This thesis presents a sociological inquiry into the social construction of graduate employability in the Netherlands and Great Britain. The study cross-nationally compares how final-year students approach the graduate labour market within their national institutional context influences their understanding. In this, it aims to close the dichotomy between structure and agency, which has often remained intact in previous investigations into graduate employment and employability. By adopting a dual methodology, consisting of a micro analysis and a context analysis, the study aims to investigate subjective accounts as well as the macro structural circumstances of the students. The micro analysis consists of analysis of sixty semi-structured interviews with students from both countries. The context analysis examines the organisation of higher education and the labour market through reviewing relevant documents and statistics. The study reveals that graduate employability is differently constructed by students in each country. We can therefore not assume homogeneity in the way students construct employability. In different contexts students create distinct ways of making sense of the competition for graduate jobs. The study also reveals that graduate employability is mediated through institutional national differences in labour market and higher education. The views of the students are inherently intertwined with how labour market and higher education are organised. Structural conditions inform an intersubjective framework that students use to make sense of the competition for jobs. It is argued that macro-national contexts shape the way students collectively mediate and co-create a shared framework in which their views become meaningful.

This thesis is about the knowledge, power and discursive production of contemporary western femininities. It is concerned with the politically sedimented power-knowledge relations and socio-historical, discursive, material and embodied processes by which particular versions of femininity are brought into being. The thesis investigates the modes by which femininity is currently constituted and experienced through discursive and material practices that exalt femininity as fluid/flexible in a historical context where subjects are also 'supposed to be sustained by a stable centre, an ego capable of resilience' (Walkerdine, 2003, p. 241). Through a psycho-social analysis of twelve biographical accounts of professional women aged 32-45, the research utilises an inter disciplinary approach to explore the discourses and narratives through which this deep irony is lived for women in the present, examining the place of subjectification and subjectivity. These practices are examined in relation to their constitutive and regulatory power through which women's emotions-desires fantasies and fears of loss and risk are made intelligible 'as personal failures when all there is available to understand these is an individual psychological discourse' (Walkerdine, 2003, p. 243). The research builds on feminist psycho-social, post-structural and governmentality studies tracking the complex and dynamic interrelations 'across variable daily actions, fantasies and narrations', (Driver, 2005, p. 23) where the social, cultural and psychological are strongly entwined with each other. It is the lived experiences of women in their negotiation of this complex process of ongoing transformation that the research explores, asking how are women's subjectivities produced through the social spaces that have opened up for them in specific historical conditions and cultural and social locations.

This thesis examines the impact of the 1992 myotonic dystrophy gene discovery on families, clinicians, and a team of scientists who played a key role in the successful international research collaboration. The gene isolation resulted in a diagnostic test but not, as yet, treatment or cure. The scientific team, now dispersed, and families attending the myotonic dystrophy clinic were interviewed, and the myotonic dystrophy medical record archive was examined. Reflexive practice enabled the research strategy to adapt to emergent themes. A broad repertoire of qualitative methods was used to explore the data from these varied sources. Documentary traces in the archive captured research and service trajectories, from the grounding of scientific success in relationships between home, clinic and laboratory, to the contemporary management of myotonic dystrophy where bureaucracy and technology are visible but clinical expertise predominates. Through vivid recollections and use of narrative devices the scientists reconstructed a unique era in clinical genetic research. An emotional register, privileging relationships and the grounding of scientific advance in everyday laboratory work, distinguished their accounts. This language revealed subtle differences between narratives, where there was universal recognition of the importance of the discovery for a scientific career, but ambivalence regarding its personal meaning for some key actors. For families, gene discovery represented hope for future generations while personal meaning was located in the maintenance of valued roles of everyday life. The accounts narrated the challenges of adapting to an uncertain prognosis despite definitive diagnosis. Vocabularies of strength were at variance with physical weakness highlighting the significance of narrative analysis as both method and representation of meaning. Analysis of gene discovery revealed complex interpretations of meaning for the scientists, multiple representations of myotonic dystrophy across the data sources, and the gene test, rather than gene isolation, as a key turning point for families.

