Funded Research

Cottee, S. (2011) The Apostates: A Qualitative Study of Ex-Muslims in Britain
Simon Cottee is currently working on a qualitative study of Muslim apostasy in Britain. Focusing on the experiences of a group of British ex-Muslims the project explores the processes and consequences of leaving Islam for these apostates. The project is supported by an ESRC small grant worth £70k. The official start-date for the project is September 2011.

Brookman, F. Buchanan, J. Deering, J. Hughes, G. Machura, S. Maguire, M. Pierpoint, H. Williams, K. (2010-2014): Welsh Centre for Crime and Social Justice
The WCCSJ delivers high quality, theoretically informed, policy-relevant and visionary criminal and social policy research, combined with an up-to-date knowledge of national and international developments. Through high quality research it is making a significant contribution to the delivery of social justice and policy initiatives in Wales and beyond by providing local, pan-Wales and broader research, evaluation and consultancy. The collaboration between the Universities in Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff, Glamorgan, Glyndwr, Newport and Swansea is designed to achieve and sustain a landscape change in the structure, quality and scale of crime and justice-related research carried out in Wales.
WCCSJ has been funded with £355,945 by the Higher Education Council for Wales.

Morris, D. (2010) OER Educational Resources Programme phase 2, C-SAP, with Dr M Mirza, P Johnson & C Hammond, & Dr D Trystan: This project seeks to cascade support for embedding Open Educational Resources within the social sciences curriculum, focusing on the relationship between the use of OERs and student engagement. Within the project framework, C-SAP seeks to embrace an open curriculum where learners have the flexibility to select a range of individual units/courses to suit their personal needs for the development of expertise. Thus, through engagement with partners from both HEIs and HE in FE institutions, we will explore the ways in which OERs can be integrated sustainably into curriculum design processes in a manner which effectively engages the students.

Morris, D. (2010) C-SAP Project – Welsh medium research methods: working with colleagues in Cardiff and Aberystwyth to develop an on-line Social Research Methods module.

Mann, R. and Tommis, Y. (2010-2011)
Public sentiments towards immigrants and minorities: The difference that Wales makes?
Funded by the Welsh Assembly Government New Ideas Social Research Fund
The aim of this project is to investigate public sentiments in Wales towards immigrants and minorities. The monitoring of what people think about immigrants and minorities has come to feature regularly within numerous national and cross-national surveys and opinion polls. But there has been little or no attempt to consider the nature of these sentiments at the sub-state level in which there are a distinct set of national identities; and in which the devolved national governments are adopting progressive political agendas. The project involves a secondary analysis of the Citizenship Survey and the European Social Survey. Using a number of questions asked in successive waves in these surveys, we examine whether and how sentiments towards immigrants and minorities are different in Wales; how these sentiments relate to different national identifications; as well as how sentiments in Wales compare to other devolved nations and regions across Europe. In so doing, we will provide, and make available, a unique data set on attitudes towards immigrants and minorities at the devolved level.

Harper, S. Mann, R. and Bianchera, E. (2010-12)
Grandparenthood in bilingual families in Wales
Funded by the Leverhulme Trust (Number: AD20090067)
This is a joint project with the Oxford Institute of Ageing, University of Oxford. The project aims to provide new understandings of the dynamic relationship between the generations by comparing Welsh/English bilingual and Welsh/Italian migrant families in Wales. In particular, the research will consider how the experience and enactment of relationships associated with being a grandparent are shaped by the practices and identities derived from using Welsh. A survey and qualitative research will be carried out with grandparents and their families in different parts of Wales.

Seddon, D. Robinson, C. Gwilym, H. McKeown, G. and Hodrien, C.
Adult survivors and their families: current needs and service responses
Funded by NISCHR
This study will inform developments in policy, practice and service provision to better meet the needs of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse and their current families. From a range of stakeholder perspectives we shall:

Explore how services (generic and specialist) respond to the needs of survivors and their families.
Consider the perceived effectiveness of service provision.
Make policy and practice recommendations to improve support to adult survivors and their families and other vulnerable groups.
Produce evidence-based guidelines to inform specialist training for practitioners.

