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Despite high unemployment, a collapse in manufacturing output and employment, a government‐engineered fall in international competitiveness that has resulted in an unprecedented deficit in non‐oil trade and zero net growth in the Gross Domestic Product between 1979 and 1983, the basic features of British workplace industrial relations remain unchanged. The economic changes wrought by the recession since 1979 in Scotland and the UK and the resurgence of older traditions in industrial relations are described.

Despite high unemployment, a collapse in manufacturing output and employment, a government‐engineered fall in international competitiveness that has resulted in an unprecedented deficit in non‐oil trade and zero net growth in the Gross Domestic Product between 1979‐83, the basic features of British workplace industrial relations remain unchanged. The economic changes wrought by the recession since 1979 in Scotland and the UK and the resurgence of older traditions in industrial relations are described.

Flexibility has become a buzz word in the 1980s. It has been seen as crucial to improvements in productivity. It has been cited as a prominent example of how markets have been made to “work better” and how changed market forces surrounding firms have produced changed working arrangements within firms. In a number of articles, Atkinson and his colleagues have argued that employers have developed a new “flexible firm” manpower strategy. It has an inner “core” of stable, skilled employees with secure employment and good conditions. Here flexibility is qualitative. Traditional craft demarcations are relaxed and workers are trained to be multi‐skilled. Around the core is an outer layer of peripheral workers with poorer conditions more directly determined by the market and with security of employment dependent on how busy the firm is. Here flexibility is quantitative. In addition the firm may employ other still more peripheral groups: temporary workers on short‐term contracts, part‐time workers, trainees on special government schemes. Finally, the firm may depend less on direct employment. It can subcontract to specialised suppliers of services, to self‐employed workers, rely more on out‐sourcing and so on. The overall effect is to rely far more on the market to bring different aspects of production together, rather than to rely on management in a much larger production unit organising everything with its own workforce.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the stigma surrounding old age, which in many ways has increased rather than decreased with the ageing of the population.

The approach of this paper is to introduce the reader to recent writing and research surrounding talk of a “demograhic time bomb”, with the ageing of populations world wide. It also looks back on the work on “ageing studies” over the last two decades, revealing the prevailing disavowals of old age among the old themselves, as well as the contrasting gendered dynamics of the ways in which we are, as Margaret Gullette writes, “aged by culture”.

–The author introduces the conceptual notion of “temporal vertigo” to the complicated effects of the multiplicity of continuities and discontinuities older people experience when reflecting upon who they are over a lifetime. Ageing is of interest for those who have always been sceptical about any notion of the “true self”, allowing us to puzzle over how the account the old give of themselves will rely upon their ability to incorporate differing versions of the self, woven into the volatilities of memory and fantasy.

The paper's exploration of the radical ambiguities in the representation and discussions surrounding old age in these times.

This chapter provides a genealogy of the Gladue–Ipeelee principle of special consideration of Indigenous circumstances at sentencing. The principle is codified in the 1996 statutory requirement that “all available sanctions other than imprisonment … should be considered for all offenders, with particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders” (s. 718.2e of the Criminal Code of Canada). Using the Foucaultian genealogy method to produce a “history of the present,” this chapter eschews normative questions of how s. 718.2e has “failed” to reduce Indigenous over-incarceration to instead focus on how practices of “special consideration” reproduce settler-state paternalism. This chapter addresses three key components of the Gladue–Ipeelee principle: the collection of circumstances information, the characterization of those circumstances, and finally their consideration at sentencing. Part one focuses on questions of legitimacy and authority and explicates how authority and responsibility to produce Indigenous circumstances knowledge was transferred from the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) to Indigenous Courtworker organizations in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Part two identifies how authority shapes problematization by examining the characterization of Indigenous circumstances in the two eras, finding that present-day Gladue reports articulate an Indigenous history and critique of colonialism as the root cause of Indigenous criminalization, whereas DIA reports prior to 1970 generally characterized this criminalization as a “failure to assimilate.” Part three focuses on the structural reproduction of power relations by exploring historical continuities in judicial and executive-branch consideration of Indigenous circumstances, suggesting that the Gladue–Ipeelee principle reinscribes a colonial “mercy” framework of diminished responsibility. The author discusses how the principle operates in the shadow of Indigenous over-incarceration as a form of state “recognition” and a technique of governance to encourage Indigenous participation in the settler justice system and suggests that the Gladue–Ipeelee principle produces a governing effect that reinforces settler-state authority by recirculating colonial practices and discourses of settler superiority.

