Bulletin: November 2007
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GSR News
Policy Press
- Making policy in theory and practice - edited by Hugh Bochel and the previous Chief Government Social Researcher, Sue Duncan. It combines academic and practitioner perspectives to provide critical consideration of contemporary policy-making and highlight examples of good practice at all levels of government. In nine central chapters - each written by an academic and a policy maker or practitioner author - the book examines the nine competencies of Professional policy making for the twenty-first century [Cabinet Office. Strategic Policy Making Team, 1999]. Accompanying case studies provide lessons or pointers to good practice.
GSR people
Food Standards Agency
- Social Science Research Committee - The
Food Standards Agency announces that it is looking to appoint a Chair and up to ten members of a new, independent Social Science Research Committee. Deadline for applications is 7 December 2007
Continuing Professional Development
GSRU
- Course schedule -
Booking is now open for GSR courses for 2007/08. Book early, as places are allocated on a first come, first serve basis.
GSR research outputs
Home Office
- Prospective crime mapping in operational context: final report (PDF, 2.03 Mb) -
Summary of a project on short-term burglary prediction which aimed to understand the patterns of burglary across a range of geographical areas and to develop and test an emerging forecasting technique, prospective mapping, to help the police and their crime reduction partners to prevent and detect more crime.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
- Public attitudes and behaviours toward the environment - representative picture of what people in England think, and how they behave, across a range of issues relevant to the environment, including transport and recycling. The results were produced from data collected from a representative sample of 3,618 individuals in England during spring 2007. The results follow from previous Environmental surveys run by Defra and its predecessors in 1986, 1989, 1993, 1996-7 and 2001. The sample was similar in size to the 2001 survey. The survey was supplemented by a further omnibus survey of 1,618 individuals to allow additional questions to be asked. The data were collected using computer assisted interviews lasting on average 51 minutes. Where questions are comparable, time series are shown from the three most recent of these.
Welsh Assembly Government (WAG)
Scottish Government
- Dealing with child contact issues: a literature review of mechanisms in different jurisdictions - reviews the situation in Australia, Canada, United States, Sweden, New Zealand, France, Denmark, England and Wales to highlight the need for practical measures to address the failure to maintain contact between parents and children, by a sizeable minority of non-resident parents who lose contact altogether.
- Attitudes and knowledge about family obligations in Scotland: after separation and death (Civil Justice Research Findings No.4/2007) - presents analysis of two surveys commissioned in 2005 on family and sexual attitudes and attitudes towards rules of succession. They provide up to date evidence of public opinion about the obligations and rights of partners when their relationships end either by separation or the death of a partner, and across generations when a parent or partner dies. One of the key findings was that there is very strong support for unmarried fathers having the same parental responsibilities and rights as married fathers.
- Tensions between allocations policy and practice: main report (PDF) - explores the views of housing professionals working for local authorities and registered social landlords and finds that landlords identified tensions or insufficient clarity in a number of areas of policy and guidance. For more information, please contact either Lisa Taylor , (Housing & Planning research) or Clare Morley (Social Housing policy)
- A review of dispersal powers: research report - this is a statutory study of police dispersal powers. It considers the process and effectiveness of the powers.
- An evaluation of local authority antisocial neighbour noise nuisance services: full report - indicates that while progress in set-up and delivery of the services has been variable across Scotland, generally a need is seen by the public for services that tackle neighbourhood noise. Key areas for consideration if the scheme is to be improved further include: further publicity by Local Authorities on their local noise nuisance service; and more specific guidance on the detailed breakdown of expenditure to be included in audited accounts submitted by Local Authorities to the Scottish Government. Methods employed included: desk research; analysis of monitoring data; eight LA case studies; surveys of Noise Investigation Officers and residents; and collection and analysis of cost data.
- Tackling the abuse of off-street parking for people with disabilities in Scotland: research report - more than 30 parking bay abusers were interviewed to find out why they misuse reserved spaces. Five types of abuser were identified, ranging from those who have misused spaces reluctantly on occasion, to those who persistently use a Blue Badge fraudulently. The findings suggest that there is no single method of prevention which is appropriate and effective in all situations, but that monitoring and enforcement are key to preventing inappropriate parking.
