Feed aggregator

The University contributes nearly £30 billion to the UK economy and supports more than 86,000 jobs across the UK, according to a new report.

From toasters that won’t pop to farmers hacking their own tractors, we ask why the right to repair is important for people and for the planet.

The benefits of skin-to-skin contact for both parents and infants are already recognised, but other behaviours common in hunter-gatherer societies may also benefit families in economically developed countries, a Cambridge researcher suggests.

Parents and children may, for instance, benefit from a larger network of people being involved in care-giving, as seen in hunter-gatherer societies. Increasing staff-to-child ratios in nurseries to bring them closer to highly attentive hunter-gatherer ratios could support learning and wellbeing. And more peer-to-peer, active and mixed-age learning, as seen in hunter-gatherer communities, may help school children in developed countries.

Published today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the study by Dr Nikhil Chaudhary, an evolutionary anthropologist at Cambridge, and Dr Annie Swanepoel, a child psychiatrist, calls for new research into child mental health in hunter-gatherer societies. They explore the possibility that some common aspects of hunter-gatherer childhoods could help families in economically developed countries. Eventually, hunter-gatherer behaviours could inform ‘experimental intervention trials’ in homes, schools and nurseries.

The authors acknowledge that children living in hunter-gatherer societies live in very different environments and circumstances than those in developed countries. They also stress that hunter-gatherer children invariably face many difficulties that are not experienced in developed countries and, therefore, caution that these childhoods should not be idealised.

Drawing on his own observations of the BaYaka people in Congo and the extensive research of anthropologists studying other hunter-gatherer societies, Dr Chaudhary highlights major differences in the ways in which hunter-gatherer children are cared for compared to their peers in developed countries. He stresses that “contemporary hunter-gatherers must not be thought of as ‘living fossils’, and while their ways of life may offer some clues about our prehistory, they are still very much modern populations each with a unique cultural and demographic history”. 

Physical contact and attentiveness

Despite increasing uptake of baby carriers and baby massage in developed countries, levels of physical contact with infants remain far higher in hunter-gatherer societies. In Botswana, for instance, 10-20 week old !Kung infants are in physical contact with someone for around 90% of daylight hours, and almost 100% of crying bouts are responded to, almost always with comforting or nursing – scolding is extremely rare.

The study points out that this exceptionally attentive childcare is made possible because of the major role played by non-parental caregivers, or ‘alloparents’, which is far rarer in developed countries.

Non-parental caregivers

In many hunter-gatherer societies, alloparents provide almost half of a child’s care. A previous study found that in the DRC, Efe infants have 14 alloparents a day by the time they are 18 weeks old, and are passed between caregivers eight times an hour.

Dr Chaudhary said: “Parents now have much less childcare support from their familial and social networks than would likely have been the case during most of our evolutionary history. Such differences seem likely to create the kind of evolutionary mismatches that could be harmful to both caregivers and children.”

“The availability of other caregivers can reduce the negative impacts of stress within the nuclear family, and the risk of maternal depression, which has knock-on effects for child wellbeing and cognitive development.”

The study emphasises that alloparenting is a core human adaptation, contradicting ‘intensive mothering’ narratives which emphasise that mothers should use their maternal instincts to manage childcare alone. Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel write that ‘such narratives can lead to maternal exhaustion and have dangerous consequences’.

Care-giving ratios

The study points out that communal living in hunter-gatherer societies results in a very high ratio of available caregivers to infants/toddlers, which can even exceed 10:1.

This contrasts starkly with the nuclear family unit, and even more so with nursery settings, in developed countries. According to the UK’s Department of Education regulations, nurseries require ratios of 1 carer to 3 children aged under 2 years, or 1 carer to 4 children aged 2-3.

Dr Chaudhary said: “Almost all day, hunter-gatherer infants and toddlers have a capable caregiver within a couple of metres of them. From the infant’s perspective, that proximity and responsiveness, is very different from what is experienced in many nursery settings in the UK.”

“If that ratio is stretched even thinner, we need to consider the possibility that this could have impacts on children's wellbeing.”

Children providing care and mixed-age active learning

In hunter-gatherer societies, children play a significantly bigger role in providing care to infants and toddlers than is the case in developed countries. In some communities they begin providing some childcare from the age of four and are capable of sensitive caregiving; and it is common to see older, but still pre-adolescent children looking after infants.

By contrast, the NSPCC in the UK recommends that when leaving pre-adolescent children at home, babysitters should be in their late teens at least.

Dr Chaudhary said: “In developed countries, children are busy with schooling and may have less opportunity to develop caregiving competence. However, we should at least explore the possibility that older siblings could play a greater role in supporting their parents, which might also enhance their own social development.”

The study also points out that instructive teaching is rare in hunter-gatherer societies and that infants primarily learn via observation and imitation. From around the age of two, hunter-gatherer children spend large portions of the day in mixed-age (2-16) ‘playgroups’ without adult supervision. There, they learn from one another, acquiring skills and knowledge collaboratively via highly active play practice and exploration.

Learning and play are two sides of the same coin, which contrasts with the lesson-time / play-time dichotomy of schooling in the UK and other developed countries.

Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel note that “Classroom schooling is often at odds with the modes of learning typical of human evolutionary history.” The study acknowledges that children living in hunter-gatherer societies live in very different environments and circumstances than those in developed countries:

“Foraging skills are very different to those required to make a living in market-economies, and classroom teaching is certainly necessary to learn the latter. But children may possess certain psychological learning adaptations that can be practically harnessed in some aspects of their schooling. When peer and active learning can be incorporated, they have been shown to improve motivation and performance, and reduce stress.” The authors also highlight that physical activity interventions have been shown to aid performance among students diagnosed with ADHD. 

Further research

The study calls for more research into children’s mental health in hunter-gatherer societies to test whether the hypothesised evolutionary mismatches actually exist. If they do, such insights could then be used to direct experimental intervention trials in developed countries.

Working with a team from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Dr Chaudhary and Dr Swanepoel hope that greater collaboration between evolutionary anthropologists and child psychiatrists/psychologists can help to advance our understanding of the conditions that children need to thrive.

Reference

N. Chaudhary & A. Swanepoel, ‘What Can We Learn from Hunter-Gatherers about Children’s Mental Health? An Evolutionary Perspective’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2023). DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.13773

Hunter-gatherers can help us understand the conditions that children may be psychologically adapted to because we lived as hunter-gatherers for 95% of our evolutionary history. Paying greater attention to hunter-gatherer childhoods may help economically developed countries improve education and wellbeing.

Parents now have much less childcare support from their familial and social networks than would likely have been the case during most of our evolutionary historyNikhil ChaudharyImage courtesy of Nikhil ChaudharyBaYaka camp in Congo. Image courtesy of Nikhil Chaudhary

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

The spears were taken by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770 from Kamay (Botany Bay) at the time of the first contact between the crew of the HMB Endeavour and the Aboriginal people of eastern Australia.

Trinity College has agreed to permanently return the four spears to the La Perouse Aboriginal community. The College is now approaching the UK’s Charity Commission to obtain approval for this transfer of legal title.

James Cook recorded that 40 spears were taken from the camps of Aboriginal people living at Botany Bay in April 1770. 

Lord Sandwich of the British Admiralty presented the four spears to Trinity College soon after James Cook returned to England and they have been part of the collection since 1771.  Since 1914 the four spears have been cared for by the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA). The four spears are all that remain of the original 40 spears collected. 

Trinity College’s decision follows the establishment of a respectful and robust relationship over the last decade between the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Aboriginal community at La Perouse. Discussions included representatives of the local Gweagal people - the Aboriginal group from whom the spears were taken - the broader Dharawal Nation and leading community organisations, including the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council and the Gujaga Foundation. 

The relationship between Cambridge and La Perouse will continue through collaborative research projects and community visits, once the spears have been returned. 

The La Perouse community is currently lending contemporary spears made by Senior Gweagal Clan leader Rodney Mason to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to show how traditional knowledge has been passed down, while adapting to new technologies.

The decision by Trinity College to return the spears followed a formal repatriation request in December 2022, from the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council and the Gujaga Foundation.

In 2015 and again in 2020, some of the spears were returned temporarily to Australia, for the first time since they were taken, and displayed by the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, as part of two exhibitions exploring frontier encounters.

The spears will be permanently repatriated with the assistance of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).

La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council chairperson, Noeleen Timbery said the spears would be preserved for future generations.

“We are proud to have worked with Cambridge’s Trinity College and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to transfer the ownership of these enormously significant artefacts to the La Perouse Aboriginal community. They are an important connection to our past, our traditions and cultural practices, and to our ancestors. With assistance from the National Museum of Australia and AIATSIS we will ensure these objects are preserved for our future generations and for all Australians. 

"Our Elders have worked for many years to see their ownership transferred to the traditional owners of Botany Bay. Many of the families within the La Perouse Aboriginal community are descended from those who were present during the eight days the Endeavour was anchored in Kamay in 1770,” said Ms Timbery.

Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, said he was honoured to have worked with the Kamay community to repatriate the spears.

“It has been immensely rewarding to work with the La Perouse community to research these artefacts and we look forward to extending the partnership into the future,” said Professor Thomas.

"The spears are exceptionally significant. They are the first artefacts collected by any European from any part of Australia, that remain extant and documented. They reflect the beginnings of a history of misunderstanding and conflict. Their significance will be powerfully enhanced through return to the country."

Dame Sally Davies, Master of Trinity College, welcomed the decision to return the spears.

“Trinity is committed to better understanding the College’s history, and to addressing the complex legacies of the British empire, not least in our collections,” said Professor Davies.

“The College’s interaction with the La Perouse Aboriginal community, the University of Cambridge and National Museum Australia regarding the return of artefacts to the people from whom they were taken has been a respectful and rewarding process. 

“We believe that this is the right decision and I would like to acknowledge and thank all those involved."

Dharawal Elder, Dr Shayne Williams said: “These spears are of immeasurable value as powerful, tangible connections between our forebears and ourselves. I want to acknowledge the respectfulness of Trinity College in returning these spears back to our community. In caring for the spears for over 252 years, Trinity College has ensured that these priceless artefacts can now be utilised for cultural education by the Aboriginal community into the future.”
 

