Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Congratulations to PhD student Folashade Alloh and Faculty of Health & Social Sciences academics Dr. Desiree Tait and Dr. Clare Taylor on the first academic publication for 2018. Their paper ‘Away from home: A qualitative exploration of health experiences of Nigerian students in a UK university’ has been published in the Journal of International Students.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Introduction
Academic have been warned for a decade about predatory Open Access publishers (van Teijlingen 2014). These are commercial organisations charging academics a publication fee on submission of their manuscripts with a promise to publish their work quickly online. The problem is twofold: first, these commercial organisations don’t offer proper peer-review and editorial quality assurance; and secondly, academic are being tricked into believing the journal is a legitimate scientific publication. The second author receives on average six to eight invitations a week to publish in this kind of predatory journals – see below for examples. The first author, who despite having not worked in an academic institution for over three years, still receives such invitations to publish in ‘Journal X’.
Predatory conferences
A similar phenomenon to predatory journals is the predatory conference (Moital 2014; Nobes 2017; Grove 2017). These are pretend academic conferences of questionable value, established first and foremost to make money, not for the greater good of the academic discipline.
Both authors have received bogus and legitimate invitations to attend conferences. A predicament with such an invitation, which 99% of time arrives by email, is that it is not easy to distinguish between fake and real offers. For example, the first author recently received an offer (at short notice), to attend a conference in Miami in November 2017 (see below). This was on the back of an editorial he had published couple of months earlier. For a career researcher going from contract to contract, the appeal of being invited to present a keynote at a conference can be flattering, far less an honour and a boost for one’s career. Therefore, while the idea that if it seems too good to be true, is a prudent one to hold; there is also a temptation to follow through.
The author replied to the request quizzing the reason for the invite out of the blue. The answer was less than convincing, and a swift email by the author saying “Don’t tell me… You are offering me a keynote with travel and accommodation… Lol!!” called their bluff and ended correspondence.
But digging a little deeper he found there was a webpage dedicated to taking payments to attend the conference. In the digital world, a fool can be easily and quickly separated from his or her money.
Of course, it may have been a real conference at a real venue, and they really wanted him to speak. But discerning this is not easy at first…
Some of the warning signs/What to look out for
Furthermore, Andy Nobes (2017) offered some helpful advice on quality of the conference websites in the list below. Andy is based at AuthorAID, a global network providing support, mentoring, resources and training for researchers in developing countries.
Who is at risk of falling for predatory conferences?
Academics need to be aware of money-making conferences and meetings without a true commitment to science. But some academics might be more at risk than others. Young researchers, PhD students and fledgling academics, living from contract to contract may feel any conference attendance is a potential career boost. Thus, such an invitation might seem flattering and an opportunity to good to miss. A way to show that he or she is a capable and independent academic.
Final thoughts
Most academics go to conferences for a combination of presenting their work to get critical feedback, making new contacts, sharing ideas and to be inspired. With such broad combination of motivating factors, the exact purpose of conferences is difficult to ascertain because there is no a priori agreed role and value of conferences (Nicolson, 2017a). 
However, there is evidence that academic conferences function to facilitate commodity transactions, be that knowledge, tools, skills, reputations, or connections, which reflects the neoliberal ethos in the modern academy (Nicolson 2017b). The predatory conference can be viewed in this light, where academia is more and more focused on generating revenue. It is at best scurrilous, and worst, criminal, for organisations to make money using such a confidence trick. Always check which conferences are organised and advertised by recognised scholarly organisations in your own discipline. If uncertain ask a more experienced academic, a senior colleague or mentor.
Donald J. Nicolson
(Health Services Researcher, NHS Fife, and Independent Scholar; twitter @_mopster )
Edwin R. van Teijlingen
(Centre Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health)
References:
Moital, M. (2014) Ten Signs of a Bogus/Fake Conference.
Grove, J. (2017) Predatory conferences ‘now outnumber official scholarly events’ (26th Oct.)
Nicolson, D.J. (2017a) Do conference presentations impact beyond the conference venue? Journal of Research in Nursing. 22(5), pp.422-425.
