Britain Today Research Articles

Using paleopathology to provide a deep-time perspective that improves our understanding of one health challenges: Exploring urbanization

Abstract The question posed is how deep-time perspectives contribute to tackling contemporary One Health challenges, improving understanding and disease mitigation. Using evidence from the field of paleopathology, it is possible to explore this question and highlight key learning points from the past to focus the minds of those making healthcare policy decisions today. In previous centuries urbanization led to poorer health for a wide range of indicators, including life expectancy, sanitation and intestinal parasites, airway disorders such as maxillary sinusitis, metabolic diseases such as rickets, and even conditions resulting from clothing fashions such as bunions. Modern concerns regarding the quality of urban air and rivers show we have still to incorporate these lessons. When we consider major infectious diseases affecting past societies such as bubonic plague, tuberculosis and leprosy, interaction between humans and wild mammal reservoirs was key. Wild red squirrels in Britain today remain infected by the medieval strain of leprosy that affected people 1,500 years ago. It is clear that the One Health focus on the interaction between humans, animals and their environment is important. Eradicating zoonotic infectious diseases from humans but not these reservoirs leaves the door open to their spread back to people in the future.

The Futures of English: Introduction from the UK

Abstract Will students raised on social media still read English literature? What is the role of English/American literature in the PRC, India, Australasia, the USA? What is the role of English language in relation to other global and local languages? What is the role of decolonising efforts? How do our respective state apparatuses affect language and literature teaching? Part I ‘International Perspectives on English Language and Literature’ summarises the global spread of English since the eighteenth century and outlines the concerns of the special issue: the global futures of English language and literature in information society in Africa, Australia, India, the PRC, Europe and the UK, and the USA; the role of decolonising efforts; and the role of our respective state apparatuses in higher education policy. Part II, ‘English Studies in Britain Today’, discusses the findings of the recent (June 2023) British Academy report English Studies Provision in UK Higher Education, including the decline in literary studies among students and the rise of Creative Writing in part in response to political‐economic rhetoric. Part III, ‘Global and World Englishes’, returns to global and transnational practices beyond Britain and Europe to argue for more inclusive, decolonising practices around world literatures. We might take the lived histories of global and world Englishes to transcend both romantic revolutionary and far‐right exclusionary nationalisms in literary and language studies in favour of more cosmopolitan, multilingual, and convivial approaches.

How well do area-based deprivation indices identify income- and employment-deprived individuals across Great Britain today?

BackgroundArea-based deprivation indices are used in many countries to target interventions and policies to populations with the greatest needs. Analyses of the Carstairs deprivation index applied to postcode sectors in 2001 identified that less than half of all deprived individuals lived in the most deprived areas. ObjectiveThis article examines the specificity and sensitivity of deprivation indices across Great Britain in identifying individuals claiming income- and employment-related social security benefits. Study designThis was a descriptive analysis of cross-sectional administrative data. MethodsThe data sets for the 2020 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, Scottish Income and Employment Index, the 2019 English Index of Multiple Deprivation and the 2019 Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation were obtained. For each data set, small areas were ranked by increasing overall deprivation, and the cumulative proportions of individuals who were income and employment deprived were calculated. Receiver operating characteristic curves were plotted to show the sensitivity and specificity of each index, and the percentages of income- and employment-deprived individuals captured at different overall deprivation thresholds were calculated. ResultsAcross all indices, the sensitivity and specificity for detecting income- and employment-deprived individuals were low, with less than half living in the most deprived 20% of areas. Between 55% and 62% of income-deprived people and between 56% and 63% of employment-deprived people were missed across the indices at the 20% deprivation threshold. The sensitivity and specificity were slightly higher for income deprivation than employment deprivation across indices and slightly higher for the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation and Scottish Income and Employment Index than for the English Index of Multiple Deprivation and Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation. ConclusionArea-based deprivation measures in Great Britain have limited sensitivity and specificity for identifying individuals who are income or employment deprived. Place-based policies and interventions are unlikely to be effective at reducing inequalities as a result. Creation of individually linked data sets and interventions that recognise the social and economic relationships between social groups are likely to be more effective.

