This thesis explores and evaluates one-to-one, formal, supportive relationships of mentoring. More specifically, it focusses on the interaction between student mentors at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and their partnered mentees in various settings. The purpose of the thesis is to understand the social process of mentoring. This understanding takes place through identifying key characteristics of mentoring interaction. The aim of this thesis is to enhance understanding of the mentoring praxis. The research framework adopts an interpretive methodological approach, incorporating qualitative methods in order to gain a detailed insight into the subjective experiences of the mentors and mentees. The methods included collecting 13 individual semi-structured interviews with nine mentors and four mentees currently enrolled within UCLan’s ‘Mentoring in the Community’ module. In addition, the analysis includes three reflective portfolios completed by student mentors as part of their assessment at the end of the 2014/15 academic year. This provided a sample of 16 participants in total that have been involved in my research. Findings are presented in a conceptual framework model encompassing key components of mentoring interaction. This model is representative of a two-way process where mentors and mentees interact, participate and build a relationship despite the differences in socio-economic grouping, background and character. My study found a gradual shift in the relationship from one of apprehension into an attached and emotionally connected friendship. This shift coincides with a move from an expressive to an instrumental mode of mentoring (Clayden and Stein (2005:35). The initial expressive mode of mentoring establishes a friendship and a mutual connection between mentor and mentee, enabling the mentee to become accepting of the instrumental mode of mentoring without the need for great encouragement. The findings from the research highlighted clear positive outcomes for both mentor and mentee, particularly when drawing closer to the termination stage of the relationship. Within the mentoring process mentees receive academic and personal achievements evidenced by better grades and improved attendance. The research revealed that the mentees’ experiences also had a significant social impact, evidenced by improved relationships with family members, participation in extra-curricular activities and volunteering roles. Similarly, throughout the mentoring process mentors are developing key transferable skills, including enhanced confidence in working with people from all backgrounds, dealing with difficult situations with a confident, calm and effective manner, and improved problem solving skills. It is evident from the research that each mentoring partnership is distinctive and unique. The mentee’s needs are featured at the heart of the process, therefore, the length of the mentoring relationship varies from one partnership to another. This accentuates that the central aim is for mentors to ‘make a difference for their mentee’ and is not based on how long their mentoring relationship should last. Finally, this empirical research details the key components of mentoring interaction that ensure an effective, connected and engaged mentoring relationship between mentor and mentee.

No description available.

This thesis explores and evaluates the usefulness of asset-based community development (ABCD) to develop opportunities for participation with homeless people. Current research suggests that asset-based ways of working can promote effective alternatives to needs-based procedures and engage service users within health and social care production and delivery. ABCD may be defined as a process whereby underutilised local community ‘assets’ are drawn together to deliver social and economic benefits (McKnight and Block, 2012). However, little research into the applicability of ABCD has yet been undertaken with homeless people and associated non-statutory agencies. The research was undertaken within a small homelessness charity primarily operated by volunteers. As a volunteer within the charity I undertook a critical action research inspired approach into exploring the benefits of and challenges involved in using ABCD as a method of facilitating increased involvement of homeless people in a food distribution project, and investigated the wider applicability and challenges of ABCD as a means of enhancing involvement of homeless people. The strengths and weaknesses of undertaking participatory research and the issues around combining the roles of volunteer and researcher are reflected upon to share knowledge and experience of action research. Through undertaking this research as a process of investigation into how a homelessness organisation implements ABCD combined with a critical reflection of the role of the researcher as participant observer a rich and detailed insight into the research aims has been discerned. The research increases understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of ABCD in practice with a marginalised group and shows notions of a ‘homeless community’ and a ‘culture of homelessness’ to be of negative value in assisting homeless people to become more engaged within the community. It highlights the need for a more critical form of ABCD incorporating notions of power. In conjunction, it has enhanced opportunities for homeless people to engage and influenced practice within the charity.

