No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis concerns itself with young women's (aged 14/15) discourses and practices of friendship at Hilltop, a large urban comprehensive school in the North of England. Young women's experiences of friendship are central to this thesis. This is reflected in the 'feminist research praxis' adopted, and the use of the following participatory research methods: multi-locational participant observation (curriculum classrooms, PSHE classroom, registration, corridors, dining hall, staff room, local 'hang out' areas), self-directed photography, and semi-structured group and individual interviews with young women. The use of participatory research methods when working with young women at school raises a number of ethical and moral dilemmas for the feminist researcher. These are discussed in-depth in chapter two, specifically in relation to a feminist 'politics of intervention'. Discourses of individuality and practices of (dis)identification (Skeggs, 1997) are central to understanding young women's complex and often contradictory constructions of friendship which serve to reproduce heterosexual and classed femininities. In all three empirical chapters relations of power are masked through practices of (dis )identification (Skeggs, 1997). Through the use of three case-studies chapter three focuses on young women's discourses of individuality and practices of (dis)identification. Young women's responses to 'heterosexual laddism' (Epstein and Johnson, 1998) in the 'sexuality education' classroom are discussed in chapter four. Finally, chapter five considers 'alternative' young women's discourses of 'distinctive individuality' (Muggleton, 2000) and spatial practices of (dis)identification. The material encountered in this thesis suggests that it is heterosexuality as masculinity and the 'male-in-the-head' (Holland et al, 1998) that benefits from the cultural suppression of young women's friendship through discourses of individuality and practices of (dis)identification.

This study examines the impact of new technologies (such as TV, video and videogames) on young Saudis' viewing interests. The study also contextualises the interplay among media, culture and identity, in a predominantly conservative country such as Saudi Arabia, which is regarded as the guardian of Islam. This is done through reflecting on the internal structure of Saudi Arabia in terms of the social, political, economic, cultural and media milieus. The study also engages, critically, with debates on the external factors of the globalisation processes, such as modernisation, dependency and development. Two methodologies are applied: firstly, a survey of 300 children, representing genders and social classes from the city of Jeddah, was carried out to explore the factors that influence the visual media materials' consumption of Saudi children, the sorts of gratifications obtained and the impact of media cultivation on the image children have of foreign, Arab and Saudi peoples. Secondly, interviews were conducted with top policy-makers in the media industry and socialisation agencies. This aimed to investigate the Saudi media for children, levels of activity, cultural imperialism and their impact on the Muslim Saudi child. The findings show that policy-makers have contrasting views regarding these issues. Also, their views are different and isolated from those of the children. The children in general display obvious disinterest in Saudi TV. They watch media materials mainly for entertainment and pleasure, which are of foreign and Arab origins. Socialisation backgrounds of genders and social classes are found to be significant in media viewing interests of children. Notably, females and elite class children show less interest in national media when compared to males and other classes. These findings have deep implications for the interplay of media, culture and identity in Saudi Arabia. Finally, some suggestions are offered for improving children's experiences with the media.

No description available.

The aim of my thesis is to contribute a greater understanding to the psychosocial study of emotion, by specifically developing a psychosocial approach to love and intimacy. I provide examples of how to define Psychosocial Studies and I discuss the intellectual challenges that this interdisciplinary approach raises. I also offer personal reflections on the dilemmas that this subject area and an academic thesis on love catalysed. I detail the deconstruction of romantic love in sociology, feminism, existentialism, Lacanian psychoanalysis and cultural theory. I refer to this as an 'impossibilist' paradigm of romantic love. I situate this deconstruction of love in the context of contemporary debates regarding the identity crises of late modernity. I compare this impossibilist paradigm of romantic love with a new conceptualisation of love and intimacy in sociology. I argue that sociology, Freudian and object relations psychoanalysis provide us with re-worked definitions of love, which deconstruct the narrative of romance, without declaring love to be impossible. I look at the similarities and differences between what I refer to as these possibilist discourses of love and intimacy. While both sociological and psychoanalytic discourses present possibilist views of love, I argue that object relations psychoanalysis is better able to acknowledge impossibilist views of love and intimacy. Nevertheless I show that sociology is an indispensable tool for critically questioning the ahistorical conceptualisation of intimacy found in object relations psychoanalysis. A discursive dialogue is created between the sociological, philosophical and psychoanalytic perspectives presented and their theories of love are applied to and, in some cases, interrogated by empirical material collected by means of a narrative method. To explore the relationship between discourses of love and changing social formations, I have used a methodological approach that combines existing modes of biographical research with new psychosocial modes of analysis. My work therefore provides an exemplification of a psychosocial approach in both theory and method, through the study of love and intimacy. My work specifically develops a psychosocial approach to biographical studies and uses insights from the psychoanalytic method of infant observation. I offer reflections on points of comparison and difference in psychoanalytic and sociological interpretive methods. At the same time the thesis contributes towards contemporary debates about the nature of modernity, by specifically focusing on conceptualisations of love and new cultural discourses of intimacy.

No description available.

This thesis seeks to reveal, to understand, and to outline some of the reliable schematics (Thomas & Baas, 1992/3) or narrative positions which currently shape the psychological climate of partnership love in Britain. Q methodology, a factor-analytic approach designed to facilitate the systematic study of subjective experience (Stephenson, 1953), is first reinterpreted in order to demonstrate its consonance with the discursive turn or second cognitive revolution in British psychology (Harre & Gillett, 1994), along lines prescribed by Bohm & Hiley's (1993) `Ontological' interpretation of the quantum theory. It is then employed in a series of studies tailored to our initial aim. The secular religion of partnership love -a love which demands that we valorise and celebrate the passionate feelings that love can induce, and which stresses the importance of finding a significant `Other' on the basis of these feelings - is identified by these studies, and is put forward, as the currently dominant construction of partnership love in Britain. Other revealed factors are shown to position themselves in relation to the `orthodox' narrative of the secular religion. Such a narrative, it is argued, attempts to make companionship reconcilable with the often incommensurate demands of individualism. As a result, love in our culture is increasingly shaped by capitalist (rather than charitable) principles, a development which compromises the institution of companionship. Divorce rates rise and the `glue' of our individualistic culture comes unstuck. The secular religion, we conclude, is a love which is directed primarily at the self and which duly demands personal gain, satisfaction, and growth as a first priority. The problems and implications of this are discussed in relation to the data.

No description available.