London Family Research Articles

Love’s Labor’s Lost: The Lived-Experience, A Pan-European Play

ABSTRACT This article addresses Abel Lefranc’s analysis of Love’s Labor’s Lost. Lefranc was a member of the Académie française, a highly respected Renaissance specialist, who published Behind the Mask of William Shakespeare in 1918. Nothing in Shakespere of Stratford’s hundreds of business records or will (the only records we have) reveal any knowledge of French. He never travelled abroad. He was a teenager in Stratford when the events in the play take place. He possibly began to learn French when he roomed with a French Huguenot family in London at the age of thirty-eight in 1602; however, Hamlet, based on an untranslated French source, was presented in 1593. Love’s Labor’s Lost (1594–98) reveals a detailed knowledge of historical events at the French court of Nérac from 1578 to 1582 and presents important, as well as minor French historical characters, and even a suppressed scandal – a wealth of knowledge not available to the general public. There is no known primary source for the play. Whoever wrote the play knew in great detail what was happening at the court of Nérac between 1578–1582. Lefranc did a phenomenal amount of research to reveal the forgotten history behind the play – the lived experience and its pan-European vision. Restoring the history reveals the play’s rich psychological depth.

Using the RE-AIM framework to evaluate the feasibility of a parent-focused intervention targeting childhood obesity

BackgroundChildhood obesity remains a serious public health concern. Community-based childhood obesity treatment interventions have the potential to improve health behaviors and outcomes among children, but require thorough evaluation to facilitate translation of research into practice. The purpose of the current study was to determine the feasibility of a community-based, parent-focused childhood obesity intervention (“C.H.A.M.P. Families”) using the RE-AIM framework, an evaluation tool for health interventions.MethodsA single-group, non-randomized, repeated measures feasibility study was conducted. Participants (n = 16 parents/caregivers of 11 children with obesity) completed a 13-week parent-focused education intervention. The intervention consisted of three main components: (a) eight group-based (parent-only) education sessions; (b) eight home-based (family-centered) activities; and (c) two group-based follow-up support sessions for parents and children. The five dimensions of RE-AIM—reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance—were assessed using various measures and data sources (e.g., child, parent/caregiver, costing, census) obtained throughout the study period. Outcome variables were measured at baseline, mid-intervention, post-intervention, and at a 6-month follow-up.ResultsOverall, the C.H.A.M.P. Families intervention reached approximately 0.09% of eligible families in London, Ontario. Despite the small number, participants were generally representative of the population from which they were drawn, and program participation rates were high (reach). Findings also suggest that involvement in the program was associated with improved health-related quality of life among children (effectiveness/individual-level maintenance). In addition, the intervention had high fidelity to protocol, attendance rates, and cost-effectiveness (implementation). Lastly, important community partnerships were established and maintained (adoption/setting-level maintenance).ConclusionsBased on a detailed and comprehensive RE-AIM evaluation, the C.H.A.M.P. Families intervention appears to be a promising parent-focused approach to the treatment of childhood obesity.Trial registrationISRCTN Registry, Study ID ISRCTN 10752416. Registered 24 April 2018.

Ernest Hart: Editor of the British Medical Journal 1866-1898.

Ernest Abraham Hart (26 June 1835-7 January 1898) was the long-time editor of the British Medical Journal. He held strong opinions, and was often controversial but his views generally prevailed. He was born into a Jewish family in London and was educated at the City of London School. He studied medicine at the St George's Hospital School of Medicine and specialised in diseases of the eye. His medical journalism began with The Lancet in 1857 and in August 1866, he was appointed editor of the British Medical Journal taking it, in his decades of leadership, from a small publication to a significant scientific journal increasing the British Medical Association membership substantially. Julia Frankau's novel of scandal, Dr Phillips: A Maida Vale Idyll (1887) published under the pseudonym of Frank Danby, has a leading character, Dr Phillips, thought to be modelled on Ernest Hart and who murders his wife reviving speculation about the death of Hart's first wife from accidental poisoning.