This thesis made new contributions to the company-community relations field by incorporating institutional theory, stakeholder theory and community engagement theory, to investigate the community engagement strategies, community relations approaches and social responsibility practices used by companies in a developing country. It makes new contributions to the debate on why multinational companies - Eni SpA, Total SA and RD Shell in the Nigerian Niger Delta region (NDR) struggle to establish and manage relations with host communities. The research idea is founded on the concern that there is a failure in addressing why oil MNCs operating in Nigeria, fall short of meeting the expectations of communities, hence face diverse challenges from communities, including threats of losing their social licence to operate. Institutional theory, stakeholder theory and community engagement theory were purposefully and consistently applied to establish a theoretical foundation to explore and explain methods of community engagement, community relations approaches and social responsibility practices used by the three MNCs. As a study that investigated ‘business in society’, a qualitative research paradigm was adopted, using a cross-sectional design to synthesise the experiences of the companies against those of their host communities, to articulate the slight variations in their approaches. In the data collection and analyses, the study employed a mixed method of secondary and primary research. The secondary research, involved an assessment of company archives and news media materials. Guided in-depth interviews with purposefully sampled senior managers in the three oil MNCs and community representatives, were introduced to advance the research into a full primary research. Data analyses were conducted using a qualitative content analysis, whereby identified themes were coded and then analysed and discussed extensively. This thesis made new contribution to the theoretical application in company-community relations by being the first to incorporate institutional theory, stakeholder theory and community engagement theory to argue the role of valued interests in managing stakeholder expectations. This thesis proved that the three theories used, are interrelated in the sense that each, through different viewpoints, addresses relational issues within and between company and community, and explored the concepts of valued interests and expectations as relational concepts in the theoretical framework. The tripartite theoretical framework therefore offers a new theoretical approach for the contextualisation and rationalisation of company-community relations in a developing country. This thesis also made a new contribution to theoretical knowledge in the stakeholder theory by pioneering in the identification of a stakeholder group the present researcher refers to as the ‘Mediante Stakeholders’, and established that in stakeholder mapping, there is a small stakeholder group within the overlap between internal stakeholders and external stakeholders of the organisation. What sets the mediante stakeholders apart from the rest of the stakeholder groups is the level of access that is given to the this unique stakeholder group and the ability to be both inside and outside the organisation/company at the same time. Empirically, the interviews with oil MNCs and communities revealed different ways of engagement used, such as town hall meetings with communities, cluster development board meetings and other methods of communication including back-and-forth letter communications. Different strategies and approaches were used by MNCs and communities such as the blockade strategy (used by host communities), selective engagement (focusing on engaging the most powerful stakeholders), divide and rule strategy (a dangerous approach some of the oil MNCs have been accused of), and mediated engagement (using NGOs to engage host communities). The research concludes that the development and sustainability of methods of engagement in company-community relations depends on the willingness and commitment of the parties involved. It is the willingness and commitment to work together that guarantee the most constructive methods of engagement with host communities.

ABSTRACT There is a growing body of research that demonstrates the relationship between identity development, the development of citizenship, and the pedagogy of service learning (Eyler & Giles, 1999; Jones & Hill, 2001, 2003; Rhoad, 1997; Youniss &Yates, 1997). While a review of the effects of community service on elementary and high school participants in the USA provide some indication that participating in service-learning programmes is beneficial to young people, Alt & Medrich (1994) state that there is still relatively little clear, systematic evidence demonstrating the connection between community service and particular affective and educational objectives. It is of concern in the light of the Further Education and Training (FET) Life Orientation (LO) Curriculum’s call for citizenship education (Department of Education, 2003), that no research on ‘community service’ work done by high school learners in South Africa can be located. The studies that link a service- learning or community work pedagogy to the development of empathy have primarily been conducted with college students (Burnett, Hamel, & Long, (2004); Giles, & Eyler, (1993); Jones & Hill (2003); Pratt, (2001); Rhoad, (1997)). Although there is some research with adolescents (Hamilton & Fenzel, (1988); Leming, (2001); Middleton, & Kelly (1996); Yates. & Youniss, (1996), it has primarily focused on social and identity development in community service settings and not specifically on empathy. However Hatcher’s (1994) research with adolescents and college students provides indications that empathy is developmental and can be elicited by environmental intervention and that some aspects of empathy can be taught to adolescents if a developmental shift is caught. Key words: empathy, service learning, community work, identity, citizenship