Four Australian Aboriginal spears – cared for by Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – are to be repatriated after Trinity College agreed to permanently return them to the country.

It has been immensely rewarding to work with the La Perouse community to research these artefacts and we look forward to extending the partnership into the future.Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Working a four-day week boosts employee wellbeing while preserving productivity, according to research on a major six-month trial in the UK.  

Elif Yumru, Mehmet Dogar and Zeynep Olgun, who are all History PhD students from Turkey, have created the bursary to collect donations, and show solidarity with those whose lives have been shattered by the disaster. More than 40,000 people have died in Turkey and Syria and hundreds of thousands have been left homeless.

Elif, who is studying at Newnham College, used to live in Adana, which is in the region affected by the earthquake. She said: “It’s devastating to see the place that you grew up in reduced to rubble. I have relatives who died there, so it’s been incredibly personal. Working on this project has been very helpful, it’s really helped keep us focused over the past week.” 

Fellow Newnham student Zeynep said being so far away had been incredibly difficult for the students, but working on the project had been “good for our souls”.

“Experiencing such a tragedy from a distance, away from your home country where people are suffering, is very hard,” she said. “There is a communal grief that we cannot experience while we’re not in Turkey, and we cannot physically help people straight away. We have responsibilities here too, but it’s been extremely hard to put together these two different realities.” 

In southern Turkey, the earthquake caused considerable damage to 18 universities located in some of the most affected cities: Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Gaziantep, Diyarbakır, Malatya, Osmaniye, Adana, Adıyaman, Urfa and Kilis. The Cambridge students say the impact of the disaster will be felt by students in Turkey for years, both psychologically, and because of dramatic financial difficulties from losing family members, homes and belongings. 

Mehmet, who is a student at Selwyn College, is from Malatya. He said: “There are lots of donations going to Turkey at the moment, and that’s great because the situation is very urgent. But at the same time we know that, unfortunately, in perhaps a few months’ time, the international media attention will not be there. So we wanted to create a long-term initiative, because there are students who are going to need help for years.”

To directly identify students affected by the earthquake in Turkey, the students are collaborating with the Turkish Education Foundation UK (TEV UK), an independent charity established in the UK to help students from Turkey to access equal opportunities in education.

Professor Yael Navaro, from the University’s Department of Social Anthropology, who is from Istanbul, is supporting the new bursary fund. 

“People are dealing with horrible, apocalyptic situations of having to look for loved ones in the rubble,” she said. “We’re very much in touch with people out there, and we know what kind of help is needed. That’s why I’m so happy to support this project, working with the Turkish Educational Foundation which has the ability to reach university students who are actually in need.”

Donations to the fund will be transferred directly to TEV UK to be distributed in Turkey. 

For more information, and to donate, visit: Educational Fund Cambridge TEV-UK by Elif Yumru, Mehmet Dogar, Zeynep Olgun is fundraising for Turkish Education Foundation UK (justgiving.com)
 

Cambridge students have launched a bursary fund to help university students in Turkey affected by the devastating earthquake and its aftermath.

Experiencing such a tragedy from a distance, away from your home country where people are suffering, is very hard.Newnham PhD student Zeynep OlgunFrom left, Zeynep Olgun, Elif Yumru, and Mehmet Dogar, who are all History PhD students from Turkey

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

In a newly-published analysis, literature specialists examined the phenomenon of internet memes about Jane Austen and her fictional creations, in particular those from Pride and Prejudice and, above all, Mr Darcy.

Austen’s work is ‘memed’ – turned into bite-sized, ironic snippets of online content – more than almost any other author of classic fiction. Darcy alone features in hundreds of memes on social platforms like Pinterest and Tumblr, most of which draw on two famous portrayals: by Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC series of Pride and Prejudice and Matthew MacFadyen in the 2005 film.

Moments from both are relentlessly recycled by online content creators, the study observes. One example, clipped from Firth’s famous ‘lake scene’, claims: “A truth universally acknowledged: you either love Colin Firth as Mr Darcy, or you’re wrong”. Another repurposes a well-known meme template of Wolverine, from the Marvel X-Men comics, to show the muscular superhero pining over MacFadyen’s famous ‘hand-flex’ – which is sometimes regarded as the steamiest scene in cinema.

The study suggests Austen has become a social media phenomenon for two main reasons. One is that her books effectively contained memes-in-waiting before the concept existed. The other is that younger generations are reappraising traditional ideas about masculinity in the wake of high-profile sexual abuse cases, such as those highlighted by the #MeToo movement. Darcy, the authors of the analysis argue, has become emblematic of an alternative ‘ideal man’: a strong, yet sensitive, reformed hero who learns to control his emotions to positive ends.

The idea for the study came from two Greek scholars – Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) and Maria Vara (Athens School of Fine Arts) who had previously contributed to a book, The Reception of Jane Austen in Europe and continued to follow trends in how her novels are consumed by modern audiences. Georgios Chatziavgerinos, a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, who is researching representations of masculinity in media, joined the study after inundating his two co-authors with the latest Austen memes on social platforms.

