Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Dix, Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Film, Loughborough University

In his essay Decline of the English Murder, the writer George Orwell evokes the pleasure to be had in reading about killing. After a good meal (including pudding), you are in the mood to read: “the sofa cushions are soft underneath you, the fire is well alight, the air is warm.” And what is it, in “these blissful circumstances”, that you want to read about? “Naturally,” says Orwell, “a murder”.

Substitute Orwell’s fires for contemporary radiators, and he might be describing the millions of readers in our own moment who have turned contentedly to stories of killing in the Thursday Murder Club books by Richard Osman. Comprising 2020’s title novel and three follow-ups (a fourth, The Impossible Fortune, is due in late September), these murder mysteries set in an idyllic retirement village in Kent have proved phenomenally successful.

Why have so many people, including some not previously invested in crime fiction, been drawn to these novels? It is not as if the series has been scrubbed free of potentially off-putting material. The Thursday Murder Club itself, for example, features not only two new killings for the quartet of older investigators to unravel, but memories of brutal gangland executions and a tragic suicide.

Such content, however, rarely ruffles The Thursday Murder Club’s smooth storytelling. The relaxed narrative voice, replicating Osman’s register as a genial quiz show host on TV, makes difficult things manageable. So, too, do the novel’s copious references to cakes: whenever a murder threatens to become too much, there is always a lemon drizzle or Viennese whirl to soothe.

Now The Thursday Murder Club has been adapted for the screen, enjoying a short cinema release before its streaming on Netflix. This adaptation has Hollywood heft behind it: produced by Amblin Entertainment (Steven Spielberg’s company), directed by Chris Columbus (veteran of Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire and two instalments of the Harry Potter franchise), and with music by Thomas Newman (whose other composing credits include the Bond films Skyfall and Spectre).

If anything, Osman’s already sugared original has been further sweetened in its transit to the screen. The novel’s gangland subplot, for example, is shaved down to a few hints; and a doomed love affair that in the book precipitates suicide has been erased entirely. While some condensing is inevitable in transposing a 400-page novel to a two-hour film, the excisions made by Columbus and the co-screenwriters Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote are in the interests not only of economy, but of sanitisation for still further mass-market appeal.

One of the delights offered by Osman’s original is its knowing references to other crime fiction. In a suggestive scene, the investigators talk about their own favourites in the genre. Patricia Highsmith says one; Ian Rankin says another; Mark Billingham says a third. Here they evoke kinds of crime fiction entirely distinct from the novel in which they are situated as characters.

Columbus’s film doesn’t carry across such mischievous allusiveness. Given its medium, however, it can enlist visual pleasures unachievable by the print-bound Osman.

In the 1980s, film theorist Tom Gunning coined the term “cinema of attractions”. This he offered as a way of characterising films that suspend or downplay the storytelling itself and seek instead to engage audiences by other means, such as spectacle that is unusual, beautiful or amusing.

Gunning had especially in mind work produced in cinema’s inaugural decade from 1895 onwards, when a film’s running time was limited, allowing no scope for narrative development. But his idea is fruitful in thinking about filmmaking of later periods, too. If it offers us a framework for considering the Marvel Cinematic Universe – all those standalone CGI effects like the look of the villain Thanos or the rendering of otherworldly environments – it is also apt in reviewing the new Thursday Murder Club.

The film engages in some narrative business, of course, offering a set of murders for investigation and solution. Who killed two of the figures behind upsetting plans to bulldoze the retirement village in favour of an event centre? Whose body is the unexpected extra one found in a tomb in the graveyard adjoining the complex?

Arguably, however, the storytelling here is relatively uninvolving and peripheral to the film’s chief effects. Many viewers are likely to be absorbed instead by the abundant display of British and Irish acting royalty: in particular, Helen Mirren as resourceful former secret agent Elizabeth (“I have a wide portfolio of skills”), Pierce Brosnan as retired union leader Ron who is itching for new campaigns, and Ben Kingsley as suave former psychologist Ibrahim.

And then, as in Osman’s novel, there are the cakes.

