination, and diversification of attendant interpretive meanings inherent with new artistic forms, the study is an attempt to establish a position from which pedagogic practices can be honed and refined to meet the expectations and needs of contemporary practitioners and educational contexts. The objective in any educational experience and any process of artistic creation being to enrich and to effectively inform further development steps, value is therefore a highly diverse and granular commodity, measurable on many different scales, and capable of understanding in many different ways. This is a study of considerations and perspectives and ways of understanding and working with creative value and an attempt to develop a framework through which to base creative decisions as educators and practitioners. Creativity models tend to emphasise utility and originality as the key factors in determining creative value; the wider recognition and impact of the outcomes of creative endeavour preeminent in the interpretation and attribution of quality and significance. Whilst most evident and analytically objectifiable in the study of reception and in the analysis of outcomes, creative practices and processes nevertheless feature more prominently in the interpretation of value in some fields. Whilst the products of the creative practice of artists, musicians and writers retain the centre ground in the discourse of creativity, the authentication of creative endeavour is nevertheless closely connected to the narratives surrounding the inception and development of the work and the security of the connection established between the creative object and the creative originator; the intangible and entirely conceptual matter of attribution and provenance often proving more significant than physical artefact in substantiating at least commercial value in many cases. Investigating the potential for a meaningful definition of ‘authentic creativity’, notions of novelty, ignorance, forgery, fakery, reproduction and patterning, provide a basis for consideration of creativity both as an unstable concept and in parallel as a metaphor for the human condition. Considering the discourse of authenticity and aesthetics, this paper explores different perspectives of creativity as lived experience and positions analysis in the narratives of insight, imagination, and the romanticism of discovery and talent. Introducing an analysis of creativity through a series of conceptual models to illustrate key concepts and ideas, this essay presents a discussion rooted in a context of collapsing distinctions between the natural and the artificial, the authentic and the inauthentic, the original and the copy, and develops a tentative definition of authentic creativity and creative authenticity for wider consideration. That creativity matters in education and society is widely acknowledged and appreciated. This paper argues for a greater focus on the lived experience of creativity and the significance of determining value in terms of human experience over productivity

A pedagogical framework for embedding C&IT into the curriculum

This paper proposes a methodology for effectively embedding communication and information technologies (C&IT) into the curriculum. This builds on existing frameworks for designing courses involving C&IT. A hypothetical illustration of this process is provided, and issues relating to the adoption and application of the methodology are identified

Health needs assessment of short sentence prisoners

Health Needs Assessment of Short Sentence Prisoner

Determinants of impact : towards a better understanding of encounters with the arts

The article argues that current methods for assessing the impact of the arts are largely based on a fragmented and incomplete understanding of the cognitive, psychological and socio-cultural dynamics that govern the aesthetic experience. It postulates that a better grasp of the interaction between the individual and the work of art is the necessary foundation for a genuine understanding of how the arts can affect people. Through a critique of philosophical and empirical attempts to capture the main features of the aesthetic encounter, the article draws attention to the gaps in our current understanding of the responses to art. It proposes a classification and exploration of the factors—social, cultural and psychological—that contribute to shaping the aesthetic experience, thus determining the possibility of impact. The ‘determinants of impact’ identified are distinguished into three groups: those that are inherent to the individual who interacts with the artwork; those that are inherent to the artwork; and ‘environmental factors’, which are extrinsic to both the individual and the artwork. The article concludes that any meaningful attempt to assess the impact of the arts would need to take these ‘determinants of impact’ into account, in order to capture the multidimensional and subjective nature of the aesthetic experience