The cultural value of heritage: evidence from the Heritage Lottery Fund

The Heritage Lottery Fund has, over the past 13 years, given £4billion to heritage projects of all kinds. As the Fund has matured a greater emphasis has been placed on the evaluation of the social and economic outcomes of this funding. In 2004 we reported on progress with evaluation of the programmes targeted at particular types of heritage (Clark, 2004 Clark, K. 2004. Why fund heritage? The role of research in the Heritage Lottery Fund. Cultural Trends, 52: 65–85.  [Google Scholar]). The greater challenge has been to evaluate the outcomes from the Fund's generic programmes, which can fund any type of heritage and which between them account for over two-thirds of total funding. This article reviews the Fund's experience over the last 3 years in developing and implementing an evaluation system using the Public (or Cultural) Value framework. It presents some initial results from the research so far completed and reviews how far the framework has been useful in suggesting research priorities and organizing findings.     

Running into trouble: constructions of danger and risk in girls' access to outdoor space and physical activity

This paper considers girls' participation in running and other outdoor physical activities in their local areas in London, UK. The paper is concerned with the operation of risk discourses in and around this participation and looks at the way that such discourses impacted on girls' opportunities to take part in physical activities that required outdoor space. Drawing on data from longitudinal research into girls' participation in sport and physical activity, the findings suggested that girls, in particular, were subject to risk discourses around their participation in physical activities which constructed the girls as ‘weak’, and ‘vulnerable’. I look at the ways in which girls understood these messages and how they came to define certain spaces and activities as either ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’. I look in particular at how girls were able to resist certain constructions of their embodied physical capacities and also at the ways in which this was constrained by specific incidences of sexual harassment.     

Culturally responsive computing: a theory revisited

Despite multiple efforts and considerable funding, historically marginalized groups (e.g., racial minorities and women) continue not to enter or persist in the most lucrative of fields – technology. Understanding the potency of culturally responsive teaching (CRT), some technology-enrichment programs modified CRP principles to establish a culturally responsive computing (CRC) experience for disenfranchised groups. We draw from our respective praxes developing two such initiatives and reconceptualize CRC as a heuristic. In this theoretical article, we offer a more nuanced vision of CRC considering intersectionality, innovations, and technosocial activism. Implications for the newly defined tenets consider programmatic, theoretical, and methodological concerns.     

Neoliberalism,global poverty policy and early childhood education and care: a critique of local uptake in England

The global rise of a neoliberal ‘new politics of parenting’ discursively constructs parents in poverty as the reason for, and remedy to, child poverty. This allows for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) to become a key policy lever by using human technologies to intervene in and regulate the lives of parents and children in poverty. The article explores the uptake of this policy locally through interviews with 30 ECEC practitioners in three locations across England. The interviews suggested that the neoliberal discursive formation of child poverty as a problem of the poor themselves had symbolic power and was a view shared by most of the interviewees. This appeared to restrict their thinking and action, shaping a limited engagement with parents in poverty. Delivering curricular requirements was seen to further delimit practitioners’ practices with children in poverty by reducing their poverty sensitivity. Although this is a small study, its findings may be of value in questioning neoliberal logics, and their implications are considered critically.     

Language and reading impairments are associated with increased prevalence of non-right-handedness

Handedness has been studied for association with language-related disorders because of its link with language hemispheric dominance. No clear pattern has emerged, possibly because of small samples, publication bias, and heterogeneous criteria across studies. Non-right-handedness (NRH) frequency was assessed in N = 2503 cases with reading and/or language impairment and N = 4316 sex-matched controls identified from 10 distinct cohorts (age range 6–19 years old; European ethnicity) using a priori set criteria. A meta-analysis (N_cases = 1994) showed elevated NRH % in individuals with language/reading impairment compared with controls (OR = 1.21, CI = 1.06–1.39, p = .01). The association between reading/language impairments and NRH could result from shared pathways underlying brain lateralization, handedness, and cognitive functions.     

Designing learning environments to promote competent lay engagement with science

An important goal of science education is promoting scientific literacy—the competence to interact with science as laypeople to solve problems and make decisions in their personal and community lives. This is made more challenging in an age of increasing science denialism. In this article, we discuss how to design learning environments for science education that can help students attain scientific literacy. We argue that science curricula should encompass lessons with two distinguishable foci. One focus engages students in understanding the reliability of science. The second focus engages students as laypeople interacting with science in the public sphere. We discuss these two curricular foci, presenting examples from our own work on designing and implementing instruction with the first focus.     

Musculoskeletal stiffness during hopping and running does not change following downhill backwards walking

Eccentric contractions that provide spring energy can also cause muscle damage. The aim of this study was to explore leg and vertical stiffness following muscle damage induced by an eccentric exercise protocol. Twenty active males completed 60 minutes of backward-walking on a treadmill at 0.67 m/s and a gradient of ? 8.5° to induce muscle damage. Tests were performed immediately before; immediately post; and 24, 48, and 168 hours post eccentric exercise. Tests included running at 3.35 m/s and hopping at 2.2 Hz using single- and double-legged actions. Leg and vertical stiffness were measured from kinetic and kinematic data, and electromyography (EMG) of five muscles of the preferred limb were recorded during hopping. Increases in pain scores (over 37%) occurred post-exercise and 24 and 48 hours later (p < 0.001). A 7% decrease in maximal voluntary contraction occurred immediately post-exercise (p = 0.019). Changes in knee kinematics during single-legged hopping were observed 168 hours post (p < 0.05). No significant changes were observed in EMG, creatine kinase activity, leg, or vertical stiffness. Results indicate that knee mechanics may be altered to maintain consistent levels of leg and vertical stiffness when eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage is present in the lower legs.