'Living at work': COVID-19, remote-working and the spatio-relational reorganisation of professional services in UK universities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the source of large-scale disruption to the work practices of university staff, across the UK and globally. This article reports the experiences of n = 4731 professional services staff (PSS) working in UK universities and their experiences of pandemic-related work disruption. It specifically focuses on a transition to remote-working as a consequence of social restrictions and campus closures, presenting both quantitative and qualitative findings that speak to the various spatio-relational impacts of PSS working at distance from university campuses. These survey findings contribute to a new narrative of work organisation in higher education which addresses the potential of remote-working as a means for boundary crossing, social connectedness and trust relationships in universities in the immediate context and strongly anticipated post-pandemic future.

The assignment and distribution of the dyslexia label: Using the UK Millennium Cohort Study to investigate the socio-demographic predictors of the dyslexia label in England and Wales.

The prevalence of dyslexia identification has increased significantly over the last two decades. Yet there is debate over whether there are distinct biological and cognitive differences between those with literacy difficulties and the subgroup of people identified as dyslexic. This is the first paper that provides evidence for this ongoing debate by investigating the socio-demographic factors, outside biology and cognition, that predict whether a child is identified as dyslexic in the UK. Using secondary data from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study, this paper examines the socio-demographic factors that predict whether a child's teacher identifies them as dyslexic at age 11. Gender, season of birth, socio-economic class and parental income are found to be significant predictors of the dyslexia label. Therefore, factors seemingly unrelated to the clinical aspects of dyslexia influence whether a child is identified as dyslexic in England and Wales. This suggests that label may not be evenly distributed across a population; furthermore, it may also indicate that resources for support may not be fairly allocated. The findings further support the argument that a 'dyslexic sub-group' within poor readers is created due to the impact of environmental factors. The results from this national-scale study thus questions the reliability, validity and moral integrity of the allocation of the dyslexia label across current education systems in the UK.

The impact of the dyslexia label on academic outlook and aspirations: An analysis using propensity score matching.

BACKGROUND: There is current academic debate over the reliability of the dyslexia label. However, this argument does not consider the impact of the dyslexia label on an individual's academic outlook and aspirations. AIMS: Using data from the Millennium Cohort Study, this paper aims to objectively explore the impact of the dyslexia label on academic outlook and aspirations. METHODS: Propensity score matching was used to compare children with dyslexia with a non-dyslexic group matched on ability, socioeconomic class, parent education, income, country, gender, and age in year group. RESULTS: The results show that those labelled with dyslexia hold lower beliefs about their ability in English and Maths than their matched peers without this label. The children labelled with dyslexia were also significantly less likely to say that they would go to university. Furthermore, teachers and parents held lower aspirations for children labelled with dyslexia. As the children were matched, the results show that dyslexic children, their teachers and parents hold lower expectations of the child's academic ability while holding higher expectations of those with matched characteristics who do not have the dyslexia label. CONCLUSIONS: The paper concludes that caution is needed when labelling with dyslexia and that further research is needed in order establish whether labelling with dyslexia is beneficial in the current system.

COVID-19 and digital disruption in UK universities: afflictions and affordances of emergency online migration.

COVID-19 has caused the closure of university campuses around the world and migration of all learning, teaching, and assessment into online domains. The impacts of this on the academic community as frontline providers of higher education are profound. In this article, we report the findings from a survey of n = 1148 academics working in universities in the United Kingdom (UK) and representing all the major disciplines and career hierarchy. Respondents report an abundance of what we call 'afflictions' exacted upon their role as educators and in far fewer yet no less visible ways 'affordances' derived from their rapid transition to online provision and early 'entry-level' use of digital pedagogies. Overall, they suggest that online migration is engendering significant dysfunctionality and disturbance to their pedagogical roles and their personal lives. They also signpost online migration as a major challenge for student recruitment, market sustainability, an academic labour-market, and local economies.

What is dyslexia? An exploration of the relationship between teachers' understandings of dyslexia and their training experiences.

Given that an estimated 5-10% of the worldwide population is said to have dyslexia, it is of great importance that teachers have an accurate understanding of what dyslexia is and how it effects their students. Using results from a large-scale survey of teachers in England and in Wales (N ≈ 2,600), this paper demonstrates that teachers held a basic understanding of dyslexia, based on the behavioural issues that it is associated with. Teachers lacked the knowledge of the biological (i.e., neurological) and cognitive (i.e., processing) aspects of dyslexia. Moreover, a number of teachers mentioned visual factors in their description of dyslexia, despite there being inconclusive evidence to suggest a direct relationship between visual functioning and dyslexia. Further findings demonstrate the importance of good-quality teacher training in increasing teachers' confidence working with those with dyslexia, while increasing their knowledge of the cognitive aspects of dyslexia. This paper argues that evidence-based teacher training, which informs teachers of the up-to-date research on the biological, cognitive, and behavioural aspects of dyslexia, is essential to combat misconceptions and ensure that teachers have more nuanced and informed understandings of dyslexia.