This thesis is an exploration of how social work practitioners learn about and assess children's identities within the Core Assessment process contained within the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families. A qualitative case study was conducted within one childcare team in a local authority in South Wales with participation from key stakeholders involved in the assessment process: practitioners, parents, carers, and the subject children. Thirteen social work practitioners and eleven parent/carers participated in semi-structured interviews that explored what they understood identity to mean together with their appraisals of assessments of children's identities. Access to children was gained with consent of the parent/carers, with ten children taking part in a multi-method research strategy aimed at ascertaining children's own accounts of their identities. Core Assessment documents and interview data were analysed utilising textual analysis. The data from the children has been reproduced, wherever possible, verbatim to ensure their voices are made prominent within the study. The key findings are that the assessment of children's identities is an intricate, iterative task that poses practitioners with considerable practical and moral issues. Practitioners appear to utilise artistry in their management of the assessment task, commonly not making explicit the sources upon which their assessments of children's identities are based. It would appear that practitioners prefer to present their assessments of children's identities in the form of a narrative account, of which ownership of the details remains very much in the hands of the practitioner. Within this thesis subtle yet important differences between how practitioners, parents, carers and children construct identities is unearthed. It is posited that practitioners' assessments of children's identities do not reflect the individuality of the child and the reasons for this are explored. Also the adequacy of the Assessment Framework as a tool for assessing children's identities is questioned. It is suggested that the Assessment Framework restricts practitioners' assessments of children's identities to little more than constrained accounts of any child: thus ignoring the uniqueness of the subject children. It is demonstrated that in using the Assessment Framework, practitioners often struggle to employ their own nuanced knowledge of the subject child. The complexities practitioners encounter in managing the task of assessment is considered. Some practitioners appear to invoke some sense of the fluidity and subjectivity of identities, suggesting an appreciation that there may be many different ways to perceive another. Other practitioners assert some singular and true identity that should be unearthed though the assessment process. More generally, the thesis reveals that practitioners typically construct children's identities within the familiar framework of developmental and object-relational theories. The implications of this for children to be constructed as passive objects, whose identities are seen as more simplistic, less sophisticated than adult identities, is critically examined. The limits and potential of contemporary assessment practices with regard to children's identities is also explored. It is suggested that greater inclusion of the views of parents, carers and subject children in assessment is needed if practitioners are to move away from a constrained re-construction of children's identities and to present instead accounts that more authentically reflect the individual identities of the subject children.

This thesis traces ideas of visibility how certain social practices can be made visible and how other practices are obscured. Beginning with ideas concerning ontology and epistemology, the thesis explores how through the production of ethnography, epistemological positions can be made visible, and how through the doing and writing of ethnography, an attempt was made to make certain positions visible within a context of performing ethically grounded research. A background is laid, demonstrating competing perspectives of what constitutes intensive care historically, publicly and within the context of the field. The main body of the thesis shows how these common sense and historical understandings are made visible within the everyday social practices of intensive care and are reproduced through interaction, documentation and the treatment of patients. Issues surrounding performing ethnography within an intensive care unit were treated as problematic by the Local Research Ethics Committee. This made visible that which constitutes legitimacy how legitimacy is granted, its requirements and the place of the individual. Failing to meet the criteria of legitimacy can lead to processes of disposal. Disposal is demonstrated to be aligned with processes of 'othering', not just within systems that are designed to protect the public, but are an active component of individual lives and of securing admission to, or discharge from intensive care. The thesis examines social life within intensive care from multiple positions and as a consequence positions intensive care as a particular cultural accomplishment. It is through such accomplishments that the patient within intensive care is made visible and conversely it is from the perspective of the patient that organisational processes can themselves be seen as a specific cultural accomplishment. This thesis represents an examination of accomplishments, of invocation, alignment and disposal through which, tacit cultural assumptions and the position of the patient is laid bare.

