Ethno-Religious Segregation in Post-Conflict Belfast

The last 15 years have seen ethno-religious segregation in Belfast stabilize as mixed residential neighbourhoods have expanded on the back of peace and political stability. However, the recession has exposed some of the fragility of these changes and in particular the overreliance on property-led growth and the housing market to achieve lasting forms of desegregation. This paper examines the nature of sociocultural spatial change and in particular how uneven urban restructuring has privileged the south of the city at the expense of the inner east, north and west. The paper concludes by highlighting the implications for housing policy and planning skills both regionally and nationally.

Segregation Preferences of Urban and Rural 16-year-olds in Northern Ireland

Sectarian violence in the Northern Ireland is often perceived to be mostly confined to cities. The aim of this paper is to explore statistically what factors contribute to segregation preferences among young people living in rural and urban areas, using the 2005–2009 Young Life and Times (YLT) survey – an annual attitudes survey of 16-year-olds. The findings show that religious and national identities are the strongest predictors of segregation preferences among 16-year-olds, regardless of where they live and what background they have. Those living in rural areas of Northern Ireland are more supportive of residential, workplace and educational segregation than those living in more urban areas. This research highlights the need for government policy to take rurality into account. Nevertheless, some variables significantly determine segregation preferences regardless of where respondents live, such as attendance of segregated schools, being female, or strength of national and religious identity. Consequently, policy initiatives should continue to address the effect of segregation, especially in relation to education, and future research exploring social class and gender is recommended. In conclusion, the perception of the violent ‘urban spaces’ and the ‘peaceful countryside’ has to be challenged.

New challenges faced by carers during their child's hospital admission under segregation

Introduction
This paper presents the results of a qualitative study of CF family carers at the Belfast Paediatric CF Centre. The aim of this study was to describe the carer experience of their child’s admission to hospital under segregated care arrangements, and to highlight the meaning of segregation and cross infection from the carer perspective.

Method
Carers of children with CF who were admitted for two week IV antibiotic treatment during the study period were eligible to participate in this qualitative study. A consecutive series of eligible carers were approached in order of admission and within the time constraints of KR who was present two days each week. Recruitment of carers ended when no new themes emerged. Ten carers, 9 mothers and 1 couple, were interviewed about their experiences (mean age of child: 11.8 years; range: 1-17 years). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyse and interpret the interview data.

Results and discussion
Balancing demands and dilemmas was the main contextual theme or experience of being a carer of a child with CF, and particularly so during admission to hospital. Many decisions were required every day that resulted in ‘double binds’ comprising uncertainty and stress. Three secondary themes captured the essence of carers’ experiences specifically related to segregation: managing risk and uncertainty; the burden of admission; and getting through each day. These themes will be described with examples illustrating the challenges faced by carers during their child’s hospitalisation, and the impact of segregation upon carers.

Religious segregation and teacher education in Northern Ireland

This paper surveys the extent of religious segregation in teacher education in Northern Ireland and notes that there are elements of separation within a general context of (increasing) common teacher education. With reference to liberal and communitarian theories the case for separate teacher education is considered. It is acknowledged that a case can be made for forms of separate teacher education in a liberal society but that certain limits or expectations should apply. A common teacher education is found to be desirable but it is suggested that in order to justify its dominant status in a plural environment it must be accommodating of religion, encourage dialogical engagement around concepts of shared fate and cultivate a sense of community. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.

The Landscape of Differences: Contact and Segregation in the Everyday Encounters

The article examines everyday life in Northern Ireland’s segregated communities and focus on a neglected empirical dimension of ethnic and social segregation developed within the socio-spatial relations between people and their built environment. It shows how the everyday urban encounters are reproduced through negotiating differences and the ways in which living in divided communities lead to social inequality and imbalanced use of space. The article employed qualitative research methods with individuals and community groups from the Fountain estate, a small Protestant enclave in Derry/Londonderry. Their stories were replete with cases of injustice and insights into the daily struggles that have generally occurred within theories of contact and social segregation as a whole. In fact, people in the Fountain presented their own intertextual references on what was more significant for them as a matter of routine survival and belonging, which allowed them to be more constructive about themselves. While segregation has persisted for multiple decades; time is believed to be the factor most likely to change it, as it is hoped that the younger generation will provide lasting change to Northern Ireland and eventual peace between currently segregated communities.