 “Lots of authors are memed, but Austen memes have become a cult of their own,” Chatziavgerinos said. “A whole generation of young adults have grown up in a digital world where they use this sort of content to bond over shared values. Among classic authors, Austen is probably second only to Shakespeare in terms of how much this happens with her work. We wanted to understand why.”

As other researchers have explained, memes often enable fans of a particular artist or genre to discuss and satirise contemporary life through the prism of fandom. The study argues that the big themes in Austen novels – such as love, marriage, codes of behaviour, and private desire – provide ideal material through which younger audiences can discuss ideas about masculinity and femininity, sexual consent and non-conformity.

At one level, this is nothing new. Darcy’s brooding ‘alternative masculinity’, and the way he is motivated by his love for Elizabeth Bennett to become a better version of himself, has long provoked the sort of fan-worship that, for example, prompted ‘Darcymania’ around Firth in the 1990s.

The quantity of memes alluding to Darcy’s complexity, inner struggles and vulnerabilities has spiked in recent years, however. MacFadyen’s celebrated, electrified hand-flex after meeting Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Bennett for the first time in the 2005 movie, for example, now has its own dedicated blog on Tumblr. Fans often contest which of Firth and MacFadyen was better: one post by the Jane Austen Centre, accompanied by the caption, “He may be Darcy… but I was Darcy Firth”, provoked thousands of responses on Facebook.

The study’s authors suggest that Darcy’s hidden depths have acquired new meaning since #MeToo exposed the extent to which women experience harassment and sexual assault, especially from men in positions of power. “It’s no coincidence these memes skyrocketed after #MeToo,” Chatziavgerinos said. “Darcy, who balances conventional male qualities with sensitivity and respect for women, is in many ways the perfect antidote to the male behaviour that legitimately prompted such outcry.”

More generally, the study suggests that Jane Austen is highly memeable because she was doing something very similar in her books to what memes do today. “Memes are cultural replicators that give audiences mini-bursts of irony,” Kitsi-Mitakou said. “Austen’s writing foreshadows this because she often recontextualised other work to tell new truths about society.”

A good example is Northanger Abbey’s parody of Gothic novels, which were wildly popular in Austen’s lifetime. Austen sent up these books’ penchant for dark and stormy nights and damsels in distress, and in particular the social stereotypes they encouraged.

Some scenes in the book were absorbed by Regency audiences much as memes might be now, the study argues. One moment in which the heroine, Catherine Tilney, opens a suspicious chest she expects to be full of secrets, only to find an old laundry list, has itself become the basis of a popular meme about frustrated expectations.

“Northanger Abbey hovers between authenticity and fakeness much as Austen memes do,” Vara said. “There’s the same playful fakery, the same slightly ironic nostalgia.”

The study’s authors suggest that, like the TV and film adaptations before them, Austen memes are “seducing” a new generation of “non-Janeites” into her world through a new medium.

“Obviously I’d urge everyone to read the books, but what’s interesting is that often you need to have done so in order to really understand these memes,” Chatziavgerinos said. “Memes are now becoming one of the main ways in which younger audiences discover Jane Austen. They are breathing new life into her work and further cementing her immortality as a writer.”

The study is published in the journal Humanities.

Know about the Darcy hand-flex? Remember that lake scene with Colin Firth? For 200 years, audiences have been swooning over different portrayals of Mr Darcy, Jane Austen’s iconic male hero. Now, he and Austen’s work in general are experiencing yet another rebirth: this time as the ‘meme idols’ of ‘digitally native’ millennials and Generation Z.

Lots of authors are memed, but Austen memes have become a cult of their ownGeorgios Chatziavgerinos Mr. Darcy Holds Elizabeth's Hand - Pride & Prejudice | RomComs Pickering & GreatbatchEngraving of scene from Pride and Prejudice

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

YesLicence type: Public Domain

Insulating the lofts and cavity walls of existing UK housing stock only reduces gas consumption for the first year or two, with all energy savings vanishing by the fourth year after a retrofit, according to research from policy experts at the University of Cambridge.

The latest study is the first to track in detail household gas use across England and Wales for at least five years both before and after insulation installation.

Researchers analysed gas consumption patterns of more than 55,000 dwellings over twelve years (2005-2017), and found that cavity wall insulation led to an average 7% drop in gas during the first year. This shrank to 2.7% in the second, and by the fourth year, any energy savings were negligible.   

Loft insulation was half as effective as cavity wall, with an initial fall in gas consumption of around 4% on average, dropping to 1.8% after one year and becoming insignificant by the second year. For households with conservatories*, any gains in energy efficiency disappeared after the first year.  

The findings suggests that when it comes to home insulation there may be a significant “rebound effect”: any savings through energy efficiency get cancelled out by a steady increase in energy use.**

The UK Treasury recently announced some £6 billion in funding to reduce the energy consumption of buildings and industry by 15% over the next eight years, with a major focus on insulation retrofits across the residential sector. 

Researchers behind the study, published in the journal Energy Economics, say it is extremely difficult to identify specific causes of the “rebound effect” they found, but behaviours such as turning up the heating, opening windows in stuffy rooms or building extensions may all contribute.