‘Idiots’ in Eighteenth-Century London Families and Communities: Evidence from Old Bailey Trials

This article examines fifty trials held at the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London between 1690 and 1830 which featured individuals (mostly defendants) characterised as ‘idiots’ or similar, broadly correlating with people characterised as people with learning disabilities today. Evidence from the trials, including witness testimony, character witness statements, court verdicts and testimony from the defendants themselves suggest that many lived integrated lives in their families and communities rather than being marginalised or abused. Many worked, and were supported by social networks of family, neighbours and work mates, including employers. There is barely any evidence of institutionalisation. The early years of the nineteenth century saw a hardening of attitudes in court verdicts and testimony, and reduction in the tolerance and acceptance shown in earlier trials, presaging the institutionalisation of the idiot population which occurred later in the nineteenth century.

From the Ground Up: Tactical Mobilization of Grief in the Case of the Afzaal-Salman Family Killings

Abstract This paper focuses on the murders of the Afzaal-Salman family in London, Ontario (Canada) in June, 2021. Immediately after the murders were reported, several hashtags on different social media emerged, focusing attention on the victims and commenting on the Islamophobia that resulted in their deaths. Through a critical discourse analysis of one of these hashtags, #OurLondonFamily that was used on Twitter and Instagram, this paper examines how grief becomes a conveyor of subjugated histories and experiences of Islamophobia, and a conduit through which the politics of identity surface. The paper argues that social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram allow for affective expressions of grief, demonstrating a networked sociality and articulating politics of opposition from the ground up. The affective publics that are engendered include activists and NGOs, whose social worthiness, high number of followers, coordinated and committed attention provides traction that allows for collective grieving that can be politically mobilized. As tactical trajectories, social media posts rupture the spectacle of a harmonious multicultural Canada.

Syrian Refugees’ Experiences of the Pandemic in Canada: Barriers to Integration and Just Solutions

Research has shown high levels of housing precarity among government-assisted refugees (GARs) connected to difficult housing markets, limited social benefits, and other social and structural barriers to positive settlement (Lumley-Sapanski, 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic has likely exacerbated this precarity. Research to date demonstrates the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for refugees and low-income households, including both health-related issues and economic challenges, that may exacerbate their ability to obtain affordable, suitable housing (Jones & Grigsby-Toussaint, 2020; Shields & Alrob, 2020). In this context, we examined Syrian government-assisted refugees’ experiences during the pandemic, asking: how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Syrian refugees’ experiences of housing stability. To examine this issue, we interviewed 38 families in Calgary, London, and Fredericton. Using a qualitative descriptive methodology for analysis and interpretation (Thorne et al., 1997), we found the liminality of settling as a GAR has been compounded by isolation, further economic loss, and new anxieties during the pandemic. Ultimately, for many participants, the pandemic has thwarted their housing stability goals and decreased their likelihood of improving their housing conditions. Based on our findings, we discuss potential policy and practice relevant solutions to the challenges faced by refugees in Canada during the pandemic and likely beyond.

The effect of nutritional status on historical infectious disease morbidity: evidence from the London Foundling Hospital, 1892-1919

ABSTRACT There is a complex inter-relationship between nutrition and morbidity in human health. Many diseases reduce nutritional status, but on the other hand, having low nutritional status is also known to make individuals more susceptible to certain diseases and to more serious illness. Modern evidence on these relationships, determined after the introduction of antibiotics and vaccines, may not be applicable to historical settings before these medical technologies were available. This paper uses a historical cohort study based on records from the London Foundling Hospital to determine the causal effect of nutritional status of children, proxied by weight- and height-for-age Z-scores, on the odds of contracting five infectious diseases of childhood (measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox and whooping cough) and on sickness duration from these diseases. I identify a causal effect by exploiting the randomisation of environmental conditions as foundling children were removed from their original homes, then fostered with families in counties nearby London and later returned to the Foundling Hospital’s main site in London. I find no effect of nutritional status on the odds of contracting the five diseases, but I do find a historically important and statistically significant effect of nutritional status on sickness duration for measles and mumps. These findings have three implications. First, historical incidence of these diseases was unrelated to nutritional status, meaning that poor nutritional status during famines or during the Colombian Exchange did not affect the spread of epidemics. However, undernutrition in these events may have exacerbated measles severity. Second, improving nutritional status in the past 150 years would have reduced the severity of measles and mumps infections but not affect the decline in whooping cough mortality. Finally, selective culling effects from measles would be larger than those from whooping cough since whooping cough severity was not correlated with underlying nutritional status.

