An Examination of the Experiences of BAME Students in the Community and Criminal Justice Division

Freedom to Achieve is De Montfort University’s commitment to its students, whatever their ethnicity, to ensure there is an equal playing field. The attainment gap between Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME)1 and white students within UK Higher Education (HE) is well documented and DMU are part of a ground-breaking project to positively address this issue. As part of this multi-faceted programme, the Community and Criminal Justice Division (CCJ) undertook a pilot study to explore our BAME students’ experiences at the university. The aim of these results is to help establish preliminary short term and long term strategies to help deliver overall improvements in the BAME attainment gap and aspirations to achieve at DMU. After undertaking a survey of BAME students within the CCJ, a series of key thematic areas emerged, namely: 1) Assessments, 2) Discrimination, 3) Diversity, 4) Lecture Style, 5) Support, and 6) Universal Design for Learning. We examine and explore these issues in relation to three key theoretical models used to explore BAME attainment in Higher Education. Nigrescence Theory, Social Identity Theory, and Critical Race Theory are all used to help understand the experiences of BAME students. Using the results, we have identified a series of short and long term recommendations that could be utilised to ensure and take steps towards addressing the attainment gap between BAME and White students at DMU

What’s next? Beyond the USA and European climate change counter movement

The existing and fruitful body of literature on the climate change counter movement is well documented in the USA, European and Australian context. This presentation charts what future climate obstruction and climate counter movement research could look like. It outlines the emerging areas of discussion drawing on the emerging data particularly on Latin America on the climate counter movement, while exploring the contours of potential counter movement exploration across other regions. Finally, it identifies some pathways forward for academic research in the field of climate change counter movement studies identifying a series of potential research questions that can be taken forward to advance our understanding of climate obstruction

Personal safety mobile applications: Just another way of responsibilising survivors of IPV or a tool for empowerment? A survivor’s view!

Research and the academic literature have indicated the growing use of technologies such as the use of mobile phone applications as a tool either for the commission of IPV by perpetrators (‘tech abuse’) or as an ‘educational’ or ‘awareness raising’ forum/feature for both perpetrators and survivors of IPV. However, there is less exploration currently regarding whether and how this technology might be used as an empowerment tool in cases of IPV. Our research contributes towards closing this current gap. In this paper we focus on the preliminary results of our project examining the use of a mobile personal safety application in cases of IPV with a group of individual survivors assessed as medium/standard risk of ‘Domestic Violence’ in the UK. Our research sample consists of voluntary participants receiving services from specialist domestic abuse support agencies in one region of England. We also completed a qualitative analysis of data collected from a series of group and individual interviews. Results Drawing on the findings we examine the perceptions of the personal safety of survivors of IPV comparing those who choose to use the personal safety application with a control group whom did not. We explore intersectional differences between groups and what role the mobile phone safety application played as both a tool to assist towards the ‘protection’ of survivors as an element of their ‘safety plans’, and whether the personal safety application was perceived as an empowerment and personal resilience tool. We provide some recommendations which outline the strengths and challenges of personal safety mobile phone applications and how their utilisation can be disseminated more widely across the Domestic Violence sector

Generic Personal Safety Applications; empowering victims of Domestic Violence and Abuse? A Practitioner Lens

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Bespoke and generic Domestic Violence and Abuse (DVA) Personal Safety Applications (PSAs) have become a popular choice for strategic crime prevention projects by those in the criminal justice sector; to achieve justice through digital means as part of the wider digital justice project. These PSAs have been heralded as tools for the protection, empowerment, and resilience building of victims in DVA, despite limited independent evaluations. This article explores the use of a generic PSA, which the police have adopted for rollout to victims of DVA in one region of the United Kingdom. We undertook a thematic analysis of data taken from a roundtable and three follow up focus groups with practitioners from the police, criminal justice, DVA specialist sector, and victim services, alongside the PSA development team. We found both some support for using this PSA and serious concerns regarding its use in DVA situations

A Perspective on the Historical Analysis of Race and Treatment Storage and Disposal Facilities in the United States

Studies of environmental injustice have been intensely scrutinized by social science researchers since the publication of the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice report entitled Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States in 1987. Importantly, there has been an emphasis on analysing longitudinal data to answer the question 'which came first, people or pollution?' In addition, determining where environmental hazards are located and how demographics around those hazards are estimated has become central to any empirical enquiry on the topic. This new letter by Mohai and Saha (2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 115008) adds to our emerging understanding of environmental justice by analysing the distribution of Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facilities across the United States to determine why they are concentrated in non-white and low income neighbourhoods. The researchers clearly demonstrate how longitudinal analysis and advances in geographic information system methodology can help address meaningful social questions about environmental inequality that are central to environmental policy and practice