Reviewing recipe books, the writer Angela Carter referred to the “awesome voluptuousness” taken on by food whenever it is photographed in that genre. Carter’s description fits perfectly the cakes we see in Columbus’s film. Indeed, the Victoria sponge and the coffee and walnut cake made by the fourth investigator Joyce (Celia Imrie) have a prodigious depth, a lavish creaminess, that threaten to act even these British stars off the screen.

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Andrew Dix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Thursday Murder Club: everything is eclipsed by the cakes in this sanitised Netflix adaptation – https://theconversation.com/the-thursday-murder-club-everything-is-eclipsed-by-the-cakes-in-this-sanitised-netflix-adaptation-264228

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Vittorio Tantucci, Senior lecturer in Linguistics and Chinese Linguistics, Lancaster University

When you chat with ChatGPT, it often feels like you’re talking to someone polite, engaged and responsive. It nods in all the right places, mirrors your wording and seems eager to keep the exchange flowing.

But is this really what human conversation sounds like? Our new study shows that while ChatGPT plausibly imitates dialogue, it does so in a way that is stereotypical rather than unique.

Every conversation has quirks. When two family members talk on the phone, they don’t just exchange information — they reuse each other’s words, rework them creatively, interrupt, disagree, joke, banter or wander off-topic.

They do so because human talk is naturally fragmented, but also to enact their own identities in interaction. These moments of “conversational uniqueness” are what make real dialogue unpredictable and deeply human.

We wanted to contrast human conversation with AI ones. So we compared 240 phone conversations between Chinese family members with dialogues simulated by ChatGPT under the same contextual conditions, using a statistical model to measure patterns across hundreds of turns.

To capture human uniqueness in our study, we mainly focused on three levels of human interaction. One was “dialogic resonance”. That’s to do with re-using each other’s expressions. For example, when speaker A says “You never call me”, speaker B may respond “You are the one who never calls”.

Another factor we included was “recombinant creativity”. This involves inventing new twists on what’s just been said by an interlocutor. For example, speaker A may ask “All good?”, to which speaker B responds “All smashing”. Here the structure is kept constant but the adjective is creatively substituted in a way that is unique to the exchange.

A final feature we included was “relevance acknowledgement”: showing interest and recognition of the other’s point, such as “It’s interesting what you said, in fact …” or “That’s a good point …”.

What we found

ChatGPT did remarkably well – even too well – at showing engagement. It often echoed and acknowledged the other speaker even more than humans do. But it fell short in two decisive ways.

First, the lexical diversity was much lower for ChatGPT than for human speakers. Where people varied their words and expressions, AI recycled the same ones.

Most importantly, we spotted a lot of stereotypical speech in the AI-generated conversations. When it simulated giving advice or making requests, ChatGPT defaulted to predictable parental-style recommendations such as “Take care of your health” and “Don’t worry too much”.

This was unlike real human parents who mixed in clarifications, refusals, jokes, sarcasm and even impolite expressions at times. In our data, a far more human way of showing concern for a daughter’s health at college was often through making implications rather than direct instructions — for example, a mother asking, “Why in the world are you juggling two jobs?” with the implied meaning that she will burn out if she keeps being this busy.

In short, ChatGPT statistically flattened human dialogues in the context of our enquiry, replacing them with a polished, plausible but ultimately rather dry template.

Why this matters

At first glance, ChatGPT’s consistency feels like a strength. It makes the system reliable and predictable. Yet these very qualities also make it less human. Real people avoid sounding repetitive. They resist clichés. They build conversations that are recognisably theirs.

This is what defines unique identities in interaction — how we want to be perceived by others. There are words, expressions and intonations you would never use, not necessarily because they are impolite, but because they do not represent who you are or how you want to sound to others.

Being accused of being “boring” is definitely something most people try to avoid; it’s effectively what brings about American playboy Dickie Greenleaf’s death in the famous Patricia Highsmith novel, The Talented Mr Ripley, when he says it of his friend, Tom Ripley. The conversational choices we make are not simply appropriate ways to talk, but strategies for locating ourselves in society and constructing our singular identity with every conversation.

