The conceptual and empirical analysis of the interrelationship between gender and ethnicity has been largely neglected in the social sciences in general, and in Latin America in particular. The current research examines this relationship in the context of the local labour market of the Caribbean port of Limon, Costa Rica. The presence of a significant Afro-Caribbean minority along with the predominant white/mestizo population in the city, allows for the analysis of the distribution of ethnic and gender groups in the local economy, and the ways in which gender and ethnicity intersect with one another to produce particular patterns of employment differentiation. The above interrelations are explored with special reference to labour market segmentation and segregation. The approach adopted comprises the synthesis of three perspectives, the first of which is concerned with tracing the historical development of the region and city as an enclave economy. The second perspective deals with the labour market itself where current patterns of labour demand also influence segmentation and segregation. The third examines the contemporary household level, where factors such as household structure and gender ideologies (both of which may be mediated by ethnicity) operate to shape the supply of labour. Combination of the above three elements in the context of an holistic approach indicates that the configuration of employment differentiation in the enclave economy of Limon departs from more generally found patterns of vertical segmentation in gender and ethnic terms. Instead, horizontal distribution prevails in which Afro-Caribbean women do not occupy the most subordinate position in the labour market. Explanations for this lie in the historical evolution of the labour market and the dynamics of interaction between contemporary factors operating within the spheres of both household and workplace. A survey of 250 randomly-sampled households was conducted in three low-income settlements in Limon using structured and semi-structured questionnaires and targeting both male and female respondents. An employer survey was also conducted of 17 firms in the city, including large and small-scale enterprises. The principal conclusion is that a reconsideration of conventional conceptual approaches to labour markets is necessary in order to fully recognise the importance of the interaction between gender and ethnicity in employment differentiation.

Following the literary criticism of Zadie Smith’s NW by critics such as Lynn Wells and Wendy Knepper, this thesis seeks to engage with the social scripts and spatial dynamics of Smith’s fourth novel. I argue that NW is concerned with the neoliberalization of both real and virtual spaces, emphasizing the consequent effects of neoliberalism on agency and subjectivity and highlighting the neoliberal advancement of hyperindividualism and securitization over social responsibility and solidarity. Much detail is given to NW’s exploration of race, class and social mobility at the tail-end of the global financial crisis of 2007-08. NW’s fragmented four-part narrative channels a perspectival approach to space and place by delineating its structure through the four separate subjectivities of the main characters. I contextualize my thesis alongside Paul Gilroy’s cultural criticism of contemporary British multiculturalism, conviviality and melancholia, while also anchoring NW’s spatial concerns to Jeff Malpas’s spatial philosophy and Emily Cuming’s explication of British council estates in various forms of contemporary literature. As well, this thesis incorporates the philosophical frameworks of Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty as a guide for recognizing some of NW’s interest in the subjective experience of people and spaces, and to reorient the act of ‘seeing’ as a radical form of agency and mediation in itself. Ultimately, this phenomenological and epistemological approach to interpreting Smith’s fiction creates the potential for meaning to be co-constructed between author and reader, forming a new social vision for the novel as artform. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

The wide and enduring educational disparities between European and Asian heritage New Zealanders on the one hand, and indigenous Māori and Pacific Islanders on the other, have been a national education policy priority for some time. Such is the degree of focus on ethnic inequalities that very little attention is devoted to sources of privilege and disadvantage related to socio-economic status (SES) and gender, despite international scholarship showing that both of these profoundly influence experiences of schooling. The current study explores the ways in which SES, ethnicity, and gender influence students’ experiences of learning mathematics in New Zealand schools. Mathematics is a ‘gatekeeper’ subject for a range of highly lucrative career pathways dominated by European and Asian heritage men, making access to mathematical success a social justice issue with powerful material consequences. This thesis describes a mixed methods study of 425 Year Nine (age 13-14) students in three New Zealand state secondary schools, which investigated • the relationships between SES, ethnicity, gender, and success in mathematics, • cultural ideas about what types of people have mathematical ability, and • the effect of ability grouping on attainment disparities. European and Asian students had higher mathematics attainment than Māori and Pacific students. Pacific students reported enjoying mathematics despite their low attainment, whereas Māori students had very negative attitudes towards mathematics. Consistent with international studies, girls had lower confidence than boys in their mathematical abilities, despite having equal attainment. Interview data suggested that these differences in perceptions of mathematics were related to cultural ideas of mathematics as a ‘brain’ activity and therefore a natural fit for socially privileged men. Such ideas were further reinforced by ability grouping, which provided successful students with additional enrichment and withheld from low-attaining students the intellectual challenges that could have facilitated a shift to more successful learning trajectories.