They argue that good insulation is vital, but any drive to insulate UK homes should be combined with investment in heat pump installation and campaigns to encourage behaviour change if 2030 targets are to be met.   

To capture the overall effect of insulating homes, the researchers accounted for various factors, including the age and size of buildings, the weather and gas prices.

However, they did find that gas price influenced energy use – so the soaring cost of gas may mean greater energy reductions from insulation now than during the study period. The research also found household gas consumption fluctuated less after both loft and cavity wall insulation.     

“The recent spotlight on increasing the energy efficiency in UK buildings is both welcome and long overdue, and there are very real benefits to households from good insulation, not least in terms of health and comfort,” said study co-author Prof Laura Diaz Anadon, Director of the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance.

“However, home insulation alone is not a magic bullet. High gas prices will reduce the rebound effect in the short term, as homeowners have the need to keep costs down at the front of their minds. In the long term, simply funding more of the same insulation roll-out to meet the UK’s carbon reduction and energy security targets may not move the dial as much as is hoped.”

Anadon and her Cambridge co-author Dr Cristina Penasco say that insulating old and draughty housing across the UK is a vital step, but argue that not encouraging homeowners to “fully degasify heating” while going through the disruption of a retrofit is a missed opportunity.

Heat pumps, which extract warmth from outside to heat internal radiators, are highly efficient and negate the need for gas boilers. Recent research suggests the UK lags behind many other European countries on heat pump sales, and the UK Committee on Climate Change has also highlighted the need to speed up heat pump deployment.

“When trying to get middle income households to conduct energy renovations, as the government are currently doing, it makes sense to further encourage heat pump installation at the same time, said Penasco, the study’s first author from Cambridge’s Department of Politics and International Studies.

“This could be through incentives such as more generous and focused grant schemes, as well as obligations for boiler manufacturers and additional investments in skills for installers.”

“We found that energy efficiency retrofits are often combined with home improvements that actually increase consumption, such as extensions.”*** Scotland currently offers grants and interest free loans for heat pumps, while the rest of the UK has reduced VAT in the form of a tax rebate.

Residential housing accounted for almost a third (29.5%) of the UK’s total energy consumption in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency. In the UK, 85% of households use gas as their main heating source. 

The study used data collected by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, and compared energy use in individual households before and after insulation, as well as comparing households that did have efficiency renovations with those that did not.

Researchers found that, compared to wealthier areas, households in more deprived areas had half the reductions in gas use: an average of 3% during the first and second year after insulation. Neighbourhoods where deprivation was highest had the lowest reduction in gas consumption.

“Households in more deprived areas often have to limit energy use, so any savings created by home insulation can quickly get redirected into keeping a house warmer for longer,” said Penasco

“This is a good outcome if policies are aimed at reducing fuel poverty in low-income households, but will not help with the UK’s emissions reductions targets or reliance on gas.” In fact, when it came to household income, those in the bottom 20% increased gas consumption straight after insulation.  

“National caps on gas prices will not incentivise people to conserve energy,” said Penasco, who argues that energy reduction targets could be set for individual households, and associated with waivers on energy bills in the long run, particularly for low income households.

Added Anadon: “People do not deliberately squander energy savings. There is a need for education to lessen the rebound effect we have documented. Media appearances by ministers to discuss flow temperatures of boilers are positive signs that parts of the government are starting to think about this.”

 

*Conservatories are one of the most popular home improvements in the UK. Data from 2011 suggests that almost 20% of households in England had some form of conservatory, and 80% of those had some form of heating.

** The “rebound effect” is a fundamental concept in economics, and was first identified by William Jevons in 1865, when he observed that more efficient steam engines increased rather than reduced coal use, as engines were put into more widespread use.  

*** Previous research suggests that extensions in the UK increase household energy consumption by 16% on average.   

First study to look at long-term effect of insulation finds fall in gas consumption per household was small, with all energy savings disappearing by the fourth year after a retrofit.

We found that energy efficiency retrofits are often combined with home improvements that actually increase consumption, such as extensionsCristina Penasco Getty imagesMan installing loft insulation

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Economist, Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta receives an elevated knighthood. Sir Partha, the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics, is made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire for services to economics and the natural environment.

Another economist, Dr Graham Gudgin, of the Centre for Business Research, is awarded a CBE for services to economic development in Northern Ireland. He said: "I am delighted to receive this honour in recognition of my time in Belfast running the Northern Ireland Economic Research Centre, as Special Advisor to First Minister, David Trimble, and working with Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, on tax reform for Northern Ireland. It was an honour to be able to use my experience as a member of the Cambridge Economic Policy Group to advance economic ideas and practice in Northern Ireland."

Professor Krishna Chatterjee, Professor of Endocrinology at the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, is also awarded a CBE for services to people with endocrine disorders. He said: “I am delighted that my contributions to endocrine disorders have been honoured in this way. This also represents the efforts of many scientists and clinical colleagues in Cambridge, and internationally, with whom I have worked over the years. Together with the patients participating in our research, we strive to advance knowledge and outcomes in rare hormone disorders."

