Publications

The cost of fire events can be devastating in human, emotional and financial terms. There is a growing realisation that geographical techniques can be used in cross-disciplinary approaches to gain an understanding of potential causation factors associated with such events. Despite this, the theoretical frameworks within which such research efforts are often couched have received…

Many theorists, in their search for a better explanation of the dynamics of structure and agency, have expressed the need for a theory in which reflexivity and habitus are reconciled. In this article, we argue that a dissociative theory of mind can provide the essential framework in which habitual routines and reflexivity function in parallel….

The participation of citizens in public policy-making has become a key aim for national and supranational institutions across Europe, but the relative importance policy-makers actually accord citizen participation arguably varies due to the alternative administrative traditions within different countries. Using data drawn from a large-scale survey of senior public managers in France, Germany, the United…

Employers, workers and governments all have a stake in improving intrinsic job quality since it can help to raise worker well-being and lower the social costs of ill-health. This article provides a unique insight into factors triggering changes to two key aspects of intrinsic job quality – the skills used and developed at work, and…

To better understand why Middle Eastern states continue to languish at the bottom of world rankings on gender equality, this study presents critical discourse analysis of state and civil society organizations’ implementation of the Participative Democratic Model of gender mainstreaming. A requirement of the 1995 United Nations Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Participative…

A model of supply and demand is applied to UK data over the period 2001–2010 to define graduate jobs in terms of the proportion of graduates and/or the graduate earnings mark-up within occupations. Within such a framework it is found that there has been an upward shift in the likelihood of young British university graduates…

The emergence of an extensive literature exploring the post-secularism in recent years has revived interest in the role of religion in society. However, such studies are overwhelmingly focussed on the urban experience, while the relationship between rurality and post-secularism remains largely unconsidered. Set against the back-drop of challenges to rural religious organization, such as redundant…

Within the context of spatial rebalancing and a Northern (metro-region) Powerhouse, this article explores the implementation of the devolution of employment and skills within the Sheffield city region. We make both an original empirical and analytical contribution by suggesting that notions of governance and metagovernance failure are important for analyzing the development, tensions and contradictions…

This paper examines the positioning of the Welsh education system within contemporary policy debate and analysis. It begins by outlining some of the ways in which education policy and provision in Wales differs from that of its neighbour, England, and then goes on to critique how these differences have been represented in both the media…

The Foundation Phase is a Welsh Government flagship policy of early years education (for 3-7 year-old children) in Wales. Marking a radical departure from the more formal, competency-based approach associated with the previous Key Stage 1 National Curriculum, it advocates a developmental, experiential, play-based approach to teaching and learning. The learning country: A paving document…