bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Polonizmy leksykalne w gwarach białoruskich na Litwie (rejon orański)
Authors: Jankowiak Mirosław
Published: January 2019

Lexical Borrowings from Polish in Belarusian Dialects of Lithuania (the Varėna District)The paper discusses lexical borrowings from Polish in Belarusian dialects of the southern part of the Varėna District Municipality in Lithuania. The dialectological material has been collected from members of the oldest generation, living in five villages close to the Belarusian border: Balbutai, Rakai, Kalviai, Kotra, and Paramėlis. The borrowings refer to various aspects of life, e.g. the Catholic Church, the sphere of education, administration, vocabulary connected to Polish landowners, Polish culture and everyday life. It is interesting to note that also Polish numerals could be found in the speech of my interlocutors. Borrowings from Polish were more frequent in the speech of the Catholic part of the populace than among Orthodox informers.
Przyczynki do historii Towarzystwa Miłośników Języka Polskiego
Authors: Skarżyński Mirosław
Published: January 2019

Contributions to the History of the Society of Friends of the Polish LanguageTowarzystwo Miłośników Języka Polskiego (‘Society of Friends of the Polish Language’) is the oldest such society and greatly distinguished for the popularization of knowledge about the language, and also for the knowledge about Polish itself. The few publications devoted to it, written mostly on the occasion of anniversaries, tend to overlook the figure of Andrzej Gawroński (1885–1927), an outstanding expert in Sanskrit, a linguist, and a professor of the Lviv University, despite the fact that archive materials show that he played a very significant role in the creation of the Society, and even penned the preliminary version of its charter. This paper presents Gawroński’s part in the forming of TMJP; it is based on extant letters from A. Gawroński to Kazimierz Nitsch from years 1919–1921 (Archive of Science of PAN and PAU in Cracow), letters from K. Nitsch to linguists Henryk Ułaszyn and Antonina Obrębska-Jabłońska, and also on the few printed materials from years 1918–1927.
Gra znakami i znaczeniami w polskim artystycznym plakacie teatralnym
Authors: Bolek Elwira
Published: January 2019

Play on Signs and Meanings in Polish Artistic Theatre PostersThe paper begins with the assumption that an artistic theatre poster is composed of two interacting semiotic systems: the language (the title of the play, the name of the author, the place of stage production, the name or signature of the author of the poster, the year of its creation), and the image (graphic signs, meaningful typography, graphical arrangement, colour scheme). These two codes are interwoven; linguistic signs often fulfill the function of the image in multimodal messages, and vice versa. The application of the category of multimodality allows us to superimpose the meanings of iconic images, mental images, and images hidden behind words, when reading the content of a poster. In artistic theatre posters, verbal and visual signs play with senses and allow the reader to activate different contexts, which leads to a multitude of interpretations. Recipients are not obliged to read the creative, multimodal message in a single, prescribed way. They are free to follow various parallel interpretative routes. Signs of the poster play with each other and with the reader, and the entire meaning of the multimodal message can change as one of the multiple senses of a word, an image, or a colour is singled out.
Using collaborative conceptual modelling as a tool for transdisciplinarity
Authors: Neely Kate , Bortz Martin , Bice Sara
Published: January 2019

This article provides an appraisal of collaborative conceptual modelling (CCM) as a tool for research translation. First developed by Newell and Proust (2012), CCM draws on the tools and frameworks of systems thinking as a way of addressing transdisciplinary problems. We applied CCM in two separate workshops – one discussing ‘Digital Cities’, and the other on ‘Energy Futures’. The aim was to assess the value and limitations of CCM in an applied setting, as well as its value in producing transdisciplinary research outcomes. We found that CCM is a valuable tool for researchers interested in addressing complex or ‘wicked’ problems. At the same time, it has its own challenges. These barriers include recruiting workshop participants who are not researchers; assisting workshop participants in developing a truly collaborative approach; and training participants in how to draw some of the main CCM tools (particularly causal loop diagrams). Future research will explore how to address these challenges, and apply CCM in a contested space.
Co-creative technical assistance: essential functions and interim outcomes
Authors: Yazejian Noreen , Metz Allison , Morgan Jenille , Louison Laura , Bartley Leah , Fleming William Oscar , Haidar Lama , Schroeder Jennifer
Published: January 2019

Background

A large national technical assistance (TA) centre in the US provides TA to Head Start regions to help strengthen their use of implementation science frameworks. In administration of TA to regions, the centre has used a ‘co-creation’ model.