An MBE is awarded to Elizabeth Blane, a laboratory manager for services to pathogen genome sequencing, and Natural Sciences undergraduate, Dara McAnulty, receives the British Empire Medal for services to nature and the autistic community in his native Northern Ireland. At 18, Dara, a student at Queens' College, is the youngest person to feature in this year's list. His 'Diary of a Young Naturalist' won the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Nature Conservation.

The University's Acting Vice-Chancellor, Dr Anthony Freeling, congratulated those being honoured: "How wonderful to see people so closely linked to the Collegiate University being recognised in the New Year Honours list. It’s gratifying to see dedicated service acknowledged and rewarded in this way. My warmest congratulations to those colleagues and friends of the University who have been honoured for their commitment and their achievements." 

 

 

A number of academics, staff and an undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge feature in this year's New Year Honours List, the first of the reign of King Charles III. 

It's gratifying to see dedicated service acknowledged and rewarded in this wayDr Anthony Freeling Senate House

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Philosophers seeking to answer questions around inequality in household labour and the invisibility of women’s work in the home have proposed a new theory – that men and women are trained by society to see different possibilities for action in the same domestic environment. 

They say a view called “affordance theory” – that we experience objects and situations as having actions implicitly attached – underwrites the age-old gender disparity when it comes to the myriad mundane tasks of daily home maintenance.

For example, women may look at a surface and see an implied action – ‘to be wiped’ – whereas men may just observe a crumb-covered countertop.    

The philosophers believe these deep-seated gender divides in domestic perception can be altered through societal interventions such as extended paternal leave, which will encourage men to build up mental associations for household tasks.

Writing in the journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, they argue that available data – particularly data gathered during the pandemic – suggest two questions require explanation. 

One is “disparity”: despite economic and cultural gains, why do women continue to shoulder the vast majority of housework and childcare? The other is “invisibility”: why do so many men believe domestic work to be more equally distributed than in fact it is?

“Many point to the performance of traditional gender roles, along with various economic factors such as women taking flexible work for childcare reasons,” said Dr Tom McClelland, from Cambridge University’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

“Yet the fact that stark inequalities in domestic tasks persisted during the pandemic, when most couples were trapped inside, and that many men continued to be oblivious of this imbalance, means this is not the full story.”

McClelland and co-author Prof Paulina Sliwa argue that unequal divisions of labour in the home – and the inability of men to identify said labour – is best explained through the psychological notion of “affordances”: the idea that we perceive things as inviting or “affording” particular actions.

“This is not just looking at the shape and size of a tree and then surmising you can climb it, but actually seeing a particular tree as climbable, or seeing a cup as drink-from-able,” said Sliwa, recently of Cambridge’s philosophy faculty and now at the University of Vienna. 

“Neuroscience has shown that perceiving an affordance can trigger neural processes preparing you for physical action. This can range from a slight urge to overwhelming compulsion, but it often takes mental effort not to act on an affordance.”

There are dramatic differences in “affordance perception” between individuals. One person sees a tree as climbable where another does not. Objects offer a vast array of affordances – one could see a spatula as an egg-frying tool or a rhythmic instrument – and a spectrum of sensitivity towards them. 

“If we apply affordance perception to the domestic environment and assume it is gendered, it goes a long way to answering both questions of disparity and invisibility,” said McClelland.

According to the philosophers, when a woman enters a kitchen she is more likely to perceive the “affordances” for particular domestic tasks – she sees the dishes as ‘to be washed’ or a fridge as ‘to be stocked’.

A man may simply observe dishes in a sink, or a half-empty fridge, but without perceiving the affordance or experiencing the corresponding mental “tug”. Over time, these little differences add up to significant disparities in who does what.  

“Affordances pull on your attention,” said Sliwa. “Tasks may irritate the perceiver until done, or distract them from other plans. If resisted, it can create a felt tension.”

“This puts women in a catch-22 situation: either inequality of labour or inequality of cognitive load.”

This gender-based split in affordance perception could have a number of root causes, say philosophers. Social cues encourage actions in certain environments, often given by adults when we are very young children. Our visual systems update based on what we encounter most frequently.

“Social norms shape the affordances we perceive, so it would be surprising if gender norms do not do the same,” said McClelland.

“Some skills are explicitly gendered, such cleaning or grooming, and girls are expected to do more domestic chores than boys. This trains their ways of seeing the domestic environment, to see a counter as ‘to be wiped’.”

The “gendered affordance perception hypothesis” is not about absolving men say Sliwa and McClelland. Despite a deficit in affordance perception in the home, a man can easily notice what needs doing by thinking rather than seeing. Nor should sensitivity to domestic affordances in women be equated with natural affinity for housework.

“We can change how we perceive the world through continued conscious effort and habit cultivation,” said McClelland. “Men should be encouraged to resist gendered norms by improving their sensitivity to domestic task affordances." 

“A man might adopt a resolution to sweep for crumbs every time he waits for the kettle to boil, for example. Not only would this help them to do the tasks they don't see, it would gradually retrain their perception so they start to see the affordance in the future.”

