The dynamic household as a logical concept and its use in demography

Event history models for aggregate units such as households are complicated by the fact that such entities do not have a well-defined identity through time. The difficulties of applying conventional transition-based models to household change are discussed. More generally, what constitutes time and change are also considered. It is argued that many changes occurring within households such as leaving home are better-considered as fuzzy than crisp phenomena. An alternative perspective based on household change considered as an evolving network is proposed. The implications for sample designs which are designed to track explicithousehold dynamics (such as the Panel Study on Income Dynamics) are discussed. The ways in which particular forms of analysis come to dominate the scientific literature, including those for analysing household change is discussed in relation to non-linear dynamic models. Finally, it is argued that there would be considerable benefits if insights available from the physical, mathematical and biological sciences were to be more widely incorporated within technical demography.Les modèles d'analyse biographique d'unités agrégées, telles que les ménages, sont complexes, car ces entités ne peuvent être définies avec précision au cours du temps. Nous discutons ici les difficultés d'appliquer les modèles habituels basés sur des transitions, aux changements connus par les ménages. Plus généralement, nous analysons ce qui constitue «le temps» et le «changement». Nous montrons ainsi que de nombreux changements connus par les ménages, tels que la décohabitation, sont mieux saisis comme des évévements «flous» plutôt que comme des événements ponctuels. Nous proposons dès lors une autre perspective, basée sur les changements survenus dans des réseaux en évolution. Nous en discutons les implications sur les méthodes d'échantillonnage destinées à tracer l'évolution explicite des ménages (telles que l'étude par panel sur l'évolution des revenus). Les façons selon lesquelles certaines formes d'analyse en viennent à avoir une position dominante dans la littérature scientifique, y compris celles qui permettent l'analyse des changements dans les ménages, sont discutées en liaison avec les modèles dynamiques non-linéaires. Finalement, nous montrons qu'il y a des avantages importants à ce que des approches suivies dans les sciences physiques, mathématiques et biologiques, soient plus largement introduites dans les techniques d'analyse démographique.     

Performance measurement frameworks in public and non-profit sectors

In the last decade much attention has been devoted to developing performance measurement systems (PMS), which could encompass both financial and non-financial measures. Many frameworks have been conceived in order to allow companies to better evaluate their own performance by means of collected data, but few attempts have been made to provide public and non-profit organizations with PMS devoted explicitly for their needs. The aims of this paper are to review the frameworks currently developed and implemented in public and non-profit organizations and to identify the requirements of a framework, which can be applied in this context.     

Peak performing organisations

The literature on organisational performance is riddled with measurement problems that cannot easily be solved. In contrast we argue that elite theory in terms of performance can be more easily measured by the win record of sports organisations. Accordingly, this article argues that certain organisational peak practices are key to understanding how peak performance is sustained. Through data collected from the top ten sports organisations in the world we introduce the embryonic theory of Peak Performing Organisations (PPO). Sustained PPO practices offer more robust outcomes than the genre of High Performing Organisations.     

Rear gunners and troubled privates: Wordplay in a dick joke competition1

A humorous competition called ‘The Adventures of Naked Man’ ran in a Wellington (New Zealand) newspaper from 1999 to 2000. The competition's protagonist is the sole naked person in a drawn setting where, because of some convenient object or body position, his penis is obscured from sight. Entrants to the competition submitted a caption to go with the drawn setting, the point being to make humour. Without explicit instruction, most entrants constructed some form of dick joke, the interesting questions being, just how, and with what variations? These questions are pursued by drawing on the full corpus of Naked Man settings and captions. Basic principles of conversation analysis, including some early work of Sacks on punning, are used to analyse the nature and popularity of the Naked Man competition. The article also offers some more speculative comments to do with gender and the organisation of language about sexuality.     

Using the 2001 census to study human capital movements affecting Britain's larger cities: insights and issues

Summary.  Human capital is increasingly being recognized as crucial to the sustained growth of British cities, and the population census is unrivalled as a source of data on the characteristics of people moving to and from cities. Taking advantage of new features in the 2001 census, the paper examines how successful 27 of Britain's largest cities and their regions are in maintaining their labour force complement, giving particular attention to young adults and people working in high level occupations. Considerable variation is apparent between city regions, but the interpretation of results is somewhat hampered by limitations in the census data, prompting recommendations for future data collection.     

The 'Normal' and the Monstrous in Disability Research

Based on the key assumptions of a critical social research commited to a fairer society and that all knowledge is political, this paper highlights the way in which 'normal' research whether quantitative or qualitative can regulate and discipline research and effectively conceal important knowledge, and in this way control (discipline) substantive research outcomes. The concept of 'monstrous' can refer to repressed issues of disability, reprehensible social conditions of disability and research processes. The paper contributes to the ongoing discussion of doing and writing disability research by revisiting research as politics, exposing the meeting point of modern and post-modern approaches, and proposing a stronger materiality, and reintegration of theory and practice. The implications are that we need a personalised approach to explore critically across disciplinary boundaries, beyond unilateral discourse and into assumed knowledge. The paper discusses some key approaches, which when taken together support critical exploration.     

Distinctions in the making: A theoretical discussion of youth and cultural capital

The aim of this paper is to address the dynamics of contemporary cultural capital by interrogating what counts for young people as valuable cultural resources. Considerable support is given in later scholarship for Bourdieu’s model of the social space, as the overall volume of economic and cultural capital combined is regularly found to be the most important axis of opposition, just as in Bourdieu’s work Distinction. Yet, while Bourdieu found the second axis to be structured by an opposition between those with cultural rather than economic capital, and vice versa, many later studies instead find oppositions between the young and the old to structure the second axis. Up till now, this finding has not been adequately addressed. In this paper, we hold that considering age-related inequalities offers a powerful way of interpreting recent developments in order to understand the changing stakes of cultural capital, and also their interaction with the intensification of inequalities in economic capital. After a theoretical clarification of the relationship between cultural capital and youth, we will synthesise research on young people and explore the significance of youthful cultural consumption. We will pragmatically focus on the 15–30 years old and put a particular accent on Norwegian studies in our review, as they are the most sophisticated in this genre. Four areas are explored: the restricted role of classical culture; the appeal of popular culture; digital distinctions, and moral-political positions as markers of distinction.     

‘We need to start building up what's called herd immunity’: Scientific dissensus and public broadcasting in the Covid-19 pandemic

This article uses content and thematic analyses to examine how UK public service broadcasting (PSB) reported on the Covid-19 pandemic prior to the first lockdown on March 23, 2020. This was a period when the British government's response to the pandemic was being heavily criticised by the World Health Organisation and other parts of the scientific community. This paper finds that in PSB these criticisms were muted and partially given. Instead, broadcasting explained in detail—and directly endorsed—government policy, including the ‘herd immunity’ approach. Most coverage of international responses focused on the United States and Europe with little attention paid to states that had successfully suppressed the virus. When such states were featured their public health measures were not explained nor compared to the UK's strategy with the consequence that PSB was unable to alert the public to measures that could have contained the virus and saved lives. These patterns in PSB coverage can be explained by the close links between key lobby journalists and the government's communication machine as well as the broader political and social contexts surrounding broadcasting at the onset of the pandemic.