Nicolson, D.J. (2017b) Academic Conferences as Neoliberal Commodities, Palgrave Macmillan
Nobes, A. (2017) What are ‘predatory’ conferences and how can I avoid them?
van Teijlingen, E. (2014) Beware of rogue journals.
Our PhD student Orlanda Harvey is currently conducting her study on why people use Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS). Since steroid use is a sensitive topic and its users are a hard-to-reach population we need as much help as we can get to get her survey distributed to as many as possible potential steroid users (aged 18 and over). We, as her PhD supervisors, would like to ask you to alert friends, family, neighbours, health care professionals working with this target group, etc. to the existence of this survey. Her questionnaire is available in paper version (from harveyo@bournemouth.ac.uk or telephone Edwin van Teijlingen at: 01202-961564). However, the easiest and most anonymous way would be for people to complete it online using the following online link.
Thank you very much in advance!
Dr. Margarete Parrish
Dr. Steven Trenoweth
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Next months sees the publication of our latest article on research ethics in developing countries [1]. Our paper argues that despite a significant increase in health research activity in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) in recent years, only limited work has been done to address ethical concerns. Most ethics committees in LMICs lack the authority and/or the capacity to monitor research in the field. This is important since not all research, particularly in LMICs region, complies with ethical principles, sometimes this is inadvertently or due to a lack of awareness of their importance in assuring proper research governance. With several examples from Nepal, this paper reflects on the steps required to obtain informed consents and highlights some of the major challenges and barriers to seeking informed consent from research participants. At the end of this paper, we also offer some recommendations around how can we can promote and implement optimal informed consent taking process.
The paper is co-written by six authors, and interestingly five are graduates of the University of Aberdeen. These Aberdeen University graduates are currently affiliated with five different universities. Four of who are based in the UK at: the University of Liverpool, the University of the West of England, the University of Oxford, and in Bournemouth University’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) and one in the USA: Georgetown University. The sixth co-author, Nirmal Aryal, is currently a PhD student at the University of Otago in Dunedin (New Zealand). Whilst Liverpool-based researcher Dr. Pramod Regmi is heading back for Bournemouth University to become a lecturer in International Health in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences this autumn.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Reference:
This month has been exceptionally good for BU publications in the field of midwifery and maternity care. Two PhD students has their articles published in international academic journals, one member of staff had a textbook chapter published, an interdisciplinary team has been accepted for publication in the British Journal of Midwifery, and a member of the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) co-authored this month’s editorial in the Journal of Asian Midwives as well as an epidemiology paper on the HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) in Nepal. 
The first of this success story was CMMP PhD student Preeti Mahato whose her latest paper ‘Factors related to choice of place of birth in a district in Nepal’ appeared in the Elsevier journal Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare [1]. The second PhD paper was also based on research in Nepal this time by Sheetal Sharma whose paper ‘Evaluation a Community Maternal Health Programme: Lessons Learnt’ appeared in Journal of Asian Midwives [2]. The textbook chapter was by Dr. Jenny Hall who contributed a chapter to the latest edition of Mayes Midwifery , which is the classic midwifery textbook and now in its 15th edition [3]. The interdisciplinary paper is by Angela Warren, service user and carer coordinator PIER partnership, Dr Mel Hughes, principal academic in social work, academic lead for PIER partnership, and Dr Jane Fry and Dr Luisa Cescutti-Butler who are both senior lecturers in midwifery in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) [4]. The latest issue of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology carried a CMMPH co-authored paper on the HPV in young women in Nepal [5]. The final piece, an editorial, appeared yesterday in the latest issue of the Journal of Asian Midwives [6].
Congratulations to all authors!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
References:
On Wednesday 28th June, the Writing Academy will be hosting a Lunchbyte session with Sara Ashencaen Crabtree. During the session Sara will talk about her personal publishing experience, her approaches to research and writing, her tips on developing a publication strategy, working with co-authors, reviewers and editors. She will talk about all types of publishing drawing on personal experience, focusing on international reach.