Collective efforts to change social norms require policy-level interventions, argue the philosophers. For example, shared parental leave gives fathers the opportunity to become more sensitive to caring-task affordances.

Added Sliwa: “Our focus has been on physical actions such as sweeping or wiping, but gendered affordance perceptions could also apply to mental actions such as scheduling and remembering.”

By adding a gender dimension to the theory of “affordance perception” and applying it to the home, a new hypothesis may help answer questions of why women still shoulder most housework, and why men never seem to notice.

Men should be encouraged to resist gendered norms by improving their sensitivity to domestic task affordancesTom McClellandGetty imagesWiping down the countertop

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Hungary has just experienced its driest summer since meteorological measurements began, devastating the country’s usually productive farmland. Archaeologists now suggest that similar conditions in the 5th century may have encouraged animal herders to become raiders, with devastating consequences for the Roman empire.

The study, published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, argues that extreme drought spells from the 430s – 450s CE disrupted ways of life in the Danube frontier provinces of the eastern Roman empire, forcing Hunnic peoples to adopt new strategies to ‘buffer against severe economic challenges’.

The authors, Associate Professor Susanne Hakenbeck from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology and Professor Ulf Büntgen from the University’s Department of Geography, came to their conclusions after assessing a new tree ring-based hydroclimate reconstruction, as well as archaeological and historical evidence.

The Hunnic incursions into eastern and central Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries CE have long been viewed as the initial crisis that triggered the so-called ‘Great Migrations’ of ‘Barbarian Tribes’, leading to the fall of the Roman empire. But where the Huns came from and what their impact on the late Roman provinces actually was unclear.

New climate data reconstructed from tree rings by Prof Büntgen and colleagues provides information about yearly changes in climate over the last 2000 years. It shows that Hungary experienced episodes of unusually dry summers in the 4th and 5th centuries. Hakenbeck and Büntgen point out that climatic fluctuations, in particular drought spells from 420 to 450 CE, would have reduced crop yields and pasture for animals beyond the floodplains of the Danube and Tisza.

Büntgen said: “Tree ring data gives us an amazing opportunity to link climatic conditions to human activity on a year-by-year basis. We found that periods of drought recorded in biochemical signals in tree-rings coincided with an intensification of raiding activity in the region.”

Recent isotopic analysis of skeletons from the region, including by Dr Hakenbeck, suggests that Hunnic peoples responded to climate stress by migrating and by mixing agricultural and pastoral diets.

Hakenbeck said: “If resource scarcity became too extreme, settled populations may have been forced to move, diversify their subsistence practices and switch between farming and mobile animal herding. These could have been important insurance strategies during a climatic downturn.”

But the study also argues that some Hunnic peoples dramatically changed their social and political organization to become violent raiders.

From herders to raiders

Hunnic attacks on the Roman frontier intensified after Attila came to power in the late 430s. The Huns increasingly demanded gold payments and eventually a strip of Roman territory along the Danube. In 451 CE, the Huns invaded Gaul and a year later they invaded northern Italy.

Traditionally, the Huns have been cast as violent barbarians driven by an “infinite thirst for gold”. But, as this study points out, the historical sources documenting these events were primary written by elite Romans who had little direct experience of the peoples and events they described.

“Historical sources tell us that Roman and Hun diplomacy was extremely complex,” Dr Hakenbeck said. “Initially it involved mutually beneficial arrangements, resulting in Hun elites gaining access to vast amounts of gold. This system of collaboration broke down in the 440s, leading to regular raids of Roman lands and increasing demands for gold.”

The study argues that if current dating of events is correct, the most devastating Hunnic incursions of 447, 451 and 452 CE coincided with extremely dry summers in the Carpathian Basin.

Hakenbeck said: “Climate-induced economic disruption may have required Attila and others of high rank to extract gold from the Roman provinces to keep war bands and maintain inter-elite loyalties. Former horse-riding animal herders appear to have become raiders.”

Historical sources describe the Huns at this time as a highly stratified group with a military organization that was difficult to counter, even for the Roman armies.

The study suggests that one reason why the Huns attacked the provinces of Thrace and Illyricum in 422, 442, and 447 CE was to acquire food and livestock, rather than gold, but accepts that concrete evidence is needed to confirm this. The authors also suggest that Attila demanded a strip of land ‘five days’ journey wide’ along the Danube because this could have offered better grazing in a time of drought.

“Climate alters what environments can provide and this can lead people to make decisions that affect their economy, and their social and political organization," Hakenbeck said. "Such decisions are not straightforwardly rational, nor are their consequences necessarily successful in the long term.”

“This example from history shows that people respond to climate stress in complex and unpredictable ways, and that short-term solutions can have negative consequences in the long term.”

By the 450s CE, just a few decades of their appearance in central Europe, the Huns had disappeared. Attila himself died in 453 CE.

 

Reference

S.E. Hakenbeck & U. Büntgen, ‘The role of drought during the Hunnic incursions into central-east Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries CE’, Journal of Roman Archaeology (2022). DOI: 10.1017/S1047759422000332

Hunnic peoples migrated westward across Eurasia, switched between farming and herding, and became violent raiders in response to severe drought in the Danube frontier provinces of the Roman empire, a new study argues.

