The English Catholic issue, 1640-1662: factionalism, perceptions and exploitation

PhDThis thesis explores the responses of different groups within the English Catholic community to the civil war, interregnum and restoration, with close attention to Catholic political theory. The English Catholic community were not mere observers of the constitutional and religious changes made during this period but manoeuvred within shifting political frameworks, continually adjusting their politics to meet new requirements. After the defeat and the execution of Charles I, members of the community made a series of compromises with political parties to secure toleration. Until the Restoration these were almost all to the exclusion of the Stuarts. Catholic political theorists engaged with the pro-sectarian, tolerationist principles of the parliamentary Independents during the first part of the Interregnum, but after the failure of the Cromwellian Church settlement in 1655 began to interact with anti-sectarian proepiscopal groups during the decline of the Protectorate. Further, the community’s membership of an international church, their ideological assumptions and patronage from, and allegiances to, European courts meant that English Catholics had to be an integral part of Cromwellian foreign policy. The 1650s did not signify a break in the politics and ambition of the community but instead saw a continuation of the divisions, back-biting and intolerance that Catholics had shown during the 1620s and 1630s. Due to the factional nature of both the politics of the interregnum and the community itself however, English Catholics stood to gain more from the Protectorate than they did from the Stuart monarchy. This thesis therefore reintegrates English Catholicism into the existing historiography of mid-seventeenth century British history

‘Novels are not Nonsense’: 1920s and 1930s New Zealand reflected through the Fiction of Jean Devanny and John A. Lee.

John Mulgan’s Man Alone (1939) has often been considered by historians and literary scholars as ‘the fullest prose rendering of what the New Zealand twenties and thirties felt like.’¹ This thesis argues that other contemporary novels, specifically those of Jean Devanny (1894 – 1962) and John A. Lee (1891 – 1982), present equally rich sources of information for historians researching early twentieth century New Zealand. Devanny and Lee both wrote novels set in a contemporary context, all of which offer critiques relevant to aspects of New Zealand society. These works often draw on and comment on entrenched understandings of gender, class and race, and thus provide a nuanced and sophisticated picture of 1920s and 1930s New Zealand. In this sense, the novels enable meaningful insights into contemporary issues. As Devanny asserts, they are by no means ‘nonsense’, but highly valuable and useful considerations relevant to contemporary lives and issues.² This thesis stresses that the contradictions and intricacies found in the novels of these two authors, Devanny’s in particular, should be utilised by historians as they reflect on various issues in early twentieth century New Zealand. Indeed, what might they say about New Zealanders’ understandings of their national history if Devanny’s The Butcher Shop (1926) or Lee’s Children of the Poor (1934) was regarded by historians as the quintessential novel of the 1920s and 1930s instead of Man Alone

'It's just what you do' : how can educational psychologists and early years practitioners work together to reflect on pedagogy?

DAppEdPsy ThesisSocial Constructivist Theory (SCT) represents an evidence-based pedagogical approach, underpinning some of the world’s most successful education systems. The approach emphasises the importance of developing a pedagogy beginning from children’s interests and scaffolded by educators. SCT also provides a lens to view the learning of others and ourselves, providing a useful basis for reflective professional development. Educational psychologists (EPs) offer expertise in research and theory, therefore are well placed to support practitioner professional development utilising theoretical frameworks. Such approaches provide an alternative to the common reactive practice of EPs, and pressures of a performativity culture felt by educators; offering both parties the opportunity to explore new directions for practice, within a Community of Learners. Chapter one details how a combined synthesis was utilised to review SCT and dispositions literature. This led to a nuanced consideration of how SCT can support educators to create environments which exemplify and encourage positive learning dispositions. Chapter two bridges the literature review and empirical research, explaining how the researcher’s ontological and epistemological pragmatic stance influenced the research. Discussions of methodological decisions and ethical practice are also included here. The final chapter details the empirical study which aimed to explore how the elements highlighted in the literature review could be used to support EYs practitioners to reflect on their practice. The study aimed to identify how EPs and EYs practitioners could work together using video to reflect on pedagogy. The study involved six members of staff from nursery and reception. Five weeks of videoing and reflective sessions were completed. Following the project, staff and the researcher were involved in a collaborative evaluative dialogue, analysed using data driven thematic analysis. Emerging themes suggest collaborative reflection with colleagues and an EP led to changes in perspectives and practice