Aims:
This week the Oxford Encyclopaedia published our contribution on religious organisations and health promotion [1]. The paper in question ‘Faith Communities and the Potential for Health Promotion’ is co-authored by scholars based in England, Scotland and Canada. This new publication is part of a growing number of publications at Bournemouth University on the contribution of faith communities to public health.
Faith communities often have multiple resources, existing networks and an infrastructure that can be applied to health promotion programmes for their own membership or as an outreach to the wider community. Health programmes in a faith community in high-income countries may include targeted initiatives, ranging from walking groups or weight checks, health events, or health assessments, to diabetes self-management. These activities can be organised by charities and NHS organisation and held at local churches, synagogues or mosques which is referred to as faith-placed health promotion. If the health promotion is part of the ministry of the religious organisation it is referred to as faith-based health promotion.
On top of this encyclopaedia entry, the Open Access journal African Health Sciences [Impact Factor 0.66] accepted our paper in the same field a few weeks ago. This paper ‘Influence of faith-based organisations on HIV prevention strategies in Africa: a systematic review’ formed part of the first author’s M.Sc. in Public Health [2]. Our previous papers reported on a study of faith-based and faith-placed health promotion in and around Dundee [3-4].
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Prenatal Health
References
But this offers a challenge – we are well practiced in presenting our research at conferences, public engagement events and more formally at policy forums – but how to do it in a tent, in a field, with a moving audience, at probably the best-known music festival in the country???
The first response I get from people when I tell them about taking our scamming research to Glastonbury is: ‘are you going to scam people?’, and the answer is of course, yes (though we promise to return their personal information). Using an exercise that demonstrates how humans tend to want to please and are generally reciprocal by nature, we will demonstrate the characteristics scammers use to their advantage (Langenderfer, and Shimp, 2001).
To make our research attractive, and draw in an audience, we have turned to games which offer information in bite size chunks and reward players who use their scam ‘antennae’.
With such a diverse audience as Glastonbury we have a range of activities to appeal to children (and the sleep deprived) and older participants. So, we have designed a colourful ‘scams and ladders’ game where getting caught by scamming snakes means sliding down the board, while beating the scammers is rewarded by racing up the ladders.
Others may try a card sorting game where different scams are depicted with colourful illustrations. Players must sort into scam type and the correct sequence of events. For the detectives, we have hidden clues to be found within letters and emails (including clues only revealed with the use of a UV torch).
These will be fun activities, but our attendance at Glastonbury is also a serious research endeavour. Not only will we be collecting data about the general public’s awareness of scams, it is an opportunity for us to trial alternative ways of presenting research which break through the barriers between ‘research’ and ‘real life’. We will be evaluating our project and building on our findings to develop improved resources.
Scamming is an extremely serious issue affecting more that 3.25 million annually in the UK (Age UK, 2015), and can result in significant harm to victims’ health and well-being. This means finding diverse ways of communicating knowledge which empowers people and increases prevention through raising awareness is essential – including games.
Listen to Dr Sally Lee’s email to Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo being read on the BBC’s flagship film programme CLICK HERE. 1:55:20
References:
Age UK (2015) Only the Tip of the Iceberg: Fraud Against Older People, Age UK, London
Langenderfer, J. and Shimp, T. (2001) Consumer vulnerability to scams, swindles and fraud: A new theory of visceral influences on persuasion, Journal of Psychology and Marketing, 18:7, 763-783
This week we have a focus on the manifestos but some other interesting things first:
Data protection within data analytics – The Information Commissioner has opened a formal investigation to assess the potential risk to data protection when using data analytics for political purposes. It will consider the practices deployed during the UK’s EU Referendum campaign and potentially also in other campaigns. As the data is transnational the investigation will explore how companies operating internationally deploy such practices with impact or handling of data in the UK. The priority is to uphold the rights of individuals and ensure that political campaigners and companies providing services to political parties operate within UK law. The timing of the investigation alongside the election campaigning is coincidental.
Have you submitted evidence to a select committee? – Parliament is currently reaching out to researchers who have submitted evidence to any select committee in the past. They aim to understand more about researchers needs to redesign the parliamentary website making it easier to use. They are investigating:
If you have submitted select committee evidence and wish to provide feedback you can schedule a discussion regarding your experience by emailing outreach@parliament.uk or calling 020 7219 1650.
