The traditional approach relating the study of the British to Argentina has been one of the economic relationship between two trading partners, Argentina and the United Kingdom. This work places that study in the context of a perspective focussing on ethnic group relations in a society whose population has grown through large-scale immigration. It seeks to show how the characteristics of the two societies and the role members of one played in another shaped the emergence of a British ethnic identity and its persistence there for many generations. Many studies of immigrant adaptation have concentrated upon entrance to First World settings with developed institutional frameworks for participation, moulded normatively by the influence of Anglo-Saxon charter groups. This study reverses these variables by considering the participation of Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in a developing Latin context. Ethnic relations studies, which have looked at British minorities overseas, have tended to concentrate on the postcolonial adjustments of mixed-blood Anglos in societies emancipated from past British rule. By contrast, this study focusses on a minority-group which has contributed up to five generations of Argentine-born residents to a country never colonized by Britain, long emancipated from Spanish rule, and in which the participation of Britons and their descendants, while wielding them substantial economic influence, has always been subordinated to the power of ruling Argentine groups. The consequences are seen in the development of a self-sufficient community of expatriates, and in the adjustments forced on its Anglo inheritors when nearly all British-born sojourners eventually left Argentina to return to Britain.

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This thesis addresses how Japanese university-educated mothers in a suburban context make the most of their lives. The chief focus is a group of women who have chosen not to pursue a career outside the home. The expansion of numbers of university-educated women in post-war Japan has not made a great impact on the pattern of women's labour force participation as a whole. The majority of university graduate women enter employment immediately after graduation, but once they leave the workplace, especially on child-birth, they tend not to return to work afterwards, while women from a lower educational background are more likely to do so after their children grow up. I attempt to show how women's and mothers' multiple roles in both the public and the domestic spheres, are related to an exclusion of university-educated mothers from working outside the home. Firstly, university-educated women have received contradictory messages from society. Although university education is regarded as a key to access a privileged social position and professional success, educators have not necessarily encouraged female students to pursue a long-term career. Rather, for women, they have stressed developing their 'special talent', i.e. motherhood. Moreover, the field of employment has not been in favour of hiring university graduate women. In many Japanese firms, university graduate men are placed on a managerial track and women are automatically classified in a group of assistant workers. University graduate women who pursue a managerial career are therefore in an anomalous position. Secondly, mothers are treated in the same way in society irrespective of educational attainments. University-educated mothers have less interest in working outside again, because they well know the fact that almost all the paid work available to mothers is so-called 'housewife's part-time work', which does not require any special skills or abilities. In addition, socialisation of compliant mothers is one of the main aims of community activities organised by local government. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that university-educated mothers in contemporary Japan are simply tied down to mothering duties at home. As the term 'professional housewife' shows, Japanese housewives were granted relatively high status as a manager of the household in the domestic sphere. However, university-educated mothers are not attracted to the status of 'perfect' housewife any more. Rather, they are expanding their field of activities into a public sphere named 'community society' through mothers' networks. They want to have something more meaningful to help them feel fulfilled than being simply engaged in mothering or unskilled labour. In the community, they take part in various activities, e.g. a mother-child group to change the world around them in a better way for children; or in a study group to broaden their horizons. Instead of full-time economic activities, they are seeking for alternative means for self­ development in the public sphere.

This thesis explores the implication of equality in debates about distributive justice. It is argued that equality articulates a particular mode of social relationship, namely that relationship which retains the equal moral worth of each member of a political community. One way to achieve this end is to arrange rules and procedure governing the distribution of goods and social relations in a way that ensures respect to each member of society. This particular mode of social relationship can be achieved without necessarily invoking strict equality in respect to the distribution of material goods. With respect to question of distributive justice, commitment to the ideal of social equality does not settle all distributive issues. Despite this, however, an appeal to social equality can help to clarify the tension between 'economic egalitarianism' and its critiques. An appeal to social equality demands the sufficiency approach to the distribution of material goods, and proposes unconditional basic income for all as a way to achieve it. This claim is supported by two additional arguments. First, complete achievement of equality of opportunity is undesirable because it undermines the 'legitimate differences' between persons. Second, it is argued that unconditional basic income for all provides citizens with a reasonable alternative to Rawls' 'fair division of responsibility'. This reasonable alternative, in turn, is necessary both to incur and to validate personal responsibility.