Lexical and Syntactic Influences on Structural Selection in Language Production

We still know surprisingly little about how grammatical structures are selected for use in sentence production. A major debate concerns whether structural selection is competitive or noncompetitive. Competitive accounts propose that alternative structures or structural components actively suppress one another’s activation until one option reaches the threshold for selection, whereas noncompetitive accounts propose that grammatical structures emerge as a result of incremental processes that generate an utterance in a piece-by-piece fashion, without direct competition between syntactic components. In this dissertation, I test the hypothesis that a competitive structural selection mechanism may function in tandem with more general incremental processes. Most importantly, I manipulated the structure of prime sentences (active and passive), and also included an unrelated control prime condition (intransitive structure) in order to clearly segregate facilitatory and competitive effects. Syntactic flexibility was manipulated by constraining structural choices or leaving them open. To fully explore syntactic and lexical processes, experiments also manipulated two kinds of verbs (normal agentive verbs and theme-experiencer verbs), verb repetition, and lexical priming of sentence arguments. Dependent measures included structural choices for the unconstrained conditions and initiation latency for all conditions. Across five experiments, results did not consistently show effects of structural priming on syntactic choices for unconstrained targets, or on reaction time. Consequently, there was also no evidence of competition in terms of reversals of choice rates or slower initiation of unprimed structures. Despite this, there was some evidence of increasing passive use within experiments. Given the weak priming effects, the patterns of errors and reaction times were assessed outside of the priming manipulations. The results of these comparisons generally indicated that production was faster and less error-prone in the unconstrained conditions, consistent with a noncompetitive account, and largely replicating Ferreira (1996). The experiments also demonstrated dramatic differences of flexibility for the two different sub-types of verbs. As a whole, this dissertation provides little evidence for syntactic competition during structural selection in sentence production. However, a definitive test of competition in grammatical formulation must await a more successful manipulation of immediate structural choices

Keeping Chance in Its Place: The Socio-Legal Regulation of Gambling

In the winter of 2010, driving through a blizzard to a research interview outside of Ottawa, one of the co-editors of this special issue—Kate Bedford—slid and spun off the road in her rental car. The interviewee—an 80-year-old man who organized a small weekly bingo game—helped dig her out. Sitting in the community centre with him afterwards, thawing, there was ample opportunity for Bedford to reflect on the diverse meanings attached to gambling and the complex ways in which it is regulated. The interviewee talked about ‘use of proceeds’ forms and validating expenses payments for volunteers, describing a gambling landscape that seemed a long way from dominant law and policy conversations. While commentators on the global financial crisis were drawing repeated analogies to casinos and poker, the less glamourous world of small-town bingo seemed to have slipped from view. This special issue is, in part, an effort to bring it back. In 2013, inspired by research in Ontario, Bedford began work on a large, international research grant into gambling regulation. Rather than focusing on relatively well-researched forms of gambling, such as casinos, the project centred bingo as a distinctively under-studied gambling sector. The second co-editor, Donal Casey, joined the initiative in 2015, believing that online gambling could provide a crucial new lens for his research into European Union (“EU”) law and regulation. As part of the research project, Bedford, Casey, and others convened a conference at the University of Kent in 2016 on socio-legal approaches to gambling, where scholars from nine countries and a number of disciplines presented their research. The seven papers that we have collected in this special issue are drawn from that conference, including one from our third co-editor, Alexandra Flynn. In this Introduction to the collection, we lay out what these papers offer to the field of gambling research and beyond. To begin, we identify the scholarly approaches to gambling upon which we wish to build (Part I). Then, we specify three contributions we seek to make through our socio-legal endeavors. First, this collection seeks to foreground the diverse, vernacular forms and places of play that are sometimes overlooked in gambling scholarship (Part II). Second, the papers take a distinctive pluralist approach that recognizes the multi-layered character of gambling regulation (Part III). Third, and finally, the interdisciplinary and methodologically-diverse nature of this special issue allows the papers, alongside the contributions in the Voices and Perspectives section, to speak to a wide range of debates within and outside academia (Part IV)