Participatory photography initiatives promise to 'empower', 'give voice' and 'enable social change' for marginalised communities through photography. This thesis questions this promise, demonstrating participatory photography to be a contested practice defined as much by inherent tension, ethical complexity and its limitations as by its potential. Caught up in governmental practices and instrumental discourses, 'NGO-ised' participatory photography has lost its purpose and politics. Using multiple case-studies and presenting empirical research on TAFOS, a pioneering Peruvian participatory photography project, this thesis explores under examined areas of participatory photography practice, including its governmentality, spectatorship and long term impact on participants. It establishes the effectiveness of photography as a tool for fomenting an enduring critical consciousness (Freire 1970, 1973) while questioning the romantic narrative of participatory photography's inherently empowering qualities and capacity to enable change. Pluralism is used as a theoretical and conceptual framework for re-framing the promise of participatory photography. It is argued that a pluralized notion of participatory photography highlights the paradoxical, uncertain and negotiated character of the practice. It re-conceptualises the method as a mode of mediation that enables a plurality of seeing, that supports emerging and unrecognized claims and that cultivates a critical engagement with difference; qualities that are vital to democratic pluralism. The notion of a 'Photography of Becoming' re-imagines the critical and political character of participatory photography and the complex and vulnerable politics of voice in which it is immersed.

This thesis examines the interplay between community development and local government modernisation as practised in three neighbouring London Boroughs in the East and South East of London. By using qualitative approaches to research the field, including ethnography and semi-structured interviews with a range of statutory and community practitioners, the research seeks to examine a variety of stakeholder perspectives. ‘Community development’ in its UK context over recent decades has, as a distinct process, skill set and discipline, attempted to realise the potential of regeneration programmes and address the democratic deficit found in local government. It therefore reflected many of the main concerns of New Labour modernisation policies, appearing to be well placed to make a strong contribution to ameliorating social ills. There is recognition in this research that whilst government policy demonstrably changed some local structures, the corollary of actual community empowerment cannot be guaranteed or assumed. Through the testimony of local politicians, councillors, activists, managers and Community Development Workers the research examines the extent to which the principles and practice of community development were able to support modernisation as a programme of social reform and the wider factors that shaped the efficacy and transmission of policy. The reflexivity of the researcher as a community development practitioner with twenty years experience adds a deep and especially close engagement with the material. The researcher as a practitioner passionately wants to know ‘what works’ in relation to a shifting, often contradictory field of policy. By using ethnographic methods this research examines the concrete experiences and spaces in which community development and modernising reforms take place.

No description available.

Det är år 2020 få klubbar i svensk elitishockey som är ekonomiskt hållbara och i lägre divisioner når inte klubbarna sportslig framgång utan stora ekonomiska risker. Djurgårdens IF har vunnit flest svenska mästerskap i ishockey för herrar i Sverige och har en verksamhet med en stabil ekonomi samtidigt som klubben år 2020 är i toppskiktet i landets högsta divisioner för herrar, damer och juniorer i ishockey. Tidigare forskning har främst fokuserat på varumärkesidentitet, det som skapar lojalitet bland fans och effekterna av sponsring enskilt medan den här studien vill ge en sammanställd bild av de här delarna. Studiens syfte blev därför att identifiera faktorer som varit viktiga för Djurgården Hockeys arbete med sin varumärkesidentitet och om det har varit bidragande till föreningens ekonomiska tillväxt. Studien genomfördes som en fallstudie om Djurgården Hockey där representanter från föreningen, den officiella supporterföreningen samt en huvudsponsor intervjuades genom semistrukturerade intervjuer som sedan tolkades för att besvara syftet med studien. Resultatet visar att några faktorer som framförallt varit avgörande för Djurgården Hockey är att föreningen har byggt sin identitet tydligt i vad de står för, föreningen bygger stora profiler bland spelare och ledare som fungerar som förebilder för barn och ungdomar samt att föreningen gör gott för andra som sätter föreningen i en positiv kontext. / In 2020, there are few clubs within Swedish elite ice hockey who are financially sustainable, and clubs in the lower divisions do not reach sporting success without taking big financial risks. Djurgårdens IF have won more championships in men’s hockey in Sweden than any other team, and have a strong business with a stable economy while the club is in top tier in the country’s highest divisions for men, women, and juniors in ice hockey in 2020. Previous research has mainly focused on brand identity, the process of creating loyalty among fans and the effects of sponsorship individually, while this study aims to provide a composite view of these factors. The purpose of the study was therefore to identify factors that have been important for Djurgården Hockey in their work with their brand identity and if it has affected the club’s economic growth. The study was conducted as a case study on Djurgården Hockey in which representatives from the association, the official supporter association and a main sponsor were interviewed through semi-structured interviews and then by interpretation of these answer the purpose of the study. The results shows that some of the factors that have been particularly important for Djurgården Hockey are that the association has built a clear identity in what they stand for, as well as creating big profiles among players and coaches that serve as role models for children. Furthermore, the association does good for others which results in being put in a positive context.

No description available.