This gap matters in all sorts of ways. If AI cannot capture the uniqueness of human interaction, it risks reinforcing stereotypes of how people ought to speak, rather than reflecting how they actually do. More troubling still, it may promote a new procedural ideology of conversation — one where talk is reduced to sounding engaged yet remains uncreative; a functional but impoverished tool of cooperation.

Our findings suggest that AI is remarkably good at modelling the normative patterns of dialogue — the things people say often and conventionally. But it struggles with the idiosyncratic and unexpected, which are essential for creativity, humour and authentic human conversation.

The danger is not only that AI sounds nothing but plausible. It is that humans, over time, may begin to imitate its style in a way that AI’s stereotyped behaviour may start to reshape conversational norms.

In the long run, we may find ourselves “learning” from AI how to converse — gradually erasing creativity and uniqueness from our own speech. Conversation, at its core, is not just about efficiency. It is about co-creating meaning and social identities through innovation and extravagance, even more than we realise.

What might be at stake, then, assuming AI can’t overcome this problem, is not simply whether it can converse like humans — but whether humans will continue to converse like themselves.

Vittorio Tantucci receives funding from Leverhulme Trust.

– ref. ChatGPT only talks in clichés – here’s why that’s a threat to human creativity – https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-only-talks-in-cliches-heres-why-thats-a-threat-to-human-creativity-263592

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aisling Pigott, Lecturer, Dietetics, Cardiff Metropolitan University

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you’ve probably been told that cooking your own meals is the way to go. This has been backed up by a recent study, which found that people who ate home-cooked, minimally processed foods lost twice the weight to those who ate mainly ultra-processed, ready-made foods.

The recent study, which was published in Nature Medicine, involved 50 adults who were randomly assigned to eat either a diet high in ultra-processed foods or one with mostly minimally-processed foods. Both diets were designed to meet the UK’s national dietary guidelines.

Both groups lost weight, which makes sense as they consumed fewer calories than they usually did. However, the group that consumed mostly minimally processed foods ultimately consumed fewer calories overall – thereby losing more weight. They also saw slightly greater improvements to other measures of their health, such as having lower fat mass, reduced triglyceride levels (linked to heart health) and fewer cravings for unhealthy foods at the end of the study.

The ultra-processed foods group still lost weight and saw some improvements in blood lipids (fat) and blood glucose (sugar), but these changes were generally smaller than those seen in the minimally processed foods group.

As a dietitian, this is both an interesting and important piece of research – even though the results are not entirely surprising. In fact, a surprising result is that the consumption of ultra-processed food still resulted in weight loss.

The minimally processed diet group consumed fewer calories overall, which would explain why this group lost more weight. But the fact that this group saw greater improvements in other areas of their health highlights how health encompasses far more than calories or a number on the scales.

Why processing matters

Despite the bad press, food processing plays an essential role in food safety and preservation.

But how much processing a food has undergone seems to be the factor associated with worse health outcomes. These foods tend to have less fibre, more added fats, sugars and salt. This is because they’re designed to be tasty and long-lasting.

The most common definition of an ultra-processed foods are foods which are industrially produced and which contain extracts of original foods alongside additives and industrial ingredients. Think crisps or frozen ready meals.

The food system in much of the world has become increasingly reliant on ultra-processed foods, with these foods contributing to about half of food intake in the UK, Europe and the US. But there’s clear evidence that high intake of ultra-processed foods is linked with poorer health outcomes, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.

The more calorie-rich, less nutritious foods we consume, the more our health will suffer – as this recent study has confirmed. But how can you work out which foods are classified as “ultra-processed” and which are only “minimally processed”? In short, this depends on how much processing a food product has undergone to be ready for consumption.

Ultra-processed foods are industrially formulated products made mostly from ingredients extracted from foods (such as oils, starches and proteins) and additives.

Examples include: sugary breakfast cereals, flavoured yoghurts with sweeteners and thickeners, soft drinks, instant noodles, packaged biscuits and cakes, mass-produced bread with emulsifiers and reconstituted meat products – such as chicken nuggets.

Minimally processed foods are whole foods that are altered only to make them safer or easier to prepare. Importantly, this processing doesn’t change their nutritional value.

