I am grateful for the wisdom of older people who have enriched my world

I would like to thank my academic supervisors Professor Jan Oyebode and Dr Andrea Capstick, for challenging me when I needed challenging, and supporting me when I needed supporting. Their input and patience has been invaluable in helping me to learn how to do research, and to navigate some of the of the more emotionally challenging aspects of this project. Their creativity and wisdom are inspirational.

I would also like to thank the countless experts who have offered guidance, feedback and suggestions along the way – Dr Anita Sargeant, Professor Neil Small, Dr Ros Taylor, Dr Sarah Russell, Dr Alan Blighe, Dr Erica Borgstrom, Dr Kath Sleeman, Professor Allen Kellehear, Professor Arthur Frank and many others. Thank you to my ‘Shut Up and Write’ group – Sarah, Helen, Alison, Lindsey and Jenny, for motivation and momentum.

I would not have been able to complete this without some amazing people for whose help I am immeasurably grateful: my daughters, Martha and Eve, for tolerance and patience, and for putting up with me being a part-time mum for such a very long time! Andy, for endless deep conversations and rock steady support in the final stretch; to my best friend Alice, for never-ending patience, encouragement and cake; to my parents for believing it would (one day) come to an end, and to Mike for reminding me that things can change. I am grateful for the wisdom of older people who have enriched my world – to my grandparents, to the participants in the study, to the many patients I have met during my nursing career who showed me how to live until we die, to my Uncle Stanley Simmons without whose example I never would have followed this path.

I could not have done any of this without you. Thank you all.

Laura

Contributor: Laura Green

Source: Green L (2018) Here, there is nobody; an ethnography of older people’s end of life care in hospital, PhD, University of Bradford

If love makes you think, then this thesis is entirely a group effort

This research was made possible by funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (award number R00429634018). I also gratefully acknowledge financial assistance from the University of London Central Research Fund for fieldwork expenses. My sponsors may not, of course, be best pleased to hear that what I most appreciated about the wonderful gift of full-time education free from material need was the opportunity it offered for me to daydream, to bake my own bread, to conduct a community campaign and to spend hours writing my ‘relationship diaries’. What I gained from these diversions, however, I try to recognise in this thesis: the realisation that learning does not happen as, when and where we might expect it to.

I would like to thank: Dr. Debbie Epstein for supervision during David Buckingham’s absence, and Dr. Sally Munt and Dr. Chris Richards (who both survived reading the whole thing) for their helpful and constructive comments. All the teachers who assisted my ideas at training days and workshops throughout the process, and particularly Jenny Grahame at the English and Media Centre. Participants at the Institute of Education Cultural Studies Research Group: Chris Richards, Angela Devas, Lyn Thomas, Julian Sefton-Green, Pete Fraser, Muriel Robinson, Hyeon-Seon Jeong, Chris Fanthome, Liesbeth de Block, Keith Perera, Elizabeth Funge, Rebekah Willett, Paul Ward, Jon Swain, Sue Cranmer and Shereen Benjamin.  My colleagues in Brighton Urban Design and Development played an indirect but significant role by helping me learn how to turn my ‘feelings’ about a place into political action. (Or perhaps I should thank instead the Sainsbury’s consortium and its allies in Brighton and Hove Council, for reminding me how it feels to be belittled and dismissed when you want to talk about something that matters to you…).

I am indebted to ‘Geoff’ and ‘Kate’ – most obviously for their tolerance of my repeated presence in their classrooms and persistent questioning, but more generally for their demonstration in action of the meaning of dedicated and all too frequently unsung pedagogical work.  I would like to thank all students at all stages of my work, and to mention especially Guy Barton, Matt King, Gareth Ransome, Charlie Whitaker and the others from Sussex who got me started.

Special thanks go to Professor David Buckingham – perhaps just for having faith when I didn’t, but also for doing all the things an excellent supervisor should do.  These included: making it safe to show him work by treating drafts as drafts and ‘reflecting back’ the worthwhile elements scattered within them; directing me towards just the reading that I needed to develop my thoughts; establishing structures I could cling to when I felt swamped; consistently failing to be stern, hypercritical and authoritarian when I expected it of him; and, ultimately, letting me take my own path, tortured and tortuous as it may have seemed to him.  All of which means that – as in any successful pedagogical relationship – I have learnt more from him than I can possibly put into words.

Writing up felt like being lost in a long dark tunnel. I’d be there still if it weren’t for: Rowena Herdman-Smith, Deirdre Leask, Sally Munt, Elizabeth Draper, Sophie Powell, Rachel Cottam, Karen Adler, Margaretta Jolly, Ken Pringle, John Devine, Tom Shakespeare, amongst others. If love makes you think, then this thesis is entirely a group effort.

This is especially for Melita, who knows that it is not only Dracula who is invited to appear in girls’ bedrooms at night. For Kerry, for his tales from the outside world; Tina, for the knife; for Ben, who struggles over power with me despite himself.  And finally, for Clare who is everywhere here, although only she will ever know quite how much.

Contributor: Sara Bragg

Source: Bragg, S (2000) Media Violence and Education: A Study of Youth Audiences and the Horror Genre, PhD, Institute of Education, London

Without her support (mental, motivational, and financial) I may never have completed this thesis

I would like to thank my supervisors, Professors Mark Good and Rob Honey, listed in purely alphabetical order as their intelligence, contributions, support and, where necessary, motivational talks were equal and without parallel.

I am also extremely grateful to Dr. Mihaela Iordanova, for basically showing me exactly what it was I was meant to be doing on countless occasions, and always being willing to lend assistance whenever required.

I must also thank my family for their support and patience, specifically my Mam and Dad, without whom I wouldn’t be here, or, in fact, anywhere. I would also like to thank Mum and Dad Sachdev, for their generosity and support, and tolerance of the bizarre individual who is now a part of the family.

Finally, I must thank my wonderful wife Vanita, as without her support (mental, motivational, and financial) I may never have completed this thesis.

This work was funded by a studentship from the BBSRC

Contributor: @garwboy