This thesis aims to achieve an understanding of the development of sexual selves and the impact that growing older has had on the sense of self of three older lesbians and three older gay men. The research project upon which it is based involved multiple in-depth interviews that were undertaken in a two year period from 2005. The stories that were told to me indicate that the older lesbians and gay men have been very clear about their sense of their sexual selves - they are lesbian and gay. Living their lives alongside the structures that are privileged by heteronormativity, they also constructed a clear sense of separation - they were not the same as heterosexuals and as such their very `being' became a site of resistance. As older people, their sense of self is much more complex as they articulate their understanding of what it means to be both old and lesbian or gay. Their narratives clearly indicate that as they engaged in a process of self-making and negotiated the tensions involved in constructing the self as `other' when they were younger so they are continuing these processes in later life. In seeking to understand the stories about constructing the self that is an older lesbian or gay man, this thesis rejects the dominant discourses in social gerontology and post-Enlightenment constructs of the self in favour of dialogism which is based upon very different assumptions. This approach facilitates an understanding of the self which is negotiated in dialogue that in turn has specific contexts such as time and relationships. As a consequence the focus rests with how the individual negotiates the contradictions that arise from their own understanding of what it means to be an older lesbian or gay man and in doing so construct new meanings of self.

Close relationships play an integral role in our lives. Problems associated with close relationships could have social and psychological effects on individuals. Research has documented that disruption of a relationship is considered as one of the major life stressors. In this context, the present research aims to identify differences between the intact marriages and those which ended in divorce, in Turkey, in relation to problems experienced during premarital level and marital level. Furthermore, this research has examined the perceived problem solving behaviour of the currently married and divorced individuals with respect to premarital and marital problems experienced. Retrospective survey interviewing was adopted as a data collection strategy in order to study self-reported problems and problem-solving behaviour by respondents. It has been hoped that the findings from the present study would be beneficial for relationship enhancement programs to be developed in Turkey.

The emergence of new information and communication technologies has generated much debate both in and out of academia in relation to theories ranging from economic advancement to imperialism. In the context of the Majority World (low-income countries), three dominant discourses associated with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) persist. The first is globalisation, as these nations open their regulatory gateways in order to engage with the global market in search of socio-economic advancement. Second, is the discourse of development, where it is predicted that nations which have joined the global market will use ICTs to harness global knowledge that shall enable them to be competitive and therefore attain development. Third, is the discourse of the digital divide which spans across the globe in the context of the North–South divide, and among nations and communities due to what has been described as the divide between information 'haves' and 'have nots' enabled by ICTs.

An examination of how two rural Welsh market towns, Llangefni and Machynlleth, have been affected by the processes of globalization and in particular how their local residents and local business owners perceive and experience these changes, shows the uneven effects of globalization on locations, economies and cultures, resulting in some locations becoming homogenized, losing their identity and purpose for their citizens, whilst others become hybridized, developing for themselves new identities, purpose and social structures. This thesis contributes to the understanding of how people living in small rural historic market towns engage with the local and the global in their day-today lives, and consequently how empowered they are and feel as local and/or global citizens. It reveals how the social inequalities of education, class and culture exclude some and include others, resulting in what Bauman (2000) refers to as the `global' and the `globalized', empowering some and disempowering others. The inequality and unevenness of globalization is further compounded by contradictory policy objectives that seek to encourage civic participation and responsibility in local and global issues, but which are often at odds with the economic objectives set out for areas, leading to uneven development and implementation between areas. Through gaining a better understanding of how places, people and businesses are affected by and engage with globalization and by helping to identify what facilitates better and more meaningful local and global civic engagement and empowerment, the thesis aims to enable more appropriate policy directives, that will engage citizens meaningfully and equally in both local and global issues.

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