This study explores attempts to regulate working time in a particular part of the medical sector. The specific focus is upon the perceptions and experiences of those in whose benefit the legislation purports to be, namely the junior doctors. It considers how the broader debates surrounding the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) are manifested in this specific section of the medical profession. The study argues that historical modes of regulation through self-governance, professional autonomy and minimal state intervention have helped to foster opposition to the EC law among many senior doctors. Their views about working-time regulation are compared to those provided by junior doctors. This enables an assessment of the ways in which traditional self-regulation has been overtaken by subsequent forms of governance in the medical profession, namely new public management and statutory control. The accommodation in process underlines the significance of the medical profession's exclusive culture and socialisation processes. These processes facilitate the transmission of ideas on issues such as work conditions, and occupational resistance to measures such as the Directive. Conversely, the difference in attitudes between senior and junior doctors reflects the evolving nature of the profession in response to increasing in managerial authority and state intervention. Following on from these debates, the study explores the processes by which the various modes of regulation have been implemented and enforced. It considers the respective roles played by the state, hospital managers and the medical profession, exploring the impact of working time regulation, with particular reference to doctors' health, medical training, and medical staffing and services. The study provides an assessment of the emerging impact of the regulation itself. The study draws upon a mix of methods including semi-structured interviews with Pre-Registration House Officers and elite figures. The latter comprise policy-makers at EC, UK and devolved levels senior figures within the medical and health services, including employer and employee representatives and members of both the UK and European judiciary. Questionnaire surveys were also administered to all PRHOs practising in Wales. The study concludes that a combination of factors have diluted the potential impact of the EWTD. These include the inadequate monitoring and enforcement mechanisms of a regulation whose fundamental terms have been 'fudged' by the state on the one hand, and the widespread application of a rigid shift system by the medical profession and hospital managers to junior doctors' training and service on the other. As a result, views on the EWTD are inconsistent and the degree of compliance with its provisions is variable.

This thesis is concerned with the regulation and control of health care professionals. In particular it examines the current regulation to which health care professionals are subject. The hypothesis put forward by this thesis is that the regulation of health care professionals is not fit for purpose. Fit for purpose being defined as satisfying the need for public protection and patient safety, its primary aim, but also enabling to the health care professional by allowing them autonomy to undertake their practice. In examining its hypothesis, the thesis provides an analysis of the nature of a health care professional as well as determining the context within which health care professionals undertake their professional practice. The regulation of health care professionals is analysed through a framework of five elements of regulation that are considered necessary for regulation to achieve its primary aim. These five elements are: protection of titles and registration education for initial registration clinical competence standards for performance and, fitness to practise. Consideration is given to proposals for reform of the regulation of health care professionals, that are yet to be introduced. The thesis finds that some of the elements of regulation are individually fit for purpose but that the current regulation of health care professionals is not fit for purpose as a whole. Recommendations are put forward to improve the effectiveness of regulation. The scope of this thesis is limited to that of health care within England.

Supplementary prescribing has already been implemented in a number of settings, will benefit patient care and empower pharmacists to take ownership of their prescribing decisions. The pharmacists' role will further be enhanced with the advent of independent prescribing. These are exciting times for pharmacy with the pharmacists in this study pioneering the new role in Wales.

This thesis aims to explore informational autonomy by demonstrating the correlation between genetic testing and informational autonomy, focusing on the preservation of the free choice option with special reference to thalassemia in Cyprus. This exploration does not intend to deliver a groundbreaking and bullet-proof new concept of informational autonomy that should be used without exception in every application of genetic testing, but rather to constitute the bedrock for reinstating the Cyprus strategy on genetic testing for thalassemia trait: it is a specific case study. This thesis makes a case for protecting informational autonomy, the ability for people to make their own responsible decisions, and argues that Cyprus strategy on thalassemia - as the empirical work demonstrates - is an example where the option of free choice is limited. The Cyprus Thalassemia Programme is recognised as being unique in the world for its success in almost completely eliminating new cases of thalassemia within 15 years. Along with premarital testing, genetic screening is mandatory for a couple wishing to get married in a Christian Orthodox Church. In the case of premarital testing, the option for couples to know or not know if they are the thalassaemic trait carriers is not considered at all. The challenge for Cyprus in the 21st Century is to advance the existing control programme while respecting freedom. By introducing pre-natal diagnosis along with premarital screening, Cyprus succeeded in eliminating the number of births with thalassemia, but increasing the number of abortions at the same time. People in Cyprus must have the option to know or not know if they are thalassemia trait carriers and should not be "forced" to make a premarital testing. Informational autonomy is a right that Cypriots are allowed to have. Human genetic information is ultimately not about genes it is about people.

The normative analysis focuses on three aspects. First, it is evaluated whether the government acted correctly when it ignored expert advice that suggested the benefits of using AZT to prevent the risk of mother-to-child transmission outweighed the risks. Second, by exploring Thabo Mbeki's level of expertise, it explored whether he was in a position to make a reliable judgement about the state of the scientific discourse about the safety of AZT. Third, a proposal is made that prescribes how actors should proceed if they want to judge the authenticity of scientific controversies that are involved in the context of technological decision-making processes.

