In the light of a child: Adults discerning the gift of being

The researcher is a diocesan adviser for Children’s Ministry, charged with promoting the importance of children for the Church, and the study examines issues arising from this professional responsibility. Children’s advocates often suggest that adults have much to learn from them in the Church. It is commonly assumed that this learning will derive from their presumed characteristics such as ‘innocence’, or ‘playfulness’. However, these characteristics are not exclusive to or universal among children. The aim of this study is to investigate the ‘specialness’ of children and discover if there is something peculiar to childhood that would merit Jesus placing a child in the midst of his disciples as a signpost to the kingdom of heaven. The primary data source is the researcher’s journal of his experience as a member of a multi-generational church group, and the study employs a qualitative methodology drawing on Grounded Theory and some of the practices of autoethnography. The importance of a relationship between experience and theology for Practical Theology is noted and the influence of experience on theologians explored with reference to Schleiermacher, Miller-McLemore and the theological reflection of ‘ordinary’ Christians. The analysis of the researcher’s journal is developed as an example of experience-grounded personal theological reflection. The results achieved by the study show that the most powerful personal effects of the multi-generational group on the researcher did not reflect the children’s attributes per se but rather his own characteristics as revealed in relationship with the children. Interviews with the other adult members of the group, and Christian adults who work with children in contrasting situations, support the view that the effect of children on adults is influenced by the individuals concerned. The personal factors influencing the adults’ experience are thematised, and the questions these themes evoke are seen as indicating the theological potential of reflection on the adult/child interface. The study concludes that one aspect of the ‘specialness’ of children arises from their vulnerability and the nature of the relationship this creates with adults. The ‘special value’ of children to the life of the Church, it is suggested, includes the opportunity they give adults to view their own ‘being’ as God-given ‘gift’ by exploring how it can serve God’s purposes in promoting the flourishing of the vulnerable. The possibility of promoting such exploration among individual Christians and Church communities is considered. The findings of the study are seen as having implications for a less romanticised portrayal of children’s importance in the Church; for promoting better intergenerational relationships; for grounded theological conversation within and beyond the Church; for recruitment to Children’s Ministry; and for the researcher’s professional practice.Sponsored by Governors of the St Christopher’s Educational Trust, and the Anglican Dioceses of Manchester and Wakefield

Transsexualism and identity: processes of female to male transition

This thesis reports an interview-based study of thirty female-to-male (FtM) transsexual individuals. These participants were divided into three groups of ten according to their transitional status: 'pre-transitional', 'transitional and 'post-transitional. Interviews were carried out utilising an extensive semi-structured interview schedule and were recorded. Tapes together with field notes from each interview were that transcribed. The thirty transcripts were then subjected to a detailed review and analysis. A range of issues were identified in relation to the notion of FtM transsexual identity as this was experienced through the processes of FtM transition. The conclusions drawn identified a number of substantive areas of insight into the FtM transsexual condition, each of which have implications for an understanding of: coping with a threatened identity; passing; trust; factors relating to and effects of disclosure following these individuals' decision to embark cm transition; issues pertaining to transition, and attitudes of the medical profession toward transsexualism, among others. Some policy issues were also identified indicating scope for interentive measures geared at facilitating the life circumstances and transsitional passage of FtM transsexual people

Gender dysphoria: Transsexualism and identity

This thesis explores an extreme form of gender dysphoria: that experienced by transsexuals. The thesis focuses especially on issues concerning identity. It begins by developing a theoretical framework which can encompass the relevant contributions from various academic fields and different levels of analysis. This framework identifies four levels:the cross-cultural and historical the group and institutional\ the situational\ and the biographical. The literature relevant to issues of identity as these pertain to transsexuals is reviewed in terms of this framework. From this review two central points emerge: that gender dysphoria is a multi-faceted phenomenon that can only be adequately grasped within a multi-dimensional frame of reference\ and that the identity of transsexuals needs to be viewed from a developmental perspective, in terms of the differing demands, both social and psychological, which are imposed on transsexuals at different points in their- life-cycle. Some policy implications are noted. The thesis ends with a discussion of some limitations of the present study, and with some suggestions for future research on identity in relation to gender dysphoria

Developing a methodology for ex post evaluation of the wider impact of the restoration of rail services to previously disconnected or isolated regions on employment and property prices and accessibility to jobs and essential services.