The bewildered peasant: family, migration and murder in the Greek Cypriot community in London

Abstract Greek Cypriots became a key feature of early post-Second World War London. This article focuses on the case of the penultimate woman hanged in Britain, Styllou Christofi, who was executed in December 1954 for the murder of her German-born daughter-in-law, Hella. It outlines the emergence of the Cypriot community in London, tackles the image of the Cypriot in the British imperial imagination and investigates the hostility that this new community faced in Britain. The article investigates the nature of family in Cyprus and London and questions why Cypriots have received so little attention from historians, despite their numbers.

‘Implicit’ remittances in family relationships: The case of Bangladeshis in Italy and beyond

AbstractIn this article – based on 100 in‐depth interviews with divided and reunited Bangladeshi families in Italy, Bangladesh, and London – we discuss how remittances are influenced by gender relations within the family, what social meanings they assume, what family memberships they reinforce, how the intertwining between migration and family cycle affects them. By adopting an intersectional approach, we show how economic transfers are normally sent to the family of the first‐migrant man, although they may assist the emigration of the wife's male relatives: a phenomenon that we call ‘implicit remittances’. A second set of results concerns changes over time in remittances and two events of the family cycle are decisive: the family reunification in Italy and the demise of parents in the country of origin. In both cases, remittances are reduced, cease, or are limited to gifts in particular circumstances.

Multilingualism and Language Contact in the Cely Letters

AbstractThe Cely Letters is a well-known collection of correspondence exchanged by members of this London family of wool merchants and their associates between 1472 and 1488. A substantial part of the corpus was written and received by factors based in Calais, which had been an English outpost in France since 1346 and was strategically connected to the wool marts of the Low Countries. The great majority of the letters are monolingual English texts, thus attesting to the widespread use of the vernacular in personal correspondence by the late fifteenth century. Nevertheless, behind the monolingual English surface, traces of multilingualism are revealed. In this paper, I intend to analyse this issue with a twofold purpose. In the first place, attention will be paid to the multilingual background of the letters, considering both the persistent use of French in late medieval England and the specificity of the business transactions carried out at Calais and the marts, where language contact must have been the norm. In the second place, different textual reflections of such contact in the letters are examined and classified, both as regards the generic conventions of letter writing and as part of the multilingual business context where they were produced and received.

Child parent psychotherapy in the treatment of severe trauma in a 4-year-old child with co-occurring autism spectrum disorder

AimsThis poster describes Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) in the treatment of severe trauma in a 4-year-old child with co-occurring Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).BackgroundThe London Infant and Family Team (LIFT) implements the New Orleans Intervention Model. It targets the mental health needs of under 5 year olds, providing evidence based assessments and interventions for infants, their parents and foster carers within the framework of the Family Court in England. The majority of children seen by LIFT have suffered severe trauma. LIFT delivers a range of interventions including CPP - a relational treatment for young children who have experienced trauma.CPP seeks to intervene in a number of ways: provides developmental guidance, demonstrates that the child's behaviour has meaning and can be linked to past traumas, enables the child to have space to play and talk about what has happened, helps to name and contain emotions - supporting emotional regulation, and helps the dyad to understand each other. The dyadic relationship is key to the intervention - helping to establish safety for the child and strengthen the caregiver-child relationship, enabling the child to make sense of past experiences and learn new ways to express feelings. Exploration of trauma takes place through a combination of play and interpretations made by the clinician, who supports and holds in mind the experiences and history of both child and carer. There is evidence that CPP helps young traumatised children to become less anxious, more secure in their attachment relationships and more able to cue their needs. There is less evidence of the efficacy of CPP in the context of young children with a co-occurring diagnosis of ASD.MethodThe poster describes the assessment of a 4-year-old child of normal intelligence with a two year history of severe neglect, and physical and emotional abuse, who presented significant behavioural and emotional disturbance. Tools used to assess the child's behaviour, trauma symptoms and ASD are outlined. The process of CPP with the child and foster carer dyad is described. Outcome measures and symptom resolution are reported.ConclusionCo-occurrence of ASD did not prevent this child accessing trauma therapy. He engaged in symbolic play, made use of CPP interpretations, and achieved significant improvement in his symptoms. The differential diagnoses of trauma symptoms and ASD presenting in young children are discussed, alongside the importance of understanding and treating trauma in this context.

