Socio-Spatial Mobility in British Society

The research reported in this paper examines the nature and extent of socio-spatial mobility in the United Kingdom. In contrast with previous studies, we do not only investigate who moves out of deprived neighbourhoods, but our models cover the entire spectrum of neighbourhoods and provide a more complete interpretation of the process of mobility across socio-spatial structures. We use the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) to classify neighbourhoods defined as small areas containing approximately 1500 people. We use the data from all available waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) to trace moves between these neighbourhoods, classified into deprivation deciles. We define upward socio-spatial mobility as moving to neighbourhoods with lower levels of deprivation. The focus on residential choices and the outcomes – residential sorting – allows us to measure the fluidity of the British social structure. We show that restricted ability to compete for the better neighbourhoods combines with residence in neighbourhoods with relatively high degrees of deprivation to limit opportunities for social mobility. The analysis shows that education and income play critical roles in the ability of individuals to make neighbourhood and decile gains when they move. There are also powerful roles of being unemployed and being (and becoming) a social renter. Both these latter effects combine to seriously restrict the possibilities for socio-spatial movement for certain groups. The results suggest serious structural barriers to socio-spatial mobility in British society, barriers which are directly related to the organisation of the housing market.residential sorting, residential mobility, socio-economic status, deprivation, neighbourhoods

The Early Years Network: a Case Study in Continuing Professional Development

This paper describes the organisation of an Early Childhood Network as a forum to support practitioners’ investigation and documentation of practice to build towards a postgraduate qualification. Empirical data is presented from participants’ reflective journals and interviews and the themes emerging from this explored. The need for initiatives to provide professional development for all Early Years Practitioners commensurate with that of teachers within mainstream schooling is asserted. Although this discussion focuses on the UK, the authors believe that the issues raised may be usefully considered by Early Childhood practitioners and those engaged in professional development in other cultures and contexts

Understanding Hand Interactions and Mid-Air Haptic Responses within Virtual Reality and Beyond.

Hand tracking has long been seen as a futuristic interaction, firmly situated into the realms of sci-fi. Recent developments and technological advancements have brought that dream into reality, allowing for real-time interactions by naturally moving and positioning your hand. While these developments have enabled numerous research projects, it is only recently that businesses and devices are truly starting to implement and integrate the technology into their different sectors. Numerous devices are shifting towards a fully self- contained ecosystem, where the removal of controllers could significantly help in reducing barriers to entry. Prior studies have focused on the effects or possible areas for implementation of hand tracking, but rarely focus on the direct comparisons of technologies, nor do they attempt to reproduce lost capabilities. With this prevailing background, the work presented in this thesis aims to understand the benefits and negatives of hand tracking when treated as the primary interaction method within virtual reality (VR) environments. Coupled with this, the implementation and usage of novel mid-air ultrasound-based haptics attempt to reintroduce feedback that would have been achieved through conventional controller interactions. Two unique user studies were undertaken, testing core underlying interactions within VR that represent common instances found throughout simulations. The first study focuses on the interactions presented within 3D VR user interfaces, with a core topic of buttons. While the second study directly compares input and haptic modalities within two different fine motor skill tasks. These studies are coupled with the development and implementation of a real-time user study recording toolkit, allowing for significantly heightened user analysis and visual evaluation of interactions. Results from these studies and developments make valuable contributions to the research and business knowledge of hand tracking interactions, as well as providing a uniquely valuable open-source toolkit for other researchers to use. This thesis covers work undertaken at Ultraleap over varying projects between 2018 and 2021

A UK-US investigation of early education practitioners’ opinions about child poverty and its prioritizing within their practice: final report

Introduction In many developed societies, children in poverty make up a significant minority across education sectors estimated to be 21% of children in the UK and 22% in the USA. Globally, ECEC has been prioritized as a key policy and practice lever to remediate child poverty by reducing the ‘outcomes gap’ in children’s learning and development. Experiencing poverty has a negative effect, particularly for children in the early years range, and children in poverty are disadvantaged in their learning and development by the age of five years. An evidence base suggests quality ECEC provision can address educational and social inequality by improving outcomes for children in poverty. But what constitutes quality early learning provision and environments for children and their families experiencing poverty remains highly contested. With such a significant minority of children experiencing disadvantage, though, for ECEC provision to have 'quality' it needs to be poverty sensitive. So provision should be characterized by poverty sensitivity and it should be poverty proofed i.e. ECEC practitioners’ delivery, practice and decision making will take poverty, social disadvantage and inequality into account in their everyday provision for children from disadvantaged families. Research, hough, which has considered early education practitioners’ opinions on child poverty is rare and recent small -scale qualitative research completed by members of this research team has suggested poverty sensitivity cannot be assumed (Simpson et al,2015). The research reported here built up on this previous work to provide a broad -scale and unique exploration of ECEC practitioners’ opinions about child poverty. Within the context described above, he central aim of the research was to develop knowledge of early education practitioners’ opinions about child poverty and the extent to which they prioritize it in their practice across several geographic locations in England and the USA. The proposed research hoped to move beyond the restrictions of a country by country sui generis approach, allowing for translocal and transnational connections to be made between early education practitioners’ opinions and engagement with child poverty and its remediation. There were good reasons for choosing to focus upon England and the USA to explore these issues. Increasingly there are parallels and points of tangency between the two countries in regard to child poverty and policies to remediate its impact in early childhood. For instance, as indicated above, there are currently high levels of child poverty in the UK and the USA in comparison with other developed nations. Convergence includes prioritizing ECEC as a social mechanism to address child poverty across both countries (Nandy and Minujin 2012). In England and the USA and many other countries, a dominant neoliberal political discourse emphasizing individualism and limited state involvement pervades this prioritizing. ECEC is delivered via a mixed market model including a significant amount of private for profit provision, the costs of which are relatively high in both countries and prohibitive for low income families. Within the US this has necessitated federal and state level programmes. Across England several national schemes can also be seen to cater for those that are excluded from the ECEC market. In meeting the aim mentioned above the following objectives were achieved. The first objective was to ascertain and contrast early education practitioners’ opinions about child poverty in a selection of geographic locations across England and the USA. The second objective was then to clarify the extent to which these ECEC practitioners engage with (or not) poverty sensitivity in their practice. The third objective was, through the research, to provide a mechanism for bringing practitioners’ opinions to current policy, practice and academic debates around the role of early education in remediating child poverty. A final objective was to draw out wider implications for early education policy and practice including the possible need for poverty proofing toolkits in the early years

