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AbstractThe Durham Miners Gala is an annual event at which the associated branches of the Durham Miners Association carry their banners to a rally held in the city of Durham. The imagery displayed on those banners is representative of the class struggle to create a trade union that would represent and protect individuals and communities against the vagaries of the unbridled capitalism of the nineteenth century. In this way a tradition (and culture) was created not by social or political elites, but developed from ground level to counteract attempts to subsume them into a dominant ideology that saw them as little more than serfs.

This paper reports on the development of reflectiveness and research skills in eight preservice teachers, through their participation in a funded research project to develop the handwriting of children with literacy problems. The project aimed to analyse the reflections of the trainee teachers participating in an authentic research study and to consider what this reflection on practice might offer to the education of teachers in the current UK training context.The context for the paper was a project which engaged pre-service trainee teachers in researching the proposition that automaticity in handwriting plays a role in facilitating composing processes and that the automaticity of early writers can be trained. Some outcomes of the project for pupils are reported. Of the 39 children targeted in the project, 32 made significant progress in their performance on the handwriting automaticity test. The focus in the present paper is, however, on the participating trainee teachers and the paper suggests that conducting research was a significant learning event for these pre-service teachers and that, through working together, they were able to analyse their development as researchers and their learning during the research process.At a time when the English government views teacher training as a method of school improvement and the effectiveness of training is measured through its immediate impact on pupil outcomes, this study offers an example of how shared research can offer positive learning outcomes for pupils, develop the reflective thinking of pre-service teachers through researching a real problem, and develop links across a range of school and university settings

This paper applies Marx's concept of immiseration to the mining communities of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, in an attempt to conceptualise the consequences of de-industrialisation. We identify and explore a series of specific social, economic, historical, political and geographic circumstances that have militated against the radicalisation predicted by Marx, but nonetheless conclude that the concept of immiseration continues to have contemporary relevance. Economic hardship, out-migration on an unprecedented scale and a collapse of confidence at both an individual and collective level are the consequences of de-industrialisation and reveal the contemporary experience and purpose of immiseration. First, it is a process through which a geographically isolated population of workers have become conditioned either to accept poor work in terms of lower wages and conditions, or to become economic migrants. Second, it is a process through which new opportunities for profitability and investment are established for new investors.

Despite the pessimistic examples of the social and economic decline of post-industrial mining given in the literature, there is emerging evidence that some of these communities appear to be regenerating themselves using the cultural capital accrued through tradition, and maintained by festival and exhibition. This is being achieved through attempts to ensure that this unique heritage, grounded in solidaristic and inclusive social networks, is not lost to succeeding generations. Through participation in the annual Durham Miners' Gala and the refurbishment of old community banners, some community activists are seeking to use their cultural and traditional heritage as a form of 'emotional regeneration'.

Neoliberal interpretations of the social world reject structural explanations in favour of those that see agency as primary. This orthodoxy presents a challenge to teachers who seek to support the development of a sociological understanding, particularly where disadvantaged students are undermined by the stigma associated with these interpretations. This article explores a teaching strategy which draws upon readings of auto/biography on the part of both teachers and students to develop a critical understanding of the relationship between agency and structure. We argue that such an approach can take sociology back to its radical roots as a transformative and radicalising discipline.