Ministry of Justice
Department for Work and Pensions
- Disability and caring among families with children (Research Report No. 460) (PDF) - uses data from the Families and Children Study to investigate the characteristics of families that include a disabled adult and/or child. Questions posed by this research include, for instance, how do disability and caring responsibilities relate to families' ages, size, ethnic origins and so on? How far does disability cluster together within families, given that worklessness appears often related to ill-health? Having analysed the characteristics of different families, what is the effect of these different elements on employment? Some families appear to remain in paid employment despite having, say, caring responsibilities, whereas other families do not find it possible to combine work with caring - an area sometimes known as 'resilience'. What can we learn from the experiences of the former group?
- Health, disability, caring and employment (Research Report No. 461) - uses data from the Families and Children Study and the British Household Panel Survey to examine how changes in health status through time are related to a variety of factors including changes in employment, caring, well-being and so on. The aim was to explore the relationships between health, disability, caring and employment in families with children in the context of the agenda to reduce child poverty, reduce worklessness within households and promote the employment and wider participation of disabled people.
Forthcoming research
Office for National Statistics (ONS)
DIUS/ESRC
Research methods
The Guardian
The Scientist
- Calling all charlatans - a group of researchers puts companies making scientific claims on the spot.
- Open Access 2.0: The nautilus: where - and how - OA will actually work by Joseph J. Esposito - the debate over open access to the scientific literature appears to be moving onto a new phase. Many continue to argue one side or the other of a binary choice: Either all research publishing should be open access, or only traditional publishing can maintain peer review and editorial integrity. Others, however, have moved beyond that false dichotomy, instead increasingly seeing various hybrid models emerging and new, often complex, business arrangements.
Includes links to related articles:
Other research outputs
Policy Press
National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER)
- Practical Research for Education (Issue 38)
Contents include:
- Profile interview with Lesley Saunders, senior policy adviser for research at the General Teaching Council for England
- Tool-kit 5: what to do with the results of your research
- Managing education provision for secondary pupils at risk of exclusion, or excluded from school
- Developing social, emotional and behavioural skills in secondary schools
- Research is important because…: report on the practical research for education conference 2007
- Intergenerational practice literature review - aims to establish what research on intergenerational practice has been carried out since 2002, with a particular focus on the UK, but also drawing on international evidence.
The review of the literature will explore:
- the types of outcomes that can be achieved through intergenerational practice, and for whom
- how outcomes for different groups relate to the social objectives present in government policy
- the characteristics of effective intergenerational practice
- Disengagement and re-engagement of young people in learning at Key Stage 3 - small-scale scoping study designed to promote evidence-informed approaches to engaging and re-engaging young people in learning at Key Stage 3.
Seeks to:
- identify the nature and scope of the problem, both in England and elsewhere
- ascertain the apparent causes of any identified disengagement (including those identified by young people)
- explore the relative success of any interventions that have been implemented to re-engage young people in education.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Political devolution, regional governance and tackling deprivation - assesses the impact of new and emerging governance structures on the economic and employment needs of deprived places in four English regions, Scotland and Wales.
- Attachment to place, social networks, mobility and prospects of young people - how young people's attitudes towards education, training and work opportunities are shaped by their social networks and attachment to place . Looks at how widening horizons might improve prospects.
- An evaluation of two initiatives to reward young people - examines two pilot schemes in Bradford and York designed to increase young people's self esteem and stimulate a greater appreciation of the positive contribution they can make to their communities. The context for the schemes was one of intergenerational tensions, with residents concerned about anti-social behaviour - either real or perceived.
This report:
- analyses a range of qualitative and quantitative data, including a literature review;
- presents the findings of a 20-month evaluation of the two schemes;
- looks at how the two schemes were shaped by their different local contexts;
- outlines some key questions and provides checklists for groups and agencies thinking of setting up a reward scheme for young people.
- Youth poverty in Europe - examines poverty among young people aged 16 to 29, across 13 countries of the pre-enlargement European Union. It charts how poverty rates vary between countries, looks at the factors associated with being poor and examines the events that are linked with moving in and out of poverty.