Examples include: fresh, frozen or bagged vegetables and fruit, plain yoghurt or milk, whole grains (such as oats or brown rice), eggs, fresh or frozen fish, and tinned beans or tomatoes without added sugar or salt.

Including minimally processed foods

It can sometimes feel overwhelming to work out whether a food is ultra-processed or minimally processed.

Some advice that is often suggested for working out whether a food is ultra-processed include checking to see if a product contains more than five to ten ingredients and considering if it contains ingredients you wouldn’t use at home.

In addition to the number of ingredients, it’s also the type of ingredients that matter. Ultra-processed foods often contain added sugars, refined starches, emulsifiers, stabilisers and flavourings that serve cosmetic purposes (such as improving colour, texture or taste), rather than preserving the food’s freshness or safety.

Minimally processed foods will not contain these types of ingredients, nor will they have as many ingredients on their label.

It’s also important to be aware of smoked meats. While this is a common preservation method, most commercially available smoked meats – such as bacon, ham or sausages – are considered ultra-processed because of the curing agents and other additives they contain. While plain smoked fish (such as smoked salmon) is still classed as a processed food, it uses fewer curing agents and additives than other smoked meat products.

A diet rich in minimally processed foods usually means more fibre, more nutrients and fewer calories – all of which can support weight and long-term health, as this recent study showed. So if you’re keen to include more minimally processed foods in your diet, here are a few tips to help you get more onto your plate:

• build meals around vegetables, whole grains and pulses
• use tinned or frozen products for convenience and to save time while cooking
• choose plain dairy products without sugar or fruit purees, then add your own fruits, nuts and seeds for flavour
• healthy meals don’t have to be complicated. Aim to include a protein source, a wholegrain carbohydrate and plenty of veggies or fruits at each meal
• batch cook meals when you have time and freeze them if possible.

As a dietitian, it’s important to point out that there’s a distinction between the potential harms of excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods and the essential role processing can play in ensuring food safety, preservation and accessibility.

It’s also important not to panic about enjoying the occasional biscuit or ready meal, and we should avoid demonising convenience foods – especially for those who face barriers such as limited mobility or lack of cooking facilities. Because remember, the group that ate a diet high in ultra-processed foods but met dietary guidelines still lost weight and saw health benefits in the study.

Eating well doesn’t mean that you need to completely eliminate ultra-processed foods. But shifting the balance towards eating more minimally processed foods, with more home-cooked meals where possible, is a step in the right direction.

Aisling Pigott receives funding from Research Capacity Building Collaborative (RCBC) / Health and Care Research Wales (HCRW)

– ref. Ultra-processed foods v minimally processed foods: how can you tell the difference? – https://theconversation.com/ultra-processed-foods-v-minimally-processed-foods-how-can-you-tell-the-difference-262669

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alex Bryson, Professor of Quantitative Social Science, UCL

For years now, research studies across the world looking at happiness across our lifetimes have found a U-shape: happiness falls from a high point in youth, and then rises again after middle age. This has been mirrored in studies on unhappiness, which show a peak in middle age and a decline thereafter.

Our new research on ill-being, based on data from 44 countries including the US and UK, shows this established pattern has changed. We now see a peak of unhappiness among the young, which then declines with age. The change isn’t due to middle-aged and older people getting happier, but to a deterioration in young people’s mental health.

A closer look at data from the US shows this clearly. We used publicly available health data, which surveys more than 400,000 people each year, to identify the percentage of people in the US in despair between 1993 and 2024. Those we define as being in despair were the people who had answered that their mental health was not good every day in the 30 days preceding the survey.

Across most of the period, among both men and women, levels of despair were highest among the oldest age group (45-70) and higher for the middle-aged (25-44) than the young (18-24). However, the percentage of young people in despair has risen rapidly. It’s more than doubled for men, from 2.5% in 1993 to 6.6% in 2024, and almost trebled for women – from 3.2% to 9.3%.

Despair also rose markedly among the middle-aged, but less rapidly. It’s gone up from 4.2% to 8.5% for women and from 3.1% to 6.9% for men. The percentage of older men and women in despair rose only a little over the period.