Threshold concepts: Impacts on teaching and learning at tertiary level

This project explored teaching and learning of hard-to-learn threshold concepts in first-year English, an electrical engineering course, leadership courses, and in doctoral writing. The project was envisioned to produce disciplinary case studies that lecturers could use to reflect on and refine their curriculum and pedagogy, thereby contributing to discussion about the relationship between theory and methodology in higher education research (Shay, Ashwin, & Case, 2009). A team of seven academics investigated lecturers’ awareness and emergent knowledge of threshold concepts and associated pedagogies and how such pedagogies can afford opportunities for learning. As part of this examination the lecturers also explored the role of threshold concept theory in designing curricula and sought to find the commonalities in threshold concepts and their teaching and learning across the four disciplines. The research highlights new ways of teaching threshold concepts to help students learn concepts that are fundamental to the disciplines they are studying and expand their educational experiences. Given that much of the international research in this field focuses on the identification of threshold concepts and debates their characteristics (Barradell, 2013; Flanagan, 2014; Knight, Callaghan, Baldock, & Meyer, 2013), our exploration of what happens when lecturers use threshold concept theory to re-envision their curriculum and teaching helps to address a gap within the field. By addressing an important theoretical and practical approach the project makes a considerable contribution to teaching and learning at the tertiary level in general and to each discipline in particular

Identifying experiences of supportive care of children and young people affected by kidney failure: a qualitative systematic review.

Children and young people affected by kidney failure experience complexities in their care. Little is known about the unique needs of this young patient population group living with a long-term condition. A meta-aggregation of all qualitative studies was conducted to identify experiences of supportive care among children and young people living with kidney failure. A systematic review of qualitative studies was conducted following the Joanna Briggs Institute meta-aggregation method. This review has been reported according to the PRISMA statement guidelines. Six electronic databases (CINAHL, Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, Proquest, PsycINFO, and Scopus) were comprehensively searched by an expert systematic review librarian using keywords and subject headings, from inception to September 2022. All studies were accessed using a predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Methodological quality assessment and data extraction performed. Qualitative findings accompanied by illustrative quotes from included studies were extracted and grouped into categories which created the overall synthesised findings. A total of 34 studies were included in this review representing a total of 613 children and young people affected by kidney failure. There was a total of 190 findings which created 13 categories representing experiences of supportive care. The meta-aggregation developed five synthesised findings namely: 'physical needs', 'information and technology', 'treatment and healthcare', 'social needs' and 'psychological impacts'. This systematic review identified that children and young people affected by kidney failure can experience a range of unmet supportive care needs in routine clinical services. Kidney failure impacted children and young people's self-identify, social and peer networks, introduced daily practical needs because of inherent physical and psychological burden due to the failure and associated treatments. Despite improvements in the medical management of kidney failure in children and young people, further attention is needed to optimise supported self-management in this young patient group

Developmental hematology of SS and SC disease in association with α-thalassemia-2

The nuber and organization of the α, ζ and γ globin genes have been determined on the DNA of 400 patients attending the Pediatric Sickle Cell Clinics of our Center. The patients were participating in long-term prospective studies on possible effects of α-thal on the hecatological changes accompanying postnatal development. CBC and Hb composition were obtained in the steady state on patients of different ages and correlated with the number of α globin genes.peer-reviewe

Developing a procedure for learning and assessing peer review in a forensic science programme

Peer review of forensic casework is essential for ensuring quality and reducing error rates. However, it is not a common component of forensic science degree courses, and there are no published studies, guidelines or methods for teaching and learning forensic peer review. This study describes a method of learning, teaching and assessing forensic peer review through the use of group work to prepare checklists for reviewing casefiles and expert witness reports, followed by individual peer feedback. Example checklists and assessment criteria are provided. The peer feedback comments on expert reports were categorised revealing that suggestions are the most frequent type of feedback provided, followed by questions. Through a questionnaire, participants strongly agreed that the learning and teaching process described here was relevant to their future professional practice, and that through the use of checklists they understood the criteria for effective forensic peer review. It emerged from a semistructured interview that limited time led some students to surface review expert reports, that peers were seen as legitimate sources of knowledge, and additional feedback from lecturers was required. This study may be relevant to other areas where professional peer review is used, such as open source software development, nursing and community pharmacy