Gender divisions in youth transitions – a matter of choice or something to be tackled?

The first steps young people take into the labour market matter. In our new report for the Trades Union Congress (TUC) – The Gender Jobs Split – we investigate how young men and women experience these first steps differently

'A man who revels in his own ignorance, racism and misogyny': Identifiable referents trump indefinite grammar

Typically, a noun phrase beginning with the indefinite article introduces a referent assumed to be unknown to the addressee. But in newspaper opinion journalism, this is not always the case. In ‘instead of hailing its first female president, it [the US] seems poised to hand the awesome power of its highest office to a man who revels in his own ignorance, racism and misogyny’ (The Guardian, 9/11/16), ‘a man who…’ can be understood as a new referent or type. But once seen in context, where the identity of the man is known, it becomes clear that it is signalling something different. This paper examines how this sort of reference works by challenging existing accounts of ‘late’ indefinites and the meaning relation of co-extension. It is shown that lexical cohesive ties between the expression and preceding text and context create a shared space which allows these expressions to function ‘definitely’

“I’ve always been a grafter”: Older benefit recipients and welfare conditionality

Those aged over 50 experience the longest spells of unemployment and have particularly poor outcomes on government funded welfare-to-work programmes. Recent policy shifts in the UK have brought an end to differentiated labour market programmes for older social security claimants, but at the same time have extended and intensified the principle of welfare conditionality as part of UK active labour market policy. Using analysis of new data from 44 qualitative interviews with benefit recipients aged 50+ this paper explores older unemployed people’s experiences of the UK’s increasingly conditional welfare system. It concludes that a lack of personalisation results in an ineffective employment support system that neither recognises the skills and attributes of an ageing workforce nor provides appropriate support to help older people to overcome the barriers that routinely inhibit their labour market participation

Bioinformatic analysis of biotechnologically important microbial communities

Difficulties associated with the study of microbial communities, such as low proportions of cultivable species, have been addressed in recent years with the advent of a range of sequencing technologies and bioinformatic tools. This is enabling previously unexplored communities to be characterised and utilised in a range of biotechnology applications. In this thesis bioinformatic methods were applied to two datasets of biotechnological interest: microbial communities found living with the oil-producing alga Botryococcus braunii and microbial communities in acid mine drainage (AMD). B. braunii is of high interest to the biofuel industry due to its ability to produce high amounts of oils, in the form of hydrocarbons. However, a number of factors, including low growth rates, have prevented its cultivation on an industrial scale. Studies show B. braunii lives in a consortium with numerous bacteria which may influence its growth. This thesis reports both whole genome analysis and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis to gain a greater understanding of the B. braunii bacterial consortium. Bacteria have been identified, some of which had not previously been documented as living with B. braunii, and evidence is presented for ways in which they may influence growth of the alga, including B-vitamin synthesis and secretion systems. AMD is a worldwide problem, polluting the environment and negatively impacting on human health. This by-product of the mining industry is a problem in the South West of England, where disused metalliferous mines are now a source of AMD. Bioremediation of AMD is an active area of research; sulphur-reducing bacteria and other bacteria which can remove toxic metals from AMD can be utilised for this purpose. Identifying bacteria and archaea that are able to thrive in AMD and which also have these bioremediation properties is therefore of great importance. Metagenomic sequencing has been carried out on the microbial community living in AMD sediment at the Wheal Maid tailings lagoon near Penryn in Cornwall. From these data have been identified a diverse range of bacteria and archaea present at both the sediment surface level and at depth, including microorganisms closely related to taxa reported from metalliferous mines on other continents. Evidence has been found of sulphur-reducing bacteria and of pathways for various other bioremediation-linked processes.BBSR

Getting in, being heard, and influencing change:The labours of policy engagement in employment and social security research

UK employment policy is at a critical juncture; the effects of Covid-19 and Brexit on the labour market have heightened pre-existing and created new employment and income inequalities. Such experiences (and related temporary government policy responses) play out alongside the long-term roll-out of Universal Credit, a social security policy that imposes conditionality on a range of individuals, including people who are in work. As Universal Credit has the potential to transform power dynamics between individuals, the state and employers, revisiting and questioning the direction of Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs) should unite the interests of diverse social security and employment researchers (including scholars of Human Resource Management, Sociology of Work and Industrial Relations). Policymakers should draw on an abundance of research to reform the UK’s ALMPs and avoid replicating the problems of narrowly conceived work-first programmes and practices. In this chapter, we explore the role of social policy researchers in influencing policy change, reflecting on our own experiences as early career researchers. We advocate a ‘pragmatic realist’ approach to policy engagement and reflect on different approaches to operating at the evidence-policy interface. While we advocate for social policy researchers to engage with research methods and knowledge exchange practices to increase the uptake of research and expertise, we do not believe this is a one-way process and we also contend that policymakers and practitioners have a responsibility to open up to critical evaluation and policy insights from the social policy community

Assessing aggression following Acquired Brain Injury (ABI): A systematic review of assessment measures

© 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Objective: To conduct a systematic review to identify and examine the reliability and validity of standardized measures used to assess aggression in people with ABI. Data sources: Systematic searches of PsychInfo, Medline, Embase, PubMed and CINAHL databases along with hand searching of gray literature and review articles. Study selection: Studies were included if the sample had an ABI, and the measure included assessment of aggression. Data extraction: Sample and measure characteristics and psychometric properties were extracted. Measure quality was assessed using the COSMIN checklist. Data synthesis: Of 5,100 abstracts screened, 78 were reviewed in full against the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and 25 articles met the criteria for analysis. Included articles assessed the psychometric properties of 17 different measures of aggression in adults with ABI. Quality of evidence was often low. Four measures (MBPC-1990R, NFI, SASNOS and KSMS) demonstrated positive evidence of at least one psychometric property with good quality evidence. Conclusions: Although a large number of general measures were available, there are few measures that only assess post-ABI aggression, and many are not well-validated. Future research should assess the psychometric properties of these measures

Interrogating the prevention approach of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 for people with mental health needs who are homeless

Rates of homelessness and poor mental health present significant challenges across the globe. In this article, we explore how these intersecting issues have been addressed in Wales through Part 2 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 through a paradigm shift towards a prevention model. This article reports findings from a study (conducted between 2016 and 2018) which evaluated the processes and impacts of the Act against the backdrop of welfare reform and systemic changes taking place in Wales and the UK. Using new evidence, we offer a critical examination of how homelessness prevention policy operates in practice and how social values and power affect policy implementation. We offer new evidence of the translation of policy into practice through the experiences of two stakeholder groups: people with mental health needs and service providers. In doing so, we offer a critique of how policy and practice could be modified to improve outcomes for homeless people with implications for prevention policy in Wales and in other contexts and different welfare regimes

'We had a good laugh together': using Teams for collaborative learning

This case study describes the journey of an undergraduate module in its transition from an in-person lectures-plus-seminar configuration to an interactive, online format using Teams. I show how I created a sense of community and the opportunity for online group interaction by establishing small study groups that carried out weekly online group tasks in their own Team ‘channel’. Weekly roles were assigned to group members to spread the workload and ensure equal participation. Student feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and students particularly appreciated the opportunity to interact with their peers, during a potentially lonely time, for summative marks. Limitations to the model are discussed and potential solutions are offered

Re-defining Post-Literacy in a Changing World

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,