"I’ve been there, done that…" : a study of youth gang desistance

This article, based on research conducted in Glasgow, Scotland, analyses the complex process of desistance from youth gangs. The discussion is multifaceted focusing on the agency of the young people themselves as well as on how relationships within their local community can have a role in replacing their previous identification as gang members. It explores what is meant by a youth gang, why some young people stop identifying with the youth gang and argues that the local community and broader society have a role in providing social recognition and identity-enhancement opportunities for these young people

Beyond Brexit: the impact of leaving the EU on the youth work sector

The UK having voted to leave the EU, Annette Coburn and Sinéad Gormally consider potential problems and possibilities for youth work within post-Brexit Britain, with a focus on Scotland in particular. They outline how youth work has reached a ‘tipping point’ in its evolution, where austerity measures have consistently undermined it. They examine the potential impact of the further loss of EU funding. Recognising that it is entirely uncharted territory, they assert that despite the inherent concerns, Brexit could also be a catalyst for re-imagining youth work as a creative and resistant practice within social and informal education

Cohesion, commonality and creativity: youth work across borders

No abstract available

The complexities, contradictions and consequences of being 'anti-social' in Northern Ireland

Anti-social behaviour as a concept has numerous complexities. The definitional slippages and lack of clarity often lead to a range of contextually specific consequences. Although Northern Ireland is in the process of working through and moving away from its violent past, there are times where informal justice responses are still used. The most extreme consequence of being deemed as behaving in an anti-social manner in this context is being physically attacked by a paramilitary grouping. This complex phenomenon will be questioned and analysed within this chapter

Service provider difficulties in operationalising coercive control

We examined perspectives of social workers, police officers, and specialist domestic abuse practitioners about their perceived ability and organizational readiness to respond effectively to incidents of coercive and controlling behavior. Interviews revealed intervention and risk assessment strategies structured around an outdated, maladaptive concept of domestic abuse as an unambiguous and violent event and frontline services that lacked appreciation of the power dynamics inherent in controlling relationships. The analysis demonstrates how lack of definitional clarity around nonphysical domestic abuse can increase the use of discretion by frontline services and, by extension, increase the discounting of coercive control by pressured frontline officers

Peer status of mainstreamed elementary school children with learning disabilities : a meta-analysis.

The purpose of this dissertation was to use the technique of meta-analysis to combine and analyze the results from studies examining the peer status of mainstreamed elementary school students with learning disabilities. Twenty-one data sets from fourteen studies were analyzed to determine whether or not learning disabled children in mainstreamed settings occupy a lower status than classroom peers as measured by a sociometric instrument. The variables of gender of both rater and child rated, type of sociometric instrument used, date of publication and degree of integration were also examined. Results showed that learning disabled elementary school children in mainstream settings occupied a significantly lower status than their peers when measured by either peer rating or peer nomination instruments. Children were rated lower in status when a peer rating instrument was used versus when a peer nomination instrument was used. There was a trend toward higher status in students with learning disabilities in studies that were published in the 1980s versus those published in the 1970s. There was also a trend toward higher status in students with learning disabilities who were integrated more than 50% of the time versus those integrated less than 50% of the time

Field boundary habitats and their contribution to the area of semi-natural habitats on lowland farms in east Galway, western Ireland

peer-reviewedSustainable agriculture and the provision of environmental public goods are key deliverables for European farming and food production. Farmland biodiversity, cultural landscapes, soil functionality and climate stability are among the environmental public goods provided through agriculture. Future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) direct payments are intended to be more targeted at the provision of these agricultural deliverables. Field boundaries are an example of such deliverables. They are widespread features that have both environmental and aesthetic functions in farmed landscapes. However, research on their variety, density and contribution to semi-natural habitat cover on farms in Ireland is lacking. This study investigates the diversity and density of all field boundary habitat types on 32 lowland farms in east County Galway, western Ireland. A total of 286km of field boundaries were surveyed across six study sites. Five types of field boundary habitats were recorded. The density of field boundaries on the farms studied was high and could have positive implications for delivery of environmental public goods and sustainable farming metrics. In more intensively farmed areas, field boundaries were the only remaining semi-natural habitat on some farms highlighting the need to retain, and improve the ecological quality, of these features. The condition of one field boundary type (hedgerows) was also investigated in further detail. While the density of field boundaries was high on many of the surveyed farms, we found that the hedgerows on these farms were not necessarily in good condition for wildlife

16S rRNA sequencing reveals likely beneficial core microbes within faecal samples of the EU protected slug Geomalacus maculosus

The EU-protected slug Geomalacus maculosus Allman occurs only in the West of Ireland and in northern Spain and Portugal. We explored the microbial community found within the faeces of Irish specimens with a view to determining whether a core microbiome existed among geographically isolated slugs which could give insight into the adaptations of G. maculosus to the available food resources within its habitat. Faecal samples of 30 wild specimens were collected throughout its Irish range and the V3 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene was sequenced using Illumina MiSeq. To investigate the influence of diet on the microbial composition, faecal samples were taken and sequenced from six laboratory reared slugs which were raised on two different foods. We found a widely diverse microbiome dominated by Enterobacteriales with three core OTUs shared between all specimens. While the reared specimens appeared clearly separated by diet in NMDS plots, no significant difference between the slugs fed on the two different diets was found. Our results indicate that while the majority of the faecal microbiome of G. maculosus is probably dependent on the microhabitat of the individual slugs, parts of it are likely selected for by the host