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Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs (RWMEs) are amongst the largest EU migrant communities in the UK and make significant socioeconomic contributions to both their host and origin nations, but academic research and policy discussions have ignored them. Intersectionality raises complex contextual issues that require comprehensive examination and inclusive policies and programmes. This study is aimed at exploring how Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs experience their transnational intersectional journeys of belonging, as they create, negotiate and enact their intersectional identities of the country of origin, gender and being entrepreneurs in the UK and Romania.

This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) draws on draws upon Crenshaw's (1991) intersectional and Social Identity theories (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) to investigate how nine interviewed RWMEs have experienced their transnational journeys of acculturative belonging in the UK and Romania.

The study findings show how RWMEs undo and negotiate their intersecting identities to adhere to socio-cultural standards in both their host and native nations. In the UK, they feel empowered as women entrepreneurs, but in patriarchal Romania, their entrepreneurial identity is revoked, contradicting the prescribed socio-cultural roles.

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

Social marketing scholars have posited that influencing policy makers, regulators, managers and educators can help address societal problems “upstream”. Applying “upstream social marketing”, these groups can be treated as target audiences, and through use of marketing techniques, advocacy, stakeholder engagement, and informing evidence based policy making, their behaviour can be influenced to engender pro-social outcomes, for example through policy change. However, examples and guidance on how upstream social marketing can be effectively employed to successfully alter the structural environment is lacking. This article aims to unlock the potential of upstream social marketing by examining how it can be systematically employed.

The article examines the development of the upstream social marketing concept in the extant literature, and presents some guiding principles, before analysing the case study of minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland. The failure to comprehensively employ upstream social marketing in this case is compared with the successful use of upstream social marketing in tobacco control.

The article suggests that heretofore, upstream social marketing has not always been systematically applied using social marketing principles. Guidance on upstream social marketing is presented, and thoughts on the trajectory of the concept for the future are offered.

The paper identifies guidelines for unlocking the potential of upstream social marketing, and suggests areas in which future research and writings are required to help develop the concept.

In this chapter, we examined issues related to research design and research management as applied to scientific research conducted in applied school settings. In terms of research design, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have an important role to play in advancing a scientific agenda for school-based research. However, given their enormous cost and complexity, it is important to carefully time their implementation in the development cycle. We suggested that the use of RCTs is most appropriate in the later stages of the development cycle when the focus is on demonstrating the efficacy and/or effectiveness of an intervention and establishing its generalizability under the real world conditions of schooling. We also recommended establishing a hierarchy of evidence for an intervention that involves implementing a cost-efficient mix of single case, quasi-experimental, and true experimental designs where appropriate and feasible. In examining issues related to the management of research and the implementation of a knowledge development agenda for schools, it has become apparent that treatment integrity is a keystone variable. We discussed the importance of treatment integrity, with attention to the impact on internal and external validity. Finally, we offered practical considerations to support high-quality, respectful school-based inquiry.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how Barnardo's, a large children's charity, has developed a system for measuring and reporting on service user outcomes as part of its performance management approach. The challenges that confront third sector organisations when adopting this approach are summarised, as are the benefits that can accrue.

The paper's approach is to describe the development of an outcome monitoring tool (OMT) and to explore some of the benefits of and challenges to embedding this tool across Barnardo's services.

Third sector organisations operate in competitive, resource‐constrained environments, where funding arrangements are often short‐term and piecemeal. The ability to evidence the effectiveness of services through demonstrating positive outcomes for service users is becoming an increasingly important factor in the process of securing and sustaining funding. An outcome‐focused approach contributes to the development of excellent services by helping to ensure that services are making a difference to the people that use them. Barnardo's OMT offers a model for evidencing the impact of services on the people who use them, thus contributing to the organisation's competitive edge.

This paper is informed by current thinking on outcomes and evidence‐based practice and offers a practical example of how to implement an outcome‐focused approach in a third sector organisation.