Adopting a qualitative approach, we shall complete:

In-depth interviews with statutory and independent sector staff in two Local Authority areas to explore: the planning and coordination of support; local services and collaborative arrangements; and, staff training needs.

In-depth interviews with survivors across Wales and, where appropriate, separate interviews with significant others in their lives, such as current family members. Interviews will consider: the challenges faced in adulthood; the sensitivity and effectiveness of support; unmet needs; and, priorities for future service development.

Recommendations will assist the Welsh Assembly Government to:

Support partnerships which promote the health and wellbeing of vulnerable individuals and their families.
Develop targeted support systems that deliver person-centred support.

Morris, D. and Cunliffe, D. (2009-2010): Board of Celtic Studies Project – Investigating the differential use of Welsh in young speakers’ social networks: a comparison of communication face-to-face, in electronic texts and on social networking sites: a 1 year research project.

Anniversary Scholarships: PhD
Bangor School of Social Sciences is offering one PhD studentship and one PhD bursary. The studentship is valued at £13,000 (2010/11) and the bursary is valued at £7,000 (2010/11).
Details of research areas, application process and deadline
Details of funding levels

Miller, R, Schutze, F, Piotrowski, A, Davis, H, Paadam, K, Jeleva, R, Spano, A (2008-2010)
The Evolution of European Identity: Using biographical methods to study the development of European identity
Bangor sociologists are partners in a new EU 7th Framework Programme Collaborative Project. This project will investigate the question: how far do individuals identify themselves with Europe on an everyday level? Reactions to enlargement of the community, the European constitution and citizenship ‘tests’ all point to uncertainty about loyalty and belonging. A serious lack of positive identification with the ‘European project’ by ordinary citizens would undermine the long-term economic and political success of the European Union. Until now, research into European identity has been almost exclusively from a ‘top down’ elitist perspective that focuses upon the development of identification with the idea of ‘Europe’ reflected in centrally-driven policies. The other partners are from the Institute of Sociology, Magdeburg, Germany; the Department of European Culture Studies, University of Lodz, Poland; the School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia; the Institute of Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria; and the Department of Sociology, ‘Frederico II’ University, Naples, Italy.

2008 Feilzer, M, Altunbas, Y and Chakravarty, S
Interrogating the British Crime Survey from a local perspective: The case of North Wales
The British Crime Survey (BCS) is a national victim survey which assesses experiences of crime, the behaviour of victims of crime in regard to reporting of crimes to the police, and survey respondents’ attitudes to, and confidence in, the criminal justice system and its main agencies. Certain components of the BCS are now used as performance indicators which contribute to the assessment of local police force performance. This is a fairly new development and there has been limited academic discussion of the suitability of the BCS for this purpose. This research responds to concerns about the use made of BCS data in performance management and allocation of resources at a /local/ police force level. The research will explore the suitability, validity, and reliability of BCS data for performance management, production of crime estimates, and resource allocation on an individual police force level; and include a secondary analysis of British Crime Survey data using a context-sensitive ‘bottom-up’ approach.

Edwards-Jones, G, Tudor, R, Day, G, A, S, Tomos, A, D, Croft, A, Paisley, C, Cowell, S, Wilson, A, Jones, D, L and Harris, I, L ( 2005-08)
Comparative assessment of environmental, community and nutritional impacts of consuming fruit and vegetables produced locally and overseas.
The advantages of ‘eating locally’ are often expressed in terms of greater freshness, nutritional value, environmental sustainability, health and safety. This project aims to bring a range of scientific and social scientific perspectives to bear on evaluating such claims, with specific reference to the production and consumption of vegetables. Assessments will be made of the nutritional contents, greenhouse gas emissions, and resource requirements across the life cycle of selected vegetables as they progress from field to table. International comparative data will be collected, from sites in the UK, Europe and Africa. The project combines the expertise of soil scientists, biochemists, health economists, agriculturalists, environmental scientists and sociologists from the University of Wales Bangor and the University of Surrey ( University of Surrey).