General Election 2017 – You can read our summary of each manifesto’s commitments to HE, Apprenticeships/Technical Education, Schools Policy, Industrial Strategy and Migration here.
On migration in particular, Politics Home reports on the Frontbench rebellion – every senior minister in Theresa May’s Cabinet is said to be opposed to her aim of reducing net migration. George Osborne calls the policy “economically illiterate”. Also covered by The Telegraph.
On the conservative manifesto and HE, HEPI have a blog by Nick Hillman “Forward, together or more of the same”, with a link to this Education Policy Institute paper by Professor Alison Wolf (2016) “Remaking Tertiary Education”.
Labour:
Conservative:
The manifesto tackles the ‘five giant challenges’ which are:
Plus many things already proposed by the last government in various recent green/white papers and consultations on education and schools, technical education and the industrial strategy– e.g. T-levels, institutes of technology, apprenticeships, grammar schools, maths schools, R&D focus through industrial strategy funding,.
Liberal Democrats:
The Lib Dems have already confirmed they will not form part of a coalition if June’s election results in a hung parliament.
This week saw the publication of the latest issue of the internet-based journal Sociological Research Online. In this issue Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen published a book review of Balanced Ethics Review: A Guide for Institutional Review Board Members written by the American academic Simon Whitney. [1] In doing so they continue the tradition of FHSS scholars contributing to the research ethics debate. For example, Regmi and colleagues recently had a paper accepted on their insights into research in low-income countries in the journal Developing World Bioethics.[2] Whilst a 2012 FHSS-led paper stressed that researchers conducting research in low-income countries need to apply for research ethics approval to the relevant local authority, if national legislation requires one to do so.[3]
Looking better a little further back, Professor Emerita Immy Holloway wrote about the researcher who may have (potentially) conflicting roles namely those of researcher and health care professional.[4] Whilst a combination of midwifery researchers in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) highlighted the problems faced by practitioners doing research in their field of practice with perhaps the risk of blurring professional and research ethics, as balancing competing ethical concerns between protecting research participants and over-managing the ethical process can be problematic.[5-6] The latter issue of management and regulation of research ethics has recognised as getting more and more cumbersome and bureaucratic.[7-8]
Two further publications by Prof. Ashencaen Crabtree have added to the pool of FHSS publication on research ethics.[9-10] The first one, a book, addressed the problematic issue of gate-keepers in research together with the ethics of critical observation of abuse (potential or actual), as well as the ethics of advocating on behalf of research participants.[9] The second paper covered issues around working with research participants who are regarded as ‘vulnerable’ in a study into the context of care and patient/service user experiences.[10]
Whilst Prof. Parker has highlighted the benefits and dangers of using email and the Internet for social and health research.[11] An even newer research approach is the use of discussion boards as sources of data, which brings its own ethical dilemmas.[12]
In 2010-11 Prof. Parker and colleagues explored in two separate papers the contested meanings and difficulties associated with informed consent, highlighting challenges raised by an almost unquestioned acceptance of biomedical research ethics in social research and questioning whether potential ‘harm’ is different in this context.[13-14]
Prof. Hundley and colleagues discussed the ethical challenges involved in conducting a cluster randomised controlled trial, where getting informed consent can be complication.[15] Whilst it is worth reminding researchers that in issues of informed consent during pregnancy and childbirth one has to consider the potential for harm to two participants.[16]
References
Date Monday 6th March 2017
Time 3:00 – 4:30 pm
Location EB708, Executive Business Centre, 89 Holdenhurst Road, Lansdowne Campus, Bournemouth University
As part of the Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) in Research seminar series
Biography
Dr Jo Adams is a Professor of Musculoskeletal Health within the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southampton. Jo is an occupational therapist by background. She has led both national and international applied translational research programmes related to developing effective self- management approaches for individuals with musculoskeletal diseases. Her research is widely published and she leads collaborative partnerships to improve the translation of research into NHS clinical practice. She is also an experienced educator having taught health care professionals at pre and post registration level for over 20 years
Book your place now: https://patientandpublicinvolvement.eventbrite.co.uk
Refreshments are available and there will be plenty of time for discussion at the seminar end. Any questions please contact:
Dr James Gavin
Email jgavin@bournemouth.ac.uk
Phone +44 (0)1202566303
As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, Bournemouth University is expanding its pool of external bid writing expertise, through a tendering process.