‘Seen but not heard’. Practitioners work with poverty and the organising out of disadvantaged children’s voices and participation in the early years

Living in poverty disadvantages young children reducing school readiness. ‘Pedagogy of listening’ can potentially support resilience remediating against poverty’s negative effects. Little, though, is known about how early childhood education and care (ECEC) practitioners work with children in poverty and the attainment gap between such children and their peers remains significant within England and the US. This article reports research using a mixed methodology which explored these issues in localities across both these countries. We argue a dominant technocratic model of early years provision in these contexts creates normalisation and diversity reduction. This, and austerity measures, stymie pedagogical space and practice organising out listening to children in poverty. We suggest this may help explain why the attainment gap remains so stubbornly resistant to reduction across these countries

Talking heresy about ‘quality’ early childhood education and care for children in poverty

This paper considers the socially progressive function of a model of 'quality' early childhood education and care widely prescribed to address child poverty across England and the USA. Ubiquitous, it is imbued with a sense of objectivity, secureness and practicality. We question these foundations. Then using data from practitioners in both countries, we contrast expectations about this model of ECEC as an unmitigated good building resilience to 'break cycles of disadvantage', with the everyday experiences and frustrations of practitioners pursuing it. Their data suggest this model of 'quality' has limitations and some heresy is required about this policy orthodoxy

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Hospital-Treated Self-Harm

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been implicated in a range of negative health outcomes in adulthood, including increased suicide mortality. In this study, we explored the relationship between ACEs and hospital-treated self-harm. Specifically, we investigated whether those who had a history of repeat self-harm reported more ACEs than those who had self-harmed for the first time. Patients (n = 189) admitted to two hospitals in Glasgow (UK) following first-time (n = 41) or repeated (n = 148) self-harm completed psychosocial measures. Univariate analyses revealed that those presenting with repeat self-harm reported higher depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, intent to die, and ACEs, and lower dependent attachment style. However, only ACEs, along with female gender and depressive symptoms, significantly differentiated between the repeat self-harm group and the first-time self-harm group in the multivariate model. Controlling for all other psychosocial variables, participants who reported 4+ ACEs were significantly more likely to be in the repeat self-harm group as compared to those who experienced 0–3 ACEs. This finding highlights the pernicious effect of exposure to multiple ACEs. Further research is urgently required to better understand the mechanisms that explain this relationship. Clinicians should be aware of the extent of the association between ACEs and repeat self-harm

Investigation of Firebrand Generation from an Experimental Fire : Development of a Reliable Data Collection Methodology

An experimental approach has been developed to quantify the characteristics and flux of firebrands during a management-scale wildfire in a pine-dominated ecosystem. By characterizing the local fire behavior and measuring the temporal and spatial variation in firebrand collection, the flux of firebrands has been related to the fire behavior for the first time. This linkage is seen as the first step in risk mitigation at the wildland urban interface (WUI). Data analyses allowed the evaluation of firebrand flux with respect to observed fire intensities for this ecosystem. Typical firebrand fluxes of 0.82–1.36 pcs m−2 s−1 were observed for fire intensities ranging between 7.35±3.48 MW m−1 to 12.59±5.87 MW m−1. The experimental approach is shown to provide consistent experimental data, with small variations within the firebrand collection area. Particle size distributions show that small particles of area 0.75–5×10−5 m2 are the most abundant (0.6–1 pcs m−2 s−1), with the total flux of particles >5×10−5 m2 equal to 0.2–0.3 pcs m−2 s−1. The experimental method and the data gathered show substantial promise for future investigation and quantification of firebrand generation and consequently a better description of the firebrand risk at the WUI