This Thesis examines the use of social values in human behaviour and social judgment and investigates the processes that underlie how values are used. Across 10 experiments, I examine aspects of social values that have been largely unaddressed by prior research. Chapter 1 highlights the importance of social values, reviews the previous research on the topic, and outlines three main issues that are the focus of the subsequent experimental chapters. Chapter 2 investigates whether people base their decisions on values or on value-irrelevant consequences the results reveal that situational factors influence whether or not social values are used to guide decision making (Experiments 1 - 3). Chapter 3 focuses on this use of values as guiding principles and specifically on how abstract trans-situational values bridge the gap to impact behaviour in specific contexts. The results show that this occurs through the instantiation of the value in the specific situation and not via the abstract value itself (Experiments 4 - 7). Chapter 4 examines the use of values in persuasion and specifically the impact of the relatedness of the values paired in co-value arguments the findings show that the motivational structure of values places plausibility constraints on which values can be paired in this way (Experiments 8 - 10). Finally, Chapter 5 reviews the contribution of the research presented in the Thesis to the field of human behaviour and decision-making and outlines potential directions for future research. Overall, the research emphasises the importance of social values and presents a new conceptualization of how values are used and applied in everyday life.

A Cultural Study of Asylum in the UK Under New Labour critically explores the meaning and significance of an 'asylum crisis' constructed within British public discourse since 1997. Drawing upon the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe and the work of other poststructuralist, deconstructionist and Cultural Studies theory, the research opens a range of questions about how the dominant hegemonic discourse on asylum has been articulated, using examples in the analysis drawn from across a number of discursive sites, focusing primarily upon examples drawn from the national news media, the rhetoric of mainstream national politicians and policy and other official documents. In the first three chapters the study seeks to explain how theory is important to understanding the role of asylum in contemporary culture and politics. Here, a genealogy of ideas concerning the 'othering' of migrants in the UK is developed, and in relation to asylum, an elucidation of some key concepts for discourse theory and Cultural Studies. The analytical approach of the study is constructed through a critical appraisal of Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory in relation to asylum as an object of analysis and via an engagement with the work other poststructuralist scholars. Case study chapters then examine how a dominant asylum discourse has been constructed in relation to particular 'crisis' issues, how these discourses have shifted and changed under New Labour, and the technologies of control through which asylum seekers are excluded from the mainstream, 'law abiding' citizenry. Through these are explored the conditions of possibility for the articulation of asylum as a threat to the security and well being of the British nation, and concomitantly for the rearticulation of liberal democratic values such as 'human rights' as a potential threat to national security.

Through a discourse analysis of several celebrity gossip texts, this thesis argues that the discourses within celebrity culture are highly &lsquo;classed&rsquo; and highlights that the little empirical research on female audiences of celebrity gossip magazines does pay significant attention to the category of class.&nbsp; Therefore, this research seeks to explore how young working class women not only negotiate and interact with the &lsquo;classed&rsquo; discourses of celebrity culture, but also the role these discourses play in young working class women&rsquo;s everyday lives and lived experiences.&nbsp; The empirical data demonstrates <italic> how</italic> young working class women negotiate the complex discourses that are at work in celebrity culture, particularly with regards to the construction of the self, the female body, fashion and beautification.&nbsp; Furthermore, through a feminist ethnographic framework, this thesis explores the place of celebrity discourses within the context of young female working class experience, and provides a valuable and much needed insight into the ways in which these discourses are at play in the subjectivities of young working class women.