Aims and objectives

This paper describes the co-creative TA approach, including level of dosage (frequency and duration) provided, and interim outcomes achieved.

Methods

The descriptive paper relies on secondary data analyses of information gathered in the course of delivering the technical assistance. The information gathered included observations of events, surveys, and listening sessions with TA participants.

Findings

Analyses revealed that the TA providers were successful in the provision of co-created TA and that interim outcomes of trust, mutual accountability, and some integration of implementation science concepts into ongoing regional work were achieved.

Discussion and conclusions

The TA providers succeeded in delivering TA that was perceived by both observers and participants as involving participants and being tailored to their settings and needs. Limitations include a small sample that was selected based on interest and readiness for engaging in TA and descriptive analyses that did not allow for claims of causality. The promising co-creation approach deserves additional exploration and may provide guidance to others designing technical assistance.
Negotiating unfamiliar environments
Authors: Phillips Judith , Walford Nigel , Hockey Ann , Lewis Mike , Foreman Nigel
Published: January 2019

This chapter looks at the mechanisms and strategies used by older people to navigate unfamiliar spaces as pedestrians. Based on interviews with forty-two older people collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, a street audit and interviews with planners, three principal factors helped or deterred older people in navigating an unfamiliar urban setting – the use of landmarks, the availability and usability of signage and if a public space was associated with memories. Stressful areas were identified as those where there was a perception of sensory overload and shared and unclear spaces. The implications for planners are discussed with regard to creating spaces and places that assist older people to remain active and independent.
Financial elder abuse
Authors: Gilhooly Mary , Kinnear Deborah , Davies Miranda , Gilhooly Kenneth , Harries Priscilla
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the possibilities of the ‘bystander intervention model’ to explore the decision making of health and social care professionals when detecting and attempting to prevent financial elder abuse. It is often suggested that the cases that come to the attention of professionals represent the ‘tip of the iceberg’. If this is the case, argue M Gilhooly, Cairns, Davies, K Gilhooly and Harries, at various points in the decision making process professionals must be deciding not to intervene. Although this UK study goes some way to explaining why professionals find it difficult to detect financial elder abuse, or fail to act when they suspect such abuse, the study also revealed that many professionals do play safe and act even when in doubt. The finding that ‘mental capacity’ was a key determinant of both certainty that abuse was taking place, and likelihood of intervention, is concerning. Prevention requires that such abuse is detected well before an older person loses mental capacity.
Understanding immunesenescence
Authors: Whittaker Anna C. , Upton Jane , Duggal Niharika Arora , Deb Chadni , Randhawa Charanjit , Oyebode Jan , Lord Janet
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses the impact of hip fracture in older age and in particular factors affecting recovery of physical function and wellbeing. It focuses particularly on a study of the impact of depression following hip fracture in older adults, and the influence of this depression on a range of outcomes including immune function, stress hormones, illness perceptions, physical function, and length of stay in health service and rehabilitation facilities. It shows that depression is common following hip fracture among older people, and is the biggest predictor of a slower recovery and poorer function in terms of immunity, wellbeing and physical ability. A pilot study associated with this research showed that illness perceptions following hip fracture did not differ between UK and Punjabi older adults, but that Punjabi speakers in India had greater levels of distress. Implications for health service policy and practice resulting from this research are discussed in this chapter, including potential intervention strategies to improve outcomes after hip fracture.
Towards understanding the biological drivers of cell ageing
Authors: Cox Lynne S. , Mason Penelope A.
Published: January 2019

This chapter discusses approaches to understanding cellular ageing (senescence) through molecular biology approaches. Current scientific ideas surrounding the biological and evolutionary basis of senescence are discussed in this chapter, as are recent findings that demonstrate a strong contribution of senescent cells to age-related decline in health. A new approach to generating senescent cells is described, which accelerates cell ageing in the laboratory based on understandings of premature ageing human Werner syndrome, as is a proteomics approach to probing cellular senescence. The premise that ageing is a social construct is refuted from a biological basis, and the importance of approaches to tackling cellular senescence in the human body to improve the quality of later life is strongly advocated.
Combating malnutrition in hospitals
Authors: Moynihan Paula , Methven Lisa , Teal Gemma , Bamford Claire , Macdonald Alastair S.
Published: January 2019

Prevalence and risk of malnutrition amongst older people admitted to hospital remains high and a holistic approach to nutritional management is needed. An ethnographic study across 5 hospitals identified several factors contributing to undernutrition in older people in hospital, underpinned by a lack of accountability in nutritional care. The current study adopted an iterative co-design process to develop a novel prototype for nutritional care in hospitals that employed a series of smart interfaces and built a chain of accountability into patient food provision.
Ageing, fiction, narrative exchange and everyday life
Authors: Tew Philip , Hubble Nick
Published: January 2019