How do protest and resistance make citizens and citizenship? An interview with Engin Isin

ABSTRACT This interview was originally conducted in March 2021 for Who do we think we are? (2021), a podcast series I host, discussing urgent questions of citizenship and migration in Britain today. At the heart of the series is a commitment to showcasing social science knowledge and understanding to demonstrate how these might challenge public and political understandings of Britishness and belonging and offer alternatives ways of thinking about a range of current issues, including the Windrush Deportation Scandal, the citizenship test, and the UK government’s commitments to the people of Hong Kong. The series follows a narrative format, using edited excerpts from the recorded interviews within each episode. Excerpts from this interview appear in Episode 9: What does it mean to be a citizen? (released 10 December 2021). https://whodowethinkweare.org/podcast-episode/how-do-protest-and-resistance-make-citizens-and-citizenship/

Sikh schools and academies in England

ABSTRACT A diverse range of Sikh organizations have shaped the direction of Anglo-Sikh education, including the Guru Nanak Sikh Multi Academy Trust (GNSMAT), Nishkam Schools Trust (NST), Khalsa Academies Trust (KAT) and Sevak Schools Trust (SST). The new Sikh Free Schools have also been heavily influenced by the discourse of British Multiculturalism, which is discernible in their aims, approach to education, Sikh values and attainment. This article will bring to light the political and social conditions which made Sikh Faith Schools a reality in England and their impact on the educational landscape of Britain today.

The culture of education regimes: Efficiency, equality and governance in education and social policy

AbstractEducation has become a key tool for reducing inequality in the postindustrial economy; however, educational reformers must address tensions in goals of efficiency and equality. Cross‐national differences in cultural assumptions about education provide context for countries’ choices in resolving tensions between efficiency (developing skills) and equality (ensuring educational access for marginal workers). Cultural frames encourage actors to consider the role of education in solving social problems in strikingly different ways across countries. Britain and Denmark exemplify cross‐national variation in coping with efficiency and equality. I first demonstrate how cultural frames regarding education differ historically in Britain and Denmark in large corpora of literature from 1700 to 1920 (Martin, 2018). I show that British and Danish authors (as producers of culture) differ significantly in their depictions of education with respect to efficiency (skills), equality (perceptions of class and society) and governance (role of the state, assessment and coordination). I then report findings from an online internet survey of 2100 British and Danish young people that demonstrate the continuing divergence in cultural constructions of education in Britain and Denmark today. The survey reveals that the same cross‐national cultural distinctions apparent in the nineteenth‐century continue to resonate in contemporary views of education reform. The paper contributes by adding a cultural perspective to the factors driving diverse country choices about efficiency and equality in education policy, and it reinforces the importance of public opinion in policy choices. Moreover, the paper expands upon our understanding of Nordic social democracy from a historical perspective.

