This is a summary of the report relating to the second of what were intended to be five-yearly su... more This is a summary of the report relating to the second of what were intended to be five-yearly surveys of what young people in England are reading, and what they say their reading means to them. The aim of the project is to provide regular ‘snapshots ’ of young people’s reading which can be used both to provide information about the particular years covered by each survey, and, perhaps more importantly, by repeating the exercise, to make it possible to identify and monitor trends in juvenile reading habits. The project is not concerned with evaluating reading ability, but with finding out what children read; how they come into contact with all kinds of reading matter (from comics and magazines to more ‘traditional ’ books, both fiction and non-fiction); what their preferences are; whether they are satisfied with the kinds of publications available to them; what kinds of people influence their choice of reading matter; how they select what to read; where they buy what they read; read...
The project is not concerned with evaluating reading ability, but with finding out what children ... more The project is not concerned with evaluating reading ability, but with finding out what children read; how they come into contact with all kinds of reading matter (from comics and magazines to more 'traditional' books, both fiction and non-fiction); what their preferences are; ...
Although the internet has rapidly expanded its utility for the traveller/tourist, published guide... more Although the internet has rapidly expanded its utility for the traveller/tourist, published guidebooks, tangible and portable, remain the major source of information for most people. Guidebooks function as ‘culture brokers’, mediating both place and the travel experience itself for the reader, and can be considered part of a system of cultural production which often re-presents dominant discourses about the Other. Only a limited amount of academic attention has been devoted to the content of guidebooks, and most of this has focused on publications relating to non-Western destinations. This paper considers two interrelated functions of guidebooks the construction and narration of place (and people), and the direction of travel practice/experience – by examining the textual and photographic content of a set of guidebooks to Edinburgh. The process of selecting some sights and activities for inclusion in a guidebook necessarily omits others, and those included are ‘narratively marked’ a...
ALTER - European Journal of Disability Research / Revue Européenne de Recherche sur le Handicap, 2015
ABSTRACT This paper presents biographical data from the European Science Foundation-project Quali... more ABSTRACT This paper presents biographical data from the European Science Foundation-project Quali-TYDES, a collaborative research study underway since 2010 at universities from Ireland, Austria, Spain and the Czech Republic. The project analysed accounts of the experiences of persons with disabilities, most aged between 20 and 30. It is a generation educated in a time of radical policy shifts in the educational sector in all involved countries. This paper will solely focus on the narratives of interviewees who had access to tertiary education. Using a life course model developed by Priestley and Shah, the paper will discuss which institutional pathways facilitated the access to higher education, which transitions and turning points could be identified in the individual biographies, and which resources and capital were activated to what effect. The data show that economic, social and cultural capital, including family resources, advocacy and social networks, are necessary to access inclusive pathways. In the long run public service provisions, notably personal assistance, can facilitate greater educational attainment and increase the opportunities for self-determination.
This article reports on selected results of a comprehensive survey of children's reading in E... more This article reports on selected results of a comprehensive survey of children's reading in England, carried out online in 2005 by the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature at Roehampton University. With 4182 responses from children living in England aged from 4 to 16 years, the survey is a follow-up to a similar study completed in 1996. The article concentrates on those issues included in the survey which are of particular interest to children's librarians, specifically questions relating to borrowing books, choosing books, reading recommendations, book reviews, school libraries and classroom book corners.