Owens v Owens: A Most Curious Case

The combination of the long Brexit delays, largely unwelcome General Election, a change of leadership and Cabinet composition in the Conservative government and finally the coronavirus has between them resulted in a long pause in expected reforming legislation which is much needed in Family Law, including the initial loss of the Divorce Dissolution and Separation Bill 2019, generated in 2019 by the failure of Mrs Owens’ ’ Supreme Court appeal in the now notorious case of Owens v Owens. While this was immediately hailed by the media as justification for urgent reform of the Law of Divorce in England and Wales – on the grounds that English law was almost alone in modern liberal jurisdictions in lacking a No Fault Divorce regime – clearly this has now been overtaken by subsequent events.
 While it may be factually accurate that England and Wales does not have such a regime for dissolution of marriage without fault and by consent (at least without satisfying the inconvenient condition of waiting for the two-year delay necessary for a decree on the basis of two years of separation and consent), and perhaps should have one for the reason stated, the failed Owens appeal has absolutely no jurisprudential connection with any urgency for reform of the law in order to secure such a decree at all. This is because the legal profession has been effectively obtaining divorces under the present law for over 40 years, and, notwithstanding Owens, has been continuing to do so since 2018, albeit with the caveat that drafting must be undertaken with extreme care to be sure to avoid a repeated debacle. Nevertheless, on account of the age of the present statute, legal, political and social theorists of course have strong arguments for a No Fault addition to the existing Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 or even for replacing the existing provisions of that statute altogether.
 However this is because the present statute is itself a re-enactment and consolidation of the original Divorce Reform Act 1969 which led the post-WWII reforms creating our current Law of Divorce, so is well past its ‘sell-by date’, but not because it does not work in modern times. If anything, and especially with the assistance of s76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, s 1(2)(b) of the 1973 Act works entirely consistently with present philosophy, that is, as marriage is a partnership of equals there is no place for any form of domestic abuse within it.
 In fact Mrs Owens thus could (and arguably should) have obtained her divorce on the existing basis, pursuant to s 1(2)(b) of the 1973 Act, namely on that of her husband’s ‘behaviour’. Thus, as indeed hinted by Lady Hale in her paragraph 50 of the Supreme Court judgment, which she added to the agreed text set by Lord Wilson, there was clear evidence of the alleged ‘authoritarian, demeaning and humiliating conduct over a period of time’, which in law was capable of founding a decree, and there was existing case law supporting this in the case of Livingstone-Stallard v Livingstone-Stallard.
 Consequently in her paragraph 53 she identified what in her view was thus ‘the correct disposal … to allow the appeal and send the case back to be tried again’ – which, however, could not be adopted in the particular circumstances, owing to the fact that no one, including the Appellant, Mrs Owens, wanted to go through such a trial again, not least as even her counsel, Philip Marshall QC, ‘viewed such a prospect with dread’. Thus, in her paragraph 54, Lady Hale concluded that she was ‘reluctantly persuaded that this appeal should be dismissed’ – a conclusion, however, not stopping her from including some forthright comments on the conduct of the case below, with which any analysis can only agree.
 So, whatever happened in Owens v Owens? In the Central London Family Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court?

The dynamics of contacts and multilingual practices in the Chinese community in Britain

Abstract This article revisits the application of Social Network Analysis to the study of language maintenance and language shift in the Chinese community in Britain. An approach that focuses more on individual variations, including variable behaviours by the same speaker in different contexts, is proposed. The approach is illustrated with new data from Chinese-speaking families in London. The role of the social media in language maintenance and language shift, and in promoting multilingual practices is explored.