As a result, by 2023-24 relative levels of despair across age groups were reversed for women. The youngest age group has the highest levels of despair, and the oldest age group the lowest. For men, the level of despair was similar for the youngest and middle-aged groups, and lowest for the oldest age group.

These trends have resulted in a very different relationship between age and ill-being over time in the US.

Between 2009 and 2018, despair is hump-shaped in age. However, the rapid rise in despair before the age of 45, and especially before the mid-20s, has fundamentally changed the lifecycle profile of despair. This means that the hump-shape is no longer apparent between 2019 and 2024.

Despair rose the most for the youngest group but also rose for those up to age 45; it remained unchanged for those aged over 45.

Our study found similar trends for Britain, based on analyses of despair in the UK Household Longitudinal Survey and anxiety in the Annual Population Survey. It also shows that the percentage in despair declines with age in another 42 countries between 2020 and 2025, based on analyses of data from the Global Minds Project.

Investigating causes

Research into the reasons for these changes is underway but remains inconclusive. The growth in despair predates the COVID pandemic by a number of years, although COVID may have contributed to an increasing rate of deterioration in young people’s mental health.

There is a growing body of evidence that identifies a link between the rise in ill-being of the young and heavy use of the internet and smartphones. Some research suggests that smartphone use is indeed a cause of worsening youth mental health. Research that limited access to smartphones found significant improvements in adults’ self-reported wellbeing.

However, even if screen time is a contributory factor, it is unlikely to be the sole or even the chief reason for the rising despair among the young. Our very recent research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, points to a reduction in the power of paid work to protect young people from poor mental health. While young people in paid work tend to have better mental health than those who are unemployed or unable to work, the gap has been closing recently as despair among young workers rises.

Although the causes of the changes we describe have yet to be fully understood, it would be prudent for policymakers to place the issue of rising despair among young people at the heart of any wellbeing strategy.

Alex Bryson receives funding from the United Nations Development Program.

David Blanchflower received funding from the UN.

Xiaowei Xu receives funding from UKRI.

– ref. Lifetime trends in happiness change as misery peaks among the young – new research – https://theconversation.com/lifetime-trends-in-happiness-change-as-misery-peaks-among-the-young-new-research-263665

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dafydd Townley, Teaching Fellow in US politics and international security, University of Portsmouth

Over the past few months, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has increasingly become a focal point for the Democratic party’s resistance to the US president, Donald Trump.

And a poll taken in August 2025 gave Newsom a bump in support from Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, going from 11% in June to 19% in August. He was the only potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate who saw gains in the survey.

Touted by many as a potential replacement for the ailing Joe Biden as the 2024 Democrat presidential nominee, Newsom didn’t have a chance to stand as Biden passed the mantle directly to Kamala Harris.

But in the past few months the charismatic former mayor of San Francisco has been increasingly outspoken in his criticism of the Trump administration. On August 27 he said Americans needed to “wake up” to threats he said were posed by the current administration.

Part of Newsom’s approach has recently been to adopt the same mass communication methods as Trump has. This is not the highbrow intellectual route that Democrats have taken in the past. This is AI slop – the low-quality, mass-produced online content generated by artificial intelligence, designed to manipulate social media platform’s algorithms for greater exposure.

New social media style

Over the past few weeks, Newsom’s team has released numerous social media messages mimicking and mocking Donald Trump.

For instance, this month, Newsom’s staff posted a message on X featuring an AI-generated image of the governor wearing a crown on the cover of Time magazine, accompanied by the caption: “Long Live the King.” The following day, the same account reposted an AI-generated image of a muscular Newsom holding the American flag with the caption: “In Gavin We Trust.”

The approach seems to be popular. Newsom’s team also released parody-Trump merchandise with reports suggested that it raised US$100,000 (£73,900) online on its first day of release. And Newsom’s use of this AI-produced content may well be redefining how Democrats attack Republicans in the future.

Newsom made no excuses for taking such a route. When questioned by Fox LA about this new approach recently he said: “I’ve changed, the facts have changed; we (the Democrats) need to change.”

The California governor is not the only Democrat to stand up to Trump. While Democrats in Congress are hamstrung by the Republican majority in both the House and Senate, elected Democrat officials in state governments are working hard to limit Trump’s influence.