This chapter focuses on the qualitative research undertaken through engagement with older respondents within the Fiction and Cultural Mediation of Ageing Project (FCMAP). Through consideration of FCMAP’s underlying methodologies and its data collection drawn from reflective diaries kept by University of the Third Age (U3A) Volunteer Reading Groups (VRGs), responses to a directive issued to existing diarists by the Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex with longitudinal analytical comparisons, and transcripts of ‘Ageing Re-imagined’ literary events and associated author interviews, FCMAP mapped the patterns of experience of and attitudinal responses to ageing. This chapter also outlines FCMAP’s development and subsequent data analysis in relation to key elements and outlines FCMAP’s collaboration with researchers from think-tank Demos and its prioritising of policy aspects of the research context, producing a policy report Coming of Age before summarising its overall findings.
Narrative representations of the self: encounters with contemporary visual art
Authors: Newman Andrew , Goulding Anna
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores how and why older people construct narrative identities in response to encounters with contemporary visual art. The respondents rejected the negative characteristics they associated with being old and articulated a more positive counter narrative associated with active and involved older people. The narratives they constructed were also inflected by meta-narratives of family, class and the history of north-east England. This work has implications for arts and cultural policy suggesting that more emphasis be placed on how artworks are consumed. It also provides a greater understanding of the value of arts engagement for older people.
The place of theatre in representations of ageing
Authors: Bernard Miriam , Amigoni David , Basten Ruth , Munro Lucy , Murray Michael , Reynolds Jackie , Rezzano Jill , Rickett Michelle
Published: January 2019

Despite increasing evidence that continued engagement in creative activities is beneficial as we navigate later life, we still know comparatively little about what participation in theatre, and specifically in theatre-making, means to participants. This chapter presents selected findings from a detailed interdisciplinary case study of one particular theatre - the Victoria/New Victoria Theatre in North Staffordshire - in the lives of older people. The chapter describes how the project took shape; how each of its three strands (archival, interview and performative) developed; and how its rich and complex data set has been used: with a focus on articulating the place of the theatre in people’s lives, and on their understandings of its role in relation to ageing and later life.
Introduction
Authors: Shildrick Tracy
Published: January 2019

This introductory provides an overview of the book's key themes. This book argues that the poverty propaganda — deliberately and often very carefully crafted myths and misrepresentations about poverty and those who experience the condition — has the biggest influence on how poverty is understood in the contemporary context. Poverty propaganda works to ensure that myths and false pronouncements about poverty and its causes and consequences are disseminated widely: thus poverty is both increasingly a normalised condition in contemporary Britain and also one that is demonised to such as degree that its real causes and consequences are barely discussed. Poverty propaganda not only hides the structural causes of poverty but also feeds negative, stigmatising, and discriminatory attitudes towards those who are experiencing the condition.
Poverty and lived experiences
Authors: Shildrick Tracy
Published: January 2019

This chapter looks more closely at the experience of living with poverty and prioritises the accounts of people who have experienced the condition. It argues that people rarely accept their situations with ease or anything remotely akin to joy as much poverty propaganda would have it, but often go to some lengths to try to mitigate poverty through seeking extra hours of work or getting into debt to meet essential immediate needs. The chapter considers the everyday experience of managing day-to-day living when experiencing poverty and its effects on health and well-being. It also looks at the importance of ‘welfare’ reform in helping to understand the experience of poverty in the current context.
Poverty, social class and social immobility
Authors: Shildrick Tracy
Published: January 2019

This chapter considers the issue of poverty and social class. Since the 1970s, social class has become a complex, confused, and contested concept, with much debate over its meaning as well as its continued relevance. In both political and popular arenas, the concept has become largely redundant amid social changes that have, on the surface at least, appeared to make the concept of class less vital. This idea has been supported by a neoliberal agenda that prioritises the promotion of free choice along with the individualisation of life chances, experiences, and responsibilities. The increasing propensity towards the stigmatisation and demonisation of the working class, particularly through poverty propaganda, leads to a situation whereby even those experiencing deep poverty prefer to disassociate and distance themselves from the condition.
Continuity and Change in Voluntary Action
Authors: Lindsey Rose , Mohan John , Metcalfe Elizabeth , Bulloch Sarah
Published: January 2019