Matthew Lamert's Military Record: Clarifying the Lamert Family Origins

Matthew Lamert's Military Record:Clarifying the Lamert Family Origins Helena Kelly (bio) Digitization is constantly increasing the amount of information available to researchers. Michael Allen suggested as long ago as 2012 that the Lamerts–Charles Dickens's step-cousins via his maternal aunt's marriage to Matthew Lamert–came from a German–Jewish background and were descended from Isaac Lamert, a purveyor of proprietary medicines based in Spitalfields ("Locating" 33). He also suggested that the "James Lamert" prominent in Forster's account of Dickens's childhood did not actually exist (32). His suggestions receive considerable support from Matthew Lamert's digitized military record, from apprenticeship records, and from newspaper advertisements found through the British Newspaper Archive. The Lamert family feature quite heavily in the first two chapters of John Forster's Life of Charles Dickens. Forster informs his readers that the young Charles's "chief ally and encourager" in his youthful theatrical games was one "James Lamert, stepson to his mother's sister, and therefore a sort of cousin" (1: 9). Charles's Aunt Mary, Forster continues, had come to live with her sister's family in Chatham after being widowed and there "took for her second husband Doctor Lamert, an army surgeon." We know from other sources that the couple moved almost immediately to Ireland and that their marriage was only a brief one, ending in September 1822 with Mary's death "in child bed, of twins."1 A close relationship seems to have continued, however. Forster states that James Lamert lodged with the Dickens family in London, after they moved back there, and that he even took the trouble to make Charles "a little [End Page 319] theatre" (1: 13). Darker days were ahead, however. It was, Forster states, this same James Lamert who suggested that Charles should be sent to work at Jonathan Warren's blacking factory by the Thames–a trauma from which, if Forster is to be believed, the author never really recovered: The person indirectly responsible for the scenes to be described was the young relative James Lamert, the cousin by his aunt's marriage of whom I have made frequent mention […]. The husband of a sister of his (of the same name as himself, being indeed his cousin, George Lamert), a man of some property, had recently embarked in an odd sort of commercial speculation; and had taken him into his office, and his house, to assist in it. (1: 20) There were, we know, members of the Lamert family connected with Jonathan Warren's blacking business; their names appear in some of the extensive litigation in which the business became embroiled.2 Forster's account contains a number of small errors, however–possibly his own or possibly the result of Dickens's imprecise recollections– and these have led to a certain amount of confusion among researchers over the years. Matthew Lamert's service record offers some more definitive details about the family and its antecedents. It gives Matthew's place and date of birth–Germany, in 1774–notes his enlistment, in 1795, as a "Hospital mate" and the rank he rose to, that of "Surgeon."3 It lists his three marriages: to Sarah Lamert in 1798; to Charles Dickens's aunt, Mary Allen, in 1822 (an error, this, it was 1821, though the date given is otherwise correct); and to Susan Travers in 1824.4 Also included, under the heading of "legitimate children," are Sophia (b. 1799), George (1802), John (1806), Joseph (1808), Hannah (1810), and Rebecca (1813). The "George" whom Forster identified as a "cousin and brother-in-law of James" turns out to be, instead, Matthew's eldest son–a step-cousin to Dickens. The confusion may well arise from the fact that Matthew's daughter Sophia Lamert was married to another partner in the blacking business, a William Woodd or Woody.5 There is no "James" listed among the Lamert [End Page 320] children, but, given that he is clearly not George, and that Forster claims that he "relinquished" a commission in the army "in favour of a younger brother" (1: 20), a plausible hypothesis is that he might be John Lamert. There is a Joseph Richard Lamert...

Editor's Note

Editor's Note Jason Kyle Howard The years changed things; destroyed things; heaped things up—worries and bothers; here they were again," Virginia Woolf writes in e Years, the story of a family in London navigating the changes wrought by nearly sixty successive years of loss, family tensions, political strife, war, and heartache. True to life, some of the characters find [End Page 6] themselves encountering the same issues over and over again in subtle acts of eternal recurrence. Some are liberated, while others feel trapped, caught in one of time's wrinkles. The pandemic has sometimes made me feel that way. Time has stood curiously still. And then it feels as if we are moving in warp speed, with a velocity that is fast and jarring, before things slow again to a near standstill. Some days are mind-numbingly the same; others have offered a measure of variety. One of my constants, of course, has been reading, and I have found myself returning to some of my favorite authors, such as Woolf and James Baldwin, for stability and wisdom. I hope this issue of Appalachian Review can provide some of that same anchoring. "Market Forces," an excerpt from an upcoming novel by Mark Powell, examines the effects of ecoterrorism on an Appalachian town. Sheila R. Lamb's short story "The Spring" brims with mystery and is enchanting in every sense of the word. The two essays featured here—"Keats in Your Time of Pandemic" by Kathleen Driskell and "Where Have All the Safety Pins Gone?" by Angela Jackson-Brown—each manage a remarkable feat. Timely, rooted in our present moment, they are also enduring, carrying themes and meanings that are perpetual in nature. Likewise, poetry by Jason B. Crawford, Benjamin Cutler, Emry Trantham, John Q. Mars, Melva Sue Priddy, Laura Long, and Eileen Elizabeth offer exquisite moments of lyricism, grief, and beauty. We are proud to feature a new poem from Ansel Elkins, winner of the 2014 Yale Younger Poets Prize, who also reflects on her poetry and teaching in an insightful conversation. Jessie van Eerden, author of the forthcoming epistolary novel Call It Horses, explores the enduring resonance of the form in her craft essay "This Present Absence." Our current year has certainly changed and destroyed things. It has heaped things up, revealing disparities and [End Page 7] inequities that have long been ignored, that must be confronted and changed. We can make it, I am convinced, by being responsible in our everyday lives. By wearing our masks. By listening—by hearing and heeding the cries for justice. And by allowing the power of stories, to paraphrase Ansel Elkins, to expand our souls. [End Page 8] Copyright © 2020 Berea College

