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Dr Brocklehurst's research has provided a challenge to conventional wisdom on the school age teaching of global politics through critiques of approaches that under-estimate children as political bodies. Her research has subsequently influenced a global provider of education, the International Baccaleurate organisation, in the planning of a service, namely a new Global Politics curriculum. Her research has also stimulated practitioner debate among stakeholders in the publication and provision of global politics texts for children to review them for risks posed by bias, inaccuracies, insensitivity and militarism. Her research has provided resources to enhance professional practice among stakeholders to help them to interpret problems in existing texts, and her research has led to her delivering training for stakeholders and teachers. Her research has also changed practice among stakeholders towards the adoption of a review culture to identify problems and improve children's literature in these sensitive subject areas.
This case study demonstrates the impact of historical research on:
The case study is based on Johannes-Dieter Steinert's research on `Forced Labour' and `Survivors of Nazi Persecution' with special emphasis on displaced persons, British humanitarian assistance in post-war Germany, and Polish and Soviet child forced labourers.
Research led by Professor Roger Mackett of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at UCL on children's physical activity has been used by central and local government, other public bodies and various advocacy groups to encourage children to be more active. It has been used to support policy documents and proposals aimed at improving children's health and wellbeing. It has led to improvements in the health, welfare and quality of life of many UK communities through, for example, their greater use of walking buses, which also contributes to reduced CO2 emissions.
Research conducted at UEL on the protection, participation and welfare of children living in difficult circumstances in the aftermath of conflict and in contexts of urban and rural poverty has had wide-ranging impacts on international policy and practice. Benefits have arisen particularly from its influence on national policies for orphans and vulnerable children in Rwanda; on international professional standards and `best practice'; and on legal asylum in the USA. It has been used directly by governmental policymakers in Rwanda and Bangladesh and aid organisations in Africa and Asia, and has formed the basis for the development of new learning and advocacy resources used to improve the services offered by social work professionals in Africa, Asia and the UK. Through its direct impact on these individuals and organisations, the research has delivered indirect benefits to millions of children and adults around the world.
The impact relating to this case study is situated in three domains. The first domain focuses on impacting policy on spiritual development in the primary curriculum, achieved via membership of a Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) working party. The second element is lay engagement with understandings of spirituality and its contextualisation in primary schools, achieved primarily through media coverage of research findings. The third area relates to informing understanding about the processes and meaning making of dreaming (as a specific area of spirituality) through expert comments in mass media outlets and the hosting of events attended by the general public and practitioners as well as academics. These achievements are complemented by high profile roles in international professional associations.
Young Lives is identifying major influences on children's development, from infancy to adulthood, by carrying out a pioneering longitudinal study across four developing countries over 15 years. Young Lives gathers and analyses data on how childhood is changing in diverse communities, especially through the impact of economic, cultural and policy shifts, by studying two age cohorts in each country. UNICEF, the World Bank, Plan International, and Save the Children International, among others, are using Young Lives research to design childhood poverty-reduction policies in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The research also underpins the re-visioning of global child protection work by UNICEF, Save the Children Canada, and World Vision UK.
Our work on children's agency in research has had three impacts:
This approach has been replicated in Australia, Turkey, New Zealand, Norway and Qatar. The CRC website hosts 150 successful projects by children and young people, and through the Diana Award more than 1500 children were supported in their research on cyberbullying.
Research conducted by Peter Elfer has shown the significance of attention to babies and under threes' emotional well-being in nursery if early learning is to be effective. Children who are continually anxious or distressed do not learn well. A sensitive, responsive and consistent relationship with mainly one or two members of nursery staff (now known as the child's `key-person') has been shown to promote in young children feelings of safety and security. The research has underpinned the development of the key-person role in nurseries, as the means for enabling individual attention to children. This research has had a significant impact in the following areas:
1) UK Government curriculum guidance and requirements
2) Training of the early years workforce and continuing professional development
3) The evolution of UK Coalition Government policy and public discourse
The reach of the research is extensive, providing the underpinning for attachment practice in English nurseries. The above developments have strengthened the expectation in national standards of greater attention to the emotions of babies and young children in nursery and have provided the detailed guidance on how this can be achieved in practice.
Jacqueline Fear-Segal researched the 19thCentury campaign to educate Native American children for US citizenship, bringing to light the stories of two Lipan Apache (Ndé) students. These children were captured by the US army on the Texas-Mexico border in 1873 then deported to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, and their links to family and community had been totally severed. Fear-Segal traced the children's surviving family to Texas, reconnecting them to their long-lost kinsfolk. This resulted in: (1) traditional funeral rituals at the children's graves, enriching Lipan spiritual and cultural lives and bringing this still-marginalised group a new sense of historic empowerment; (2) new evidence supporting the Ndé's continuous cultural heritage, strengthening their petitions for state recognition (achieved March 2009) and federal recognition (petition submitted August 2012); (3) increased recognition of the enduring legacy of the government's educational campaign for both Native American communities and mainstream America.
We have carried out research into children's perception and behaviour around dogs, which has led to the development of an effective safety training programme, as well as improving public understanding of child-dog interactions and risk contexts for dog bite injury in children. The `Blue Dog' (BD — www.thebluedog.org) project has led to changed educational and veterinary practice, public policy change and animal welfare benefits internationally. A key part of the project was the development and validation of an interactive DVD, with training tools that teach children how to be safe around dogs. The results of the research were integrated into the injury prevention messages disseminated by the BD project. The research programme has received publicity worldwide, and over 80,000 copies of the BD DVD have been distributed to 21 different countries, with the accompanying BD booklet translated into 17 different languages. The research was carried out from 2005 onwards, with the impact of the research accruing from 2008 to date.