Publications

This paper seeks to understand the status of and changes in the Welsh automotive industry in the wake of globalization and the consequent structural challenges. Hailed as a budding leader in Europe in terms of auto-component production (where Wales purportedly boasts of supportive institutions, high quality infrastructure and flexible labour conditions), its ambition to maintain…

My concern in this commentary is the discrepancy between cultural psychologists’ theoretical claims that meanings are co-constructed by, with and for individuals in ongoing social interaction, and their research practices where researcher’s and research participant’s meaning-making processes are separated in time into sequential turns. I argue for the need to live up to these theoretical…

A created community, a Nation State, is strengthened by a sense of fair and equitable treatment. Within Nation States the allocation of public funds through national budgets acts to contain regional inequality and to provide a positive response to structural decline. The UK Treasury accepts need as the correct guide to spending on public services…

Something peculiar seems to have happened to education in Wales. Not long ago, there was widespread consensus that parliamentary devolution had allowed successive Welsh Assembly Governments to develop important and imaginative policies across the whole range of educational provision, from early years to the universities. These policies were celebrated not merely because they were distinctive…

This paper was presented at the NCRM Oxford Methods Festival (2010) and considers some analytical problems observed within recent innovations in qualitative research; specifically, the use of GPS technology and the various ways in which such spatial data may be represented. The paper is intended as a reminder of the critique of the social sciences…

Business entrepreneurs are at the heart of a dynamic, knowledge based economy. Understanding the early stages of business growth is critical to the development of a thriving economy. However defined, the rate of entrepreneurship in Wales consistently lags behind most regions of the UK. This policy brief reviews the connection between entrepreneurial activity and socio-economic…

Many European countries have experienced a high level of immigration from all parts of the world in the past two decades and the population of visible minority ethnic groups has grown rapidly. Neighbourhoods with a high percentage of minority ethnic groups are expected to be relatively disadvantaged in social and economic terms. The in-movement of…

Published as part of the Menai Papers, a series of working papers produced by Bangor WISERD on behalf of the School of History, Philosophy and Social Sciences at Bangor University.

The following review symposium, on Martyn Hammersley’s (2008) book may seem rather late. We decided in the Spring of 2010 that Qualitative Research had made a mistake in 2008, when we decided not to commission a review of the volume. In retrospect we realize now that should have devoted space to the book when it…

A significant volume of research demonstrates that out-of-school learning activities enhance student development in terms of cognitive, affective and social outcomes. However, there is also evidence that the opportunity to engage in these activities has been severely reduced in recent years. This paper explores the extent to which the provision of such opportunities is unevenly…