When Trump federalised the California National Guard to end public protests against the activities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice), Newsom and California’s attorney-general, Rob Bonta, sued Trump, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and the Department of Defense.

Newsom and Bonta argued that the president had exceeded his constitutional authority, as such action had been taken without the governor’s consent. Newsom defiantly declared that: “The president is not a king and is not above the law.”

An appeals court allowed Trump to retain control of the National Guard while the lawsuit continued. The federal trial opened in San Francisco on August 11, and a judgment had not been released as this article went live.

In Chicago

As well as ordering the Department of Defense to create specialist National Guard units to deal with civil unrest, Trump has also threatened to use troops in other Democrat-controlled cities such as Baltimore and New York, where he also claims that state governments are failing to deal with crime waves.

On August 26, in an eloquent but defiant speech, Illinois governor JB Pritzker warned Trump not to send troops to Chicago: “Mr President, do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here,” Pritzker said.

Mirroring Newsom’s claims of executive overreach, Pritzker said that Trump’s determination to use troops to reduce crime figures in Democrat-controlled cities around the country was to “lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarise our cities and end elections”.

“If this were happening in any other country, we would have no trouble calling it what it is, a dangerous power grab,” Pritzker said.

Trump has used the National Guard as a law enforcement tool in Washington DC, another Democrat-controlled city, since the middle of August. The US president sent troops, complete with armoured vehicles, to the nation’s capital, where he claimed violent crime was out of control. While the troops were initially unarmed, in the past week officials have said that guard members have been authorised to carry either their M17 pistols or M4 rifles.

According to figures released by the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, violent offences were at their lowest level in 2024 in 30 years. The pattern appears to be continuing in 2025, with violent crime down 26% compared to this time last year and robberies falling by 28%. The Democrat mayor of Washington DC, Muriel Bowser, called Trump’s deployment of troops an “authoritarian push”.

It turns out the use of troops in Washington DC has not gone down that well with Americans. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll during the last week in August, only 38% of Americans supported Trump’s actions, with 46% opposed.

After what had seemed to be a good start to the year for Trump, his job approval rating is fragile. With the midterms just over a year away, the Republicans need to keep one eye on the polls if they wish to retain their majorities in the House and Senate.

Whether Newsom’s pushback against the administration is the start of his campaign for 2028 is unclear, but it would do him no harm to establish himself as a national political figure, a portrayal with which he can build a campaign for 2028.

Dafydd Townley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Democrats dig in with a new type of campaign against Trump – https://theconversation.com/democrats-dig-in-with-a-new-type-of-campaign-against-trump-263869

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paty Paliokosta, Associate Professor of Special and Inclusive Education, Kingston University

For many pupils, the move to secondary school is a moment of anticipation – new friends, new subjects, and a growing sense of independence. But research in England shows this transition often comes with a hidden cost: a sharp and lasting decline in wellbeing.

Data from a 2024-2025 survey carried out by education support and research company ImpactEd Group with over 80,000 pupils shows a drop in children’s wellbeing between year six – the last year of primary school – and year eight.

This report found that enjoyment of school plummets, feelings of safety decline, and belief that their efforts will lead to success (known as self-efficacy) drops significantly. Children receiving free school meals were also less likely to say they enjoyed school, with this gap continuing to widen into secondary school.

This isn’t just adolescent growing pains. Secondary school pupils in the UK are more miserable than their European peers. Data from the Pisa programme, which assesses student achievement and wellbeing internationally, shows that in 2022 the UK’s 15-year-olds had the lowest average life satisfaction in Europe.

It’s a systemic problem – but one that can be changed.

Difficult transitions

Moving to secondary school involves much more than a change of location. Pupils must adapt to new teachers, routines, academic demands and social dynamics. And this takes place while they are going through puberty, one of the most intense periods of emotional and neurological development.

Research on school transitions stresses that success depends not only on a child’s “readiness,” but also on the school system’s capacity to support them.

Unfortunately, many schools prioritise performance metrics over relationships. This may leave many pupils – particularly those who are neurodivergent, have special educational needs, or who come from minoritised backgrounds – feeling disconnected and unsupported. This can deeply affect their wellbeing.

