Publications

This is a final report for the Welsh Government New Ideas Social Research Fund project entitled ‘Public Sentiments Towards Immigrants and Minorities: The Difference Wales Makes?’ The aim of this project was to investigate public sentiments in Wales towards immigrants and minorities. The monitoring of what people think about immigrants and minorities has come to…

During an ethnographic research project exploring young people’s perceptions of living in a post-industrial semi-rural place, boys aged 13/14 years revealed their semi-clandestine motorbiking activities across mountains trails. It was found that riding motorbikes and fixing engines were potential resources for young boys’ transitions into adult working-class masculinity and sources of competence, pride and enjoyment…

Since 1999 it was the view that parliamentary devolution had enabled Welsh Governments to pursue a wide range of imaginative policies across the whole gamut of educational provision. More recently, however, the focus of political discourse has shifted to the perceived failures of Welsh schools. This ‘crisis of Welsh education’ has provided the basis for…

This research report, commissioned by NOMS Cymru, evaluates the provision of Women’s Turnaround Services (WTS) by the North Wales Women’s Centre (NWWC), based in Rhyl, North Wales between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011. The Women’s Turnaround Service was piloted in North Wales in May 2009 and fully established by April 2010. The WTS…

Recent economic, social and political change has generated greater uncertainty in the housing options of young people. The recession has also highlighted challenges such as the lack of available credit and high youth unemployment. The report explores: • the key drivers shaping the housing experiences of young people; • the impacts of key drivers of…

Learning English in Taiwan has become a primary economic concern as industries have recognized the need to compete within global markets in which trade is predominantly carried out in English. The growth in demand for, and supply of, English language education in school settings is escalating. The National Curriculum of Primary and Secondary Schools (Grades…

This chapter explores the dialectic meaning of “home,” and movement away from home. Movement away from home—or migration—is characterized as a dynamic, dialectic, and developmental experience. We emphasize the sense of being at-home and the intertwined sense of identity as interlinked and mutually defining anchors of our existence that become inevitably shaken and ruptured in the experience of migration….

The Social Participation and Identity Project is based on a qualitative sub-study of 220 in depth biographical interviews conducted as part of the age 50 sweep of the National Child Development Study (NCDS), the UK’s pioneering birth cohort study which began in 1958. Its substantive focus on participation reflects a particular interest in claims, and…

Ageing societies and cohort-based differential turnout present challenges and opportunities in political parties’ pursuit of electoral support. This article explores their response with reference to the issue salience of public policy for older people in the manifestos for Westminster and regional elections in the UK, 1945–2011. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of party programmes reveals: (1)…

Drawing on fieldwork observation of a team of street-level welfare bureaucrats, this article presents a pedestrian case-study of routine footwork and slow progress in the making and maintaining of contact between outreach workers and the urban homeless. This material is used to highlight two aspects of modern-day mobilities that are perhaps under-examined and certainly worthy…