Community Arts: Sustainability in Austerity

The aim of the research project about which this document reports was to explore some of the ways in which three case study community-based organisations in Norwich – and especially those with either a current or previously significant involvement in arts activity – have been affected by the current period of financial austerity

Understanding the Cultural Value of 'In Harmony-Sistema England'

This research project on which this paper reports was designed to explore questions of cultural value in relation to the schools music project In Harmony-Sistema England. Our core research focus has been upon the ways in which children, their teachers and tutors, and their families understand the value of their participation in IHSE initiatives. The project engaged with three case studies of IHSE initiatives (based in Norwich, Telford and Newcastle) and qualitative data was gathered with primary school children, school staff, parents and IHSE musicians in all three cases

The art of survival: community-based arts organisations in times of austerity

This article examines the consequences of shifts in the terms of engagement with the state – since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 – for small-scale UK arts-based community organisations. Through an engagement with the accounts of key stakeholders from three case study organisations, the article considers the nature and extent of organisational changes in four main respects: the activities undertaken, the people and groups engaged, the income streams accessed and understandings of role or mission. Having outlined the variable fates of each organisation over this period, the article illuminates how the effects of austerity and associated policy shifts have served to mitigate against organisations’ ability to sustain arts-based work with disadvantaged groups, resist neoliberal ‘enterprise’ agendas or maintain a practical commitment to community development aims

Pure and Simple: Music as a Personal and Comedic Resource in Car Share

This chapter examines Peter Kay’s Car Share (BBC1, 2015) to consider the ways it represents pop music as both a resource which the characters draw on to make sense of their lives and, by virtue of this, a fertile site for comedy. One way the programme does this is by showing how pop functions as a marker of taste and a resource for the enactment of cultural snobbery. Here we suggest that the programme’s comedy can – in certain respects – be understood via the superiority theory of humour. However, we also go on to argue that superiority is not, in fact, the key way in which humour functions in the series. Rather, what might at first appear to be a comedy which mocks the granting of undue significance to pop music, instead ultimately offers up as humorous attempts to deny the powerful personal emotional resonances that such supposedly simple culture can facilitate

Whatever Happened to Community Music?:AHRC Research Network Project Report

This document reports on an AHRC Research Network (2013) whose aim was to improve understanding of the historic, current, and potential roles that community music can play in promoting community engagement

Too big to fail? The framing and interpretation of ‘success’/‘failure’ in cultural participation policy: a case study

This article engages with questions of failure in cultural participation through a reflection upon matters of interpretation and meaning. That is, rather than considering the ways or extent to which cultural participation programmes might achieve their stated goals, the discussion centres upon the crucial role of representations and perceptions in relation to questions of ‘failure’/‘success’. The discussion centres upon one case study initiative, England's version of the Venezuelan El Sistema programme, In Harmony, and employs frame analysis to explore the ways press coverage and relevant policy documents cultivate an image of programme ‘success’. In order to help reveal some of the problematic assumptions embedded in dominant accounts, the article also draws on original interview data in exploring the marginalised perspectives of programme participants. The findings which emerge suggest the need for particular attention to the symbolic dimensions of cultural participation policies in relation to questions of ‘failure’/‘success’

Songs in the key of life : the Musical habitus and young people's community music participation

Community arts initiatives have risen quickly up the agendas of policymakers and local authorities alike in recent years. In particular, low-cost and flexible community arts projects have increasingly been framed as an effective means of combating social exclusion and contributing to neighbourhood renewal. Yet at a time when the community arts movement is benefiting from unprecedented levels of funding and rhetorical backing, the need to resolve complex questions surrounding eYaluation, outcomes and conflicting agendas persists. Focussing upon the community music participation of 'young people living in areas of social and economic need who might otherwise lack opportunity' (Youth Music 2006), this thesis seeks to make a key contribution in the developing academic study of community arts activities. The study draws upon and adapts the work of Pierre Bourdieu in proposing a theory of musical habitus. This theory recognises the significantly socially structured and structuring elements of actors' habitus and the implications of their correspondingly varied valuations at the level of musical meaning. On the basis of an appreciation of actors' musical habitus, the degree to which specific forms of community music participation initially appeal to and sustain the interest of young people is portrayed as responding to patterns of a quasipredictable yet at the same time indeterminate nature. The theory of musical habitus seeks to be of heuristic value to those hoping to comprehend the outcomes of community music participation and respond to calls for the community arts to 'identify best practice [and] understand processes and the type of provision best suited to achieve particular outcomes' (Coalter 1991). The study was undertaken in collaboration with the Learning and Participation Department of The Sage Gateshead. Taking four cases studies, the methodological approach was participatory and ethnographic and the data collection methods employed included participant observation, informal group discussion and semistructured interviews.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