This book provides a longitudinal perspective on change and continuity in voluntary action in recent decades in the UK. Drawing on more than 30 years of different quantitative and qualitative data, its longitudinal, mixed-methods approach offers insights into recent and contemporary British voluntary action. The book deploys a range of quantitative data sources on individual behaviour, both cross-sectional and longitudinal, to analyse aggregate trends in individual engagement in both formal and informal volunteering, in the level and frequency of engagement, the types of activities that volunteers carry out, their responses to questions concerning their motivation and the rewards they obtain from volunteering. These analyses are complemented, and given much greater depth, by the use of qualitative data from individuals who volunteer for the Mass Observation Project, through which they provide free-form written testimony about their daily lives. Tracking a subset of these individuals over time provides unique and novel insights into behaviour, motivation, and lifetime engagement. This source is also highly informative of individuals’ understandings of, and particularly their attitudes towards, voluntary action, and the balance between public and private responsibility for the provision of public services. The findings lead us to caution against any simplistic suggestions that levels of voluntary action can be increased significantly without policies that work with the grain of individuals’ everyday lives.
Data: sources and definitions
Authors: Lindsey Rose , Mohan John , Bulloch Sarah , Metcalfe Elizabeth
Published: January 2019

This chapter describes and briefly evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the sources of evidence on voluntary action used in this book, and the challenges faced when using a mixed-methods approach. The chapter discusses the derivation of quantitative estimates of levels of volunteering and considers the challenges in analysing volunteering levels over time due to of variations in methodology and discontinuities in the availability of survey data. The chapter goes on to describe the source of qualitative data, writing undertaken by Mass Observation Project (MOP) volunteer writers and considers the advantages and limitations of this source. The chapter proceeds to a discussion of the challenges of mixed-methods work using these diverse sources. While MOP respondents can clearly be said to be active citizens, by the same token, this means that they are not typical of the general population, when compared to national social surveys drawing on respondents who are representative of the population. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the various datasets are brought into dialogue with one another, and of the value of mixing data and methods of analysis.
Trends in volunteering and trends in the voluntary sector
Authors: Lindsey Rose , Mohan John , Bulloch Sarah , Metcalfe Elizabeth
Published: January 2019

This chapter assesses the degree of consistency and change in levels of voluntary action, using survey data from 1981 through to 2016; and considers both formal and informal volunteering. The key conclusion is that there has been a relatively stable level of engagement, especially in formal volunteering. In contrast, there is more evidence of fluctuation, especially in the post-2008 recessionary period – in the level of engagement in informal volunteering. Despite the optimism expressed by government ministers, there has been no decisive upward shift in engagement in volunteering. The chapter then uses the Mass Observation Project material to probe further into individual understandings of voluntary action. The material demonstrates that respondents do not always recognise the terminologies used in social surveys, often neglect to report an activity that might be characterised as volunteering, and tend to prioritise their commitments to informal care of family members and neighbours (issues which are largely not included in official survey definitions of voluntary action). Finally, the chapter presents data on the trends in the British voluntary sector since 1979, and shows that, while the level of voluntary action undertaken by individuals has remained unchanged, the scale of the voluntary sector has expanded in significant ways.
Content and context of volunteering
Authors: Lindsey Rose , Mohan John , Bulloch Sarah , Metcalfe Elizabeth
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the content and context of engagement in voluntary action in contemporary Britain. It finds that, over the last 30 years, the pattern of engagement in voluntary action has remained stable, in relation to specific causes supported, and types of tasks undertaken. However, voluntary effort is highly concentrated within a ‘civic core’ of volunteers. The distribution of volunteers is highly stratified; those most likely to engage in formal, organisational roles tend to be those with high levels of economic, social and cultural capital. Using Mass Observation Project (MOP) material the chapter examines the content and context of individual volunteering and finds that MOP writers contribute a complex mix of different voluntary activities. However, many do not immediately recognise their contribution as volunteering, which leads us to question how surveys can successfully capture different types of voluntary engagement. MOP writing also points to the very blurred boundary between informal care and informal volunteering. The chapter finds that MOP writers’ emphasis on familial commitments is a striking feature of their accounts of unpaid work and of voluntary activity; yet this has been largely absent from public discussion about volunteering rates.
Volunteering trajectories: individual patterns of volunteering over the lifecourse
Authors: Lindsey Rose , Mohan John , Bulloch Sarah , Metcalfe Elizabeth
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the evidence for individual patterns of volunteering behaviour, tracking the trajectories into and out of volunteering of BHPS/US participants, and the Mass Observation Project (MOP) writers, over time. The chapter focuses on the strengths of using a longitudinal, lifecourse approach, demonstrating that this enables us to identify a much larger proportion of individuals as being involved in voluntary action than can be identified when using cross-sectional surveys. This type of approach also enables us to identify considerable individual movement in and out of volunteering over time. We examine the volunteering lifecourses of MOP writers and show that more than a fifth of writers had stayed committed to an individual organisation or cause; and more than half regularly swapped the roles or domains in which they volunteered. We argue that individual volunteering patterns evolve, change, or continue across the lifecourse, and that it is better to resist categorising people as volunteers, ex-volunteers, or non-volunteers, which can act as a barrier to conceptualising volunteering patterns.
Health care governance, user involvement and medical regulation in Europe
Authors: Dent Mike
Published: January 2019