This is an interdisciplinary research project funded under the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) Programme of the Research Councils, UK (ESRC, NERC, and BBSRC)

Slack, R et al (JISC, 2007-2009)
CREW (Collaborative Research Events on the Web)
This project aims to improve access to research event content by capturing and publishing the scholarly communication that occurs at events like conferences and workshops. The project is developing tools to enable presentations and similar sessions to be recorded and annotated and enable powerful searches across distributed conference and related research data. Searches will yield results within written documents such as abstracts and papers and also in rich audio-visual content, such as clips from presentations or questions asked at a talk. The project is a collaboration between the Universities of Manchester, Bristol and Wales, Bangor and is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) through the second phase of the Virtual Research Environments (VRE) programme. Roger Slack acts as evaluation expert for this project

Exworthy, M. Gane, J. and Jones. I.R. (2008) Managing Medical Performance: a pilot study to investigate the impact of surgical performance upon clinicians and managers. Ref No. RES-153-25-0100

This project will undertake a pilot study to investigate the emergent impacts of the publication of performance data relating to cardiac surgery upon principal stakeholder groups at micro, meso and macro levels. The study will involve mainly qualitative methods, a unique aspect of which will be the collection of detailed observational data of clinical teams and organisation processes and practices. The site of this investigation will be St. George's Hospital Trust (SGHT) (south London), a major centre of expertise and one of the hospitals leading the publication of performance data in the UK. This study represents a unique opportunity to examine, in collaboration with the NHS Trust, the evolution and impact of a major initiative which will have wider practical and theoretical implications across clinical and managerial domains.

Hirst, J D and Kells, M (2007-2010)
North West Wales Local Housing Market Assessment Project
This three year project is an innovative partnership between Bangor University and a consortium consisting of the counties of Anglesey, Conwy, Denbigh and Gwynedd along with the Snowdonia National Park Authority. It aims to co-ordinate the production of a Local Housing Market Assessment for North West Wales in conjunction with local stakeholders, and to facilitate the participation of previously marginalised groups in the consultative process. It aims to “Make the Connections” beyond the functional and geographic boundaries of each constituent authority and ensure the housing market needs of North West Wales are fully addressed. The Research Officer appointed to the project is Mari Kells.

Jones, I.R. Morris, R. Whincup, P. and Wannamethee, G. (2007-2009) Mapping changes in lifestyle, from middle age to later life and across time, space and class: a secondary analysis of the British Regional Heart Study using multiple correspondence analysis. ESRC: RES-062-23-0477

This research examines changes in the lifestyles of men over the last twenty-five years. It will do this by analysing an existing data set in a novel way. The data to be analysed re those of the British Regional Heart Study. This is a prospective study in middle-aged men in 24 British towns, recruited in 1978-1980. It was set up to determine the factors responsible for the considerable variation in coronary heart disease, hypertension and stroke in Great Britain. The study has undergone 5 phases; with baseline data collected in 1978-80 and follow up postal questionnaires in 1983-5, 1992, 1996, 1998-2000 and 2003. As well as data on health status the questionnaires gathered information on personal circumstances, smoking history, drinking and physical activity. The consistency of the questions asked in the repeated waves means that the data provide an opportunity to examine, longitudinally, lifestyle categories in relation to other information on the lives of the men including occupational class, employment status, family history, age and town of residence. This project will use a method of analysis called Multiple Correspondence Analysis. This method allows researchers to visualise where people are close to or different form others in terms of their lifestyles. When combined with methods of analysis that look at the links between lifestyles and health outcomes his can potentially enhance our understanding of how changes in lifestyles in society as a whole may impact on the health of the nation. The findings from the research will inform the development of better Public Health interventions to improve health lifestyles among different sections of the population. The findings will also add to our knowledge of the methods of analysis and so help future researchers.