People respond to climate stress in complex and unpredictable waysSusanne HakenbeckStefan LefnaerDevínska Kobyla Forest steppe in Slovakia

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

YesLicence type: Attribution-ShareAlike

School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic have “severely ruptured” the social and emotional development of some of the world’s poorest children, as well as their academic progress, new evidence shows.

In a study of over 2,000 primary school pupils in Ethiopia, researchers found that key aspects of children’s social and emotional development, such as their ability to make friends, not only stalled during the school closures, but probably deteriorated.

Children who, prior to the pandemic, felt confident talking to others or got on well with peers were less likely to do so by 2021. Those who were already disadvantaged educationally – girls, the very poorest, and those from rural areas – seem to have been particularly badly affected.

Both this research and a second, linked study of around 6,000 grade 1 and 4 primary school children, also found evidence of slowed academic progress. Children lost the equivalent of at least one third of an academic year in learning during lockdown – an estimate researchers describe as “conservative”. This appears to have widened an already significant attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and the rest, and there is some evidence that this may be linked to the drop in social skills.

Both studies were by academics from the University of Cambridge, UK and Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research in Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, said: “COVID is having a long-term impact on children everywhere, but especially in lower-income countries. Education aid and government funding must focus on supporting both the academic and socio-emotional recovery of the most disadvantaged children first.”

Professor Tassew Woldehanna, President of Addis Ababa University, said: “These  severe ruptures to children’s developmental and learning trajectories underline how much we need to think about the impact on social, and not just academic skills. Catch-up education must address the two together.”

Both studies used data from the Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) programme in Ethiopia to compare primary education before the pandemic, in the academic year 2018/19, with the situation in 2020/21.

In the first study, researchers compared the numeracy test scores of 2,700 Grade 4 pupils in June 2019 with their scores shortly after they returned to school, in January 2021. They also measured dropout rates. In addition, pupils completed the Children’s Self Report Social Skills scale, which asked how much they agreed or disagreed with statements such as “I feel confident talking to others”, “I make friends easily”, and “If I hurt someone, I say sorry”.

The second study measured relative progress during the pandemic using the numeracy scores of two separate cohorts of Grade 1 and Grade 4 pupils. The first of these cohorts was from the pre-pandemic year; the other from 2020/21.

The results suggest pupils made some academic progress during the closures, but at a slower than expected rate. The average foundational numeracy score of Grade 1 pupils in 2020/21 was 15 points behind the 2018/19 cohort; by the end of the year that gap had widened to 19 points. Similarly, Grade 4 students started 2020/21 10 points behind their predecessor cohort, and were 12 points adrift by the end. That difference amounted to roughly one third of a year’s progress. Similar patterns emerged from the study of children’s numeracy scores before and after the closures.

Poorer children, and those from rural backgrounds, consistently performed worse academically. Dropout rates revealed similar issues: of the 2,700 children assessed in 2019 and 2021, more than one in 10 (11.3%) dropped out of school during the closures. These were disproportionately girls, or lower-achieving pupils, who tended to be from less wealthy or rural families.

All pupils’ social skills declined during the closure period, regardless of gender or location. Fewer children agreed in 2021 with statements such as “Other people like me” or “I make friends easily”. The decline in positive responses differed by demographic, and was sharpest among those from rural settings. This may be because children from remote parts of the country experienced greater isolation during lockdown.

The most striking evidence of a rupture in socio-emotional development was the lack of a predictive association between the 2019 and 2021 results. Pupils who felt confident talking to others before the pandemic, for example, had often changed their minds two years later.

Researchers suggest that the negative impact on social and emotional development may be linked to the slowdown in academic attainment. Children who did better academically in 2021 tended to report stronger social skills. This association is not necessarily causal, but there is evidence that academic attainment improves children’s self-confidence and esteem, and that prosocial behaviours positively influence academic outcomes. It is therefore possible that during the school closures this potential reinforcement was reversed.

Both reports echo previous research which suggests that lower-income countries such as Ethiopia need to invest in targeted programmes for girls, those from rural backgrounds, and the very poorest, if they are to prevent these children from being left behind. Alongside in-school catch-up programmes, action may be required to support those who are out of school. Ghana’s successful Complementary Basic Education initiative provides one model.

In addition, the researchers urge education policy actors to integrate support for  social skills into both catch-up education and planning for future closures. “Social and emotional skills should be an explicit goal of the curriculum and other guidance,” Rose said. “Schools may also want to think about after-school clubs, safe spaces for girls, and ensuring that primary-age children stay with the same group of friends during the day. Initiatives like these will go some way towards rebuilding the prosocial skills the pandemic has eroded.”

Ruptured School Trajectories is published in the journal, Longitudinal and Life Course Studies. Learning Losses during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ethiopia, is available on the REAL Centre website.

Two interlinked studies, involving 8,000 primary pupils altogether, indicate children lost at least a third of a year in learning during lockdown.

Education aid and government funding must focus on supporting both the academic and socio-emotional recovery of the most disadvantaged children firstPauline RoseMustafacevcek via PixabayYoung children in Ethiopia

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

YesLicence type: Attribution