This chapter reviews recent developments in user involvement practices across a range of European health care systems in terms of their implications for the medical profession and regulation of its practitioners. It will review the dominant models of user involvement, from Arnstein (1969) ‘ladder of participation’ onwards within Europe. The chapter will be particularly concerned with the growing linkages between user involvement in its various guises and the governance and regulation of European health care and medicine. The analysis will critically examine the variations in user involvement from ‘choice’ to ‘co-production’ and the range of ways they have been implemented in various European countries, with particular attention to England, Italy and Denmark. The discussion will focus on the implications for the medical profession as much as for the patients themselves.
The informalisation of professional–patient interactions and the consequences for regulation in the United Kingdom
Authors: Brown Patrick , Flores Rubén
Published: January 2019

Seeking to illustrate the usefulness of Eliasian approaches for debates on health care professional regulation, this chapter examines how long-term social processes have transformed the character of health care professional-patient interactions in the United Kingdom in recent decades, rendering them more informal and less asymmetric. The chapter goes on to consider three key implications and challenges of such transformations for regulatory design and practice, first exploring how performances of compassion and care have become more central to understandings of ‘quality’ health care practice. Secondly, these less asymmetric and structured interactions are also less stable, posing problems for quality assurance and regulation. Finally, informalisation processes are bound up with moves away from a more blanket profession-based trust towards a more critical, interaction-won trust. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of new trust dynamics for regulating quality care amid the processes of informalisation, and how heightened demands for reflexivity may open new possibilities for cultivating (professional) virtue through a dialogue between social research and health care practice.
The regulation of health care in Scandinavia: professionals, the public interest and trust
Authors: Vrangbæk Karsten
Published: January 2019

Scandinavian health systems have traditionally been portrayed as relatively similar examples of decentralised, public integrated health systems. However, recent decades have seen significant public policy developments in the region that should lead us to modify our understanding. Several dimensions are important for understanding such developments. First, several of the countries have undergone structural reforms creating larger governance units and strengthening the state level capacity to regulate professionals and steer developments at the regional and municipal levels. Secondly, the three Nordic countries studied experienced an increase in the purchase of voluntary health insurance and the use of private providers. This introduces several issues for the equality of users and the efficiency of the system. This paper will investigate such trends and address the question: Is the Nordic health system model changing, and what are the consequences for trust, professional regulation and the public interest?
Regulation and Russian medicine: whither medical professionalisation?
Authors: Saks Mike
Published: January 2019

Unlike many other Western countries, Russia has never had an independent medical profession in classic neo-Weberian terms. Under the 1917 Provisional Government before the Russian Revolution, doctors came close to gaining an autonomous, self-regulating medical profession. However, the emerging profession was rapidly disestablished when the Bolsheviks came to power. This position was eased following the demise of socialism in Eastern Europe and the breakup of the USSR when a certain amount of reprofessionalisation began to take place as incipient independent professional bodies re-emerged in a more market-based economy. Despite this, they have yet to gain state underwriting as medicine has remained more a case of ‘professionalisation from above’ than ‘professionalisation from below’. This state autocracy stands in a long stream of Russian history, going back to the Tsars. It does not imply, however, that doctors have been uninfluential in Russia or that they have lacked regulation – it has simply not taken the same professional form as in countries like the United Kingdom and the United States. As this chapter underlines, the nature and implications of regulatory patterns in Russia remain very significant in terms of both physicians and the public alike.
Governing complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Brazil and Portugal: implications for CAM professionals and the public
Authors: Almeida Joana , Siegel Pâmela , Barros Nelson
Published: January 2019