The Restless Republic: Britain without a Crown

Britain's “restless republic” survived for only eleven turbulent years, from 1649 to 1660. Britain today is a somewhat restless monarchy, troubled from within by two turbulent and disgruntled royal princes, Andrew and Harry, and from without by considerable public unease. If the two princes had been firstborns rather than younger brothers, and in the direct line of succession, the long-term future of the monarchy would look very uncertain. Charles I, stubborn and inept, was a younger brother too. Had his very popular older brother Henry, Prince of Wales, not died at the age of eighteen, from typhoid fever caught by swimming in the river Thames (very unwise then as now), the English Revolution might well never have happened. A generation later, Charles II came close to facing a second revolution, so we monitor the reign of Charles III with interest and some trepidation.Keay gives us the dramatic history of the republic through the eyes and lives of a dozen or so very diverse individuals and families. They include several major players, such as John Bradshaw, the judge who sentenced the king to death; Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector; and George Monck, architect of the Restoration. The cast of characters also includes a brilliant, time-serving journalist, a Norfolk country squire, a formidable French-born countess, an ambitious inventor, a lowborn visionary and prophetess, and Gerrard Winstanley, leader of the tiny Digger movement. Winstanley established a small and short-lived communist settlement in Surrey in 1649, and his name is still commemorated centuries later in an obelisk standing in Moscow's Red Square, credited as a forerunner of the Bolshevik Revolution. The settlement's site is now, paradoxically, home to a gated community of the megarich. Keay weaves these personal stories into a wider narrative of events across England, Scotland, and Ireland. Remarkably, she gives us a sympathetic and empathetic insight into each of her diverse subjects’ minds and lives. We enter their worlds and see events through their eyes, words, and actions. The composite world that emerges is splintered and full of contradictions, and Keay does not ignore the sometimes darker elements in her subjects’ visions and lives. I have been reading and writing on this period for over fifty years, and this book is probably the most engaging, page-turning account of it that I have encountered. Keay captures brilliantly its people and places, and her judgments are sharp and perceptive. There are lots of good pictures too. This is an ideal introduction for anyone coming new to the subject, or indeed new to history, and with plenty to delight hardened veterans too. Do read it.

“We Don’t Want a Multicultural Minaret, We Want an Islamic Minaret”: Negotiating the Past in the Production of Contemporary Muslim Architecture in Britain

Most of the 1800 mosques in Britain today have been formed through the conversion and adaptation of existing buildings; some 200 are purpose built. With the larger adaptations and purpose-built mosques, Muslim communities have attempted to represent their identities in the West architecturally. This has commonly been through the replication of easily identifiable architectural elements drawn liberally from the history of Islamic religious architecture, elements such as domes, minarets, arches and arabesque decoration. The result is a British Muslim architecture largely designed by mosque committees and characterized by the replication and reinterpretation of traditional and historic Islamic architectural forms. In this essay I explore how the symbolic meaning of the mosque created by mosque committees is challenged by the design process and ideologies of the professionally trained architect. Referring to a specific mosque design project, I explore how the mosque client and the design professional relate to and deploy Islamic architectural symbols and interpret their cultural meanings.

The Social Mobility Commission, State of the Nation 2022: A Fresh Approach to Social Mobility. A Commentary

AbstractThe Social Mobility Commission's most recent annual report is entitled State of the Nation 2022: A Fresh Approach to Social Mobility. We examine what in the report is new, whether explicitly or implicitly, and how far the newness serves to enhance our understanding of social mobility in Britain today and is of relevance to problems and policy issues that arise. We find that the supposed greater attention to the findings of academic research is selective and, overall, quite limited; that the proposed new focus on ‘small steps upwards’ shifts attention away from what are the most serious and enduring instances of inequality of opportunity in British society; that the emphasis on individual agency as a means of overcoming disadvantaged social origins neglects the role of agency in maintaining inequality in mobility chances; and that the determinedly upbeat tone of the report raises questions of the independence of the Social Mobility Commission, under its present leadership, as a body charged with holding governments to account in their efforts to ensure that ‘the circumstances of birth do not determine outcomes in life’.

50 years of British accent bias

Abstract Do accent biases observed half a century ago (Giles 1970) and 15 years ago (Coupland and Bishop 2007) still hold in Britain today? We provide an updated picture of national attitudes to accent labels by replicating and extending previous studies. Mean ratings and relative rankings of 38 accents for prestige and pleasantness by a large representative sample of the British population (N = 821) attest to a remarkably stable, long-standing hierarchy of accent status. We find little evidence of demotion of conservative prestige varieties or reranking of accents, although we do observe a slight improvement in lower rankings. We focus in detail on age and life stage, finding that most of the age patterns observed in earlier studies were in fact instances of age-grading (lifespan effects), not real-time change in attitude. The midlife phase of life corresponds to conservative shifts in the perception of global, migrant-heritage, and stigmatised varieties. Our findings add change in speech evaluation to the growing body of research on lifespan change in speech production. Finally, although effects of ethnicity, social class, regional self- and other-bias, and age remain firmly in place, earlier gender differences in respondent behaviour have more or less disappeared.