Taking Streets Seriously

In many parts of Gauteng, streets are congested with cars, trucks, minibus taxis, pedestrians, and informal traders. In other parts, streets are quiet, underutilised and frequently underserviced. The surface quality of the city-region’s streets varies widely – from the engineering marvel of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project to those (relatively few) remaining gravel or dirt roads. Besides these contrasts, there are many other degrees of quality by which Gauteng’s streets vary. In some parts of Gauteng, streets have become privatised or heavily securitised. The phenomenon of ‘gated’ communities either manifests as enclosed streets within private estates or as closed-off existing public-road networks in older suburban areas. Some streets are patrolled by security guards, lined with high walls and electric fences, and surveyed by CCTV cameras. In busy areas, informal traders sell their wares on the pavement or at traffic lights, adding to the congestion on narrow sidewalks. These activities are subject to varying levels of control and police harassment, where by-laws dictating the use of roads and pavements are haphazardly enforced, with trading goods or café tables randomly confiscated across the city. And, like many other features of the urban environment, the quality of Gauteng’s streets is highly uneven. This Research Report, ‘Taking Streets Seriously’, interrogates how what is considered good urban design and liveability of streets may shift in different contexts. Through a series of case studies it attempts to understand the various logics at play in Gauteng’s streets – not only the logics of their designers, builders or managers, but also of those who inhabit, use, or otherwise interact with them. The studies unearthed a complex interplay of actors on Gauteng streets, with street users, property owners and the state each operating according to their own, diverse agendas, contingent on the particular street in question. The result is streets that are chaotic, contested, and changing over time. It is fair to say that, with only a few exceptions, Gauteng’s streets were and continue to be designed with hostility or a studied disregard towards anyone not behind a steering wheel. Yet despite the dominance of cars, pedestrian activities do proliferate. While indubitably car-centric, they are nonetheless sites of diverse and vibrant 'non-motorised' life. This vibrancy is no thanks to those who constructed and now control our streets. Non-car users have only made their mark by contesting the territory of the street using a variety of tactics. With this Research Report, we hope to prompt a re-imagination of our streets, not least as streets rather than roads, but also as public spaces. Streets comprise by far the majority of public space in contemporary Gauteng, where other forms, such as plazas and parks, are woefully inadequate. Streets taken seriously – not by users, who have little choice, but by their designers, planners, and managers – have enormous potential to enable and encourage public life in Gauteng’s cities. Conversely, streets that are poorly made or neglected outright can constrain both the society and economy of a city. Ultimately, we hope to correct an official urban discourse that overlooks the many uses to which streets are and could be put. In a time of enormous excitement and corresponding investment in our cities, we would like to see some of both these factors directed towards the (re)development of our streets.AP201

Exploring the provision and support of care for long-term conditions in dementia: A qualitative study combining interviews and document analysis

Background: The challenge of managing multiple long-term conditions is a prevalent issue for people with dementia and those who support their care. The presence of dementia complicates healthcare delivery and the development of personalised care plans, as health systems and clinical guidelines are often designed around single condition services. Objective: This study aimed to explore how care for long-term conditions is provided and supported for people with dementia in the community. Methods: In a qualitative, case study design, consecutive telephone or video-call interviews were conducted with people with dementia, their family carers and healthcare providers over a four-month period. Participant accounts were triangulated with documentary analysis of primary care medical records and event-based diaries kept by participants with dementia. Thematic analysis was used to develop across-group themes. Findings: Six main themes were identified from eight case studies: 1) Balancing support and independence, 2) Implementing and adapting advice for dementia contexts, 3) Prioritising physical, cognitive and mental health needs, 4) Competing and entwined needs and priorities, 5) Curating supportive professional networks, 6) Family carer support and coping. Discussion: These findings reflect the dynamic nature of dementia care which requires the adaptation of support in response to changing need. We witnessed the daily realities for families of implementing care recommendations in the community, which were often adapted for the contexts of family carers’ priorities for care of the person living with dementia and what they were able to provide. Realistic self-management plans which are deliverable in practice must consider the intersection of physical, cognitive and mental health needs and priorities, and family carers needs and resources

