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The purpose of this paper, which follows an earlier paper published in this journal, is to explore the shape and nature of plural policing through the lens of New Right ideology. It aims to reinforce the understanding that policy is driven by both neoliberalism and neoconservatism, not simply the former. In policy terms, it uses the vehicle of a faith-based initiative – the Street Pastors – to consider how the strategic line of plural policing may be shifting.

The research that informs this paper spans 2012 to the present day incorporating a multi-method evaluation, an ongoing observation with informal interviews, and two e-mail surveys directed at university students in Plymouth and Cardiff. In addition, the authors carried out a critical analysis of a research report produced by van Steden and a documentary analysis of national newspaper reports of Street Pastor activities.

In a previous paper, the authors provided evidence to support the contention of Jones and Lister (2015) that there has been a shift in the landscape of plural policing. The Street Pastors initiative is a movement from “policing by the state” towards “policing from below”. The authors suggest here that there may be evidence to speculate that another shift might occur from “policing from below” to “policing through the state”. Ultimately, the authors contend, such shifts reflect and serve the dominance of New Right ideology in social and public policy.

The research limitations of this paper are twofold. First, the surveys had very small sample sizes and so the results should be treated with caution. The authors have underlined this in detail where necessary. Second, it is informed by a series of related though discrete research activities. However, the authors regard this as a strength also, as the findings are consistent across the range. The implications relate to the way in which policy designed to encourage partnership might lead to off-loading public responsibilities on the one hand, while allowing co-option on the other hand.

The practical implications are indivisible from the social implications in the authors’ view. The neoliberal and neoconservative dimensions of the current dominant ideology are using local initiatives to save public money and reify disciplinary features of social and public policy.

The originality of this research relates to the way it was conducted, drawing together the products of discrete but related activities. It adds to the growing research landscape involving the Street Pastors, an important faith-based, publicly backed initiative. But more importantly, it underlines how the two dimensions of New Right ideology come together in practice. The example of the Street Pastors indicates, through the lens of plural policing, how voluntary and local initiatives are being used to refocus the priorities of social and public policy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the work of the Street Pastors, a Christian organisation offering support to people in the night time economy (NTE), through the perceptions of students. The role played by this organisation is becoming more important as a shift from policing “by”, “through” and “beyond” to policing from “below” occurs (Jones and Lister, 2015). While the Street Pastors would not regard themselves as “police agents” there is undoubtedly a close connection albeit with geographical variation (Johns et al., 2009b). An evaluation of their activities and of public attitudes particularly around issues of trust is therefore important.

An online survey using the university’s student “portal” invited students to participate. A small incentive was offered, in the form of a prize draw for £50 worth of shopping vouchers. The survey took place during the first part of the Spring term during 2012 (January and February). The study analyses the 361 responses in reference to their knowledge of the Street Pastors, whether they had any “interactions” with them and whether they were regular users of the NTE.

Overwhelmingly respondents were either positive or completely ambivalent about the Street Pastors. The responses to the attitude statements indicated that the Street Pastors are seen as “independent” of police officers. The links between Street Pastors and crime reduction are not clear, however, respondents agreed that the Street Pastors did contribute to safety in the city.

There are more than 20,000 students in the city and the findings can therefore be seen as tentative and indicative rather than generalisable to the entire student population. With the increasing emphasis on community involvement in “policing”, the findings from the research does suggest that the street pastor’s voluntary patrols are beneficial in terms of enhancing perceptions of safety.

Street Pastors do have an important role in the policing of the NTE, from handing out water and flip flops to comforting those who are in distress. Within the broader “police family” their role can then make a positive contribution to the practical challenges associated with a volatile environment.

The NTE is associated with considerable public health and safety issues and the contribution of a voluntary group to easing some of these problems is significant. Whilst their presence is not entirely unproblematic, particularly in raising questions of accountability, their activities could be argued to contribute to the well-being of revellers.

Research on policing “below” the level of the state is street pastors is an under-explored area. Street pastors have attracted very little attention despite their being a large organisation that are a feature of NTEs throughout the UK.

Despite significant investments in efforts to broaden participation, the number of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields who leave the academy is disheartening. Some reports suggest half of women STEM faculty will leave tenure track positions within 10 years after hire (Kaminski & Geisler, 2012). For women of color, the data are equally bleak (Ginther & Kahn, 2012) and affirm the need for continuously evolving practices and policies to retain underrepresented faculty in STEM and ensure career satisfaction and success. Unfortunately, current programs for career development and mentoring largely promote rigid conformity to traditional performance expectations, which enable the persistence of narrow departmental norms regarding markers of success. By drawing on person–environment (PE) fit theory, and combining data from our own institution with evidence-based practices from others, the authors have created a faculty development program designed to upend this practice. The objective of this program is to help faculty advance their careers in the academy while staying true to what they value, while simultaneously helping departments reflect on how they can create more inclusive and supportive environments for all faculty. The authors describe the program in detail and provide initial assessments of impact on faculty participants as well as departmental and institutional practice.

The purpose of this paper is to respond to Coombs and Holladay’s (2012a) concern that textbooks have had a powerful and negative influence on public relations’ curricula because they have positioned public relations as a function of business, rather than as a field of knowledge and practice that plays an emancipatory role in society.

The paper is a diachronic, thematic analysis of public relations textbooks dating from 1981 to 2017. This methodology is valid because textbooks not only disseminate the knowledge base associated with a community of practice, but they are also influential legitimisers of curricula and bodies of knowledge.