Sociological research on the governance of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Western societies has vastly increased in the last decades. Yet there has been a less marked expression of qualitative studies which put such governance into comparative perspective. Furthermore, research has shown that CAM regulation in Western countries has been very diverse, and so is probably best conceptualised on a spectrum containing several regulatory models. This chapter investigates CAM’s modes of governance in two historically, culturally and politically related countries, Brazil and Portugal. It analyses the extent to which CAM governance has changed over time in these two countries, the main modes of CAM governance in these same countries, and the implications of these modes of CAM governance for CAM professionals themselves and the public. It is concluded that Brazil and Portugal present some similar patterns in the way they govern CAM, but also contrasting differences, particularly in relation to the status of these therapies within the public and the private health care systems, and the implications of this status for CAM professionals themselves and the wider public.
Birth of the hydra-headed monster: a unique antipodean model of health workforce governance
Authors: Pacey Fiona , Short Stephanie
Published: January 2019

This chapter explicates the multi-profession scheme in Australia that incorporates medical practitioners, nurses and twelve other professional groups.  It considers the origins and establishment of the National Scheme for the Registration and Accreditation of the Health Professions introduced in Australia in 2010, within the context of wider regulatory and public policy reforms and initiatives. The key structural aspects of the Scheme’s model of accountability to ministers and parliaments are analysed. It emphasises the extent to which the Scheme has been influenced by Australia’s federal system and the respective responsibilities of each layer of government. The chapter explains how governments in Australia, as represented by their Health Ministers, through the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council, have taken on the appearance of the mythical hydra-headed monster, concurrently a unitary and disparate form purposely constructed to act in the public interest in a unique antipodean model of health workforce governance.
Trust and the regulation of health systems: insights from India
Authors: Calnan Michael , Kane Sumit
Published: January 2019

It has been argued that the health system in India appears to be systematically falling short in achieving equitable improvements in health status, quality of care, and social and financial risk protection. The poor performance of the health system is to a large extent due to the failure of the state regulators and of the professional associations to uphold their mandates, which in turn appears to be related to a broader and more fundamental failure of ‘trust’ in the expert systems that deliver health care and in institutions that are mandated to oversee this ‘entrustment’. This chapter attempts to identify the sources of this erosion of trust by analysing the regulatory and stewardship arrangements of the health system in India
Introduction: ‘Looking for trouble’
Authors: Crossley Stephen
Published: January 2019

This introductory chapter provides a background for the establishment of the Troubled Families Programme (TFP), a single central government programme that aims to ‘turn around’ the lives of trouble families. The government used existing research carried out on families experiencing multiple structural disadvantages such as poverty, material deprivation, low skills, and poor-quality housing to prove that the troubled families were characterised by crime, antisocial behaviour, truancy, and worklessness. The chapter shows that troubled families were also associated with a much wider range of problems including drug and alcohol addiction, domestic violence, child abuse and poor physical and mental health, gang membership, radical extremism, and organised crime.
The ‘long and undistinguished pedigree’
Authors: Crossley Stephen
Published: January 2019

This chapter outlines both the long and problematic history of the underclass thesis, and the shorter history of the concept of ‘troubled families’. The first part of the chapter draws on comprehensive research from social policy academics and social historians that have traced different reconstructions of the underclass thesis from Victorian times. The remainder of the chapter concentrates on the shift from a concern about the underclass in more recent years, from a mid-1970s concerns about a ‘cycle of deprivation’ through Charles Murray's work on the underclass in the 1980s, to the New Labour concern with problem families in the mid-2000s and the Conservatives' interest in an allegedly broken society.
The opening of a policy window
Authors: Crossley Stephen
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the development of the ‘troubled families’ discourse, starting in the early years of the coalition government that was formed in 2010. It details the shift from the localist approach of Whole Place Community Budgets and the Big Society Working Families Everywhere project to the local authority-led Troubled Families Programme. The role of the 2011 riots in England in shifting the government discourse and opening a policy window for a more robust interventionist approach is fully explored, with ‘compassionate Conservatism’ giving way to a more muscular policy programme following the disturbances. The chapter also analyses the establishment of the TFP in its first phase along with the role of Louise Casey, the charismatic senior civil servant in charge of it.
Street-level perspectives
Authors: Crossley Stephen
Published: January 2019

This chapter focuses on the implementation of the Troubled Families Programme (TFP) and explores the changes that have been made to the programme at local levels. It highlights deviations from the national rhetoric and the way in which much of the aggressive, muscular rhetoric has been softened to reflect a more supportive approach towards families at both a local authority level and from individual workers. Local authorities have adapted the programme to make it work for them in a number of different ways and success has often been achieved in spite of the programme rather than because of it. The chapter explores how local authorities have subverted, negotiated, and resisted the national rhetoric in order to make the programme work and to achieve the targets set by the government.
‘Nothing to hide’: the structural duplicity of the Troubled Families Programme
Authors: Crossley Stephen
Published: January 2019

