History of Child Welfare and Protection Social Work in Northern Ireland: Finding Continuity amongst Discontinuity in Case Files from 1950-1968

This article reports on research carried out on 200 child welfare files from the largest welfare authority in Northern Ireland from 1950-1968. The literature review provides a commentary on some of the major debates surrounding child welfare and protection social work from the perspective of its historical development. The report of the research which follows offers an insight into one core, and less well-known period of child welfare history in Northern Ireland between the two Children and Young Persons Acts (1950 & 1968). Using a method of discourse analysis influenced by Michel Foucault, a detailed description of the nature of practice is offered. This paper is offered as a work in progress, with further work being planned for dissemination of more detailed analysis of the method and outcomes. The research seeks to ask a few core questions based on problems identified in the present with our current understandings of child welfare and protection histories. While recognising the limitations of this study and the need for broader analysis of the wider context surrounding child welfare practice at the moment, it is argued that some salient conclusions can be drawn about continuity and discontinuity in practice which are of interest to practitioners and students of child welfare social work.

Contesting Territorial Fixity?: A Case Study of Regeneration in Belfast

This paper looks at urban regeneration in Belfast as a stage on which the interaction between different structural dynamics (political, economic and cultural) is manifested in the city. It discusses how contested ideas of ‘space’, ‘place’ and ‘territory’ frame the ways in which Belfast has changed over recent years and asks if regeneration itself has the potential to transform the dynamic of deep-rooted ethno-national divisions. The research question is explored through a case study of proposed urban regeneration in north Belfast. It is found that, while there is evidence of transition to less exclusivistic attitudes in leisure and work spaces, asymmetrical conflict over residential space persists in ways which reproduce deep-rooted political and cultural patterns of territorial fixity and division.

Territorial politics and the multi-level party

Territorial politics and the statewide party, Regional Studies. The literature on political parties has been affected by a national bias. However, the multilevel nature of party organizations deserves one's attention because parties have responded as well as contributed to the rise in regional authority across most Western democracies. This paper considers statewide parties from a double perspective: as organizations subject to a range of pressures in a multilevel environment, and as actors influencing multilevel political systems. It concludes with a call for stronger links between traditional areas of party and policy research and multilevel party research and for more comparative data collection on multilevel parties and policy positions.

Coherence and discontinuity in the scaling of species' distribution patterns

The spatial distribution of a species can be characterized at many different spatial scales, from fine-scale measures of local population density to coarse-scale geographical-range structure. Previous studies have shown a degree of correlation in species' distribution patterns across narrow ranges of scales, making it possible to predict fine-scale properties from coarser-scale distributions. To test the limits of such extrapolation, we have compiled distributional information on 16 species of British plants, at scales ranging across six orders of magnitude in linear resolution (1 in to 100 km). As expected, the correlation between patterns at different spatial scales tends to degrade as the scales become more widely separated. There is, however, an abrupt breakdown in cross-scale correlations across intermediate (ca. 0.5 km) scales, suggesting that local and regional patterns are influenced by essentially non-overlapping sets of processes. The scaling discontinuity may also reflect characteristic scales of human land use in Britain, suggesting a novel method for analysing the 'footprint' of humanity on a landscape.