This paper seeks to compare the evolution of inclusive education policy in the four countries of ... more This paper seeks to compare the evolution of inclusive education policy in the four countries of an EU-funded research project (QualiTYDES) operating under the shared policy environment of the UN, EU and European Commission. A shared policy cannot of course be assumed to result in common legislative or provisional outcomes at national level. The different sociocultural, political, historical and economic contexts in each country shape its journey towards ‘compliance’ with an international convention (both pre- and post-ratification), and neither the route nor the destination can be assumed to be shared, given the scope for different interpretations of the same texts. This paper places the implementation trajectories of four European countries side by side as they attempt to move towards ‘inclusive’ education systems. Following a brief overview of the international education policy environment relating to the education of people with disabilities, we describe the national education policy responses in Ireland, Austria, Spain and Czech Republic in recent decades, including both legislation pertaining to special educational need and implementation of policies in practice. The comparison highlights the different manifestations of inclusive education current in each country, and also explores the challenges which have arisen as individual countries attempt to align international policy with provision in existing education systems, each with their own legacy interests, pressures and priorities. Examples of ‘gaps’ in this alignment are where learners with disabilities/SEN are likely to be failed, and represent the critical points at which barriers to fully inclusive education arise and negatively impact opportunity over the life course.
There has been much debate around the role of parents in supporting their disabled children in ma... more There has been much debate around the role of parents in supporting their disabled children in mainstream schools. Several authors have pointed to parents’ advocacy and their engagement with professionals. Parents often perceived mainstream settings as fostering better social and academic learning for their offspring. However, while parents’ perspectives on ‘inclusive education’ have been subject to considerable research, relatively little is known about perceptions of parental support in mainstream schooling from the viewpoint of the disabled persons involved. Recently, a few studies have pointed to the benefits of biographical approaches for analysing this topic of concern. This paper aims to contribute to this emergent strand of research, and investigates the interplay of students, their parents and mainstream schools in relation to disability over time. In so doing, we draw on the life stories of three disabled young persons. In reading the stories, we refer to life course concepts and capital theory. Our analyses show that, across cases, despite different national education systems, participants’ perceived learning environments in mainstream schools as frequently characterised by the disabling practices of professionals. Parental support is highlighted in the narratives as highly influential for academic achievement and in facilitating progress through mainstream school settings in face of attitudinal barriers. Parents’ interventions and their social and cultural capital played a significant role in shaping participants’ subjectivities and responses to hostile learning environments. Strategies developed in these settings appeared to be ‘learned’ and even internalised by our participants, and can be identified as key also in tackling challenges in post-school life. While the importance of parental support to the educational trajectories of their offspring is well described, we point to the specificity of parental support as a reaction to disabling learning environments, facilitating the development of resilient strategies in disabled students.
There has been much debate around the role of parents in supporting their disabled children in ma... more There has been much debate around the role of parents in supporting their disabled children in mainstream schools. Several authors have pointed to parents’ advocacy and their engagement with professionals. Parents often perceived mainstream settings as fostering better social and academic learning for their offspring. However, while parents’ perspectives on ‘inclusive education’ have been subject to considerable research, relatively little is known about perceptions of parental support in mainstream schooling from the viewpoint of the disabled persons involved. Recently, a few studies have pointed to the benefits of biographical approaches for analysing this topic of concern. This paper aims to contribute to this emergent strand of research, and investigates the interplay of students, their parents and mainstream schools in relation to disability over time. In so doing, we draw on the life stories of three disabled young persons. In reading the stories, we refer to life course concepts and capital theory. Our analyses show that, across cases, despite different national education systems, participants’ perceived learning environments in mainstream schools as frequently characterised by the disabling practices of professionals. Parental support is highlighted in the narratives as highly influential for academic achievement and in facilitating progress through mainstream school settings in face of attitudinal barriers. Parents’ interventions and their social and cultural capital played a significant role in shaping participants’ subjectivities and responses to hostile learning environments. Strategies developed in these settings appeared to be ‘learned’ and even internalised by our participants, and can be identified as key also in tackling challenges in post-school life. While the importance of parental support to the educational trajectories of their offspring is well described, we point to the specificity of parental support as a reaction to disabling learning environments, facilitating the development of resilient strategies in disabled students.
New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship, 2008
This article reports on selected results of a wide-ranging online survey of children's readi... more This article reports on selected results of a wide-ranging online survey of children's reading, carried out in 2005 by the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature. With 4182 responses from children from Key Stages 1 to 4 (aged from 4 to 16 years), the survey is a follow-up to ...
