126,294 research outputs found
Processes of 'positive multiculturalism' in practice : an extended case study with Warwick Arts Centre (WAC)
No full textThis thesis consists of three distinct but interconnecting case studies that took place
between 2007 and 2010 in collaboration with Warwick Arts Centre (WAC), Britain’s
second largest multi-arts venue. The study developed practice-led methods to
investigate the dynamic interactions between notions and perceptions of
‘multiculturalism’ and ‘internationalism’ in relation to WAC’s theatre and performance
programming and education activities. The first case study is a qualitative audience
reception study designed to make sense of WAC’s programme in relation to
multicultural and international issues. The second case study focuses on an
educational outreach project that placed two local schools in collaboration with a
commissioned teacher-artist and a University of Warwick academic. These
encounters inspired the final case study, which made use of WAC’s newly built
Creative Space as a site for a devising project with young people from nearby
Coventry, culminating in a performance for an invited audience.
The thesis explores the varied complexities that frame ‘multiculturalism’ by focusing
on its origins as a political concept in post-1945 Britain and its subsequent
association with contemporary contentious social, political and cultural national and
international issues. An analysis of the negative effects of ‘multiculturalism’ is
balanced by considerations of the project’s emergent concepts: ‘hospitality’ and
‘conviviality’, which articulate the possibilities of living in diversity in more ‘positive’
terms. These paradigms reverberate throughout each case study, informing their
methodologies, influencing their conceptual frameworks and placing
‘multiculturalism’ in more dynamic and relevant dimensions of pedagogical and
creative practices. Each case study considers collaboration between strangers and
investigates the potential of WAC as a hospitable and convivial environment. These
new perspectives demonstrate the optimistic possibilities of creative and humane
action for producing a ‘positive multiculturalism’
Social distinction and the written word : two provincial case studies, Warwick and Draguignan, 1780-1820
No full textThis is a comparative study of two countries, England and France, two county towns,
Warwick and Draguignan, and two families of the trading-manufacturing sort. It
argues that, during the period around 1780-1820, the acquisition of a certain form of
education, which included an emphasis on fluent reading, writing, and grammar.
preferably Latin grammar, became as important as the acquisition of capital. This
cultural capital gave its new owners a self-perceived distinction which allowed them to
consider themselves and to be considered by others as different.
Even if local, regional, and national differences are taken into account, this
comparative study shows that this new perception developed as a transnational
phenomenon, a form of culture sallS jrolltieres, even during the times of enmity and
almost uninterrupted wars between Britain and France which characterise this period.
This process had begun earlier in the eighteenth century, when the idea of a public
opinion and its premise of equal interaction amongst its proponents was 'invented'; but
it was facilitated by the French Revolution with its legacy of the notion of equality, and
therefore of the importance of communication in forging democracy. The written word
was the chosen means to achieve this.
It is argued that this distinctive culture, in the production and consumption of which
women played a considerable part, gave voice and a social and political consciousness
to those who began to see themselves as the 'middle class'
Cross cultural evaluation of the Warwick-Edinburgh mental well-being scale (WEMWBS) -a mixed methods study
No full textBackground:
We aimed to validate the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) among English speaking adults representing two of the minority ethnic groups living in the UK, self-identified as Chinese or Pakistani by background, in a mixed methods study.
Methods:
Quantitative data were collected in two cities in the West Midlands, UK. Item response, dimensionality, internal consistency, and construct validity of the WEMWBS were assessed in Chinese and Pakistani groups separately, using data from both cities combined.
Qualitative data were collected in the first city in eight focus groups of different ages recruited by the community workers. Three mixed sex Chinese and five single sex Pakistani groups discussed ease of completion and comprehension of items, together with overall reactions to the scale and underlying concept.
Results of quantitative and qualitative analysis were examined for commonalities and differences.
Results:
Item completion and item total correlations were satisfactory in both groups. In the Chinese data, Exploratory Factor Analysis showed a single factor with loadings ranging from 0.60 to 0.82 for all 14 items. In the Pakistani data, three factors reached statistical significance; however, a substantial drop in eigenvalues between the first and second factors and the limited variance explained by the second and third factors supported a one-factor model. All items loaded on this factor from 0.51 to 0.83.
In the Chinese and Pakistani data respectively, Cronbach's alpha was 0.92 (0.89 -- 0.94) and 0.91 (0.88 -- 0.94); Spearman's correlation with GHQ-12 was - 0.63 (-0.73 to -0.49) and -0.55 (-0.70 to -0.36), and with the WHO-5 0.62 (0.46-0.75) and 0.64 (0.50 to 0.76).
Qualitative analysis revealed good comprehension and ease of completion of almost all items. Some culturally determined differences in understanding of mental well-being, which varied both between and within communities, emerged.
Conclusions:
The WEMWBS was well received by members of both Pakistani and Chinese communities. It showed high levels of consistency and reliability compared with accepted criteria. Data were sufficiently strong to recommend the WEMWBS for use in general population surveys
Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) : validated for teenage school students in England and Scotland : a mixed methods assessment
No full textBackground: Understanding and measuring mental health and wellbeing amongst teenagers has recently become
a priority. The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) is validated for measuring mental wellbeing
in populations aged 16 years and over in the UK. We report here a study designed to establish the validity and
reliability of WEMWBS in teenagers in the UK.