This concluding chapter sheds light on the structural duplicity of the Troubled Families Programme (TFP) across a number of areas. It presents three main principles of the TFP. First, it examines the role of ‘extraordinary workers’, the bureaucratic heroes who are able to support troubled families no matter what challenges they face. Second, the chapter turns to the allegedly special and different relationship that exists between these workers and the troubled families they work with. Finally, the chapter considers the idea that families' lives have been turned around by the TFP, drawing on data from the evaluation but also by scrutinising the many loopholes in the Payment by Results mechanism for the first phase.
Policy analysis in Canada: an introduction
Authors: Dobuzinskis Laurent , Howlett Michael
Published: January 2019

The ILPA series of country studies displays some significant variation between jurisdictions in terms of the timing and purview of analysis and also shows how the movement towards the application of scientific precepts to policy questions continues to be moderated by adherence to older, more partisan political modes of decision-making and program planning. Despite a discernible trend toward the professionalization of policy advice in most countries, a variety of actors continue to contribute diverse ideas to policy debates, with policy advice systems, and their analytical components, taking diverse forms across nations, sectors and levels of government. In this volume, we present a more systematic and comparative up-to-date understanding of policy analysis practices in Canada than has hitherto been available. This introduction provides an overview of past research into the area and outlines a series of topics and research questions which are addressed in the other contributions to the book.
The “lumpiness” thesis revisited: the venues of policy work and the distribution of analytical techniques in Canada
Authors: Howlett Michael , Tan Seck , Wellstead Adam , Migone Andrea , Evans Bryan
Published: January 2019

This chapter contributes to the understanding of analytical practices and tools employed by policy analysts involved in policy formulation and appraisal by examining data drawn from 15 surveys of federal, provincial and territorial government policy analysts in Canada conducted in 2009-2010, two surveys of NGO analysts conducted in 2010-2011 and two surveys of external policy consultants conducted in 2012-2013. Data from these surveys allows the exploration of several facets of the use of analytical tools, ranging from more precise description of the frequency of use of specific kinds of tools and techniques in government to their distribution between permanent government officials and external policy analysts. As the chapter shows, the frequency of use of major types of analytical techniques used in policy formulation is not the same between the three types of actors and also varies within government by Department and issue type. Nevertheless some general patterns in the use of policy appraisal tools in government can be discerned, with all groups employing process- related tools more frequently than ‘substantive’ tools related to the technical analysis of policy proposals.
Policy analysis in the federal government: conditions and renewal initiatives in the Trudeau era
Authors: Shepherd Robert P. , Stoney Christopher
Published: January 2019

Significant changes are occurring within the federal Public Service with respect to the conditions under which policy is developed, implemented and assessed. There has been a shift to more targeted and discrete new public management (NPM) initiatives aimed at specific and incremental changes. This chapter highlights several important changes, challenges and initiatives in federal policy processes that purport to enhance innovation and creativity, while preserving ministerial responsibility. It concludes that while there is a drive to greater flexibility in policy processes, there remain important systemic and cultural barriers to achieving innovation that will take sustained leadership to overcome, including a stubborn obsession with bureaucratic accountability; shifting policy resources and competencies; adherence to error-free government; an unwillingness to open the policy process to external actors; and increased central coordination of policy priorities.
Public policy in the provinces: more powering; less puzzling
Authors: Rasmussen Ken
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the role politics plays in the activities of provincial public servants, and how this requires provincial public services to provide both politically sensitive and administratively effective advice. Provincial public servants are torn between their roles as professional analysts and the pressures of a complex system of networked government. Rather than putting the emphasis on “speaking truth to power” they are more often concerned with “making sense together” by encouraging learning between policy actors and elected officials. In this regard, provincial public servants have a larger role in governance when compared to their federal counterparts. That is, provincial public servants are not only assemblers of facts or gatherers of data, but rather tend to be deeply engaged with relevant communities in a process of refining and redefining provincial public policy.
Policy analysis in local government
Authors: Henstra Daniel
Published: January 2019

