Credit: MNStudio via Adobe Stock.

6 August 2024

By Emily Ranken

At a time when one in ten primary school-age children is thought to have a probable mental health disorder, there are related concerns that opportunities for young children to engage in outdoor play and physical activity are declining, to the detriment of their mental as well as physical wellbeing. If we are to design effective interventions to address these problems, we need measures that take into account children’s own views. Unable to find an existing example of such a tool, we have created our own. We hope this new means of capturing young children’s feedback on the immediate wellbeing impacts of play interventions will be of wider utility to projects aiming to improve outcomes for children. We are keen to hear from people interested in developing the tool and related measures. (more…)

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3 July 2024

By Heather Joshi, Alex Bryson, David Wilkinson, Francesca Foliano, Bozena Wielgoszewska

Unequal pay between men and women is a key driver of social and economic gender inequality. In the 1920s, women’s pay was around 50% of men’s. A hundred years later, the gap is around 15%. It continues to fall but only very slowly. Aside from the push given by World War 2, the factors behind this long-term convergence are the closing of gaps between women’s and men’s education and employment experiences, helped by equal opportunities policies, especially those initiated by Barbara Castle in the 1970s. While the pay gap has been falling historically, within lifetimes it tends to widen as cohorts pass from youth to midlife.

Our ESRC-funded research project at UCL has examined the Gender Wage Gap as reported in the British Birth Cohort Studies, which track (more…)

My name is not ‘asylum seeker’: Nadia Mendez Guevara assembles a section of the exhibition. Credit: IOE Communications.

2 May 2024

By Mette Louise Berg

This week, ‘My name is not asylum seeker!’, a pop-up exhibition based on the SOLIDARITIES research project, opens at Halifax Central Library. The exhibition focuses on the everyday lives and experiences of people who have sought asylum in the UK and are waiting for a decision on their application. During the waiting period, people seeking asylum are ‘dispersed’ to different parts of the country and housed in dispersal accommodation, often of very poor quality; most are not allowed to work. (more…)

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2 November 2023

By Claire Cameron and Eva Lloyd, Visiting Professor, UCL

A growing research literature has demonstrated that positive experiences early on in life are associated with more positive adult outcomes, so investing early is key for societal wellbeing. Central to this is the children’s workforce, from health visitors to early childhood education and care practitioners and social workers. In a newly published edited volume from past and present TCRU researchers, Social Research for our Times (UCL Press), we examine how social research and policy can interact (or not) to achieve progressive objectives for children and the professionals who provide their care. Whether the research is ‘strategic’ (with a longer-term orientation) or ‘tactical’ (more…)

Credit: Mary Hinkley for UCL.

31 October 2023

By Peter Moss

In a contemporary context of profound transitions and converging crises, it seems time to reconsider and reprioritise the role that social research can play in creating public policies, including services, that are relevant to rebuilding a world that is more just, more democratic, more sustainable and more caring. In this scenario, strategic social research, including an element of experimentation, may have a major part to play in what has been described by one commentator, Geoff Mulgan, as ‘expand[ing] our shared possibility space, the options for our societies… to populate our fuzzy pictures of the future with complex, rich, plausible [i]deas, pictures of the possible’.

Such concerns and such an approach are not new; they were founding principles of the Thomas Coram Research Unit (TCRU). They have, though, not always been easy to sustain. As TCRU marks its 50^th anniversary, it is an important moment to reiterate that broader (more…)

Credit: Rodnae Productions.

7 September 2023

By Alison Clark, Claire Cameron and Peter Moss

Political parties are preparing their offers on early childhood policies for the next election. While it’s encouraging to see consensus exists that early childhood education and care is a priority, the myopic and short-term approach shared by all parties – more and cheaper ‘childcare’ seems to be the common theme – is deeply disappointing. Tinkering with a dysfunctional system is preferred to taking the long view and transforming early childhood in England.

Taking the long view on early childhood is the subject of the next event in our programme marking the 50^th anniversary of the Thomas Coram Research Unit.  Since 1973, TCRU has conducted ground-breaking national and international research on early childhood policy, provision and practice, research that has collectively presented a more ambitious path for the early years. (more…)

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19 July 2023

By Rachel Benchekroun and Claire Cameron 

Given the growing pressures on families in the context of ongoing austerity policies and the current cost-of-living crisis, as well as the immense financial pressure on early years providers, greater investment is needed from central government to enable early years settings to provide safe, supportive and sociable spaces for families with young children. (more…)

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21 April 2023

By Rachel Benchekroun

Hostile immigration policies in the UK constrain mothers’ personal relationships and restrict their access to different kinds of support. This means that mothers affected by these policies have to be especially creative and resourceful in their everyday mothering. This can create a significant emotional burden.

Immigration policies in the UK have long been regarded as hostile and racist in their effects. However, in 2012 – in its quest to reduce net migration – the Coalition government set out its plans to create an explicitly ‘Hostile Environment’. Primarily targeting people with no or only temporary residency rights, measures have included dramatic increases in Home Office fees for visa applications and renewals, and a minimum income requirement for UK residents who wish to bring their spouse or partner to join them. These measures penalize migrants from the Global South.

The ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF) condition has been expanded, preventing people with precarious immigration status from accessing many public services and mainstream welfare support. More than 1.3 million people in the UK are estimated to be subject to NRPF. Racially minoritized mothers and children are particularly affected. More than 220,000 children are believed to have NRPF because of their visa status.

(more…)