Nudging is increasingly used in public health interventions in Western societies to produced health-promoting behavior changes; however, there is lack of clarity as to what constitutes a nudge, scant knowledge of the effectiveness of nudging techniques in public health lifestyle interventions and a number of ethical and value-based concerns. The…

This essay offers a commentary on how the relationship between language and literacy practices in and out of school has been conceptualized. It draws upon two new books in the field. Shirley Brice Heath's new book, "Words at Work and Play: Three Decades in Family and Community Life," which makes use of rich ethnographic accounts of…

In this article, written by Phil Reed and Lisa Osborne, both from Swansea University, the impact of severity of autism, and the time-input of the treatment programme, on the outcome effectiveness for four early interventions for individuals on the autism spectrum was explored. The four interventions studied were applied behaviour analysis (ABA),…

This paper evaluates two research projects concerned with conductive education for children with cerebral palsy, one in Germany and the other in the United Kingdom. Issues of generalizability and drawing causal conclusions are raised. The paper finds that neither the most sanguine expectations nor the worst misgivings about conductive education…

A survey of 89 United Kingdom health service professionals (pediatricians, physiotherapists, speech and occupational therapists) found widely varying levels of knowledge and understanding of the system of conductive education. A generally positive but cautious acknowledgement of the method's benefits for selected children was also found. The role…

The Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study, conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), aims to identify, measure and evaluate the extent to which effective practice in citizenship education develops in schools. The study began in 2001 and will conclude in…