The findings show that public relations textbooks are slowly evolving to include activist studies as a content area from both a strategic business perspective and a critical perspective.

The sample size is small but sufficient to indicate the beginnings of a trend. While the influence of textbooks on curricula is waning as students look beyond prescribed texts to a wider array of readings, they remain the most influential educational medium worldwide (Fuchs and Bock, 2018).

The paper calls for a greater inclusion of activist studies in contemporary public relations curricula to prepare practitioners for changes to the communications environment, as well as an opportunity for public relations to reposition itself as an emancipatory field of knowledge and practice.

Activism studies, as a curriculum field, provide a foundation for positioning public relations as an emancipatory practice.

The paper proposes that incorporating activism studies into public relations curricula is a way for public relations to reframe itself as a field of knowledge and practice that plays an emancipatory role in society.

An individual’s identity is defined in the role that they devise for themselves, based on social positions. Examining identity motives can help in understanding what influences one to take on a particular role. Self-esteem is one of the major motivational drivers in determining the role that an individual takes on. Individuals, through self-presentation, are said to be motivated to control the impressions others form of them. In this way, self-concept and fashion innovativeness are linked – with prior research suggesting that those with high levels of fashion innovativeness are also those with a strong sense of self. Where a gap remains, however, in exploring the direction of the relationship between self-concept and being more innovative and fashionable in clothing choices, as well as how individuals reflexively judge their own fashion choices against their perception of others – e.g. can you force yourself to be a fashion leader? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study takes a lived experience approach to examine fashion as a tool in establishing social hierarchies amongst women. The study uses depth interviews with ten women to explore the developed self-concept of women actively engaged with fashion consumption.

The research presents a typology of fashion identities, exploring notions of security, dominance and innovativeness in self-fashioning using clothing.

The research is exploratory, and limited to a sample of ten women. However, the study offers a number of key findings to drive future research in this area.

The research finds that both security of self-concept, in relation to fashion and general self-esteem, as well as insecurity, can motivate women towards fashion independence. This suggests that identity-based marketing is likely to be more successful than lifestyle-based marketing, when selling women’s fashion clothing.

In prior research, self-concept and fashion innovativeness are linked – with prior research suggesting that those with high levels of fashion innovativeness are also those with a strong sense of self. This study finds that those with an insecure sense of self may also exhibit fashion independence, using fashion to acquire social capital.

This paper illustrates the concept that, unlike previous notions of fashion independence and engagement with fashion, these fashion-involved categorisations of behaviour are not always driven by sophistication, confidence, creativity and low fear of risk. Instead, this study has shown that fashion innovativeness can be motivated by an overarching fear of the outcomes of being judged unfashionable.

The characteristics of public library staff, which affect attitudes to the Internet, are considered based on the results of a PhD study. Data generated from a survey of more than 900 public library staff in England, which included an amended version of the technology acceptance model in conjunction with management interviews, focus groups with staff and a bulletin board, was analysed and the most pertinent results presented. The influence of gender, age, organisational variables, computer skills, ICT experience and subjective norm are explored. Key findings include the influence of current post and type of post on perceptions of the usefulness of the Internet whilst the age and place of work affected perceptions of the ease of use of the Internet. Recommendations include confidence‐raising training, attention to the needs of flexible workers and promotion of positive messages.

Prior to Brown v. Board of Education 1954, Black female educators played a significant and vital role in segregated schools. Despite Black female teachers’ historic presence in the field of education, presently Black female teachers are disproportionately under-represented in the US teacher workforce. Acknowledging the shortage of Black female teachers in K-12 classrooms, the purpose of this qualitative study is to explore why Black female educators teach in under-resourced, urban schools. By examining Black female educators’ initial draw to urban schools in what we conceptualized as the urban factor, we hope to reframe the implicit biases surrounding under-resourced, urban schools as less desirable workplaces and unearth reasons why those Black female teachers who enter teaching gravitate more toward urban schools. Three themes emerged about Black female teachers’ thoughts on and preference for urban schools with an unexpected finding about Black female teachers’ perceptions of student behavior. Concluding, recommendations are offered for policy and practice.

This paper aims to report an empirically grounded theoretical framework within which to understand the role of entrepreneurial identity development in the discovery, development and exploitation of opportunity, and to elaborate on how these identity transitions both mobilise and constrain female entrepreneurs.

A qualitative case study-based research design was used in this study. Primary and secondary data were collected from eight female participants (all of whom can be categorised as “mumpreneurs”) and analysed to inform the theoretical framework that is the foundation of the paper.

The authors describe how identity conflict, role congruence and reciprocal identity creation play a critical role in venture creation as a form of entrepreneurship. Drawing on the constructs of identification, self-verification and identity enactment, the authors build a theoretical framework for understanding entrepreneurial identity transitions in relation to opportunity-seeking behaviours.

The work is theoretical in character and based on a sample that, whilst rich in the provision of theoretical insight, is small in scope. Additionally, the sample is located in one geographical context (New Zealand) which likely has implications for the way in which the key constructs are perceived and enacted.

This paper is an attempt to integrate conceptualisations of entrepreneurial identity development with opportunity-related processes in the context of venture creation. A holistic focus on identity transitions and their relevance to perception and action in relation to opportunity (the root of entrepreneurial behaviour) is novel; at this point, it is exploratory in intention and tentative in reach.