Racism, as a covert but pervasive presence in teacher training in England, remains a major structural issue and its effects on student teachers, from Black and Minority Ethnic groups, are real and troubling. This Study asserts that they face multiple challenges in the Initial Teacher Education process which has implications for the teaching workforce and for pupils in schools. While national statistics for recruitment of BME applicants onto Initial Teacher Education courses are at good levels, in proportion to the BME population in general, their numbers are not viable because the drop-out rate between starting and completing courses, and becoming employed as classroom teachers, is significant. Furthermore the numbers of BME qualified teachers are small in relation to both the BME and white populations in England. This Study, which focuses on 32 BME student teachers at four universities across England, looks at how they journey through and negotiate obstacles and microagressions on their ITE courses. It shows that for those who choose to continue on their teaching course, their responses and modes of coping are complex and varied. Using Critical Race Theory to analyse their stories and make visible the way that hidden racisms within ITE can silence and disempower BME student teachers, the key findings reveal that they may adopt four 'cultural positions': Manoeuvred Cultural Position, Vibrant Cultural Position, Discerning Cultural Position, Stagnated Cultural Position. These demonstrate whether they are managing, struggling, culturally visible or culturally invisible. This study has implications for teacher educators and senior managers in universities involved in Initial Teacher Education in England.

This thesis examines the ways in which exile, both actual and metaphorical, informs the work of four path breaking female writers from South Africa and the American South: Carson McCullers, Bessie Head, Zoë Wicomb and Dorothy Allison. In this study, exilic consciousness is closely linked to postcolonial, nomadic feminisms which can best be understood as liminal, as fundamentally ‘out of place’. The border-crossings involved here are not only geographical, they also signify a change in critical consciousness, as the foundational texts of this thesis – Rosi Braidotti’s Nomadic Feminism and Francoise Lionnet and Shu-Mei Shih’s Minor Transnationalism – indicate. By exploring writers who problematise the categories of race, gender, sexuality and class I demonstrate how these writers offer new ways of reading the postcolonial condition as nomadic, and I examine the shared processes that nations and individuals undergo as they experience political and personal liberation struggles. My thesis is divided into four main parts. The opening section offers both an introduction to, and rationale for, the study, providing historical and sociocultural contextualisation linking South Africa and the American South; it goes on to establish my choices of Carson McCullers and Dorothy Allison as the southern US writers in this study and Bessie Head and Zoë Wicomb as the South Africans. In the opening chapter I interrogate self-representation and variations in autobiography by the four writers. Chapter 2 has as its focus body and exilic consciousness in selected work by all four writers. My final chapter examines identity formation as situated subjectivity in the work of Allison and Wicomb who are foregrounded here. I contend that transnationalism need not be seen as inevitably homogenising; rather, I show that minority individuals and groups can establish agency through transversal, lateral networks.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relevance of social class in relation to general support for the Labour Party both within a national and localised context, with a specific focus placed upon the area of North-West Cumbria. This is achieved by following the research hypothesis that states that the party since the emergence of New Labour, is with their classless brand, more effective on a political level than their collectivist Old Labour predecessor. Such analysis, using a mixture of primary and secondary methods, is framed within a three-themed research phenomenon. The phenomenon begins via the first theme ‘Class/Identity’ which defined the extensive atomised shift in perceived class categorisation in contemporary Britain. The analysis of the latter then links to the second theme ‘(Labour) Party’ which evaluates such shifts to that of Labour support, ranging from the historic ‘Old’ and ‘New’ eras to the present ‘Post New’ incarnation. This primarily states how the rise of the New Right inspired New Labour to modernise their core political message to accommodate the new atomised class culture, so as to gain broader levels of support. The research phenomenon concludes with the third theme ‘Geography (North-West Cumbria)’ which explores how such class atomisation affected Labour support on a broad locational basis, particularly within North-West Cumbria. The thesis findings generally concur with the research hypothesis since the New Labour brand was somewhat successful in rural areas which hitherto had been deemed unattainable by Old Labour. Such findings, be it nationally and/or locally, are a symptom of contemporary class times where political allegiance has become less ideologically centred, and more brand-orientated and homogeneous. This thesis structure also makes a contribution to qualitative methods research as it provides a template of how such a research hypothesis and phenomenon can be theoretically and practically integrated.