P15 Development of JIA Matters: a parent-led peer support network across England and Wales in collaboration with paediatric rheumatology centres

Abstract Background Peer support, which can take many forms, involves people sharing knowledge, experience and practical help. It is recognised as a useful mechanism for families living with children who have a long-term condition, such as juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). It is often provided by voluntary organisations. While some forms of peer support were established for families living with JIA in the United Kingdom (UK), there were no local support groups in a number of locations. Given that over 12,000 families are living with JIA, the need for access to peer support for families became evident. Therefore, the aim was to establish one local support group for JIA families in London; while identifying whether any other families were organising similar activities elsewhere in England and Wales. Methods The initial concept was discussed and endorsed by a group of paediatric rheumatology clinicians and the British Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Rheumatology (BSPAR – part of the British Society for Rheumatology) Parent Group. Policies and guidelines for the network and local support groups were then created. The Juvenile Arthritis Parents and Families UK Facebook group were consulted via a parent-led request to identify who lived in the London area. Subsequently, a JIA Matters North and West London closed Facebook group was created, and families from the area were invited to join. Once several members had joined, the JIA Matters Co-ordinator arranged a local, face-to-face meet-up for families. Using this model, paediatric rheumatology centres across different counties in England and Wales were approached by JIA Matters to recommend parents/carers who could be suitable parent/carer representatives to lead on establishing local groups. Results Between July 2017 and March 2019, 36 JIA Matters groups were established across England and Wales. Some groups have rapidly developed, while others remain conservative. Attendance at local, face-to-face meet-ups have been variable, with some groups experiencing difficulties in encouraging people to attend. The first local, face-to-face meet up of the NW London group was attended by seven families. Some paediatric rheumatology centres have been responsive and proactive in using JIA Matters and have begun to engage with the JIA Matters Coordinator to help enhance family engagement within local activities. To aid the sustainability of the network across the country, JIA Matters was incorporated into the Children’s Chronic Arthritis Association (CCAA) in March 2019, strengthening the national reach of the network to help ensure families across the country have access to local peer support. Conclusion JIA Matters has demonstrated how parent-led initiatives on a local level can indeed influence activities on a national level. From modest aims, JIA Matters has evolved to connect families living in the same geographic area, while promoting family engagement in research, service development and activities within paediatric rheumatology centres. Conflicts of Interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Young chinese immigrant children’s language and literacy practices on social media: a translanguaging perspective

In this paper, we present a research approach that makes visible how young children in Chinese immigrant families muster their multilingual, multimodal and multisemiotic repertoires as they interact with distant family and friends on social media. The approach brings multimodal social semiotics into conversation with translanguaging to problematize the notion of languages as bounded systems, and to illustrate how emergent multilingual learners deploy their knowledge of the features of different language scripts and modalities to maximise their communicative capacity. We focus on the emergent translanguaging practices of Chinese immigrant children when using WeChat—a popular Chinese social media that is widely used by young families in their everyday language and literacy practices. Reporting on a study of nine immigrant families in southeast London, we home in on one boy aged eight years and his younger brother aged six years, with mixed Chinese (mother) and Portuguese (father) immigrant heritage. Through fine-grained multimodal analysis of online exchanges between the older brother and contacts in their mother’s WeChat network, we illustrate the multimodal, translinguistic and polyadic nature of his language use in practice and reflect briefly on the disjuncture between his home uses of multiple languages and his schooling. We also consider how the younger brother is socialised into translanguaging practices by observing and occasionally participating in his older sibling’s online chat. The findings address a gap in research knowledge by illustrating how social media can enrich opportunities for young children’s emergent translanguaging practices and heritage language learning.

