Changing patterns of religious affiliation, church attendance and marriage across five areas of Europe since the early 1980s: trends and associations

This study draws on three waves of the European Values Survey (conducted between 1981 and 1984, between 1989 and 1993, and between 1999 and 2004) across five countries for which full data are available (Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Spain, and Sweden) in order to address five research questions. Question one examined changes in religious affiliation. Across all five countries, the proportions of the non-affiliated increased. Question two examined changes in church attendance. Across all five countries, the proportions of the non-attenders increased. Question three examined changes in marital status. Across all five countries the proportions of the population checking the category 'married' declined, although in Spain the decline was marginal. Question four examined the association between religious affiliation and being married. The religious affiliated were more likely to be married than the non-affiliated. Question five examined the association between church attendance and being married. Weekly attenders were more likely to be married than the non-attenders. Overall these data support the close association between religion and marriage across five European countries (where there are very different religious climates) and support the hypothesis that changing religious values and changing family values go hand-in-hand

Educational aspirations in inner city schools

The research aimed to assess the nature and level of pupils’ educational aspirations and to elucidate the factors that influence these aspirations. A sample of five inner city comprehensive secondary schools were selected by their Local Authority because of poor pupil attendance, below average examination results and low rates of continuing in full-time education after the age of 16. Schools were all ethnically mixed and co-educational. Over 800 pupils aged 12-14 completed a questionnaire assessing pupils’ experience of home, school and their peers. A sub-sample of 48 pupils selected by teachers to reflect ethnicity and ability levels in individual schools also participated in detailed focus group interviews. There were no significant differences in aspirations by gender or year group, but differences between ethnic groups were marked. Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani groups had significantly higher educational aspirations than the White British group, who had the lowest aspirations. The results suggest the high aspirations of Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani pupils are mediated through strong academic self-concept, positive peer support, a commitment to schooling and high educational aspirations in the home. They also suggest that low educational aspirations may have different mediating influences in different ethnic groups. The low aspirations of White British pupils seem to relate most strongly to poor academic self-concept and low educational aspirations in the home, while for Black Caribbean pupils disaffection, negative peers and low commitment to schooling appear more relevant. Interviews with pupils corroborated the above findings and further illuminated the factors students described as important in their educational aspirations. The results are discussed in relation to theories of aspiration which stress its nature as a cultural capacity

Rethinking place and the social work office in the delivery of children's social work services

Limited attention has been given to the concept of place in social work research and practice. This paper draws on the national evaluation of social work practices (SWPs) in England undertaken between 2009 and 2012. SWPs were pilot organisations providing independent social work services for children in out-of-home care in five sites. One factor distinguishing some of these pilots was their attention to place. The evaluation employed a mixed methods approach and we use data from interviews with 121 children and young people in out-of-home care, 19 birth parents and 31 interviews with SWP staff which explored their views and experiences of the SWP offices. Children and young people were alert to the stigma which could attach to social work premises and appreciated offices which were planned and furnished to appear less institutional and more ‘normal’. Daily interactions with staff which conveyed a sense of recognition and value to service users also contributed to a view of some SWP offices as accessible and welcoming places. Both children and parents appreciated offices that provided fun activities that positioned them as active rather than passive. Staff valued opportunities for influencing planning decisions about offices and place was seen to confer a value on them as well as on service users. However, not all the SWPs were able to achieve these aspects of place, and engaging children and families in place was less likely when the service user population was widely dispersed. Recognising the importance of place and how place is constructed through relationships between people as well as through the physical environment appeared to be key to creating offices that combated the stigma attached to out-of-home care. Those leading and managing children’s services should explore ways of involving local communities in planning social work offices and turn attention to making these offices accessible, welcoming, places