If you have worked with a good bid writer or, as an external subscriber to this blog, you have written successful research funding applications, please contactus in the Research & Knowledge Exchange Office
We are particularly interested in those who can provide short courses, one-to-one support, bid writing retreats, application review or a range of these and related activities.
Examples of key funders include:
We look forward to hearing from you.
Today saw the publication of a new methods paper by Dr. Sarah Collard, post-doctoral researcher in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the academic journal Health Prospect. This new paper addressed some of the key methodological issues associated with Internet-based Focus Groups (FGs) or the so-called Online Focus Group Discussions [1]. Traditional face-to-face FG discussions are a popular qualitative research method used a wide-range of areas, such as political sciences, marketing, health service research and sociology to name but a few disciplines. More recently, internet-based FGs have grown in popularity due to the growth of: (a) the internet, both in terms of technical capacity and number of users; and (b) the improved quality of communication software (e.g. Skype). This paper highlights some of the strengths and weaknesses of conducting FGs online. Building on our experience of conducting traditional and internet-based FGs.
Dr. Sarah Collard is affiliated with BU’s Centre for Qualitative Research (CQR). Health Prospect is an Open Access journal therefore this article is freely available to any reader across the globe.
Reference:
Call for Papers for the 15th Nepal Study Days
12-13 April 2017 hosted by Bournemouth University, UK
The Britain Nepal Academic Council (BNAC) invites scholars and practitioners from all disciplines to participate in the 15th BNAC Nepal Study Days. All presentations should focus on Nepal, its diaspora and/or the Nepali cultural world. We invite presentations that share research findings, preferably of work that has reached an advanced stage or has been completed. The 2017 event will be held in Bournemouth House at Bournemouth University. Details of previous study days can be accessed online here! We also invite proposals for research posters.
If you are interested in participating, please send a 300-word abstract of your proposed presentation to bnacstudyday@gmail.com by 28th February 2017. The Study Days organizing committee will review the proposals received on time and make a selection. Selected abstracts will be circulated to registered participants in advance and posted to the BNAC website.
Members of BNAC may attend the Nepal Study Days for free, though we will ask for a contribution towards the costs of the lunches. For non-members there will be a registration fee of £25, which will include lunch on both days.
We would like to encourage prospective participants to apply for or renew their membership for 2017 in time to be eligible for free registration. To download membership application form and for other details about BNAC membership, please visit www.bnac.ac.uk/membership/.
We hope to be in a position to offer small bursaries towards the travel costs of students from outside Bournemouth whose abstracts are accepted.
Deadline to submit abstracts: 28th February 2016.
Deadline to register for those who are not presenting a paper but who wish to attend: 4th April 2017.
For more information and registration, please contact the Nepal Study Days organizing team (Pramo Regmi, Jib Acharya, Preeti Mahato and Edwin van Teijlingen) at bnacstudyday@gmail.com.
The application form can be found here!
We suggest you book your accommodation in Bournemouth well in advance. To download the list of hotels close to the programme venue, click here.