Profile of Dame Carol Robinson

Over a quarter century ago, chemist Carol Robinson led research that yielded the first mass spectra of molecular chaperones in complex with protein ligands. The achievement, which defied early scientific dogma concerning the theorized limits of mass spectrometry, inspired a discipline: gas-phase structural biology. Since then, the work of this first female professor of chemistry at Oxford University, who was formerly the first female professor of chemistry at Cambridge University, has advanced mass spectrometry’s utility in uncovering the 3D architecture of macromolecular complexes. Appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2013, Robinson was elected as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 2017. The following year, Robinson and her team accomplished their goal of ejecting protein complexes directly from native membrane fragments into a mass spectrometer. Her Inaugural Article (1) details her path toward this feat, one that holds promise for improving the assessment of numerous therapeutics. Dame Carol Robinson. Image courtesy of Robert Taylor (taylor-photo.co.uk). Born in the county of Kent in Southeast England, Robinson lived with her family in London until they moved to the port town of Folkestone when she was 10-years-old. She says, “I remember being struck by the fact that there was so much wildlife around. I started a nature collection of wildflowers, frogspawn, and stick insects.” She also was fascinated from an early age by the periodic table, which led to an early interest in chemistry. After taking preuniversity O-level science courses and passing the 11-plus examination administered to some students in their last year of primary education, in 1972, at age 16, Robinson left school. Shortly thereafter, she accepted a laboratory technician position with the pharmaceutical firm Pfizer. She was proud of her title, gas liquid chromatographer, but did not initially enjoy the work. “My role …

Parents' experiences of services addressing parenting of children considered at-risk for future antisocial and criminal behaviour: A qualitative longitudinal study

This paper presents themes from qualitative analysis of interviews with parents and practitioners, aiming to consider how families benefit, or do not, from services' intervention. Eleven London families in contact with child protection services were followed for five years. In-depth, repeat interviews were conducted with mothers and with practitioners they nominated as helpful. The families had originally been referred to a therapeutic parenting programme because their child was considered to be at risk for future antisocial behaviour due to their conduct problems, and additional risk factors in the family. However not all families completed, or even began that programme. The interviews explored families' interactions with all services over the five years including social work, mental health and family support provision. The analysis suggested a number of changes in parenting which appeared to be related to improved outcomes for children and their families. For example, changes in mothers' conceptualisation of their child's behaviour, brought about through therapeutic intervention, could transform parent-child relationships and thereby improve longer-term outcomes. However, other mothers could bring about change without these cognitive shifts, through use of strategies to manage children's behaviour or improve mothers' own wellbeing. Services sometimes played an important role in these changes. The analysis also suggested features of provision which prevented intervention with families being effective. Services' focus on parenting, and the associated perceived blame, can sometimes undermine parents and be counter-productive, whereas empowering parents through developing shared goals seems more useful.

De-coupling or remaining closely coupled to ‘home’: educational strategies around identity-making and advantage of Israeli global middle-class families in London

This article makes an empirical contribution to the study of the global middle class (GMC), and sheds light on the complex relationships that are constructed and sustained by these families with their ‘home nation’ through their educational strategies. Drawing on an inductive analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with Israeli migrant mothers in the United Kingdom who constitute a specific fraction of the GMC, this article examines families’ identity constructions and how these shape their educational practices. The participants constitute a growing phenomenon – highly educated, mobile middle-class families who live and move around the world, and position themselves using global frames of references. We emphasise how country of origin acts as a symbolic object in the cultivation of their children’s identity and how different types of attachment to ‘home nation’ are perceived as offering valuable capital for the GMC. The article therefore contributes much-needed empirical analyses on education strategies within the GMC, and challenges the suggestion that critical to the definition of the GMC is that they are ‘rootless’.