Damage function for historic paper. Part I: Fitness for use

Background In heritage science literature and in preventive conservation practice, damage functions are used to model material behaviour and specifically damage (unacceptable change), as a result of the presence of a stressor over time. For such functions to be of use in the context of collection management, it is important to define a range of parameters, such as who the stakeholders are (e.g. the public, curators, researchers), the mode of use (e.g. display, storage, manual handling), the long-term planning horizon (i.e. when in the future it is deemed acceptable for an item to become damaged or unfit for use), and what the threshold of damage is, i.e. extent of physical change assessed as damage. Results In this paper, we explore the threshold of fitness for use for archival and library paper documents used for display or reading in the context of access in reading rooms by the general public. Change is considered in the context of discolouration and mechanical deterioration such as tears and missing pieces: forms of physical deterioration that accumulate with time in libraries and archives. We also explore whether the threshold fitness for use is defined differently for objects perceived to be of different value, and for different modes of use. The data were collected in a series of fitness-for-use workshops carried out with readers/visitors in heritage institutions using principles of Design of Experiments. Conclusions The results show that when no particular value is pre-assigned to an archival or library document, missing pieces influenced readers/visitors’ subjective judgements of fitness-for-use to a greater extent than did discolouration and tears (which had little or no influence). This finding was most apparent in the display context in comparison to the reading room context. The finding also best applied when readers/visitors were not given a value scenario (in comparison to when they were asked to think about the document having personal or historic value). It can be estimated that, in general, items become unfit when text is evidently missing. However, if the visitor/reader is prompted to think of a document in terms of its historic value, then change in a document has little impact on fitness for use

Rethinking the social impacts of the arts

The paper presents a critical discussion of the current debate over the social impacts of the arts in the UK. It argues that the accepted understanding of the terms of the debate is rooted in a number of assumptions and beliefs that are rarely questioned. The paper goes on to present the interim findings of a three‐year research project, which aims to rethink the social impact of the arts, with a view to determining how these impacts might be better understood. The desirability of a historical approach is articulated, and a classification of the claims made within the Western intellectual tradition for what the arts “do” to people is presented and discussed

The unacknowledged legacy

This paper presents a critical discussion of the treatment of mimetic art, and particularly poetry and the theatre, in the work of the Athenian philosopher Plato (427-347 BC). It centres on Plato's discussion of the corrupting powers of the arts in the Republic, and the implications that his fierce attack on poetry and theatre have for his construction of the ideal polity. The legacy of Platonic ideas in later elaborations of the corrupting power of the arts is discussed. Furthermore, the paper investigates the relationship between current debates on cultural policy and the Platonic idea that the transformative powers of the arts ought to be harnessed by the state to promote a just society. The conclusion thus reached is that “instrumental cultural policy”, rather then being a modern invention, was in fact first theorized precisely in Plato's Republic

Military Training Mission in Iraq: An Exploratory Case Study Research

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how military training is being conducted by NATO coalition forces in Iraq. Thus, the intent of this paper is to discuss the implications of existing misalignments between the military forces that are providing the training and those receiving it. To that end, we have used an exploratory case study research, which included multiple sources of data collection for corroboration and triangulation purposes. The results that emerged from the content analysis showed two types of outcomes that may be relevant to improve the military training in Iraq. The first outcome is identified as the intangible actions, which were mainly focused on social relations, with the intent of narrowing the cultural gap between the international coalition and Iraqi forces. Without surprising, a second outcome is identified as tangible actions, which were associated with training programs and the establishment of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) relevant to small and medium military units. Future research should focus on programs of “training the trainers” in order to develop long-term teaching and move forward with sustainable Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Determinants of impact : towards a better understanding of encounters with the arts

The article argues that current methods for assessing the impact of the arts are largely based on a fragmented and incomplete understanding of the cognitive, psychological and socio-cultural dynamics that govern the aesthetic experience. It postulates that a better grasp of the interaction between the individual and the work of art is the necessary foundation for a genuine understanding of how the arts can affect people. Through a critique of philosophical and empirical attempts to capture the main features of the aesthetic encounter, the article draws attention to the gaps in our current understanding of the responses to art. It proposes a classification and exploration of the factors—social, cultural and psychological—that contribute to shaping the aesthetic experience, thus determining the possibility of impact. The ‘determinants of impact’ identified are distinguished into three groups: those that are inherent to the individual who interacts with the artwork; those that are inherent to the artwork; and ‘environmental factors’, which are extrinsic to both the individual and the artwork. The article concludes that any meaningful attempt to assess the impact of the arts would need to take these ‘determinants of impact’ into account, in order to capture the multidimensional and subjective nature of the aesthetic experience