As well as improving access to jobs and essential services, the re-establishment of rail links to larger, more remote areas may produce wider economic and social impacts both within the region and beyond. Recent developments have highlighted the need for improved ex post evaluation of such impacts, particularly in formerly disconnected or isolated regions. The main thrust of this research was through investigating ex post situations both spatially and temporally to determine cause-effect relationships. This required developing a methodological approach which would match those objectives and adapted pre-existing methods to develop a methodology for appraisal particularly relevant to remote, rural or disconnected regions. Using three case studies - the Robin Hood line (1998), the Stirling-Alloa line (2008), and Borders Rail (2015) as representing different stages of recent rail investment in previously disconnected regions, and applying mainly secondary data sources, a counterfactual was developed which allowed a meaningful comparison between areas subject to treatment i.e. rail intervention, and those not treated i.e. either unaffected or minimally affected by the intervention and to establish any differences between findings in urban studies. Treatment groups were based on distance thresholds where the control group was selected from remaining locations in the region. There appeared to be some benefit in application of clustering and propensity matching to effect a more balanced comparison between similar locations in the treatment and control groups. An important consideration was the accessibility characteristic which conventionally has been distance to the nearest rail station. However, two additional measures were utilised here: a distance to station ratio (which measured the percentage improvement in distance to station following the rail intervention) and a job accessibility index which assessed the improvement in access to jobs based on skills matching and the cost of commuting. The job accessibility index was developed to take into account the limitations in travel in more remote communities where services are less frequent and commuting distances often greater than in the urban situation. The cost of travel was recognised as a key factor affecting accessibility and generalised cost allowed the cost of commuting to be calculated using local values of speed and cost of transport. Job accessibility was based on comparing the percentage skills share at each location, matched to actual jobs at all neighbouring destination locations. The job accessibility index allowed a measure of accessibility based on the original job market, but could also be used to assess the effect on accessibility of a slump in employment by considering the current job market. Without job skills matching, job accessibility appeared to be overestimated as the seemingly high attraction of job opportunities may not always synchronise with the skills set in that location. It yielded good results when used as an accessibility characteristic in the hedonic models, being a more complex measure than distance from rail station as it encompassed the whole regional employment picture relative to each location. Previous research had suggested some correspondence between rail access improvements and increased property price and employment levels. Four different approaches were examined here to assess causality: a descriptive comparison approach, a DID (difference-in-difference) model, a fixed effects hedonic model and a GWR (Geographically Weighted Regression) model. These incorporated other factors such as changes in local and property characteristics over the period spanning each intervention. The descriptive approach looked at individual variables in isolation pre- and post- intervention broken into treatment and control to assess any impacts but ignored the combined effect of other explanatory factors. The output indicated a discernible effect of treatment in some cases, and was useful in corroborating variables to carry forward to the model. For property impacts, the difference-in-difference approach produced contrasting findings for the case study regions. For job impacts, there was a positive effect on employment density of being closer to a rail station and of improvement in job accessibility, but for Borders Rail this was not statistically significant which may be due to the limited amount of data available at this stage. The fixed effects model showed that for property impacts the distance to rail station and distance ratio and improvement in job accessibility were all significant factors. A modified spatial-temporal version of Geographically Weighted Regression estimated local parameters through time by examining changes in coefficients for two separate years spanning the intervention for each case study. The property model showed variation across each region in the negative relationship between price and distance to the nearest station for both the established case study regions. For the jobs model, the relationship between employment density and distance to the nearest station showed that the distance from the rail network was critical in terms of the job market. The findings suggest some causality linking rail investment to house price changes and employment density, dependent on the scale of the rail intervention and the regional context. Improvements in rail transport infrastructure could produce economic benefits affected by the proximity to new stations and relate to the effect on property prices. Although improved job accessibility allowing increased commuting, spatial, temporal and economic barriers may still prevent more economically vulnerable neighbourhoods within each region from receiving the full benefit of the intervention. In conclusion, there are implications for practice in terms of making a case for new rail infrastructure, application in a WebTag style appraisal or evaluation, and new information on spatial patterns of employment and property prices. In addition, consideration is given to expansion of the methodology to other types of transport intervention as well as application in an urban context

Cosets as gauge slices in SU(1,1) strings

We consider a string theory based on an SU(1,1) Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model and an arbitrary unitary conformal fild theory. We show that the solutions of the Virasoro conditions, in the unitarity regime of the SU(1,1) theory, are states which lie in the Euclidean coset SU(1,1)/U(1). This shows the validity, at the quantum level, of a time-like type of gauge in these models.Comment: 5 page

Using Youth Sport to Enhance Parents\u27 Sense of Community

Youth sport is a large and influential sector of the sport industry. This sector has received considerable attention regarding issues such as improving participants\u27 experiences and attracting and retaining more participants. Parents are also highly involved in youth sport, yet their experiences are less understood. This study ex-amines the role a youth sport program plays in fostering a sense of community for parents. Using a qualitative interpretative design, participants were drawn from a youth sport program in the United States. The focus group data ( n = 36) revealed that The Child\u27s Experience, Clear Logistics , Administrative Consideration , and Eq-uity in Administrative Decisions were the most salient elements that influenced sense of community for youth sport parents. Implications for practice are dis-cussed