This is a summary of the report relating to the second of what were intended to be five-yearly su... more This is a summary of the report relating to the second of what were intended to be five-yearly surveys of what young people in England are reading, and what they say their reading means to them. The aim of the project is to provide regular ‘snapshots ’ of young people’s reading which can be used both to provide information about the particular years covered by each survey, and, perhaps more importantly, by repeating the exercise, to make it possible to identify and monitor trends in juvenile reading habits. The project is not concerned with evaluating reading ability, but with finding out what children read; how they come into contact with all kinds of reading matter (from comics and magazines to more ‘traditional ’ books, both fiction and non-fiction); what their preferences are; whether they are satisfied with the kinds of publications available to them; what kinds of people influence their choice of reading matter; how they select what to read; where they buy what they read; read...
The project is not concerned with evaluating reading ability, but with finding out what children ... more The project is not concerned with evaluating reading ability, but with finding out what children read; how they come into contact with all kinds of reading matter (from comics and magazines to more 'traditional' books, both fiction and non-fiction); what their preferences are; ...
Although the internet has rapidly expanded its utility for the traveller/tourist, published guide... more Although the internet has rapidly expanded its utility for the traveller/tourist, published guidebooks, tangible and portable, remain the major source of information for most people. Guidebooks function as ‘culture brokers’, mediating both place and the travel experience itself for the reader, and can be considered part of a system of cultural production which often re-presents dominant discourses about the Other. Only a limited amount of academic attention has been devoted to the content of guidebooks, and most of this has focused on publications relating to non-Western destinations. This paper considers two interrelated functions of guidebooks the construction and narration of place (and people), and the direction of travel practice/experience – by examining the textual and photographic content of a set of guidebooks to Edinburgh. The process of selecting some sights and activities for inclusion in a guidebook necessarily omits others, and those included are ‘narratively marked’ a...
ALTER - European Journal of Disability Research / Revue Européenne de Recherche sur le Handicap, 2015
ABSTRACT This paper presents biographical data from the European Science Foundation-project Quali... more ABSTRACT This paper presents biographical data from the European Science Foundation-project Quali-TYDES, a collaborative research study underway since 2010 at universities from Ireland, Austria, Spain and the Czech Republic. The project analysed accounts of the experiences of persons with disabilities, most aged between 20 and 30. It is a generation educated in a time of radical policy shifts in the educational sector in all involved countries. This paper will solely focus on the narratives of interviewees who had access to tertiary education. Using a life course model developed by Priestley and Shah, the paper will discuss which institutional pathways facilitated the access to higher education, which transitions and turning points could be identified in the individual biographies, and which resources and capital were activated to what effect. The data show that economic, social and cultural capital, including family resources, advocacy and social networks, are necessary to access inclusive pathways. In the long run public service provisions, notably personal assistance, can facilitate greater educational attainment and increase the opportunities for self-determination.
This article reports on selected results of a comprehensive survey of children's reading in E... more This article reports on selected results of a comprehensive survey of children's reading in England, carried out online in 2005 by the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature at Roehampton University. With 4182 responses from children living in England aged from 4 to 16 years, the survey is a follow-up to a similar study completed in 1996. The article concentrates on those issues included in the survey which are of particular interest to children's librarians, specifically questions relating to borrowing books, choosing books, reading recommendations, book reviews, school libraries and classroom book corners.
This paper seeks to compare the evolution of inclusive education policy in the four countries of ... more This paper seeks to compare the evolution of inclusive education policy in the four countries of an EU-funded research project (QualiTYDES) operating under the shared policy environment of the UN, EU and European Commission. A shared policy cannot of course be assumed to result in common legislative or provisional outcomes at national level. The different sociocultural, political, historical and economic contexts in each country shape its journey towards ‘compliance’ with an international convention (both pre- and post-ratification), and neither the route nor the destination can be assumed to be shared, given the scope for different interpretations of the same texts. This paper places the implementation trajectories of four European countries side by side as they attempt to move towards ‘inclusive’ education systems. Following a brief overview of the international education policy environment relating to the education of people with disabilities, we describe the national education policy responses in Ireland, Austria, Spain and Czech Republic in recent decades, including both legislation pertaining to special educational need and implementation of policies in practice. The comparison highlights the different manifestations of inclusive education current in each country, and also explores the challenges which have arisen as individual countries attempt to align international policy with provision in existing education systems, each with their own legacy interests, pressures and priorities. Examples of ‘gaps’ in this alignment are where learners with disabilities/SEN are likely to be failed, and represent the critical points at which barriers to fully inclusive education arise and negatively impact opportunity over the life course.
