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This article begins a series of three about making a reality of integration policy in health and social care at individual, functional and cultural levels.

The paper outlines messages from policy debate and the Adult Social Care White Paper about the benefits to individuals and carers of improvements in integration. It follows the progress of a 91‐year‐old widow during a recent six‐week stay in hospital, and the difficulties she and her daughter encountered through professional and service faultlines and information blocks.

The paper questions the White Paper proposal for named professionals to coordinate care for people with complex needs, and argues that the benefits of integration will not be achieved without a significant change of culture. It outlines later papers exploring a functional model of integration, and examining the implications of culture change for the relationships between health and social care, between professionals and individuals, and between the Department of Health and the health and care system.

In “placing the individual at the centre”, the article grounds a series linking the newly‐published Care and Support White Paper and the emerging NHS reform programme to examine changes needed if integration is to benefit individuals and carers.

This chapter describes our innovative approach to the teaching of computer programming and writing; professors worked with students across classes united by a theme of narrative. A year-long study examined if using Alice, a three-dimensional microworld programming software that allows users to create interactive narratives, was more effective than Visual Basic (VB) in developing problem-solving abilities in first-year college students in introductory computer programming courses. Results revealed that although both the Alice and VB group showed a statistically significant (p<0.05) increase in performance for problem-solving questions related to computer programming, only the Alice group showed a significant increase in problem-solving abilities not directly related to computer programming, and an increase in student retention.

Derek Parfit’s non-identity problem calls into question the claims of both the state and individuals when they purport to act for the benefit of future children. This paper discusses how adoption of the non-identity argument as a legal argument could affect reproductive and family policy, demonstrating that it undermines the child-centric approach to assigning legal parentage. The paper concludes, however, that these non-identity problems can be solved by the expected value approach, which demonstrates that efforts to benefit future people can be logically coherent even if those efforts also affect the genetic identities of the future people.

Investigates how a particular work team interprets and comes to understand quality management initiatives centered around customer service. The study set out to add to the understanding of how work team members interpret and learn as a part of a functional work based team operating within a quality management work environment. Data sources, including field notes, an extensive reflective journal, strategic plans, annual reports, e‐mail messages and office memos, provided rich, in‐depth information. The study argues that, contrary to much of the management‐based learning literature, learning is used as a way to mold and shape attitudes of workers and to control them.

The “web of trust” is one approach to the problem of trusted exchange of public keys in a public key security system. In a web of trust, individuals accept the bulk of the responsibility for identifying and authenticating each other and subsequently swapping their keys. This trust model is supported by some commercial products and some industry standards. The main alternative is the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) where key holders are identified and authenticated by third‐party Certification Authorities (CAs). Rather than personally swapping keys, participants in a PKI obtain one another’s public keys from one or more CAs in the form of digital certificates. These two trust models have, for some time, been vying for selection internationally in both policy and commercial forums. In Australia, the debate has been spurred on by recent deliberations over the possible form of a national peak authentication body, and by spirited discussion of the privacy impacts of a national hierarchy. There appears to be a view emerging that a web of trust might be easier to constitute than a hierarchy and that it may be inherently less intrusive. On closer inspection, however, these promises prove to be unfounded. This paper discusses certain limitations of any web of trust model, with particular reference to scalability, uniform standards of identification, auditability, and the protection of personal identification data.

Families conduct their affairs through processes that are built upon those of previous generations and also social capacities such as culture, class, oppression and poverty. The media has played a part in stereotyping the lower classes through their portrayal on the television programmes such as Benefits Street and Jeremy Kyle and tabloid newspaper stories. This chapter is a case study of two families who are at the opposing ends of the social scale, the Horrobin/Carter and Aldridge families. The two families were chosen due to them being linked by marriage in the younger generation. Through the use of genograms, we explore how the families differ in their attitudes towards relationships within their individual families, and also how they relate to each other as separate family groups. Despite the many differences, there are also a number of key similarities, particularly regarding the key females in the families, in terms of family background and snobbery. We also show that there is little family loyalty in the more privileged family and a power differential between the two families (oppressors vs. oppressed) in terms of the crimes committed.

What do children think about their participation in competitive activities? This paper argues that children have a different view of what participation in competitive activities means in their lives, and how they should interpret and deal with competitive situations, than their parents. Using data from interviews with 37 elementary school-age children, and 16 months of fieldwork, I highlight 3 main themes that emerged from interactions with children: trophies, tears, and triumphs. Trophies, and other rewards like ribbons and medals, are a great motivation for many children; these rewards are also physical embodiments that winning is prioritized in participation in these activities. Tears, along with nerves, and other feelings associated with being judged are described, in addition to a coping mechanism these children have devised to deal with these more negative feelings – friendships. Through friendships, boys and girls create bonds and have peers with whom to share their triumphs. However, these friendships are usually same-sex, and children's quite strong and divisive ideas about gender are also discussed.