One major barrier to belonging is the use of zero-tolerance behaviour policies. These strict approaches to discipline – silent corridors, isolation booths, high-stakes punishments such as suspensions – are becoming more common in large secondaries and academies. Advocates have claimed these policies create firm boundaries in schools. But for many pupils, especially those with ADHD, autism, or a history of trauma, they may instead create anxiety, alienation and disengagement from school.

Children with special educational needs are excluded from school at some of the highest rates in the country. According to the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, a collaborative network of over 300 organisations including mental health organisations and youth support services, many of these children are not “misbehaving,” but expressing unmet emotional and mental health needs. Punitive responses frequently worsen their difficulties.

Schools that adopt behaviour policies that focus on emotional literacy and building trust have reported success in building a caring environment.

A hidden curriculum

While these challenges affect many students, working-class pupils often face a more acute and entrenched form of educational alienation. A deeper look into the structure of secondary education in England reveals systemic inequalities that shape how different children experience school.

According to Professor Diane Reay, a leading expert on education and social class, the British school system continues to fail working-class children. Her research suggests that schools in disadvantaged areas are more likely to feature rigid discipline, “teaching to the test,” and a narrow, fact-heavy curriculum. In such spaces, there is little room for creativity, critical thinking, or personal expression.

Instead of feeling seen and valued, many working-class students may experience school as a place of constant control and low expectations. They are more likely to encounter deficit narratives: being told what they lack, rather than having their strengths recognised or nurtured.

This dynamic plays out most starkly during the transition to secondary school. Pupils from working-class backgrounds often enter year seven already disadvantaged – socially, economically, and in terms of cultural capital. This means that in unfamiliar settings where middle-class norms dominate, they may not speak the “right” way, dress the “right” way, or know the unspoken rules. These students frequently find themselves on the outside looking in.

Beyond class, issues of race and cultural background also play a key role in how pupils experience school. Students from minority backgrounds often also encounter what researchers refer to as the “hidden curriculum”.

This is a set of unspoken norms that reflect white, middle-class values, and which they may be unfamiliar with. This affects everything from which stories are told in the curriculum to how the behaviour of students is interpreted by teachers.

The year-seven dip is not inevitable. But reversing it requires more than tweaks to transition plans or behaviour policies. It demands a fundamental shift in how we understand inclusion, belonging and educational success. Schools need to put policies in place that help students feel safe, connected and empowered to manage conflict. And they should recognise that working-class and marginalised pupils face systemic barriers, and commit to dismantling them.

Dr Paty Paliokosta is an Associate Professor in Inclusive Education and leads the Inclusion and Social Justice SIG at Kingston University, London. She co-leads the National SENCO Advocacy Network.

– ref. Research shows children’s wellbeing drops when they start secondary school – here’s why – https://theconversation.com/research-shows-childrens-wellbeing-drops-when-they-start-secondary-school-heres-why-260737

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Clare Downham, Professor, University of Liverpool

The reign of Æthelstan (924 to 939) has excited a significant amount of study in recent years. In 2004 there was The Age of Athelstan, by Paul Hill. In 2011, Sarah Foot published Æthelstan: The First King of England, and in 2018, Tom Holland released Athelstan: The Making of England. A key theme in these books is the role of Æthelstan as unifier of the kingdom of England.

Æthelstan’s most famous battle, Brunanburh (937) was fought against a coalition of vikings and Celtic-speaking peoples. Brunanburh was seen, perhaps erroneously, to secure the future of a unified England. As a historian of this period, I have argued that the “kings and battles” story of the past often cloaks the longer-term engines of political change.

This latest book to add to this history is The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom by David Woodman, which addresses both themes of English unification and viking politics. It also seeks to provide deeper insights into the personality of King Æthelstan. The result is a highly engaging and informative biography.

The writing is well pitched for a general reader. The terminology used in tenth-century political history is explained in a clear and concise way without seeming patronising to the reader. This is particularly useful in the introduction where the different sources for Æthelstan’s reign are discussed, inviting the reader to consider how historical narratives are constructed from the evidence that survives.

