The limits of social class in explaining ethnic gaps in educational attainment

This paper reports an analysis of the educational attainment and progress between age 11 and age 14 of over 14,500 students from the nationally representative Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE). The mean attainment gap in national tests at age 14 between White British and several ethnic minority groups were large, more than three times the size of the gender gap, but at the same time only about one-third of the size of the social class gap. Socio-economic variables could account for the attainment gaps for Black African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi students, but not for Black Caribbean students. Further controls for parental and student attitudes, expectations and behaviours indicated minority ethnic groups were on average more advantaged on these measures than White British students, but this was not reflected proportionately in their levels of attainment. Black Caribbean students were distinctive as the only group making less progress than White British students between age 11 and 14 and this could not be accounted for by any of the measured contextual variables. Possible explanations for the White British-Black Caribbean gap are considered

Framing the agricultural use of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance in UK national newspapers and the farming press

Despite links to animal disease governance, food and biosecurity, rural studies has neglected consideration of how actors make sense of the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture and the implications for animal and human health. As antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has become a high-profile problem, the contribution of animal antibiotics is frequently mentioned in scientific and policy documents but how different agricultural actors interpret its significance is less clear. This paper offers the first social scientific investigation of contestation and consensus surrounding the use of antibiotics in agriculture and their implications for AMR as mediated through mainstream news-media and farming print media in the UK. Frame analysis of four national newspapers and one farming paper reveals three distinct frames. A ‘system failure’ frame is the most frequently occurring and positions intensive livestock production systems as a key contributor to AMR-related crises in human health. A ‘maintaining the status quo’ frame argues that there is no evidence linking antibiotics in farming to AMR in humans and stresses the necessity of (some) antibiotic use for animal health. A third frame – which is only present in the farming media – highlights a need for voluntary, industry-led action on animal antibiotic use in terms of farmer self-interest. Common to all frames is that the relationship between agricultural use of antibiotics and problems posed by AMR is mostly discussed in terms of the implications for human health as opposed to both human and animal health

The Muslim problematic: Muslims, state schools and security

Muslims are folk-devils that mark the ubiquitous moral panic. For some, the idea of the Muslim problematic signifies a long and worrying trend of creeping ‘Islamification’ of state schools. For others, the discourse of the Muslim problematic reflects the ongoing racial patholigisation of Britain’s minoritised communities. One thing is for certain, the current debate marks a significant moment in the nature and function of the neoliberal state as it reframes race relation policy in Britain in the light of the security agenda. The Trojan Horse affair, surrounding claims of infiltration of radical Islam in state-run schools, marks a significant moment in the embedding of the security agenda in Britain’s inner city schools through the medium of the Prevent agenda. It argues that one of the best ways of understanding the security agenda is by locating it within a broader sociological and historical context of the functioning of the racial state

Community radio in the West: a legacy of struggle for survival in a state and capitalist controlled media environment

In this article the legacy of struggle by community radio in the West is analysed from a comparative perspective. More specifically, the focus of this article is on Western media policies towards community radio. It is argued that while many community radio discourses, theories and policies are oriented towards developing countries and emerging democracies, community radio stations in the West are often forced to operate in the margins. Case studies on the US, the UK and Belgium are presented. Some influence of distinct regulatory paradigms can be observed, but overall in each of these countries community radio stations have a legacy of struggle for their existence and survival. This exposes the need to account for the distinct nature of community radio in (Western) regulatory regimes. A common thread in the cases being presented is the difficulty involved in (local) community radio legitimating its existence on the FM-band alongside commercial and public broadcasters. Unlike these, community radio movements have little lobbying power and are usually positioned as rogue and unprofessional actors within the broadcasting community. From a democratic perspective emphasizing the importance of participation and civic culture, Western media policies urgently need to create an enabling environment for participatory community radio initiatives