There has been much debate around the role of parents in supporting their disabled children in ma... more There has been much debate around the role of parents in supporting their disabled children in mainstream schools. Several authors have pointed to parents’ advocacy and their engagement with professionals. Parents often perceived mainstream settings as fostering better social and academic learning for their offspring. However, while parents’ perspectives on ‘inclusive education’ have been subject to considerable research, relatively little is known about perceptions of parental support in mainstream schooling from the viewpoint of the disabled persons involved. Recently, a few studies have pointed to the benefits of biographical approaches for analysing this topic of concern. This paper aims to contribute to this emergent strand of research, and investigates the interplay of students, their parents and mainstream schools in relation to disability over time. In so doing, we draw on the life stories of three disabled young persons. In reading the stories, we refer to life course concepts and capital theory. Our analyses show that, across cases, despite different national education systems, participants’ perceived learning environments in mainstream schools as frequently characterised by the disabling practices of professionals. Parental support is highlighted in the narratives as highly influential for academic achievement and in facilitating progress through mainstream school settings in face of attitudinal barriers. Parents’ interventions and their social and cultural capital played a significant role in shaping participants’ subjectivities and responses to hostile learning environments. Strategies developed in these settings appeared to be ‘learned’ and even internalised by our participants, and can be identified as key also in tackling challenges in post-school life. While the importance of parental support to the educational trajectories of their offspring is well described, we point to the specificity of parental support as a reaction to disabling learning environments, facilitating the development of resilient strategies in disabled students.
There has been much debate around the role of parents in supporting their disabled children in ma... more There has been much debate around the role of parents in supporting their disabled children in mainstream schools. Several authors have pointed to parents’ advocacy and their engagement with professionals. Parents often perceived mainstream settings as fostering better social and academic learning for their offspring. However, while parents’ perspectives on ‘inclusive education’ have been subject to considerable research, relatively little is known about perceptions of parental support in mainstream schooling from the viewpoint of the disabled persons involved. Recently, a few studies have pointed to the benefits of biographical approaches for analysing this topic of concern. This paper aims to contribute to this emergent strand of research, and investigates the interplay of students, their parents and mainstream schools in relation to disability over time. In so doing, we draw on the life stories of three disabled young persons. In reading the stories, we refer to life course concepts and capital theory. Our analyses show that, across cases, despite different national education systems, participants’ perceived learning environments in mainstream schools as frequently characterised by the disabling practices of professionals. Parental support is highlighted in the narratives as highly influential for academic achievement and in facilitating progress through mainstream school settings in face of attitudinal barriers. Parents’ interventions and their social and cultural capital played a significant role in shaping participants’ subjectivities and responses to hostile learning environments. Strategies developed in these settings appeared to be ‘learned’ and even internalised by our participants, and can be identified as key also in tackling challenges in post-school life. While the importance of parental support to the educational trajectories of their offspring is well described, we point to the specificity of parental support as a reaction to disabling learning environments, facilitating the development of resilient strategies in disabled students.
New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship, 2008
This article reports on selected results of a wide-ranging online survey of children's readi... more This article reports on selected results of a wide-ranging online survey of children's reading, carried out in 2005 by the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature. With 4182 responses from children from Key Stages 1 to 4 (aged from 4 to 16 years), the survey is a follow-up to ...
Uploads
Papers by Fiona Smyth