ESRC
- ESRC publish Social Sciences newsletter - the newsletter (three issues per year) provides up to date information about ESRC policies, new research and findings from completed research.
Contents include:
- Towards a social science of Web 2.0 - conference report
- UPTAP - a boost for the social sciences skills base Social Sciences (issue 67)
University of Cambridge
- University of Cambridge Primary Review
- Community soundings: report on the Primary Review regional witness sessions - reports on 87 meetings with community representatives, employers, religious leaders, parents, governors, heads, teachers and children in different parts of England. In spite of considerable diversity in the membership and location of these community soundings, there was a striking measure of agreement on the main educational and social issues. No less striking was the fact that although witnesses had much to say that was positive, and the work of primary schools was generally well regarded, there was a pervasive anxiety about specific aspects of recent educational policy, and about the wider world. The report also identifies important questions about current and future educational policy and practice.
- Primary Review: 3 interim reports
- Standards and quality in English primary schools over time: the national evidence (Primary Review Research Survey 4/1)
- Standards in English primary education: the international evidence (Primary Review Research Survey 4/2).
- The quality of learning: assessment alternatives for primary education
Commissioned from academic specialists and grounded in some 240 sources of published evidence, both official and independent, the reports raise important questions about standards of pupil achievement in English primary schools over recent years, about how English primary pupils compare with those from other countries, and about the national and international tests on which evidence about standards has been based.
Victim Support
- Hoodie or goodie? (PDF) - The link between violent victimisation and offending in young people: a research report - carrieed out by BMRB Social Research. It included a review of previous research into violence among young people followed by interviews and workshops with young people aged from 14 to 18 and with adults who work with them. The researchers looked for common factors or differences between different groups of young people who had carried out violence, been a victim, or both. They also examined whether or not there were consistent ways in which victims turned into offenders and vice versa.
Australian Institute of Criminology
- Recidivism in Australia : findings and future research - What policy makers would like to measure is often not the same as researchers are able to measure, given the limitations on appropriate data and available information. This is driven primarily by a lack of clarity about an appropriate definition of recidivism and clear articulation of research methodologies. This report examines ways of measuring recidivism and evaluating its impact.
Statistics Canada
- Young people's access to home ownership - uses data from the 2006 General Social Survey on family transitions to determine the extent to which young adults succeed in making the desire for home ownership a reality. What are the characteristics of those young people who own their home, and what are the obstacles to home ownership? This article identifies the different factors associated with home ownership among young people aged 25 to 39 who no longer live with their parents.
Mathematica
- Semimonthly update
Contents include:
- Evaluation of the Ticket to Work program (PDF) - assessment of post-rollout implementation and early impacts - the Ticket to Work (TTW) program was designed to promote employment by enhancing the market for services that help people receiving disability benefits to become economically self-sufficient. Early impacts suggest that TTW slightly increased beneficiary use of employment services in 2002, the first rollout year. However, the increase did not appear to produce a corresponding increase in beneficiary earnings or a reduction in benefit payments during the first two years. Analysis suggests that the program would have to induce much larger future shifts in beneficiary behavior in order to generate the envisioned level of exits from the program.
- Cash and counseling (PDF) - improving the lives of Medicaid beneficiaries who need personal care or home- and community-based services - program gives consumers a monthly allowance that they may use to hire workers and to purchase care-related services and goods. This report summarizes findings from five years of research on how each of three demonstration states implemented its program, and on how the programs have affected consumers who participated, consumers’ paid and unpaid caregivers, and costs to Medicaid. The findings from the randomized trial study design show that the program had overwhelmingly positive effects on consumers of all ages and their caregivers. However, in each state, total Medicaid expenditures were higher under the program than what they would have been in its absence, for different reasons.
Website of the Month
Canadian Social Trends
- Canadian Social Trends - themed monthly reports publication discusses the social, economic, and demographic changes affecting the lives of Canadians. Since December 2006, a CST print anthology has been issued twice a year. The anthology contains all the CST articles released electronically in the previous six months.
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