Blurring Genres: A Personal Narrative About University Management

Blurring genres involves a shift from naturalist social science to the analogies of game, drama and text. This article combines ethnography, autobiography, literature, and political science to roam the realms of personal narratives or autoethnography. It explores genres of thought and of presentation not commonly found in political science in a story about university management. A personal narrative involves using self-reflection to explore anecdotal and personal experience, and connecting this story to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings. Commonly, autoethnographies are evocative; that is, they seek to persuade readers that they know these people and have been to these places. Here, I offer an analytic personal narrative; it is storytelling that seeks to marry idiographic particularity with an analysis that speaks to large issues. I present autobiographical material about my academic career as an ‘artificial person’. I use this story to invite the reader to engage with the big issue of the role of the university in Britain today. Finally, I offer some topics for the readers’ ‘consideration’, identifying several personal considerations as well as considerations for political science, and for universities. Although writing personal narratives challenges the conventional canons of social science research about transparency and reliability of data, it also offers an innovative way of understanding the self in the world.

‘Football Remembers’ — the Collective Memory of Football in the Spectacle of British Military Commemoration

This article examines two major rituals of contemporary national life in the UK: association football and military commemoration. It explores the ways in which remembering is enacted and performed within UK football and how these processes are related to issues of power, agency and identity in Britain today. Employing the concepts of collective memory and spectacle, this article argues that ‘memory entrepreneurs’ have sought to embed football as ‘site of memory’ in the performance of military commemoration. It concludes that this has contributed to the transformation of military commemoration, from a ritual that is observed to a spectacle that is consumed. This paper thus contributes to emergent debates on the militarization of civilian space, the shifting nature of civil–military relations in the twenty-first century, and the role of military remembrance in the reproduction of Britishness.

Animals in the family mini-special issue introduction and historiographical review

ABSTRACT In Britain today, pets are often at the heart of family life, but we know relatively little about the roles they played in families in the past. From the early nineteenth century, pets were a central focus of middle- and working-class homes in Britain but are almost completely unremarked in historical studies of the home and family. In this mini-special issue we present four new essays, developed from papers given at the panel, exploring the evolving relationship between pets and family life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Taken together they demonstrate the relationship between changes in the way the family was understood and experienced and the development of pet keeping practices. In our introduction we bring together two important strands of recent scholarship – the history of the family and histories of animals. We will review the development of animal histories – paying attention to how they might usefully be brought to bear on the study of the family. As there has been significant research on the role of pet animals in family life across the social sciences, we will also review some of the key work in sociology, social geography and psychology, thinking through the implications of these studies for historians. Finally, we reflect on the cumulative findings of the four essays – and how they add a new dimension to our understandings of modern British family life.

Russian-speaking community of Great Britain today: stereotypical perception, new realities, and development prospects

The subject of this research is the Russian-speaking community of Great Britain in the modern sociocultural context, which is traditionally characterized by distinct national, cultural and social disunity. The object of this research is the Russian world of Great Britain within the framework of modern Russian-British relations and sociocultural context of the country of residence. The attitude towards Russian-speaking immigrants from the former USSR republics was affected by multiple stereotypes. The current changes in foreign policy, deterioration of relations between the two countries, amendments to British legislation, Brexit, on the one hand, while economic cooperation and cultural exchange between the countries on the other hand, influence life of the community, forming a new context of being in a foreign cultural environment. The novelty of this research lies in the attempt to assess the impact of the ongoing social processes upon the image, public perception, and quantitative indicator of the Russian community in Great Britain, which is extremely relevant due to the absence of such data in the research literature. Based on the historical and analytical analysis of media materials, sociological surveys, legislative and diplomatic documents, it becomes evident that the number of Russian-speaking citizens who are ready to make Britain their place of residence has significantly reduced compared to the end of the previous century, and there are no prospects that this number would increase. The lifestyle these people is also undergoing changes due to the introduction of new laws in Great Britain. In the conditions of the overall deterioration of political situation, the contacts in economic and cultural spheres remain unchanged, creating a positive image of Russia in the eyes of the British people, as well as the presence of initiatives to improve cooperation between the two countries.