This chapter examines evidence-based practice in the Australian education system, with particular reference to special education. Initially a brief overview of the Australian education system will be provided, followed by consideration of the incorporation of the concept of evidence-based practice into Australian educational policy at both national and state level. Subsequently, Australian teacher registration and teacher education program accreditation standards will be examined with regard to the adoption of evidence-based practice. We then describe the use of evidence-based practices in teacher education programs, particularly in the area of classroom and behavior management and in special education/inclusion subjects. We will overview several research studies to illustrate the degree of penetration of the concept of evidence-based practice into educational systems and teaching practice. Although we found little evidence of a commitment to evidence-based practice in Australian education systems beyond rhetoric, we are cautiously optimistic that increasing emphasis will be given to the use of empirical evidence in the future.

A response to Chatwin's article (2010), which argues that European harmonisation of illicit drug policies remains far from realisation, this paper seeks to recommend developing a more specific conceptualisation of European integration in the area of illicit drugs and argues that harmonisation was not a realistic aim of the European Union (EU).

This is a review paper which seeks to advocate the application of a more rigid analytical framework in drug policy analysis that takes into account the “soft” methods of governance used by the EU. The paper also uses secondary data sources to emphasise the argument.

Domestic convergence has been observed across a number of policy areas.

The nature and level of convergence remains contested and more data are needed to clarify any trends. Future research would be necessary to demonstrate that convergence occurs as a result of EU action rather than other factors.

There remains little in the way of research on the processes of European integration and their specific impact on drug policy at the European and domestic level. This paper will be of value to scholars in the field of European integration who are seeking to expand their research into a new policy sector, as well as researchers in the drug field who are looking for a more formal analytical framework.

This study aims to critically evaluate the trajectory of the “Child First” guiding principle for youth justice in England and Wales, which challenges adult-centric constructions of children (when they offend) as “threatening” and asserts a range of theoretical and principled assumptions about the nature of childhood and children’s evolving capacity.

Focussing on how Child First seeks to transcend the socio-historically bifurcated (polarised/dichotomised) thinking and models/strategies/frameworks of youth justice, this study examines the extent and nature of this binary thinking and its historical and contemporary influence on responses to children’s offending, latterly manifested as more hybridised (yet still discernibly bifurcated) approaches.

Analyses identified an historical and contemporary influence on bifurcated responses to offending by children in the United Kingdom/England and Wales, subsequently manifested as more hybridised (yet still discernibly bifurcated) approaches. Analyses also identified a contemporary, progressive challenge to bifurcated youth justice thinking, policy and practice through the “Child First” guiding principle.

By tracing the trajectory of Child First as an explicit, progressive challenge to previous youth justice thinking and formal “approaches”, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, they are the first to question whether, in taking this approach, Child First represents a clean break with the past, or is just the latest in a series of strategic realignments in youth justice seeking to resolve inherent tensions between competing constructions of children and their behaviour.

The purpose of the paper is to assess the state of the business development services (BDS) market in Chengdu, with a view to identifying demand and/or supply side deficiencies, which public policy might help to address.

The data are drawn from two surveys undertaken in Chengdu between November 2005 and January 2006.

The research shows there are small firms that are active users of BDS, reflecting the emergence of non‐state owned enterprises in the city. The survey also shows evidence of unfulfilled latent demand, with a particular reference to sales and marketing advice and helping firms to access sources of finance. In addition, the survey of BDS providers shows that some are sensitive to the needs of small firms, although the latter are typically under‐represented in their client base.

The findings suggest that the BDS market in Chengdu is underdeveloped from a small business perspective, which can be illustrated by pointing to both demand‐ and supply‐side deficiencies. It can be argued that this is an important policy issue, if small enterprises are to fulfil their potential contribution to local economic development, particularly in relation to the development of non‐local sales.

This research adopts an “evidence‐based” approach to inform policy development.

The horizons ring me like faggots Tilted and disparate, and always unstable. Touched by a match, they might warm me, And their fine lines singe The air to orange (Plath, 1977).I first read Sylvia Plath’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ almost twenty years ago, when I taught it as part of a poetry anthology. I am a keen walker, and I have often repeated these lines to myself when out walking, to encourage myself over particularly difficult terrain. At times, I have wondered why Sylvia Plath, an American, had written a poem entitled ‘Wuthering Heights’. It was only this year, when I read Sylvia Plath’s Letters Home (Plath, 1999) and Elaine Feinstein’s biography (Feinstein, 2001) of Plath’s husband Ted Hughes, that I realized that Ted Hughes’ family lived near Wuthering Heights. In short, to enrich my understanding of the poem, I needed biographical detail.