Between life course research and social history: new approaches to qualitative data in the British birth cohort studies

This article discusses a new interdisciplinary, mixed-methods approach to using data from the first British Birth Cohort Study, the National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD, 1946). It emerges from a collaboration between two historians of postwar Britain and a mixed-methods life course studies researcher. Our approach brings together cohort-level quantitative data with less well-known qualitative data from a sample of 150 participants’ original NSHD interview questionnaires to generate new perspectives on how macro processes of social change were experienced at an individual level and varied across the life course. The NSHD school-age and early adulthood sweeps included a series of open-ended questions relating to education, work, and social identities, which offer a sense of how participants responded to and understood the social transformations of the postwar decades within their everyday lives. This article explains our methodological rationale, before focussing on the wider analytical possibilities of our approach in relation to social mobility

‘SANDERS OF THE RIVER, STILL THE BEST JOB FOR A BRITISH BOY’; RECRUITMENT TO THE COLONIAL ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE AT THE END OF EMPIRE

ABSTRACTIn February 1951, the Sunday Express printed a piece extolling the virtues of a Colonial Service career, under the headline: ‘Sanders of the River, Still the Best Job for a British Boy’. This article explores the ideological and practical reasons why Sanders of the River, a character apparently so at odds with the post-Second World War Colonial Service message, continued to hold enough cultural resonance that it was considered appropriate to utilize him as a recruitment tool in 1951. Edgar Wallace's literary creation occupied a defining place in metropolitan understandings of the Colonial Service's work. Yet, by 1951, the ideological aims of the colonial project were changing. Sanders's paternalism had been dismissed in favour of a rhetoric that emphasized partnership and progress. The post-1945 district officer was expected to be a modern administrator, ready to work alongside educated Africans to prepare Britain's colonies for self-government. Exploring both Colonial Office recruitment strategies and recruits’ career motivations, this article situates the often ignored issue of Colonial Service recruitment at the end of empire within a wider cultural context to illuminate why, even as many turned away from careers in empire after 1945, a significant number of young Britons continued to apply.</jats:p

Domestic Museums of Decolonisation? Objects, Colonial Officials, and the Afterlives of Empire in Britain

This chapter draws on recent oral history research undertaken in the homes of former colonial civil servants to consider the relationship between objects and the formation and narration of memories of colonial service. It combines oral history and material culture approaches to consider how former colonial officials who served in the latter years of empire and decolonisation remember and memorialise colonial encounters within their contemporary homes. Described by Anthony Kirk-Greene as the ‘ultimate diaspora’ of decolonization, the 25,000 plus colonial officials who returned to Britain at the end of empire brought with them a vast array of items from former colonial territories. Many of these diverse objects remain present in contemporary homes and still act as tangible, quotidian reminders of past lives and encounters. Within the retrospective narratives of many former officials, mostly now in their 80s and 90s, a sense of nostalgia is pervasive; however, this often goes beyond an uncomplicated lament for lost status and privilege to reveal much about the impact of lifecycle and affective entanglements in shaping postcolonial narratives of empire. In this chapter, we will explore questions of memory, nostalgia and domestic display through a series of interviews with former colonial officials and their spouses about objects brought ‘home’ from empire. It considers how this group remembers the dislocations of decolonisation and have incorporated memories of imperial service into their post-colonial domestic lives. The idiosyncratic curation of domestic space reveals how objects can present personal narratives and memories of places and individuals encountered during careers in empire, but also become habituated into quotidian twenty-first century life. Objects frequently play a key role in mediating these memories and supporting highly selective accounts of the end of empire, but they also provide a means to interrogate these narratives more rigorously. Exploring the meanings of objects as markers of memory, this paper charts the confluence of material culture, memory and autobiography in shaping post-colonial narratives of empire amongst former officials

Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa Future Imperfect?

Looking at decolonization in the conditional tense, this volume teases out the complex and uncertain ends of British and French empire in Africa during the period of ‘late colonial shift’ after 1945

Between life course research and social history: new approaches to qualitative data in the British birth cohort studies

This article discusses a new interdisciplinary, mixed-methods approach to using data from the first British Birth Cohort Study, the National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD, 1946). It emerges from a collaboration between two historians of postwar Britain and a mixed-methods life course studies researcher. Our approach brings together cohort-level quantitative data with less well-known qualitative data from a sample of 150 participants’ original NSHD interview questionnaires to generate new perspectives on how macro processes of social change were experienced at an individual level and varied across the life course. The NSHD school-age and early adulthood sweeps included a series of open-ended questions relating to education, work, and social identities, which offer a sense of how participants responded to and understood the social transformations of the postwar decades within their everyday lives. This article explains our methodological rationale, before focussing on the wider analytical possibilities of our approach in relation to social mobility

Clinical nutrition in the hepatogastroenterology curriculum

Contains fulltext : 172135.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Gastroenterology (GE) used to be considered a subspecialty of internal medicine. Today, GE is generally recognized as a wide-ranging specialty incorporating capacities, such as hepatology, oncology and interventional endoscopy, necessitating GE-expert differentiation. Although the European Board of Gastroenterology and Hepatology has defined specific expertise areas in Advanced endoscopy, hepatology, digestive oncology and clinical nutrition, training for the latter topic is lacking in the current hepatogastroenterology (HGE) curriculum. Given its relevance for HGE practice, and being at the core of gastrointestinal functioning, there is an obvious need for training in nutrition and related issues including the treatment of disease-related malnutrition and obesity and its associated metabolic derangements. This document aims to be a starting point for the integration of nutritional expertise in the HGE curriculum, allowing a central role in the management of malnutrition and obesity. We suggest minimum endpoints for nutritional knowledge and expertise in the standard curriculum and recommend a focus period of training in nutrition issues in order to produce well-trained HGE specialists. This article provides a road map for the organization of such a training program. We would highly welcome the World Gastroenterology Organisation, the European Board of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the American Gastroenterology Association and other (inter)national Gastroenterology societies support the necessary certifications for this item in the HGE-curriculum

Detection of Common Disease-Causing Mutations in Mitochondrial DNA (Mitochondrial Encephalomyopathy, Lactic Acidosis with Stroke-Like Episodes MTTL1 3243 A>G and Myoclonic Epilepsy Associated with Ragged-Red Fibers MTTK 8344A>G) by Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction

The 3243A>G mutation in the MTTL1 (tRNA(Leu)) gene and the 8344A>G mutation in the MTTK (tRNA(Lys)) gene are the most common mutations found in mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis with stroke-like episodes and myoclonic epilepsy associated with ragged-red fibers, respectively. These mitochondrial DNA mutations are usually detected by conventional polymerase chain reaction followed by restriction enzyme digestion and gel electrophoresis. We developed a LightCycler real-time polymerase chain reaction assay to detect these two mutations based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer technology and melting curve analysis. Primers and fluorescence-labeled hybridization probes were designed so that the sensor probe spans the mutation site. The observed melting temperatures differed in the mutant and wild-type DNA by 9°C for the MTTL1 gene and 6°C for the MTTK gene. This method correctly identified all 10 samples that were 3243A>G mutation-positive, all 4 samples that were 8344A>G mutation-positive, and all 30 samples that were negative for both mutations, as previously identified by traditional gel-based methods. This LightCycler assay is a rapid and reliable technique for molecular diagnosis of these mitochondrial gene mutations