EFFECT OF FATIGUE FROM REPEATED SPRINTS ON HAMSTRING MUSCLE ACTIVATION PATTERNS DURING RUNNING

Hamstring injury has been associated with fatigue-induced reductions in activation levels during running. This study examined neuromuscular changes of the hamstring muscles as a result of fatigue following sprinting in a group of nine team sport athletes. Hamstring muscle activation, lower-limb kinematics and isokinetic eccentric hamstring strength were assessed to examine the effects of fatigue during running at five different sub-maximal speeds. As expected, there were significant increases in both Biceps Femoris (BF) and Semitendinosus (ST) activations with running speed (P \u3c 0.001). After fatigue, BF activation during late swing significantly decreased by an average of 11% (P=0.002). There was evidence in some subjects that ST activity was increased with fatigue but the increase (4%) was non-significant for the group. There was also a tendency for reduced BF activity with fatigue to be more evident at the faster speeds of running. These findings support other evidence in the literature that the lateral hamstrings (BF) are more susceptible to fatigue. In addition, there were signs of compensatory increased ST activation levels in some subjects. These effects lend support to the potential benefit of this neuromuscular assessment of the hamstrings as a useful measure of both performance and recovery

Clinical outcomes of escalation vs early intensive disease-modifying therapy in patients with multiple sclerosis

IMPORTANCE Uncertainty remains about how aggressively to treat early multiple sclerosis. High-efficacy disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) are often reserved for individuals expressing poor prognostic features at baseline. OBJECTIVE To analyze long-term outcomes in a population-based cohort according to initial treatment strategy. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS In this cohort study, data were derived from January 1998 to December 2016, and analysis was performed in January 2017. From a total of 720 patients prescribed a DMT, 592 (82%) were included in analysis. Reasons for exclusion were first treated elsewhere or privately (n = 39), clinical trial participant (n = 25), and insufficient clinical data (n = 45). EXPOSURES Patients were classified according to first-line treatment strategy: high-efficacy (early intensive treatment [EIT]) or moderate-efficacy DMT (escalation [ESC]). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Primary outcome was 5-year change in Expanded Disability Status Scale score. Secondary outcome was time to sustained accumulation of disability (SAD). Models were adjusted for sex, age at treatment, year of starting DMT, and escalation to high-efficacy treatment in the ESC group. RESULTS Mean (SD) age of 592 patients at symptom onset was 27.0 (9.4) years. Mean (SD) 5-year change in Expanded Disability Status Scale score was lower in the EIT group than the ESC group (0.3 [1.5] vs 1.2 [1.5]); this remained significant after adjustment for relevant covariates (β = −0.85; 95% CI, −1.38 to −0.32; P = .002). Median (95% CI) time to SAD was 6.0 (3.17-9.16) years for EIT and 3.14 (2.77-4.00) years for ESC (P = .05). For those within the ESC group who escalated to high-efficacy DMT as second-line treatment, median (95% CI) time to SAD was 3.3 years (1.8-5.6; compared with EIT group log-rank test P = .08). After adjustment for relevant covariates, there was no difference in hazard of SAD between the groups. However, 60% of those who escalated to high-efficacy DMTs were observed to develop SAD while still receiving initial moderate-efficacy treatment before escalation. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In a real-life setting, long-term outcomes were more favorable following early intensive therapy vs first-line moderate-efficacy DMT. Contemporary surveillance strategies and escalation protocols may be insufficiently responsive. This finding is particularly relevant as patients in real-world practice are typically selected for an EIT approach to therapy on the basis of clinical and radiological features predictive of a poor outcome. These data support the need for a prospective randomized clinical trial

Harmony or Discord? Understanding children’s valuations of a Sistema-inspired initiative

This article explores children’s reflections on the value of their participation in In Harmony, a social and music education programme whose approach and philosophy derives from the Venezuelan ‘El Sistema’ (‘The System’) model. More specifically, through an analysis of participating children’s accounts (n= 111) and an exploration of the key patterns evident within children’s attribution of value to their In Harmony participation, the article highlights a series of ways in which the initiative’s approach to music and musical learning threaten to undermine its core aims