David Walsh

Motivation and Attribution at Secondary School: the role of gender

Summary A total of 1068 secondary school pupils completed a questionnaire concerned with enjoyment of school, enjoyment of subjects and what they attributed academic success to. Gender differences were shown in the overall enjoyment of school (girls expressing greater enjoyment). Girls also reported liking friends, teachers, outings and lessons more than boys, while boys reported liking sports and school clubs more. Enjoyment of school subjects reflected traditional sex stereotyping: girls reported more liking than did boys for English, French, German, history, drama, music and home economics while boys reported more liking for science. craft and design technology, physical education and information technology. Some gender differences were shown in rating factors contributing to academic success (girls rating hard work and teachers’ liking for you as more important than boys, and boys rating cleverness, talent and luck as more important than girls) but attributions with respect to academic success varied ...

The aftershock of deindustrialization—trends in mortality in Scotland and other parts of post-industrial Europe

BACKGROUND Post-industrial decline is frequently cited as one of the major underlying reasons behind the poor health profile of Scotland and, especially, West Central Scotland (WCS). This begs the question: to what extent is poor health a common outcome in other post-industrial regions and how does Scotlands experience compare to these other comparable regions? METHODS Regions were identified by means of an expert-based consultation, backed up by analysis of regional industrial employment loss over the past 30 years. Mortality rates and related statistics were calculated from data obtained from national and regional statistical agencies. RESULTS Twenty candidate regions (in: Belgium; France; Germany; Netherlands; UK; Poland; Czech Republic) were identified, of which ten were selected for in-depth analyses. WCS mortality rates are generally higher and-crucially-appear to be improving at a slower rate than in the other post-industrial regions. This relatively poor rate of improvement is largely driven by mortality among the younger working age (especially male) and middle-aged female populations. CONCLUSION WCS mortality trends compare badly with other, similar, post-industrial regions of Europe, including regions in Eastern Europe which tend to be characterized by higher levels of poverty. This finding challenges any simplistic explanation of WCSs poor health being caused by post-industrial decline alone, and begs the question as to what other factors may be at work.

A fulfilling career? Factors which influence women's choice of profession

Summary First year university students enrolled on courses which have remained male dominated, including engineering, physics and computer science (n = 294) and two courses, law and medicine, on which females now outnumber males (n = 377), completed a questionnaire concerned with the reasons why they chose their particular course. Analyses were carried out using a stepwise discriminant function analysis. The results of this study indicate that the reasons women favour law and medicine, rather than more technological courses, is that the former courses are seen as leading to work that contributes to playing a useful social role and that allows a higher level of social contact. It is concluded that although women tend to avoid technological courses this is not a negative choice, rather they positively choose courses which lead to careers with higher levels of social involvement.

Motivation and Attribution at Secondary School: The role of ethnic group and gender

Some 985 secondary school students completed a questionnaire as part of an investigation into the experiences of Asian girls in a secondary school arising out of a larger project concerned with motivational factors in educational attainment. Results indicated that (1) Asian girls enjoyed all aspects of school life as much or more than their non-Asian counterparts; (2) across both ethnic groups girls enjoyed all aspects of school except sports and clubs more than boys; (3) enjoyment of subjects followed sex stereotypical lines, irrespective of ethnicity: girls rated English, French, German, drama, music and home economics as significantly more enjoyable, and boys rated science, craft, design and technology, physical education, information technology and mathematics as more enjoyable; (4) irrespective of gender, Asian students reported more enjoyment of religious education, and lower enjoyment of drama, physical education and home economics; (5) irrespective of ethnic group, girls reported that there was no...

Do socio-economic, behavioural and biological risk factors explain the poor health profile of the UK's sickest city?

BACKGROUND The extent to which the poor health profile of Glasgow, the city with the highest mortality rates in the UK, can be explained solely by socio-economic factors is unclear. This paper additionally considers behavioural and biological factors as explanations of excess risk. METHODS Scottish Health Survey data for 2008-09 were analysed using logistic regression models to compare the odds of physical and mental health outcomes, as well as adverse health behaviours, for residents of the Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) conurbation compared with the rest of Scotland. RESULTS After adjustment for age and sex, significant differences were observed among Glasgow residents for most mental and physical health outcomes, but not for most adverse health behaviours. Adjustment for area and individual-level socio-economic characteristics explained the differences for all outcomes except anxiety, psychological ill-health, heart attack and men being overweight. After additional adjustment for behavioural and biological characteristics, significantly higher odds of anxiety and heart attack remained for residents of the Glasgow area. CONCLUSIONS Adjusting for area- and individual-level socio-economic conditions explained the excess risk associated with residents of GGC for most (16 out of 18) outcomes; however, significant excess risks for two outcomes remained: anxiety and heart attack. Additional explanations are, therefore, required.

Healthy Mixing? Investigating the Associations between Neighbourhood Housing Tenure Mix and Health Outcomes for Urban Residents:

This paper examines the association between housing tenure mix and health outcomes for urban residents. The analysis used Cox’s proportional hazard regression modelling with a range of health measures from two waves of the Scottish Health Survey plus linked hospital morbidity records for the survey respondents. There was no consistent pattern in health outcomes according to housing tenure mix. For specific health issues, particular types of neighbourhood had significantly different (worse) outcomes: areas with a sizeable social renting sector for self-reported health; areas with a sizeable social- or private-renting sector for accidents; and areas dominated by social renting for alcohol-related illnesses. There are indications that adjustments to the tenure mix of social housing areas might lead to improvements in some health outcomes: improved mental health and reduced smoking, via a reduction in area deprivation; and reduced alcohol-related illnesses due to possible effects of tenure mix on material context and culture.

Using population surfaces and spatial metrics to track the development of deprivation landscapes in Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester between 1971 and 2011

Measuring change in the spatial arrangement of deprivation over time, and making international, inter-city comparisons, is technically challenging. Meeting these challenges offers a means of furthering understanding and providing new insights into the geography of urban poverty and deprivation. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to mapping and analysing spatio-temporal patterns of household deprivation, assessing the distribution at the landscape level. The approach we develop has advantages over existing techniques because it is applicable in situations where i) conventional approaches based on choropleth mapping are not feasible due to boundary change and/or ii) where spatial relationships at a landscape level are of interest. Through the application of surface mapping techniques to disaggregate census count data, and by applying spatial metrics commonly used in ecology, we were able to compare the development of the spatial arrangement of deprivation between 1971 and 2011 in three UK cities of particular interest: Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool. Applying three spatial metrics – spatial extent, patch density, and mean patch size – revealed that over the 40 year period household deprivation has been more spatially dispersed in Glasgow. This novel approach has enabled an analysis of deprivation distributions over time which is less affected by boundary change and which accurately assesses and quantifies the spatial relationships between those living with differing levels of deprivation. It thereby offers a new approach for researchers working in this area.