Publications

This article examines the potential of UNICEF’s Child Friendly City (CFC) initiative to improve the lives of children and young people. Based on an analysis of the priorities and plans of three CFCs in the USA (Houston), England (London) and France (Lyon), and drawing on Fraser’s analytical framework, the article examines their capacity to address…

As part of a larger ESRC-funded project on the political economies of school exclusions in the UK, this research examines alternative provision (AP). AP is where children and young people at risk of exclusion are removed from mainstream education. The AP sector does not provide a transitional pathway. Instead it is a complex disarray of…

There are widespread calls for increased demographic diversity in science, often linked to the epistemic claim that including more perspectives will improve the quality of the knowledge produced. By distinguishing between demographic and epistemic diversity, we show that this is only true some of the time. There are cases where increasing demographic diversity will not…

The UK’s new government has promised to take action to “promote a positive work-life balance for all workers”, and to prevent homes “turning into 24/7 offices”. The risk of “always on” working has grown since the pandemic, with technology meaning that work is often within easy reach. Legislation allowing workers to disconnect from work has been increasingly adopted around Europe, in…

This article explores the complex relationship between civil society, social inequality, and nationhood through examining the motivations of elite members of Welsh civil society as they volunteer to serve on the boards of a wide range of Welsh charities. We interviewed nearly 60 trustees and patrons, all of whom enjoyed successful and influential careers in…

Despite private tutoring gaining increasing popularity in many countries, studies of the choice of and rationale for private tutoring among Chinese parents before and after the ‘‘double reduction’’ policy (issued on July 24, 2021) in China are limited. This mixed-methods paper compares parents’ choice of private tutoring before and after the policy and the role…

Over the last decade or so, the rate of growth of academic publications involving discussion of ‘citizen science’ and ‘community science’, and similar variants, has risen exponentially. These fluid terms, with no fixed definition, cover a continuum of public participation within a range of scientific activities. It is, therefore, apposite and timely to examine the…

This report presents findings from new research comparing the job quality, other than pay, of private and state school teachers in post-pandemic England and Wales, including those based at elite private schools, based on a survey of private and state school teachers who are members of the National Education Union. Information was obtained from 14,212…

This study investigates the evolving demand for graduate skills in the British workforce, leveraging a task-based approach with data from the Skills and Employment Survey Series. Focused on the changing importance of job tasks related to graduate skills, the research explores the mapping of these tasks to educational attainment, discerns the price employers pay for…

This paper is concerned with the reproduction of rural elites and the role of volunteering and participation in rural civil society institutions. Set in the context of popular discourses of the gentleman farmer and the agricultural elite as historic (as opposed to contemporary) leaders in the countryside, this research extends longstanding debates on rural class…