Report 3: Student Perspectives On RISE Digital Activities (OFS Local Challenge Fund Project)

This report contributes to an evaluation of the sustained impact of the RISE digital projects at Manchester Metropolitan University that focus on developing students’ digital skills, awareness and confidence (part of the OFS funded ‘Graduates for a Greater Manchester’ project). It draws on focus groups and interviews conducted (in March 2021) with students who participated (in summer 2020) in a selection of the development opportunities that were offered as part of the project

Tech and Creative Digital: patterns of graduate employment in Greater Manchester

This report provides an analysis of the movement of graduates into the Tech and Creative Digital (T and CD) sector in Greater Manchester. It draws on a review of existing work exploring patterns of graduate mobility in respect of Greater Manchester, within the wider UK context, and an original analysis of DLHE (‘destinations’) data in relation to the Greater Manchester T and CD sector specifically

Poverty, Wealth and Place in Britain, 1968-2005

This paper examines long-term trends in the geography of poverty and wealth in Britain since 1968. To date, analysis of long-term trends in the spatial distribution of poverty in Britain have been frustrated by an absence of consistency in definitions, data sources and measures, as well as by changes over time in census and administrative geography. The research described here was commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in order to further understanding of spatial inequalities in wealth and poverty in Britain since the 1960s (see Dorling et al., 2007). In particular, it draws upon a series of nationally representative poverty surveys conducted in 1968, 1983, 1990, and 1999 in order to derive methodologically consistent measures of ‘breadline poverty’ and ‘core poverty’. These results are then applied to UK Census data using longitudinally consistent boundary data (census tracts) in order to explore the changing geography of poverty in Britain. In comparison with poverty, much less is known about the geography of wealth in Britain, and establishing its distribution is essential for a more thorough understanding of the dynamics of social inequality in Britain. This study represents the first attempt to operationalise such a measure in order to produce longitudinally consistent small area measures of ‘asset wealth’ based on housing wealth data, and ‘exclusive wealth’ based upon analysis of Family Expenditure Survey data. These analyses suggest that not only is poverty widespread in Britain today, but that both poverty and wealth have become increasingly spatially concentrated since 1968. Rich and poor households are increasingly clustering together in different areas, and the ‘average’ group of households which are neither rich nor poor has gradually diminished in size during this period. As a result, poor, rich and ‘average’ households became progressively less likely to live next door to one another between 1971 and 2001

Report 5: Final Evaluation And Assessment – Graduates For A Greater Manchester (OfS Local Challenge Fund Project)

Graduates for a Greater Manchester (GfGM) was a three-year project led by Manchester Metropolitan University Careers Service (in partnership with University of Manchester Careers Service) - one of sixteen funded by the OfS Local Challenge Fund to tackle employability support for ‘local’ students. It sought to develop tech and creative digital skills amongst student participants, and opportunities for them to apply skills and gain recognition for their development, with a view to enhanced employment outcomes. It also sought to develop greater connectivity between participating Universities and local tech and creative digital SME networks and industry/sector bodies in the city region. This final report is the fifth report written by the Decent Work and Productivity Research team and weaves data from a range of sources to make a final assessment and evaluation of the project. It aims to create a summary of value to the Steering group members and the communities they represent. It is written for a wider public audience too who are unfamiliar with project details but are interested in learning from how the project was delivered and what it achieved

Does gender matter? A cross-national investigation of primary class-room discipline.

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupFewer than 15% of primary school teachers in both Germany and the UK are male. With the on-going international debate about educational performance highlighting the widening gender achievement gap between girl and boy pupils, the demand for more male teachers has become prevalent in educational discourse. Concerns have frequently been raised about the underachievement of boys, with claims that the lack of male ‘role models’ in schools has an adverse effect on boys’ academic motivation and engagement. Although previous research has examined ‘teaching’ as institutional talk, men’s linguistic behaviour in the classroom remains largely ignored, especially in regard to enacting discipline. Using empirical spoken data collected from four primary school classrooms in both the UK and in Germany, this paper examines the linguistic discipline strategies of eight male and eight female teachers using Interactional Sociolinguistics to address the question, does teacher gender matter?Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Exploring the benefits and challenges of establishing a DRI-like process for bioactives