For details about new membership application (and to download forms) or renewal, click here
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Dr. Pramod Regmi
Mr. Jib Acharya
Mrs. Preeti Mahato
Many prestigious newspapers across the globe re-published a very interesting Associate Press article called ‘At soaring rate, Nepalis seeking jobs abroad come home dead’ on the plight of Nepali migrant workers in countries such as Malaysia, Korea, India and the Middle East. This article cited our co-author Nirmal Aryal who is a Nepali researcher based in New Zealand. This newspaper piece also quoted our recent paper ‘Injury and Mortality in Young Nepalese Migrant Workers: A Call for Public Health Action’, which was published earlier this year in the Asian-Pacific Journal of Public Health [1
]. This scientific journal has an Impact Factor of 1.72
We have received email message and tweets from colleagues and friends who spotted this article in newspapers in the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand (NZ), Taiwan, Nepal, India and many more countries as well as on several news websites. The article was sighted in North American papers such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Billings Gazette, Dothan Eagle, The Daily Times, The Roanoke Times, Union Times, The Daily Courier, The Journal Times, Medicine Hat News. and many more. Whilst in Britain the article can be found on the webpages of the Mail Online. In the Philippines the piece is on Inquirer.net
Elsewhere we were alerted to The Hindustan Times in India, which is incidently one of the few papers that changed the original title of the Associated Press piece to ‘Mysterious deaths: 
Nepalis working abroad come back home in caskets’. Furthermore, as our colleague Nirmal Aryal is based in NZ it is not surprising that several newspaper there reported on the issue: The New Zealand Herald, The Dominion Post (NZ), and as expected several English-language daily newspaper in Nepal picked up the story, including The Himalayan Times, and The Kathmandu Post.
It’s a pity that the original Associated Press article only refers to the BU collaborators as ‘colleagues in the United Kingdom’. We have a long-standing interest in the health and well-being of Nepali migrant workers in various host countries. Dr. Pramod Regmi is post-doctoral research fellow in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS). He is part of the BU India-HUB, which involves the study of Nepali migrant workers in India. Prof. Padam Simkhada from Liverpool John Moores University is also BU Visiting Faculty in FHSS. Dr. Pratik Adhikary is a recent BU PhD graduate who has published several articles on Nepalis migrant workers [2-3]. Finally, our work on Nepali migrants has also been submitted as a contribution to the BU’s Global Festival of Learning.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Dr. Pramod Regmi
Faculty of Health & Social Sciences
References:
Congratulations to CMMPH’s Donna Wixted, Joint BU-Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, doctoral student who just had a paper published in MIDIRS.[1] The paper is titled ‘Drinking in pregnancy: poor guidelines or lack of evidence?’ The paper reports a very lively debate at the 2016 BU Festival of Learning which was a debate around the motion: “Advising pregnant women to avoid drinking alcohol during pregnancy is symptom of the Nanny State and another step towards the medicalisation of childbirth”. The debate was chaired by CMMPH’s Prof. Vanora Hundley.
The Festival of Learning event grew out of Donna’s PhD research. Donna’s PhD is jointly supervised by Dr. Greta Westwood of Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust & the University of Southampton and FHSS academics Dr. Liz Norton and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
Reference:
Wixted, D., Hundley, V., Norton, L., van Teijlingen, E., Westwood, G. (2016) Drinking in pregnancy: poor guidelines or lack of evidence? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 26(4): 462-65.
Sociology, as an emerging discipline, developed within the crucible of historical studies of changing lives, transforming events and a search for alternative ways to understand history. We see this in the works of such illustrious progenitors of sociology as Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim and Weber but it has itself been marginalised, even hidden, as social, political and historical events have unfurled and a turn to biography has displaced the historical. Furthermore, historical sociology has taken something of a battering since John H Goldthorpe decried its relevance towards the end of the last century. However, it is perhaps this railing against the historical which has lent itself to a resurgence through such key figures as Barrington Moore, Charles Tilly, Theda Skocpol and Shmuel Eisenstadt amongst others. But what of its place within contemporary undergraduate sociological education?
In an attempt to introduce today’s BU undergraduates to the important interdisciplinary fusion of the social, the biographical and the historical we have developed an innovative exploration of the histories of social welfare that students take in their second year of full time study. This involves the broad study of social and political welfare initiatives through to the Poor Law, its reform and the implementation of the Welfare State, retrenchment and contemporary attacks on welfare and those who claim benefits. So what? You may say. This is similar to most programmes of study charting welfare policy. However, two specific aspects mark out this module. The first is the assessment, reported elsewhere, which requires groups to explore the experiences of characters in specific historical periods through the construction of a narrative. This allows students to enter into the social and political worlds of individuals in need of social welfare and support.