Politics against individualism?

Politics against individualism?

The Guardians of the Welfare State: Universal Credit, Welfare Control and the Moral Economy of Frontline Work in Austerity Britain

Ongoing processes of ‘austerity localism’, including the state’s withdrawal from local communities, have created heightened pressures at the frontline. Sitting in local authorities, third sector bodies and community organisations, frontline workers come to act as the de facto guardians of a much-diminished welfare state. Yet, in a situation where needs outweigh resources, they also allocate support based on moral hierarchies of deservingness. This Janus-faced role of frontline workers as both a bulwark against, and an enabler of, neo-liberal welfare control is examined through the framework of a moral economy of frontline work. I argue that the tensions reflect a deeper struggle over competing notions of citizenship, and of the state’s responsibilities towards its citizens, in austerity Britain today.

Displacing empire: Aphasia, ‘trade’, and histories of empire in an English city

ABSTRACT How does a port city like Bristol present and approach its history as a centre for colonial industries such as sugar and tobacco, and its role as an epicentre of the slave trade during the eighteenth century? And how might the relationship between colonialism and slavery be understood in Britain today? This paper unpacks the spatial and temporal aspects of a central assumption in understanding the British Empire in Britain today – that it was ‘a long time ago, somewhere over there’. I argue that these practices are a means of displacing this contentious history rather than directly confronting the history of Empire and its centrality to the making of both Bristol and of Britain. While museums address the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its importance to Bristol, the wider frame of Empire remains hidden. In heritage practices involving both Bristol City Council Museums and various history workers, the trope of ‘trade’ demonstrates one example. In both casual conversation with Bristolians and in museum displays, the processes of violence, exploitation, and displacement which were fundamental to Empire are often glossed over as ‘trade’ with limited context or scrutiny to the origins or processes involved in ‘trade’. ‘Trade’ is thus not only a way to detach problematic context and detail, but by its very nature, it also conceals and obscures. These practices of displacement indicate Britain's ‘aphasic’ relationship with its imperial past. Unable to articulate and confront it explicitly, this past still haunts and pervades the nation and its cities.

Stormzy and Gary Neville: How privilege works in 21st-century Britain

This article was originally published on the Conversation website on 17 January 2020. It raises some important points about white privilege and racial inequality in Britain today.

Applying critical race theory in social work education in Britain: pedagogical reflections

ABSTRACT This paper draws on personal experiences of teaching white British and Black African students on a social work Master’s course in England. In this paper, I critically discuss the fire at Grenfell Tower in London (14 June 2017) and how it served as a pedagogical tool to open up critical discussions among students about racial in/justice, intersectionality and neoliberal racism. I also explore how Black students were enabled to share their experiences of immigration, racism, and racial inequality in Britain as part of these discussions. Inviting personal experiences of race in the classroom can be highly emotive; but, as this paper shows, these voices can also highlight institutionalized racism and provide a way for Black and ethnic minorities’ histories to be told and learned. These histories matter and can develop student consciousness about racial inequality for pursuing a social agenda. They also challenge claims that Britain is now a ‘post-racial’ society. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) provided a way to counter such claims and critique my ‘whiteness’ and socio-economic class in my teaching, as well as challenge the neoliberal ideologies and structures that reproduce and mask ‘white privilege’ and racial injustice in Britain today.

Historical Hinterlands for Religious Freedom in the United Kingdom

The peculiar and particular manner in which freedom of religion is promoted and protected in the United Kingdom owes much to the nation’s history. This article offers a highly selective consideration of some of the incidents of history which have shaped or foreshadowed the lived reality of freedom of religion in Britain today. It traces key episodes over past centuries, crudely categorised as the Seven Ages of Religious Liberty.