Bioactives can be defined as: "Constituents in foods or dietary supplements, other than those needed to meet basic human nutritional needs, which are responsible for changes in health status" (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office of Public Health and Science, Department of Health and Human Services in Fed Reg 69:55821-55822, 2004). Although traditional nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, protein, essential fatty acids and essential amino acids, have dietary reference intake (DRI) values, there is no such evaluative process for bioactives. For certain classes of bioactives, substantial scientific evidence exists to validate a relationship between their intake and enhanced health conditions or reduced risk of disease. In addition, the study of bioactives and their relationship to disease risk is a growing area of research supported by government, academic institutions, and food and supplement manufacturers. Importantly, consumers are purchasing foods containing bioactives, yet there is no evaluative process in place to let the public know how strong the science is behind the benefits or the quantitative amounts needed to achieve these beneficial health effects. This conference, Bioactives: Qualitative Nutrient Reference Values for Life-stage Groups?, explored why it is important to have a DRI-like process for bioactives and challenges for establishing such a process.Fil: J. R. Lupton.Fil: S. A. Atkinson.Fil: N. Chang.Fil: Fraga, César Guillermo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad Medicina. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Departamento de Química Analitica y Fisicoquímica. Cátedra de Fisicoquímica; ArgentinaFil: J. Levy.Fil: M. Messina.Fil: D. P. Richardson.Fil: B. van Ommen.Fil: Y. Yang.Fil: J. C. Griffiths.Fil: J. Hathcock

Convergence calls: multimedia storytelling at British news websites

This article uses qualitative interviews with senior editors and managers from a selection of the UK's national online news providers to describe and analyse their current experimentation with multimedia and video storytelling. The results show that, in a period of declining newspaper readership and TV news viewing, editors are keen to embrace new technologies, which are seen as being part of the future of news. At the same time, text is still reported to be the cornerstone for news websites, leading to changes in the grammar and function of news video when used online. The economic rationale for convergence is examined and the article investigates the partnerships sites have entered into in order to be able to serve their audience with video content. In-house video is complementing syndicated content, and the authors examine the resulting developments in newsroom training and recruitment practices. The article provides journalism and interactive media scholars with case studies on the changes taking place in newsrooms as a result of the shift towards multimedia, multiplatform news consumption

The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: Direct constraints on blue galaxy intrinsic alignments at intermediate redshifts

Correlations between the intrinsic shapes of galaxy pairs, and between the intrinsic shapes of galaxies and the large-scale density field, may be induced by tidal fields. These correlations, which have been detected at low redshifts (z<0.35) for bright red galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and for which upper limits exist for blue galaxies at z~0.1, provide a window into galaxy formation and evolution, and are also an important contaminant for current and future weak lensing surveys. Measurements of these alignments at intermediate redshifts (z~0.6) that are more relevant for cosmic shear observations are very important for understanding the origin and redshift evolution of these alignments, and for minimising their impact on weak lensing measurements. We present the first such intermediate-redshift measurement for blue galaxies, using galaxy shape measurements from SDSS and spectroscopic redshifts from the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. Our null detection allows us to place upper limits on the contamination of weak lensing measurements by blue galaxy intrinsic alignments that, for the first time, do not require significant model-dependent extrapolation from the z~0.1 SDSS observations. Also, combining the SDSS and WiggleZ constraints gives us a long redshift baseline with which to constrain intrinsic alignment models and contamination of the cosmic shear power spectrum. Assuming that the alignments can be explained by linear alignment with the smoothed local density field, we find that a measurement of \sigma_8 in a blue-galaxy dominated, CFHTLS-like survey would be contaminated by at most +/-0.02 (95% confidence level, SDSS and WiggleZ) or +/-0.03 (WiggleZ alone) due to intrinsic alignments. [Abridged]Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, accepted to MNRAS; v2 has correction to one author's name, NO other changes; v3 has minor changes in explanation and calculations, no significant difference in results or conclusions; v4 has an additional footnote about model interpretation, no changes to data/calculations/result