There is strong and consistent epidemiological evidence that short sleep duration is associated with increased risk of obesity from early childhood. Childhood obesity and inadequate sleep have negative consequences for health and well-being, and the ability to target both of these public health concerns with a novel obesity intervention involving sleep extension is appealing; yet little is known about the mechanisms linking short sleep with obesity. In adults, hormonal mechanisms have been proposed; in young children, behavioural mechanisms and parenting are likely to be involved. Furthermore, the wider social and cultural determinants of short sleep and obesity should be incorporated into sleep-obesity research. This study aimed to explore some aspects of the sleep-obesity link in preschool children, using an exploratory design with a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods, and applying an evolutionary medicine perspective. Participants were 109 3-year-old children and their parents in Stockton-on-Tees. Children’s sleep (validated by actigraphy), food intake and activity over 4 days/5 nights were assessed by parental diary report, and body composition was measured. Parents’ attitudes were explored using semi-structured interviews. Combined daytime and nighttime sleep duration was associated with central fat. Alternate parenting strategies were identified, based on regulation and consistency (routine-led), or child-governance and lack of regulation (routine-free). Building on the trends identified and the literature reviewed, I propose two hypotheses to explain the short sleep-obesity link in young children: the Behavioural Mechanisms Hypothesis (dietary and activity behaviours mediate or confound the association), and the Parental Confounding Hypothesis (parenting strategies, which vary with SES, impact on both children’s sleep duration and obesity risk). Parenting impacts children’s health by either limiting or facilitating discordance between children’s experiences in evolutionarily novel environments, and their biological make-up. I conclude that sleep-based obesity interventions should consider the wider context of children’s behaviours, particularly strategies of parenting.

This thesis uses an empirically informed Marxist analysis to investigate the role of interests, consciousness and unpaid activity of refugees and asylum seekers in shaping their relationships with the British state, including case studies from the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. I argue that antagonism between the British state and refugees from economically underdeveloped countries is rooted in capitalist relations of production, with Britain occupying an imperialist position. The thesis advances a novel perspective on ‘social capital’, understood as purposive and sustained forms of non-contractual engagement, with implicit norms and values. Social capital is ‘unmasked’ as a way of understanding and intervening in relations at an individual level, in order to influence change at a social level. I argue that the tendency of recent Labour governments’ policy has been to break up social capital formations among refugees which are seen as threatening, whilst actively cultivating formations which engage refugees on an individual basis, as part of managing their oppression. The thesis identifies contradictions and possibilities for resistance within this process, such as simultaneous tendencies for volunteering to contribute to more collective forms of identity and more individualised forms of action. The multi-level research design explores processes connecting the individual to the global. Empirical data is used to interrogate and develop a theoretical framework which is rooted in classical Marxism, draws on insights developed within qualitative social research methods and anti-oppressive practice, and engages creatively with challenges from post-modernism and feminism. The methodology combines: theoretical research; secondary statistics and literature at an international level; interviews with key participants and archival research on local histories of migration and settlement, including three organisational case studies; four contemporary organisational case studies; and individual volunteer case studies based on semi-structured interviews and focus groups with eighteen refugees and asylum seekers.

This thesis answers the question as to how, and to what extent, women’s social welfare needs are provided for in Jordan. Using a liberal feminist approach to social welfare policy, and acknowledging the role played by the specific historical and political experiences of states in the developing world, the thesis examines the provision of Jordanian women’s social welfare needs by the state in the public arena, by the family in the private arena and by Civil Society Organisations which negotiate the space between the two arenas. The thesis demonstrates that the state has systematically failed to translate constitutional commitments to women as equitable citizens deserving of equitable social welfare provisions into reality. Its symbiotic relationship with traditional social forces has ensured that patriarchal social norms and practices have infused public social policy and created internal contradictions in the legal institutions and processes of implementation. These same patriarchal norms and practices continue to prevail within Jordanian family and tribal life, creating a situation in which women exchange the provision of their basic social needs by the family in return for subordinating themselves to a second-class status of dependency and vulnerability. Civil Society Organisations are similarly constrained by the patriarchal influences within the state, and have developed strategies which acknowledge that women’s social welfare provision in the long term is dependent on democratisation processes which build direct relations between the state and its citizens, unmediated by vested tribal interests and protected by the rule of law. The thesis concludes that liberal feminist understandings of women’s social welfare provisions as being located within the state-citizenship dichotomy enable us to identify the particular issues arising for developing states in meeting women’s needs.