Ethnic Segregation, Moral Panics and Social Class: A Comparative Study of the Experiences and Perspectives of Working Class and Middle Class Children in Belfast

This paper begins by describing the moral panics that have tended to emerge sporadically in Northern Ireland over the last few years with regard to young people’s involvement in sectarian violence in Belfast. Within this, while these young people have been cast in the traditional role of folk devils, the paper will show how younger children also tend to be explicitly identified and named in an ambiguous way through such moral panics; playing a deviant role as participators, and sometimes instigators, of sectarian violence but also carrying the symbolic responsibility of representing Belfast’s future. It will be shown that it is because of this ambiguous position that it is adults rather than the children themselves that tend to be held responsible for their actions; either as rioters using the children as political pawns or as parents guilty of neglect. With this as a starting point the paper then explores the perspectives and experiences of two groups of 10-11 year old children living in Belfast and the impact of these moral panics on them. One group of children, living in affluent middle class areas were found to be appropriating and re-working these broader moral panics into more general discourses of derision that tended to pathologize working class children and communities more generally. For the other group of children, living in economically deprived areas with high levels of sectarian tensions and violence, their experiences of such violence and their participation in it are discussed. It will be shown that for these children, the broader moral panics that exist tend to have the effect of reinforcing the processes that tend to segregate and exclude them.

Experimental investigation of flow and segregation behaviour of bulk solids in silos under high gravity conditions

Many researchers have investigated the flow and segregation behaviour in model scale experimental silos at normal gravity conditions. However it is known that the stresses experienced by the bulk solid in industrial silos are high when compared to model silos. Therefore it is important to understand the effect of stress level on flow and segregation behaviour and establish the scaling laws governing this behaviour. The objective of this paper is to understand the effect of gravity on the flow and segregation behaviour of bulk solids in a silo centrifuge model. The materials used were two mixtures composed of Polyamide and glass beads. The discharge of two bi-disperse bulk solids in a silo centrifuge model were recorded under accelerations ranging from 1g to 15g. The velocity distribution during discharge was evaluated using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) techniques and the concentration distribution of large and small particles were obtained by imaging processing techniques. The flow and segregation behaviour at high gravities were then quantified and compared with the empirical equations available in the literature.

Moving Out of Conflict: Negotiating Social Identity in Response to Segregation in Northern Ireland

This paper examines the impact of territoriality on young people’s everyday experiences in Northern Ireland’s segregated communities. It shows how urban encounters are reproduced through negotiating differences and the ways in which living in divided communities escalates moods of social inequality and spatial imbalances. The empirical study undertaken in the city of Derry shows how individuals and community groups position and identify themselves under the impact of social segregation. Building on Gordon Allport’s (1954) theories of contact, I explain how people in Derry have established their own sense of belonging, of who they are, based on their group memberships which eventually became an important source of pride and selfesteem. They also presented their own intertextual references as a cause of routine survival and belonging, allowing them to be more constructive about their future. Under deeply rooted segregation in Northern Ireland, the young generations are sought to provide lasting change to foster peace and integration between the two communities.

Residential segregation, dividing walls and mental health: A population-based record linkage study

Background
Neighbourhood segregation has been described as a fundamental determinant of physical health, but literature on its effect on mental health is less clear. Whilst most previous research has relied on conceptualized measures of segregation, Northern Ireland is unique as it contains physical manifestations of segregation in the form of segregation barriers (or “peacelines”) which can be used to accurately identify residential segregation.
Methods
We used population-wide health record data on over 1.3 million individuals, to analyse the effect of residential segregation, measured by both the formal Dissimilarity Index and by proximity to a segregation barrier, on the likelihood of poor mental health.
Results
Using multi-level logistic regression models we found residential segregation measured by the Dissimilarity Index poses no additional risk to the likelihood of poor mental health after adjustment for area-level deprivation. However, residence in an area segregated by a “peaceline” increases the likelihood of antidepressant medication by 19% (OR=1.19, 95% CI: 1.14, 1.23) and anxiolytic medication by 39% (OR=1.39, 95% CI: 1.32, 1.48), even after adjustment for gender, age, conurbation, deprivation and crime.
Conclusions
Living in an area segregated by a ‘peaceline’ is detrimental to mental health suggesting segregated areas characterised by a heightened sense of ‘other’ pose a greater risk to mental health. The difference in results based on segregation measure highlights the importance of choice of measure when studying segregation.

Face segregation and recognition by cortical multi-scale line and edge coding

Models of visual perception are based on image representations in cortical area V1 and higher areas which contain many cell layers for feature extraction. Basic simple, complex and end-stopped cells provide input for line, edge and keypoint detection. In this paper we present an improved method for multi-scale line/edge detection based on simple and complex cells. We illustrate the line/edge representation for object reconstruction, and we present models for multi-scale face (object) segregation and recognition that can be embedded into feedforward dorsal and ventral data streams (the “what” and “where” subsystems) with feedback streams from higher areas for obtaining translation, rotation and scale invariance.

An integrated framework for combining gist vision with object segregation categorisation and recognition

There are roughly two processing systems: (1) very fast gist vision of entire scenes, completely bottom-up and data driven, and (2) Focus-of-Attention (FoA) with sequential screening of specific image regions and objects. The latter system has to be sequential because unnormalised input objects must be matched against normalised templates of canonical object views stored in memory, which involves dynamic routing of features in the visual pathways.