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'I Gave them Several Accounts': Disentangling the Motivations of Early Modern Travellers to the Ottoman World
No full textUnderstanding the permutations of violence in the lives of homeless women
No full textThis chapter considers the interrelationship between women’s homelessness and violence. Initially, it sets out feminist understandings of home and homelessness, highlighting the ways in which women’s homelessness has historically been absent or played down in research and homelessness policy. To understand the prevalence of violence in the lives of homeless women, this chapter considers violence as both a cause and a consequence of homelessness. Related to this, the concept of institutional violence is used to reframe the analysis of violence against women; to shine a light on the contradictory institutional arrangements and structural failings that lead to and amplify the risk of violence against women. The chapter’s central argument therefore is that institutional arrangements, policies and legislation have the capacity to perpetuate exclusion, injury and harm, whilst giving the illusion of taking action
Transition Tutors Project: 2024-25 Bridging the progression to Level from Access.
No full textDissemination of this project was done to All Access wide Als. Open University (OU) specific research underscores the same trends. This project aligned with many University wide initiatives about students support, Transition to level 1, bridging the awarding gaps or the specialist populations across the Open University. The key stake holders SST, Students, AOCCI team, and transitions tutors were at the centre of this project. Ensuring that the Access student has individually shaped calls relevant to the long-term aspirations and motivates the students to move to the next level here in the Open University. The Transition tutors were themselves Associate lecturers across the four faculties and teach at level 1. This gave them the expertise of setting the expectations and highlighting the options across the various faculties that link to the modules at Access level. SST were able to contact 32 students - 13 have registered at Level 1 and 17 indicated they intend to. All the students who responded to the question rated the helpfulness 3/5-5/5. TTs and SST colleagues commented on positives of working together and building relationships. The project highlighted personalised, timely support significantly boosts student confidence and progression from Access to Level 1.Strong collaboration between tutors, SST, and faculty potential for scalabilit
Strategic sensemaking as dynamic capability: How MNEs navigate institutional challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa
No full textWe examine how multinational enterprises (MNEs) employ contestable nonmarket strategies as political sense-making mechanisms to navigate institutionally fragmented environments in sub-Saharan Africa. Our contribution reconceptualizes sensemaking as a dynamic, political capability that enables proactive adaptation rather than mere cognitive interpretation. Through qualitative analysis of MNEs operating across multiple African markets, we demonstrate how firms strategically leverage duplicity, risk tolerance, social engagement, home support, and anticipatory embeddedness strategies to navigate institutional ambiguity. We integrate sensemaking with the dynamic capabilities framework, showing how sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring operate not only in market-facing strategies but in politically charged institutional arenas. Our findings illustrate how oscillatory and seemingly contradictory behaviors, such as simultaneous rule compliance and circumvention, serve as deliberate tools of strategic adaptation. We offer a novel theorization of how MNEs leverage ambiguity to build a competitive advantage in complex host environments
Examining informal payments for healthcare in Kenya and the implications on equitable access.
Get PDFBackground: Informal payments for healthcare are payments made by patients to health providers outside the officially determined payment channels. Such payments worsen inequities in access to care and financial protection. Globally, there is insufficient evidence on the burden of informal payments on households and the effectiveness of measures to curb them. This PhD study examined the prevalence, determinants, value, context-specific drivers (including gender), existing and potential strategies to tackle informal payments.
Methods: I conducted the study in 8 public health facilities and households in the health and demographic surveillance sites in two purposively selected counties (urban and rural), in Kenya. I employed a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design. In the first phase, I conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with health facility staff and county/sub-county managers and 8 focus group discussions with patients (n=79) and analyzed the data thematically. In the second phase, I administered a household survey among 1086 households and conducted descriptive and regression analysis.
Results: In the two study counties, 6.8% (95% CI: 5.3%,8.7%) of households had paid informal payments in the 12 months preceding the survey. Urban residents, patients with chronic diseases, and single people were more likely to pay informal payments (p
Conclusions: The existence of multiple drivers of informal payments requires multifaceted approaches to tackle them. Addressing deficiencies in health system financing, governance, and social networks, as root causes of informal payments, should be prioritized
Devotion: a poetic inquiry into affective infrastructure
Get PDFThis poem and commentary explore how small, habitual gestures – such as a child waving at a rusted pipe on the walk to school – can constitute a form of affective infrastructure. Through a combination of poetry and critical commentary, it traces how everyday acts of noticing, repetition and relational attention shape our emotional experience of urban space. Drawing on recent work in emotional and affective geographies, the piece argues that such gestures are not trivial but infrastructural: they stabilise attachments, generate meaning and cultivate a form of urban care. The poem operates not as an illustration of theory but as a mode of inquiry in its own right, foregrounding embodied, situated knowledge that resists abstraction. The commentary situates this poetic practice within broader debates around creative methods, affect and the micrologics of the city, making the case for devotion – both as theme and as method – as a form of geographic understanding
A decade of computer-algebra-aided online assessment of mathematics at the UK Open University
No full textWe reflect on over ten years’ experience of using the STACK computer-algebra-aided online assessment system to support the learning of large numbers of distance learning students at the UK Open University. The motivation for the use of, in particular, computer-algebra-aided assessment is discussed together with the use of formative practice quizzes to enhance learning and summative tests for assessment. We consider the challenges faced in the adoption and use of the system, as well as the successes achieved
Which Interactive Features in Children’s Digital Picture Books Promote Reading Comprehension? A Meta-Analysis
Get PDFThis meta-analysis examined which interactive features incorporated into children’s digital picture books influence story comprehension. Through a systematic literature review, we identified 20 relevant articles comparing picture books with and without interactive features, encompassing a total of 1,978 children between the ages of 2 and 8 years. We coded the interactive features in the digital books, specifically focusing on mini-games, questions, hotspots that trigger animations, sounds, or verbal comments—often to explain concepts or difficult words—and incentives for reader-performed actions that mirror those of the story’s characters. Research Findings: The effect sizes of interactive features on story comprehension were, on average, close to zero. In line with multimedia learning theory, studies incorporating mini-games negatively affected story comprehension, while those featuring actions aligned with story protagonist’s actions positively supported comprehension. Hotspots were particularly common, but neither hotspots nor questions effectively supported comprehension, likely because both introduce pauses that disrupt the natural flow of story processing. Practice or Policy: Our findings highlight that interactive digital books have the potential to help children understand stories, but this potential is realized in only a small fraction of the digital books included in the research. We recommend conducting further research on books specifically designed to incorporate features aligned with children’s cognitive processing
Social Work History
No full textThere is a longstanding debate about the purpose of the study of history and oft-repeated suggestions that, unless we know about the past, we are unable to understand the future, a sentiment with which I agree. This chapter focuses on social work history. In doing so, I am combining my two great passions, my social work identity and my interest in history, including that of social work. Understanding things that happen in a person’s life that make them what they are – their history – is a fundamental element of the practice of social work. In this chapter, therefore, I argue that understanding the history of social work is crucial for it as a profession; it allows us to acknowledge the things that have happened in the life of social work and to understand what makes it what it is. Moreover, it enables us to celebrate its achievements and its value