http://dspace.stir.ac.uk:80 The STORRE digital repository system captures, stores, indexes, preserves, and distributes digital research material. Tue, 13 Oct 2026 01:20:10 GMT 2026-10-13T01:20:10Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38387 Title: Beyond Material Disadvantage: Living Conditions, Immigrant optimism, Aspirations and Attainment among Immigrant and non-Immigrant Pupils in Scotland Author(s): Shapira, Marina Abstract: This article examines the living experiences, aspirations and attainment of immigrant and non-immigrant pupils in Scotland. Drawing on immigrant optimism theory, the study uses the Scottish subset of PISA 2022, which includes measures of young people’s aspirations and attainment, to explore the relative roles of family socio-economic background, housing circumstances, educational and cultural resources, family and school support, and student dispositions in shaping aspirations and attainment, with particular attention to first- and second-generation immigrant pupils. Based on ran-dom-effects regression modelling, the findings suggest that, despite less favourable material and housing circumstances, immigrant pupils in Scotland, especially first-generation pupils, have stronger educational and occupational aspirations than non-immigrant pupils, as well as mathematics performance that matches or surpasses that of non-immigrant pupils with comparable family characteristics. Family educa-tional and cultural resources, student dispositions and particular forms of school sup-port were associated with aspirations and/or attainment. First-generation pupils’ mathematics advantage is linked to dispositions such as perseverance and growth mindset, as well as to the higher occupational aspirations of this group. However, im-migrant pupils’ higher educational and occupational aspirations cannot be explained by family, individual or school characteristics: the regression results show that their aspirations remain higher than those of non-immigrant pupils even after these differ-ences are taken into account. The article therefore contributes to debates on immigrant optimism and segmented assimilation by showing that material disadvantage does not necessarily translate into lower aspirations or attainment. While socio-economic dep-rivation and constrained living conditions matter for immigrant children’s educational outcomes, these effects may be mediated and, in part, offset by educational and cultur-al resources, family engagement and school support, and learner dispositions. The study therefore highlights the importance of looking beyond material disadvantage alone in order to understand immigrant pupils’ aspirations and educational attain-ment. Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38387 2026-09-30T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38386 Title: Beyond the Team Talk: Half-Time as a Coaching Environment in Elite Women's Field Hockey Author(s): Wright, Jennifer; McDougall, Michael; Fullerton, Christopher Abstract: Half-time represents one of coaching’s most compressed and constrained environments. Beyond tactical instruction, coaches must make sense of an evolving match situation while working with players and support staff to shape the conditions for a coordinated second-half performance. Guided by a social-relational perspective, this qualitative study explored half-time experiences in an elite women’s national field hockey team. Data were generated through observations, interviews and focus groups with players and coaching staff. Reflexive thematic analysis was organised around four themes: Leading the Way, Inside the Room, Against the Clock, and From Reflection to Readiness. Findings suggest that effective half-time practice depends on recognising that coaches and players do not always experience or prioritise half-time in the same way. Reflecting on how half-time routines are structured may help establish shared expectations and better balance competing tactical, emotional and relational demands. More fundamentally, by framing half-time as a distinct coaching environment rather than vehicle for tactical instruction, this study encourages coaches to critically reflect on what half-time is intended to achieve and how its limited time can be used most effectively. Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38386 2026-06-08T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38385 Title: 'A Miner's Wife': Women Working-Class Poets and the Mining Industry Author(s): Blair, Kirstie Abstract: The article examines the contributions of women working-class poets connected to the mining industry. Topics include working-class literature, women's poetry, and mining communities, highlighting how female poets used verse to express the experiences, hardships, and perspectives of mining families, while demonstrating the often-overlooked literary voices of working-class women in the nineteenth century. Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38385 2026-07-10T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38384 Title: What Do AI Agents Actually Change? An Empirical Taxonomy of Mutation Patterns in Performance-Improving Pull Requests Anonymous Anonymous Institution Author(s): Dovhoshliubnyi, llia; Soroush, Nima; Sami, Ashkan; Brownlee, Alexander Abstract: AI coding agents are black boxes: we cannot inspect how they generate code, but we can inspect what they change. This distinction matters for search-based software engineering (SBSE), where techniques such as genetic improvement depend on mutation operators that reflect how code is actually transformed. Of the 33,596 agent PRs in the AIDev dataset, less than 400 target performance (fewer than 1%), making each successful case a valuable window into otherwise opaque agent behaviour. We classify 1,254 performance-relevant diff hunks from 216 of these PRs, spanning five agent systems, against the 18-category syntactic mutation taxonomy of Even-Mendoza et al. (2025) using an LLM-as-a-judge pipeline. Three categories dominate: name modification (36.9%), object creation (26.3%), and type change (22.6%), a profile strikingly different from prior genetic improvement corpora where no change accounted for 84%. Each agent commits to a distinctive mutation vocabulary, and each performance strategy activates a largely disjoint category subset. Agent identity and target strategy are therefore informative priors that narrow the effective SBSE operator space from 18 categories to a handful per context. Replication package: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/ssbse-challenge-2026-710C/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1893/38384 2026-07-10T00:00:00Z