Methods: WEMWBS and comparator scales, together with socio-demographic information and self-reported health,
were incorporated into a self-administered questionnaire given to pupils aged 13 to 16 years in six schools in
Scotland and England. Psychometric properties including internal consistency, correlations with comparator scales,
test-retest stability and unidimensionality were investigated for WEMWBS. Twelve focus groups were undertaken to
assess acceptability and comprehensibility of WEMWBS and were taped, transcribed and analysed thematically.
Results: A total of 1,650 teenagers completed the questionnaire (response rate 80.8%). Mean WEMWBS score was
48.8 (SD 6.8; median 49). Response scores covered the full range (from 14 to 70). WEMWBS demonstrated strong
internal consistency and a high Cronbach’s alpha of 0.87 (95% CI (0.85-0.88), n = 1517). Measures of construct
validity gave values as predicted. The correlation coefficient for WEMWBS total score and psychological wellbeing
domain of the Kidscreen-27 was 0.59 (95% CI [0.55; 0.62]); for the Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF)
was 0.65, 95% CI [0.62; 0.69]; and for the WHO (WHO-5) Well-being Index 0.57 (95% CI [0.53; 0.61]). The correlation
coefficient for the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was -0.44 (95% CI [-0.49; -0.40]) and for the
12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ12) -0.45 (95% CI [-0.49; -0.40]). Test-retest reliability was acceptable
(Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) 0.66 (95% CI [0.59; 0.72] n = 212)). Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated
one underlying factor.
WEMWBS was significantly associated with the Family Affluence Score (WEMWBS increased with increasing
household socio-economic status) and had a positive association with the physical health dimension of the
Kidscreen-27, but was unrelated to age, gender or location/school. Eighty students took part in focus groups. In
general, although some students considered some items open to misunderstanding or misinterpretation, WEMWBS
was received positively and was considered comprehensible, and acceptable.
Conclusions: WEMWBS is a psychometrically strong population measure of mental wellbeing, and can be used for
this purpose in teenagers aged 13 and over
Context and decision : utility on a union of mixture spaces
No full textSuppose a decision-maker is willing to make statements of the form : "I prefer to choose alternative a when in context p, than to choose alternative b when in context q". Contexts p and q may refer to given probability distributions over a set of states, and b and c to alternatives such as: "turn left" or "turn right" at a junction. In such decision problems, the set of alternatives is discrete and there is a continuum of possible contexts. I assume there is a is a mixture operation on the space of contexts (eg. convex combinations of lotteries), and propose a model that defines preferences over a collection of mixture spaces indexed by a discrete set. The model yields a spectrum of possibilities: some decision-makers are well represented by a standard von Neumann–Morgenstern type of utility function; whilst for others, utility across some or all the mixture spaces is only ordinally comparable. An application to the decision problem of Karni and Safra (2000) leads to a generalization, and shows that state-dependence and comparability are distinct concepts. A final application provides a novel way modeling incomplete preferences and explaining the Allais paradox
Management and leadership development: learning from our mistakes, successes, and the ripples we cause
No full textLeading is about people, theories get us so far, but in the end we have to act. Sometimes this works, sometimes it does not, or at least not as we intended. Either way, there are lessons to be learned if we choose to notice them. I will explore the importance of creating nurturing learning opportunities where leaders explore and reflect together on what they do in the workplace and in doing so create further possibilities to take action that might develop leadership practice and in turn their organizations
author-bios-SRD-19-0063.R1 – Supplemental material for The Network Structure of Police Misconduct
No full textSupplemental material, author-bios-SRD-19-0063.R1 for The Network Structure of Police Misconduct by George Wood, Daria Roithmayr and Andrew V. Papachristos in Socius</p
Networks and farsighted stability
No full textThe main contribution of this paper is to provide a framework in which the notion of farsighed stability for games, introduced by Chwe (1994) can be applied to directed networks. Then, using Chwe's basic result on the nonemptiness of farsightedly stable sets for games, we show that for any given collection of directed networks and any given collection of rules governing network formation, there exists a farsightedly stable directed network
Quantitative analysis of precipitate coarsening in V and V-Mo microalloyed steel
No full textEver-more stringent environmental regulations have driven the automotive industry to continuously develop lightweight solutions in automotive body sheet materials, without compromising of passenger safety and manufacturing robustness. Steels with small amounts of alloying elements such as vanadium, molybdenum (also called micro-alloyed steels) strengthened via nano-precipitates, are potential candidate materials fitting these requirements. To be able to control the dispersion of nano-precipitates and understands its effect on mechanical properties, a detailed understanding of their formation and growth kinetics at the nanoscale is essential. This proposal is a part of an ongoing EPSRC funded (£600K from Sep. 2014-Sep. 2017) project, which aims to develop new micro-alloyed steels with enhanced strength. This project is collaboration between the University of Warwick and Tata steel
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