Structural and physical properties of selected complex chalcogenides

The structure and physical properties of a selection of mixed-metal chalcogenides have been investigated. Materials covered in this study have shown a range of unusual behaviours. GeV4S8 has been successfully synthesized in order to investigate the structural properties as a function of temperature. These data reveal that there are three distinct polymorphs over the temperature range 7 ≤ T / K ≤ 32, of which one had not been previously determined. Neutron diffraction experiments reveal a series of peak splittings and broadenings upon cooling to indicate a deviation from the face-centred cubic structure at room temperature. A reduction in symmetry to R3m, at TS = 32K is observed. Antiferromagnetic ordering is then associated with a second successive phase transition at TN = 17 K to Cm, which is a sub-group of R3m. This monoclinic phase has previously not been reported. A new series has been prepared through substitution of chromium with indium in Cr1-xInxGeTe3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) to investigate the effects of diluting the magnetic cation on the structural, physical and magnetic properties. CrGeTe3 crystallises in space group R3ത with a three-layer repeating unit. It consists of hexagonally close packed layers of Te2- ions, with Cr3+ ions and (Ge2) 6+ dumbbell pairs occupying octahedral holes in only every other layer. The unoccupied layers persist throughout the series; however cationic ordering within the layers of Te2- ions results in different stacking sequences. Cr1-xInxGeTe3, x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 0.6 samples have a range of ferromagnetism that can be described using Curie-Weiss law, but they also have regions of spin glass dominated behaviour below the ‘freeze’ temperature, Tf. Semiconducting data showed samples did not exhibit thermally activated conduction but were found to fit a variable-range-hopping model that represents electrical conductivity in three-dimensions. At x = 0, Seebeck coefficients are large and positive, however for x = 1, markedly different behaviour is observed. InGeTe3 undergoes a change in the dominant charge carriers from electrons to holes at 245 K

Copy number variation in co-morbid neurodevelopmental disorders

Copy number variants (CNVs) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of clinically distinct neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), indicating common underlying pathophysiology. Yet, the frequency, genetic architecture, and phenotypic role of pathogenic CNVs in adults with co-morbid neurodevelopmental phenotypes has not yet been systematically investigated. Adults with intellectual disability (ID) and psychiatric co-morbidities were recruited from ID psychiatry services across the UK (N=202). Using a genotype-first approach, chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) was undertaken, and variants were categorised using the NHS regional genetics service (RGCs) clinical pipeline. Genetic and phenotypic data was combined with two independent samples to enable frequency analyses (N=599). Targeted recruitment of individuals with 2q13 CNVs was undertaken via a patient support group, RGCs and the online rare CNV database DECIPHER (N=25). The frequency of pathogenic CNVs was 11%, rising to 13% in the replication cohort. Both novel and recurrent loci were found to harbour pathogenic CNVs, with 70% at established NDD risk loci. A significantly higher population frequency of CNVs was identified in NDD risk regions (10%), compared with schizophrenia (3.1%, p<0.0001) and ID/autism spectrum disorder (6.5%, p<0.0008) populations. Phenotypic characterisation of CNVs at the 2q13 region suggests an early-onset neuropsychiatric phenotype with a high incidence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and challenging behaviours. There is a high yield of pathogenic CNVs in patients with co-morbid neurodevelopmental phenotypes. In the main part, distinct loci are not involved in co-morbid NDD risk, but risk arises from the same loci identified in single disorder cohorts. Detailed phenotypic investigation of the 2q13 locus indicates that pleiotropy exists, however there is a preferential psychiatric outcome – in this instance ADHD. Understanding the factors which modulate a CNV region with a high general risk for NDDs to a preferential neuropathological pathway will be key to understanding the complex hierarchy of psychiatric nosology and developing successful therapeutic interventions