Permeable borders, possible worlds: history and identity in the novels of Michèle Roberts

Since the publication of her first novel, A Piece of the Night, in 1978, Michele Roberts’ fiction has continually returned to epiphanic moments which elide divisions in time and space. Roberts uses her own experience as a woman of two cultures (English and French), as well as fictionalised histories of other women, to inform narratives in which the borders of history, culture and identity are figured as complex palimpsests. From the quasi-autobiographical narratives in A Piece of the Night and The Visitation (1983), Roberts moved on to rewrite biblical biographies of Mrs Noah (The Book of Mrs Noah, 1987) and Mary Magdalene (The Wild Girl, 1984). In In the Red Kitchen (1990) five female narrators ‘speak’ to each other, creating a textual dialogue in which conclusions are not fixed and time never stands still. Flesh and Blood (1994) offers a series of dovetailed narratives and withholds any sense of closure. With reference to feminist work on time and space, this essay examines the extent to which Roberts’ fiction engages with contemporary debates about the fragmentation and reconstruction of feminine identity. White argues that siting such discussion within narrative fiction offers a logical and accessible location for theorizing the (im)possible

Beryl Reid Says... Good Evening: Performing Queer Identity on British Television

Beryl Reid Says… Good Evening was a comedy revue series broadcast on BBC television in the late 1960s which showcased the talents of a renowned British character comedy performer. Beryl Reid’s career spanned music hall, variety theatre, dramatic acting, radio comedy, film and television. She was a celebrity figure from the 1950s to her death in the 1990s but never became a ‘star’ as such. Reid’s work is addressed as a form of queer performance, both in roles which reference lesbian sexuality and roles which depict eccentric femininities. This television series was one of the few attempts to showcase her talents, and it is discussed here as an example of how character comedy queers heteronormativity through its camp attention to the everyday

Visions and re-visions: Women and time in Michèle Roberts's 'In the red kitchen'.

This essay argues that Michèle Roberts’ novel, In the Red Kitchen, is engaged in a similar project to that of Julia Kristeva’s essay ‘Women’s Time’. This essay understands both as attempting to grapple with Adrienne Rich’s challenge that women must reinterpret and ‘re-vision’ their own histories. Moving between Kristeva’s theoretical piece and Roberts’ fiction, the essay charts how both texts examine the slips and shifts of linear history, relating moments ‘out of time’ in the novel to Kristeva’s concept of women’s time. White proposes that historical writing in all its forms – autobiographical, biographical, fictional and factual – is partial and liable to be refracted in the light of alternative versions of the same story. In the Red Kitchen employs multiple narrative voices to indicate how historical truths can be hidden, erased and revealed. This multivalent narrative thus makes apparent the ways in which women’s history is ultimately and inevitably various, if only because of the range of women’s experience. This essay, like White’s article for Studies in the Literary Imagination, adds to a growing body of work on Roberts’ writing. Roberts belongs to a generation of contemporary British women writers in danger of being ignored or forgotten by literary academi

Monitoring and evaluation of family interventions: information on families supported to March 2010 (Research report DFE-RR044)

"This report updates and builds on the previous research by presenting and analysing FIIS [Family intervention Information system] data provided by family intervention staff up to and including 31 March 2010. The report is primarily based on simple descriptive statistics which provide a summary of the quantitative evidence. In addition statistical modelling (logistic regression) was used to look at the factors associated with successful and unsuccessful outcomes." - Page 14

Monitoring and evaluation of family interventions (Information on families supported to March 2010) RR044

Josie Dixon, Vera Schneider, Cheryl Lloyd, Alice Reeves, Clarissa White, Wojtek Tomaszewski, Rosie Green and Eleanor Irelan

Theory of mind in middle childhood: Longitudinal associations with executive function and social competence.

The vast majority of studies on theory of mind (ToM) have focused on the preschool years. Extending the developmental scope of ToM research presents opportunities to both reassess theoretical accounts of ToM and test its predictive utility. The twin aims of this longitudinal study were to examine developmental relations between ToM, executive function (EF), and teacher-rated social competence in middle childhood. One hundred thirty-seven children (69 males) were followed across a 4-year period spanning middle childhood (M ages at Waves 1 and 2 = 6.05, SD = .35, and 10.81, SD = .35, respectively). Individual differences in ToM were moderately stable across middle childhood. Although there were concurrent associations between ToM and EF at both time points, there were no longitudinal links between these constructs. In contrast, there were concurrent and longitudinal links between ToM and teacher-rated social competence, such that individual differences in ToM predicted later social competence at school. These results are discussed in light of competing theories about the links between ToM and EF and the importance of individual differences in ToM for children's social lives. (PsycINFO Database RecordThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Psychological Association https://doi.org/10.1037/dev000010

Digital technologies and dementia - training guide

This practical guide for group facilitators is now available to support training for people living with dementia/cognitive impairment in the use of digital technologies. The guide gives top tips including the importance of simple steps and the need for repetition, repetition, repetition, along with prepared staged worksheets for facilitators to use. The guide uses learning from the delivery of CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD research project, carried out at the University of Hull https://caregiversprommd-project.eu/

The CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD Platform as an Online Informational and Social Support Tool for People Living With Memory Problems and Their Carers: An Evaluation of User Engagement, Usability and Usefulness

People living with dementia or cognitive impairment (PwD) and their carers often have unmet needs for informational and social support postdiagnosis. Web-based platforms have the potential to address these needs, although few have been developed for use by both PwD and carers. The CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD platform was developed to provide both user groups with informational and peer-to-peer social support. Platform logging data were analyzed to assess the extent to which PwD (n = 37) and carers (n = 37) engaged with the platform and its social/informational features in their daily lives. Participants also provided feedback on the usefulness and usability of the platform. The majority of PwD and carers found the platform and its social/informational features useful and usable, and significant subsets of both groups utilized the platform regularly. However, carers engaged with the informational and social features to a greater extent than PwD, and users highlighted that PwD typically required regular support to use the platform

Using professional atandards : assessing work integrated learning in initial teacher education

All Australian teacher education programs must include practical experience--the practicum. It is a critical part of learning to become a teacher.  One of the major challenges in initial teacher education is to provide good quality assessment of the practicum.  Assessing the practicum is filled with tension for both the individual supervisor as well as the pre-service teacher. In 2011 the Australian National Professional Standards for Teachers were established.  On completion of teacher education programs, graduate teachers will have gained the knowledge and practice to meet the seven national standards.  For teacher preparation programs, the successful implementation of the standards will rely on the opportunities for preservice teachers to gather evidence of achieving the standards. This project focussed specifically on evidence of achievements of these standards through assessment practices during practicum.The overall aim of this project was to enhance the academic and school-based teacher educators\u27 and preservice teachers\u27 capacities and understandings of assessing the practicum.  To achieve this aim, four outcomes were developed to provide professional leaning for improving the assessment practices of the practicum: a website resource, a collaborative partnership process, a professional learning model (PLM) and a developmental \u27inventory\u27 of evidence of achievement of the first five national standards.  The website resource provides materials and activities for staff involved in the design of professional experience in initial teacher education programs, to work with partner schools and preservice teachers to facilitate high quality supervision and assessment in practicum sites.  The collaborateive partnership process used for achieving these soutcomes -- communities of reflective practitioners--is integral to the professional learning focus of the project.  It guides the use of the resource in future teacher education sites of practice.  The professional learning model and website materials emphasise the critical role that evidence-informed judgements play at school sites in learning and assessment of future teachers