News and Blog

Ageing, intergenerational relations, and barriers to social participation

In ageing societies, promoting active ageing and intergenerational solidarity has been a key aim of policy at national as well as European level. Governments have promoted these policies as a response to concerns over the social exclusion of older people; critics have suggested that such policies merely serve to ease the economic and financial burden…

McDonald’s workers strike for the second time on International Workers’ Day

Following last week’s WISERD blog post about the 2017 McDonald’s strike, Wil Chivers and Helen Blakely report from the picket lines in London at the UK’s second McStrike. Until now our research on the McStrike has been at a distance. We’ve followed the Twitter conversation and although we’ve got a good sense of what’s been…

How the UK’s first #McStrike was tweeted

In September 2017, McDonald’s workers went on strike for the first time in the UK. Researchers at WISERD analysed the social media conversation that surrounded the ‘McStrike’at the time. With a second McStrike scheduled for the 1st May Wil Chivers, Helen Blakely and Steve Davies outline key findings from this research. Young workers unite McDonald’s…

Tracking progress on the government’s disability and employment commitments

WISERD’s Professor Melanie Jones blogs for The Conversation with Professor Victoria Wass, Cardiff University. Disability affects the lives of millions of people in the UK. With about one in six working-age people currently reporting some kind of disability, around 70% are either working, looking for work or want to work. Good quality work is important…

Engaging with the voluntary sector at gofod3

‘Have you done any research on how to recruit volunteers?’; ‘Can I use the WISERD DataPortal to map my members?’. These were just some of the questions we were asked when WISERD returned to this year’s gofod3, the WCVA’s annual gathering of the third sector. We had a stand in the exhibition hall, along with 60 other organisations…

A space for the voices of young, BME women in the Brexit process

To mark International Women’s Day, we want to create a space for the voices of young, ethnic minority women in the current Brexit process. With EU-UK exit negotiations well underway, this study is an extension of both WISERD’s ‘Young People and Brexit’ study and Welsh Crucible-funded ‘Migration, Moral Panic and Meaning’, exploring representations of EU migrants…

New WISERD civil society research in India and Bangladesh

A new WISERD international partnership project examining civil society in India and Bangladesh has been announced. The project, entitled “Exploring effective practice in civil society organisations’ promotion of human rights, good governance and social justice in India and Bangladesh” is led by Professor Paul Chaney (Cardiff University) and Sahoo Sarbeswar (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi). Funded by the…