This chapter focuses on policy analysis and policy capacity of local governments in Canada. It discusses the nature of local public policy issues, the dynamics of local policy-making, the demand for policy analysis in local government and the specific analytical techniques used by local policy workers. Drawing on content analysis of relevant documents and interviews with municipal policy workers, the chapter presents new evidence about policy analysis at the local level, which has traditionally received less research attention than policy work at the federal and provincial levels.
Policy capacity and recruiting expertise in public services: acquiring talent in evolving governance environments
Authors: Lindquist Evert A.
Published: January 2019

This chapter sets out an analytic framework for evaluating different approaches to mobilizing policy expertise. It first identifies different locations where policy analysis and work is carried out in the public service, what policy expertise is sought by policy units, and different kinds of talent. Using a sports metaphor, this chapter considers the qualities and attributes required for policy ‘teams’ to reach full potential. Three archetypical recruitment strategies available to departments and policy units are identified—in-house systems, internal policy think tanks, and consulting strategies—and appraised according to criteria for well-performing teams working in public service environments and the specific needs of policy units. Each strategy has unique benefits, costs and risks. The chapter concludes by considering contemporary governance, demographic, and technological trends, how they might affect the mobilization and recruitment strategies of governments seeking to build policy capacity, and implications for research.
Commissions of inquiry and policy analysis
Authors: Johns Carolyn M. , Inwood Gregory J.
Published: January 2019

This chapter focuses on the important role public inquiries play in policy analysis in Canada. It begins with an overview of public inquiries, sometimes referred to as commissions of inquiry or royal commissions, why they are created, and how their role in policy analysis in Canada has evolved over time. Existing case study and comparative literature on public inquiries is used to illustrate how a more contextual approach has advanced our understanding of the complex contributions commissions of inquiry make to policy analysis. The chapter then outlines why commissions of inquiry remain an important part of policy analysis and the policy process, and why they will likely continue to be an important part of the Canadian policy landscape in the future.
Any better ideas? Think tanks and policy analysis in Canada
Authors: Abelson Donald E.
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the role of think tanks in Canada, and their efforts to contribute to the formulation and implementation of public policy. As the Canadian think tank population continues to grow, more questions about how and under what conditions they are able to shape public opinion and the policy preferences and choices of elected and appointed officials are being asked. This chapter highlights the diverse and eclectic nature of Canadian think tanks, and the various ways they have been able to offer their insights and analysis of domestic and foreign policy issues. In doing so, consideration is given to the methodological hurdles scholars must overcome to evaluate more accurately the extent to which think tanks are able to influence both the content and outcome of major policy initiatives.
Policy analytical capacity and Canadian business associations
Authors: Stritch Andrew
Published: January 2019

Since the 1980s, policy advisory systems in Canada have become more open and accessible to inputs from civil society groups. However, the capacity to exploit this new openness is not evenly distributed within civil society. Based on survey data from Canadian business associations, this chapter argues that business groups have generally endowed themselves with impressive capacities for policy analysis and advice, and that these capacities have increased over the last decade or so. Business associations have commonly made a significant and sustained commitment to this endeavour, whether using in-house personnel or external resources, and have developed strong analytical means for providing governments with policy advice. To the extent that this capacity is unmatched by other sections of civil society, the greater openness of policy advisory systems may not reflect a new era of genuine pluralism, but reinforce existing biases in civil society.
Media and public policy
Authors: Lawlor Andrea
Published: January 2019

Mass media has taken on an increasingly influential role with respect to the design, implementation and critical evaluation of public policy. This chapter explores the many ways in which media “matters” to the policy process, by highlighting media’s traditionally limited role in the scholarly literature on public policy, then moving on to a wider discussion of the direct and indirect capacity of media to influence the policy process. Media effects on policy such as framing and agenda setting are reviewed, as are concepts such as the institutional factors that guide political media production and the relationship between policymakers, public opinion and the media. The chapter concludes with a reflection on some of the contemporary challenges for the media-policy relationship in a rapidly evolving digital media environment.
Trends and directions in Canadian policy analysis and policy advice
Authors: Prince Michael J.
Published: January 2019

As public sector work, policy analysis and policy advising is the soft craft of hard choices. Changes in the context and content of Canadian politics and government in recent decades have shifted the nature of public service policy advice giving. This chapter presents these changes and their implications in relation to two approaches to policy advising. One model, the traditional approach in Canadian parliamentary governments, involves public servants speaking truth to those in power, namely cabinet ministers. The second model, reflecting contemporary trends in governance, can be described as many actors sharing many truths to decision makers. In short, there has been a shift in policy advisory systems engaged in policy analysis and matters of giving policy advice. The chapter examines each of these models, describing them and offering some criticisms, as well as noting trends in Canada that relate to this altered context of advising and policy development.