The progress towards 1992 and the European Social Charter promise to draw UK industry further into the European pattern of employee relations. For many years Industrial Relations theory, in particular, has focused on our distinctive voluntarist and pragmatic tradition (Clegg, Flanders, Kahn‐Freund etc), while several Economic and Political writers (Marquand, MacInnes etc) have seen the associated patterns of strong trade union workplace organisation and anarchic, decentralised bargaining as major causes of Britain's economic decline.

The purpose of the paper is to discuss the “Q-Step in the Community” programme, part of the Q-Step Centre based in the Sociology Department at Manchester Metropolitan University, designed to help address the skills gap in quantitative methods (QM) that is evident across parts of the UK higher-education sector. “Q-Step in the Community” is a data-driven work-based learning programme that works in partnership with local organisations to provide placement opportunities for final year undergraduates and postgraduates. Students conduct a quantitative research project, which is typically identified by the placement provider.

The authors use quantitative and qualitative feedback from students and placement providers, along with our own reflections on the process to evaluate the placement programme. Data were collected through a focus group and email interviews with placement providers, along with a questionnaire, which was distributed to “Q-Step in the Community” alumni.

Data-driven work-based learning opportunities allow students to develop and demonstrate their quantitative skills and support networking opportunities whilst also developing valuable soft-skills experience of the workplace that develops their career-readiness. In addition, those opportunities provide valuable research for placement providers, which support their sustainability and enhance their service delivery.

The research focusses solely on one programme at one university offering quantitative data driven work-based learning opportunities at undergraduate and post-graduate level. It is not possible to make valid comparisons between those who do a placement with those who do not.

Views of key stakeholders in the process have been sought for this research, which can be useful to consider for others considering developing similar programmes for their students.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to have a significant impact on work. It will enhance, but also displace, some professions. This paper aims to look retrospectively at the impact that previous revolutionary computing technologies have had and the institutional values that have shaped the way workers were affected.

This historical investigation relies on academic, government and trade publications of earlier periods in the development of computer technology. The analysis relies on the literature on institutional economics to understand societal outcomes. Within this framework, this paper explores both the ceremonial values associated with tradition and the instrumental values associated with the pursuit of knowledge.

The AI revolution, like previous technological evolutions, will go through stages. Initial implementations will suffer from failures that will, however, generate employment; but, as the technology improves, the AI revolution is likely to enhance productivity but displace workers. Up to this point, the US Government has not been able to respond adequately to the challenge. This paper attributes this to the ceremonial values that public officials and society entertain about personal responsibility and small government.

Given the differences in values, this study recommends fending off negative effects though education but also experimenting with other solutions at the local level.

Through the lens of history, this study provides a glimpse of what may happen. It also provides a framework that helps understand the outcomes of earlier technological revolutions.

The dismissal of the ordinary and the embrace of chaos are characteristics of the thriller which has, over the last decade, accounted for nearly 25 percent of the best‐seller market. In spite of its existential overtones, the thriller, with rare exceptions, is seldom viewed as quality fiction, yet is not generally classified as genre fiction with attendant categorization by libraries and bookstores. Readers of thrillers in pursuit of authors must either search through the general fiction or “mystery” shelves where thrillers are sometimes placed. However, the latter solution offends both mystery and thriller readers.