This book explores the problems involved in ‘touching’ children in an educational environment. It uses real-life examples taken from groundbreaking research into the mentality of today’s risk culture, and highlights a maddening state of affairs in which ordinary well-meaning professionals feel they cannot offer even very young children basic levels of comforting or affection.This fascinating and long-overdue book examines the ‘no-touch’ pandemic in early years settings, by use of e...

In a future many years following the collapse of the technical age and a return of many societies to the simple ways of the Middle Ages, Rosalind tells you the story as she lives her life between being a member of a community of women who follow the ways of the Earth Mother and the avid traveler seeing the world with her Father. From a rather precarious event as a young girl on her way to be married to learning the ways to heal and teach nature's ways she occasionally escapes to the high s...

In our increasingly risk-averse society, touch and touching behaviours between professionals and children have become a fraught issue. In sports coaching and physical education, touching young sports performers and participants has, in some contexts, come to be redefined as dubious and dangerous. Coaches find themselves operating in a framework of regulations and guidelines that create anxiety, for them and others, and for many volunteer (and sometimes professional) coaches, this fearful c...

In a future following the Climate Catastrophe that changed the Earth forever, a gang of marauders are terrorising the people on the Plains of Parlat. Nothing has been able to stop them until a local Wise Woman decides enough is enough and with the help of others sets about to be rid of them once and for all. Good natural magic and a bit of help from a surprising source finally solves the problem.

Some people believe that in order to achieve anything in life you have to work at it continually. However, many good things can happen by just sitting still quietly, doing nothing. Over a very long time we have been conditioned to believe that the only way to improve our quality of life is by working harder and putting more effort into doing more things. Surrendering to your inner self relinquishes the compulsive urges that drive us into constant thought. Without a relaxed mind we can neve...

Formal ethical review of research proposals is now almost the default requirement for all – staff and students – planning research under the auspices of colleges and universities in many parts of the world. With notable exceptions, the extant literature discussing educational research ethics takes a meta-ethical overview, is negatively critical about the ethics review process per se, or comes from America and focuses specifically on the workings of the Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) th...

The Anglophone world is gripped by a moral panic centred on child abuse in general and fear of the paedophile in particular. Evidence suggests an alarming rise in the number of false allegations of sexual abuse being made against teachers, and demonstrates that the fallout from being falsely accused is far-reaching and sometimes tragic. Many people in this position cannot sustain family relationships, have breakdowns, and are often unable to return to the classroom when their ordeal is ove...

This book focuses on sports coaching and sports teaching and how touching young sports participants has been redefined as dubious and dangerous. Coaches are constrained by a framework of regulations and guidelines which create anxiety, and many coaches now question the risks and benefits of their continuing involvement. The book includes some data from a recently completed ESRC project: (‘Hands-off’ sports coaching: the politics of touch) and builds on previous ESRC research (...

Iceland is a country where stories are as important as history. When Vikings settled the island, they brought their tales with them. Every rock, hot spring and waterfall seems to have its own story. Cruel man-eating trolls rub shoulders with beautiful elves, whose homes are hidden from mortal view. Vengeful ghosts envy the living, seeking to drag lost loves into their graves – or they may simply demand a pinch of your snuff. Some of the stories in this collection are class...

S. M. Stirling’s Novels of the Change are a “truly original combination of postapocalyptic sci-fi and military-oriented medieval fantasy”* about a future where mysterious Powers removed advanced technology, and humanity rebuilds society. However, this new world is not always a peaceful one....The spirit of troubadour Prince John, the brother of Crown Princess Órlaith, has fallen captive to the power of the Yellow Raja and his servant, the Pallid Mask. Prince John’s...

Two cultures. One man and one woman. One moment in time.Cultures collide when Okichi, a beautiful geisha, is sent to work for the American envoy in Japan. Age and pride meet youth and grace. How will she survive in a home where no one speaks her language, where she understands nothing and she must submit to a strange barbarian's will?

A lone hunter, Vilie, sets out to find the river of his dreams: to wrest from its sleeping waters a stone that will give him untold power. It is a dangerous quest, for not only must he overcome unquiet spirits, vengeful sorceresses and daemons of the forest, there are men armed with guns on his trail. Easterine Kire’s novel transports the reader to the remote mountains of Nagaland, a place alive with natural wonder and supernatural enchantment. As Vilie treks through the forest on th...