Woodman draws on a range of contemporary sources. He also makes extensive use of the 12th-century text, Gesta regum Anglorum (Deeds of the kings of England), by historian William of Malmesbury, which is a
key source for the life of Æthelstan. Given that legends surrounding this tenth-century king were already evolving and developing a life of their own in William’s time, a deeper dive into that particular text to evaluate its reliability, would have been welcome.

There is intriguing discussion in Woodman’s book around the challenges that Æthelstan faced at the start of his reign. Tensions had arisen between Æthelstan and his father Edward the Elder, as the king appears to have favoured Æthelstan’s half and younger brother Ælfweard of Wessex as his successor. Such family rivalries provide relatable drama to usher in the reign of the new king.

Æthelstan’s support was based in Mercia (a powerful kingdom which was in the Midlands) while his brother’s was in Wessex (a major kingdom in what is now south west England). When Edward the Elder died in 924, Æthelstan was accepted as King of Mercia but reluctantly in Wessex, even though Ælfweard died shortly after his father.

These rivalries and family dramas could suggest that the rebellion at the Mercian stronghold of Chester, which just preceded the death of Edward the Elder in 924, had been instigated by Æthelstan himself (although this point is not made by Woodman). The intrigue continues as some years later, Æthelstan was implicated in the death of Ælfweard’s full brother Edwin.

The circumstances in which Æthelstan later extended his power over Northumbria and how he held together a unitary “kingdom of England” are explored in thoughtful detail. One of the greatest strengths of the book is the discussion of categories of contemporary sources: diplomas (written grants of lands and privileges), laws and coinage.

Æthelstan’s diplomas were issued at his court, recording time and place and witness lists. Their records are skilfully deployed by Woodman to trace Æthelstan’s travels, the changing membership and hierarchy of his assemblies, his claims to power, and the literary skills and possible identity of their authors.

Far from being a dry and dusty subject, Woodman writes vividly about Æthelstan’s laws. Legal punishments reveal harsh insights.

For example, according to one code, if an enslaved man is found guilty of theft of goods over a certain value, he was to be stoned to death by fellow slaves. Æthelstan took a harsher line than his predecessors on theft, and comparison with earlier codes may have merited more overarching consideration to understand his reign.

This uptick in state violence may correlate with growing imbalances of power and concerns over obedience as government became more powerful. Centralisation of authority and obedience are themes in Woodman’s discussion of coin iconography, the locations of mints and how the recorded names of those who minted the coins demonstrate cultural diversity in Æthelstan’s England.

Woodman provides a well-rounded analysis of Æthelstan’s government, dealing with ecclesiastical politics and piety. Æthelstan offered conspicuous gifts to churches whose favour he sought to win at home and abroad.

There are also insightful discussions around Æthelstan’s scholarly interests and his collection and donation of relics and manuscripts. These provide compelling glimpses into the king’s personality.

The desire to dominate neighbouring peoples also appears as a less savoury personality trait. Æthelstan sought to make his bombastic claims to be king of all Britain, or “Rex totius Britanniae,” which became a reality through negotiation and threats of violence. The 934 campaign, which the king led to North Britain (Scotland and England did not exist in 926 but this would have been modern-day Scotland), gives rise to extended discussion and helps readers understand the events leading to the famous Battle of Brunanburh, three years later.

Another significant bonus in this book is the analysis of Æthelstan’s continental links. As accounts of his reign tend to be focus on the “making of England” (and even a “making of Britain”) narrative, this dimension of his reign and his legacy has not always received the attention it deserves. Woodman brings together the significant articles on this topic composed by Sarah Foot, Simon MacLean and others, and combines them with perceptive analysis of primary sources.

Overall, Woodman presents Æthelstan as a European king, a scholar, with ruthless ambitions and a strong streak of piety. It would be easy to caricature Æthelstan within certain narratives that aligns with views of English nationhood as it is today, but this book provides a deeper and more nuanced analysis of this fascinating king.

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This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Clare Downham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom – a deep and nuanced analysis of a complex monarch – https://theconversation.com/the-first-king-of-england-aethelstan-and-the-birth-of-a-kingdom-a-deep-and-nuanced-analysis-of-a-complex-monarch-264145