The second innovative aspect relates to the continuing strands running through our explorations – we take Richard Lachmann’s approach to historical sociology to understand how the present, and future, is contingent on the past. Throughout the course, we examine seemingly inconsequential events leading to change, and why ‘transformative’ events, such as the introduction of the British Welfare State in 1948, occur when they do. Moreover, we embed this learning in a hands-on fieldtrip to the historic market town of Sherborne. Though a visit to the historic St Johns’ (two of them) almshouses, the architecturally stunning abbey, students are exposed to the religious beginnings of charity and alms, the turn to the Parish and the body politic in dispensing poor relief and an appreciation of the overt discrimination between deserving and undeserving. Indeed, they experience that the ‘poor are always with us’ and also they are stratified in society by those with power. As one student stated:
The trip … showed us how throughout history policies have changed, yet some have remained the same as 600 years ago. It made us appreciate and value history more. We learned how the welfare state changed with time to adjust to the environment and the social conditions (war, economic state, health condition of people etc).
The students undertaking this trip have experienced the importance of an historical sociological approach to social welfare policy and application marrying this with the contemporary focus on biography and merging analytic thought, and an appreciation of the affective. This was particularly evident in discussion of the contemporary foodbank provision which religious and lay people undertake to offset some of the hardships experienced by those requiring benefits today:
I also found it interesting how the food bank is run. I think it is so lovely that the people of Sherborne deliver the food bags to the people who cannot come to collect them. I have never heard of anywhere else that does this before and think it shows just how close a community can be and that we should all work together to help each other.
This takes historical sociology into a contemporary arena in which the biographical is included, and offers the students a chance to bring in the personal and to reflect on experiences whilst acknowledging the historical and the structural:
I was really surprised to find out that there are people still living in the alms houses today! I was not expecting that. I found it really interesting how there are still so many similarities to how it was ran when it began to how it is ran now. Before the trip my understanding was that to live in the alms houses wouldn’t have been a nice experience but from the trip I was able to understand that it was actually built with the intention to help people and that is exactly what it did and still does today. I made connections with the histories of social policy and welfare when I understood that the people who came to live in the alms houses were the ‘deserving poor’.
Jonathan Parker (Department of Social Sciences and Social Work), Nezhat Habib and Bonnie Brown (students on BA Sociology and Social Policy programme)
Sherborne Abbey
The complexities of multiculturalism as a social ontology and as a political discourse have taken a rapid and alarming turn to the right in a political moment of increasing social turbulence on issues that revolve around national identity, ethnicity and religion. It is therefore timely, if regrettably so, that the second edition of Islam and Social Work makes its debut this month.
The first volume went to press in 2008, in my first year at BU, and my co-authors and I were overwhelmed when the book was showered with positive reviews. Regarded as not only the best, but the sole European text on this conspicuously important topic, it was also viewed as having no counterpart in the Global North (where the subject of social work and minority ethnic groups has been a dominant theme in the social work literature for decades). Since then it has been regularly cited and I been privileged to have anonymously reviewed dozens of papers on Islamic interpretations of social work practice. I have learned that Western social work is no longer the epicentre of practice – there are other worlds out there. I feel that this earlier book was, if nothing else, pivotal to opening the door much wider to be able to hear from our Muslim social work colleagues around the world, whose practice can challenge the restrictive, bureaucratised and therefore often inhuman professional processes in the UK
Strangely, however, over the years, despite the world having changed so very much since in terms of the shifting geo-political axes of power, the rise and fall of despotic regimes, the call for accountability of Western leaders implicated in invasion of Gulf nations, the Arab Spring, global terrorism, Al-Qaeda and later the monstrous birth of imploding Daesh – no one has produced a text to supersede the old first edition. And so, reader, we, Fatima Husain, Basia Spalek and I decided to produce the 2nd edition, which has been fully revised and updated, rewritten virtually from scratch, and I believe we have produced a book that is specific in detail, expansive in scope and completely international in outlook.
We hope that this will be a text that is the first port of call for all social work students across the globe who are interested in learning more about competent and sensitive practice with Muslim service user and client groups across the lifespan, as well as discovering the many beauties and wise profundities that are embedded, but often overlooked, in the youngest of the Abrahamic religions, Islam.
Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree
Professor of Social & Cultural Diversity
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