Change of Art

BBC Radio 4 broadcas

In Our Time: The Cult of Mithras

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the cult of Mithras, a mystery religion that existed in the Roman Empire from the 1st to the 4th centuries AD. Also known as the Mysteries of Mithras, its origins are uncertain. Academics have suggested a link with the ancient Vedic god Mitra and the Iranian Zoroastrian deity Mithra, but the extent and nature of the connection is a matter of controversy

"The daily grunt": middle class bias and vested interests in the 'Getting in Early' and 'Why Can't They Read?' reports.

It is a long-standing and commonly held belief in the UK and elsewhere that the use of elite forms of language reflects superior intellect and education. Expert opinion from sociolinguistics, however, contends that such a view is the result of middle-class bias and cannot be scientifically justified. In the 1960s and 1970s,such luminaries as Labov (1969) and Trudgill (1975) were at pains to point out to educationalists, with some success, that this 'deficit 'view of working-class children's communicative competence is not a helpful one. However, a close reading of recent think-tank reports and policy papers on language and literacy teaching in schools reveals that the linguistic deficit hypothesis has resurfaced and is likely to influence present-day educational policy and practice. In this paper I examine in detail the findings, claims and recommendations of the reports and I argue that they are biased, poorly researched and reflect the vested interests of certain specialist groups, such as speech and language therapists and companies who sell literacy materials to schools. I further argue that we need to, once again, inject the debate with the social dimensions of educational failure, and we need to move away from the pathologisation of working-class children's language patterns

Contingent coping? Renegotiating ‘fast’ disciplinary social policy at street level: Implementing the UK Troubled Families Programme.

This article reports on a study of local implementation in the UK Troubled Families Programme (TFP). Exploring the experiences of 12 families, the policies of local bureaucrats, and a critical reading of the literature, we argue that the local case represented an attempt to partially renegotiate disciplinary elements of the national programme and to recognise that the families were affected by structural poverty and inequality. Locating the TFP in the literature on disciplinary social policy, multi-scale ‘Fast Policy’ and the potential for local subversion through the agency of frontline workers, we suggest that the local attempts to renegotiate programme priorities were partially successful. These attempts were characteristic of ‘contingent coping’ in terms of both institutional processes and outcomes for the families involved. The evidence reported is significant and timely in the context of the expanded and relaunched TFP and this shapes our commentary on the recently published Improving Lives strategy.N/

Policy responses to ‘Rough Sleepers’: opportunities & barriers for homeless adults in England

In the winter of 2018, high profile debates about ‘rough sleepers’ intensified following reports about men who died in freezing conditions. Government since pledged to cut the number of rough sleepers by half by 2022 and eliminate it by 2027. This commentary reviews two pieces of legislation, which could support this target: the Care Act 2014 and Homelessness Reduction Act 2018 . It argues that policies offer opportunities to improve outcomes for rough sleepers, given historic failings to provide for this social group . However, financial and institutional barriers remain

QuantCrit: education, policy, ‘Big Data’ and principles for a critical race theory of statistics

Quantitative research enjoys heightened esteem among policy-makers, media and the general public. Whereas qualitative research is frequently dismissed as subjective and impressionistic, statistics are often assumed to be objective and factual. We argue that these distinctions are wholly false; quantitative data is no less socially constructed than any other form of research material. The first part of the paper presents a conceptual critique of the field with empirical examples that expose and challenge hidden assumptions that frequently encode racist perspectives beneath the façade of supposed quantitative objectivity. The second part of the paper draws on the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to set out some principles to guide the future use and analysis of quantitative data. These ‘QuantCrit’ ideas concern (1) the centrality of racism as a complex and deeply-rooted aspect of society that is not readily amenable to quantification; (2) numbers are not neutral and should be interrogated for their role in promoting deficit analyses that serve White racial interests; (3) categories are neither ‘natural’ nor given and so the units and forms of analysis must be critically evaluated; (4) voice and insight are vital: data cannot ‘speak for itself’ and critical analyses should be informed by the experiential knowledge of marginalized groups; (5) statistical analyses have no inherent value but can play a role in struggles for social justice

London calling

Jack London created the mould for a particular kind of hard living writer; long before Hemingway picked up his first whiskey bottle, London was off out on dangerous adventures to the Klondike Gold Rush, the front lines of the Sino-Russian war, and round the world on a boat that cost him millions and nearly cost him his life; his chronic alcoholism finally proved his undoing. Before he did finally die at the age of 40, London managed to write some of the most popular stories ever to emerge from America, including 'White Fang' and 'Call of the Wild'. It was these books that Aminatta Forna first immersed herself in as a child growing up in Sierra Leone, feeling the chill of snow covered landscapes London described so vividly as she lay reading in the intense West African heat. Now a writer herself, she shares many of London's passions, including wild animals and the natural landscape; it's no co-incidence that her new novel has at its heart a man who tracks wild dogs, and in 'London Calling' we accompany her to the forests of New England where she tracks coyotes and unpicks the influence London's writing has had on her. Along the way she'll find out about his extra-ordinary life and the great success of his work; author Tobias Wolff tells us that London's influence on him was so powerful that in his teens he chose to be re-christened as Jack before his father forced him to change back to Tobias. We also hear from George Monbiot about the appeal London has for him as a writer who so vividly depicts the rawness of the wilderness in contrast to the drudgery of civilisation. London said that he'd, 'rather be ashes than dust,' that he,'would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.' As Aminatta Forna will explain, very few writers could claim to have burned so brightly