Timescale: 18th months, Start date: 1st April 2007
Amount awarded £218,582.52

Scandal, Welfare and the Emergence of a popular Welsh Consciousness: The Haydock Lodge Inquiries 1846-7
Dr Pamela Michael, Sponsor: AHRC, Amount awarded: £14,013
Dr Pamela Michael of the School of Social Sciences, UWB has recently completed an AHRC Research Leave Award for a project entitled: “Scandal, Welfare and the Emergence of a popular Welsh Consciousness: The Haydock Lodge Inquiries 1846-7”. The period of research leave enabled her to focus on the role played by a medical practitioner of Bangor, Dr. O.O. Roberts, in exposing the Haydock Lodge Scandal in 1846. The project has examined the relationship between the state and the market in the provision of institutional care for the insane in early Victorian Britain, as exemplified through this case study. David Hirst and Pamela Michael have been researching the history of the Haydock Lodge Asylum since working on a history of the North Wales Lunatic Asylum, Denbigh. The work therefore originates from a period of research funded by the Wellcome Trust, between 1993 and 1996.

Higgs, P. Jones, I.R. Gilleard, C.J. Wiggins, R.D. Victor, M. Evandrou, M. (2005-2007) From passive to active consumers: Ageing and consumption in Britain 1963-1998, ESRC and AHRB, £126,038. Ref no: RES-154-25-0007.

The implications for consumerism of the UK's ageing population have been relatively neglected. The trend to earlier retirement as well as the relative affluence of many retired people presents new challenges for the commercial world as much as it does to policy makers. The cohorts of people retiring now are those who participated in the creation of the post war consumer culture. These consumers have grown older but have not stopped consuming; their choices and behaviour are products of the collective histories of both cohort and generation. This project aims to chart the engagement of different age cohorts with consumer culture and to show how retired people continue to contribute to consumer culture.
Cultures of Ageing web site: http://www.culturesofageing.com/

Burns, T. Huxley, P. Wykes, T. Jones I. R., Catty, J. Rose, D. Clement, S. McLaren, S. (2002-2007) Patients’ and carers’ experiences of continuity of care in long term conditions and the relationship of continuity of care to outcomes, Service Delivery and Organisation National R&D Programme, Amount awarded, £905,921.

Continuity of care has rarely been defined or studied systematically. This study takes a multi-axial definition of continuity of care produced by the NCCSDO’s Scoping Exercise as its starting-point. User- and carer-generated measures of continuity were developed through focus groups, expert panels, a consultation exercise and a pilot (acceptability) study. The psychometric properties of the measures, CONTINU-UM (user measure) and CONTINUES (carer measure) were tested. 180 service users with psychotic disorders and 98 with non-psychotic disorders were recruited from seven community mental health teams in two mental health NHS trusts in South London and interviewed at three and two annual time-points respectively to assess their experiences of continuity of care and health and social outcomes. Qualitative interviews were conducted with sub-groups of service users. Five key themes emerged from the analysis: relational (dis)continuity; depersonalised transitions; invisibility and crisis; communicative gaps and social vulnerability.

Further details available at the National Co-ordinating Centre for NHS Service Delivery and Organisation Research & Development (NCCSDO); http://www.sdo.lshtm.ac.uk/

Jones, I.R., Higgs, P. Leontowitsch, M. (2006-2008) Retirement and the Quasi-Subject: the case of the Salariat. Amount awarded £27163

This project addresses the ways in which retirement is actively constructed as a lifestyle option or choice as opposed to retirement being constructed around financial dependency and fitting in with life course stages. Our aim is to explore the experiences of retirement, changes in lifestyle and social roles and the meanings associated with retirement amongst early retirees from higher management. Research questions included to what extent do they construct a balance? Do they have new discourses for everyday life? Does the move into leisure retirement create new tensions? We are undertaking qualitative interviews with UK men and women who had previously worked in executive and higher management posts in a range of corporations/organizations in the private and public sectors and who have recently taken early retirement as a matter of choice. Our focus is on the extent to which there is heterogeneity in the experience of retirement among the salariat, whether there was a personal awareness of ‘Third and Fourth Ages’ and the extent to which the attitudes and beliefs of retired people resonated with the idealized 'quasi-subject'.