In 1996 South Africa became the first country in the world that explicitly incorporated lesbian and gay rights within the Bill of Rights of the post-apartheid constitution. Since then the discussion and proclamation of sexual identities has increasingly emerged. This has brought not only the subject of rights but also the question of gender relations and cultural authenticity, as visible for example in the emerging populist notion of homosexuality as un-African, into the focus of the nation state's politics. The thesis examines the politics behind the claim homosexuality is un-African and its historical anchorage in the history of colonialism and apartheid. The thesis explores how colonialism and apartheid have historically shaped constructions of gender and sexuality and how these concepts are not only re-introduced by discourses of homosexuality as un-African but also through the post-apartheid constitution itself. As the interpretation of rights in relation to sexuality generally focuses on gay identities this thesis reflects on the effects of these discourses on non-normative modes of sexuality and intimacy. More specifically the thesis focuses on the interviews that I have conducted in Johannesburg on 'mummy-baby' relationships. By contextualizing these relationships in the historical and cultural framework of sexual cultures and cultures of intimacy this thesis argues that the South African history and cultures provided/provide a space which accommodates forms of female same-sex intimacy that are not necessarily linked to metropolitan sexual cultures. The thesis discusses the tensions between nonlesbian same-sex intimacy and metropolitan lesbianism and it explores the extent that these forms of intimacy are further marginalized by a post-apartheid constitution which reinforces a homosexual/heterosexual binarized identity. Therefore, the thesis questions the regulatory functions of identity and (Western) notions of sexual subjectivities and problematizes the practice of 'coming out' as always being a liberating moment. To do this the thesis pays attention to cultural and historical categories of sexualities, to normative and/or subversive forms of masculinities and femininities, and to social inclusion and exclusion on the basis of gender, sexuality and race. By doing so the thesis explores the suitability of queer theory in the South African context.

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This study explores the ordinary daily lives of siblings of autistic children in South Korea and draws on four theoretical perspectives: social psychological, young carers, the new sociology of childhood and cross-cultural. Building on knowledge of sibling’s of autistic and other disabled children in western context, I used techniques of visual ethnography to extend understanding of the everyday lives of children with autistic siblings. Nine children, aged between aged 7 and 15, in two South Korean cities were given cameras to make 'video diaries' and 'home movies' over a two week period. This was followed by reviewing sessions with the researcher to discuss the films and invitations to prepare further, age appropriate, visual representations of family life. Interviews were also held with nine mothers and two fathers to elicit their understandings of the expectations and experiences of the child participants. Despite the modernising effects of globalisation in South Korea, the values and normative expectations of Confucian familism still provided firm foundations for family life and family expectations. Reflected by limited support from the State or voluntary organisations, the children carried important responsibilities for their autistic siblings. Important insights into their ordinary daily lives included: i) 'sacrifice' as a key part of the fulfilment of filial obligation across the life span, ii) children conceptualized their relationships with their autistic siblings as 'same but different' from those of other children; iii) the children and their autistic siblings developed 'Jeong' (strong interpersonal ties) and 'Woori’ (togetherness) that are typical of sibling relationships in Korea, iv) high value was placed on 'harmonious family life' with significant implications for the siblings' daily lives, v) autism was integrated as part of everyday life despite experiences of stigmatising attitudes and vi) invisible vulnerabilities were reinforced by the strength of traditional expectations that discouraged consideration of die 'costs' of’ being a good sibling’. The voices and world views of the children in this study lead to the conclusion that Confucian familist values represent a source of strength as well as challenges for the siblings of autistic children in South Korea.

This study analyzes the composition and structure of the Jordanian bourgeoisie over the period 1967-1989. Both the study of the structure and composition of the social classes and their role in the political and social change are neglected topics when Jordan is concerned. On this basis, the main argument of this thesis is that the bourgeoisie is an important social class, whose study andanalysis can yield a better understanding of socio-economic structure and change inJordan. This study uses the Marxist paradigm as a theoretical framework to define the bourgeoisie as the social class that has the economic ownership of the means of production and appropriates the surplus value. Some Marxist theorems had to be modified to be operative in studying the bourgeoisie in particular and the class in general. This thesis adopts an empirical approach in studying the bourgeoisie. It first locates and defines the bourgeoisie members within the domain of the private sector, which is their objective context. It then analyzes their activities and investment strategies. This study analyzes the bourgeoisie into the possible fractions that come to exist according to their activities, investments and assets. It also examines the possibility of the existence of fractions in the domain of the bourgeoisie according to vertical dimensions such as religion or country of origin.