In the present study, I have analysed changes in writing and genre in grade 9 during the period 1992–2013. My hypothesis requires more informal language and thus poorer adjustment to the right genre. I use a language theory (Teleman 1985) and theories that highlight the chang-es in school and rest of the community. The study material is taken from the years 1992, 2003 and 2013, and consists of 64 essays. The quantitative analysis of student texts reported in study 1 is based on word variation (OVIX), nominal quota value (NQ), percentage of long words, the average graphic sentence length, noun phrases longer than one word and the number of words in student texts. Sub-study 2 is a qualitative genre analysis of six selected essays, in which two from each year were analysed. The selected essays are the closest to and farthest from the prose style genre normally used in society. The analysis showed the following results. OVIX, nominal quota and noun phrases show a negative change in students’ discursive language over time. The differences between the stu-dents declined between 1992 and 2003, but increased during the period 2003–2013. Long words, the average sentence length and the number of words increased between 1992 and 2013. Study 2 showed a result that did not differ much over time. Questions in the texts increased in 2013. The students who wrote mainly in genre-adapted style are also capable of writing about the stances they take on various topics.

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, a number of Latin American countries have undergone a marked shift to the left in their politics. With this, a number of Latin American countries have been pursuing economic policies that give a greater role for the state in economic affairs. Hugo Chavez has promised to build "twenty-first century socialism" in Venezuela, while Bolivia's Evo Morales often attacks the "neoliberalism" that previously guided economic reform in that country. This thesis investigates these economic institutional changes through a discursive institutionalist perspective, focusing on two Latin American countries: Bolivia and Peru. The goal is to analyze the role discourse and ideas played in impacting economic institutional change, or the lack thereof, in these two countries. This analysis suggests that institutional change in Bolivia can be explained by the skill political figures such as Evo Morales had in linking certain economic policies to notions of Bolivian sovereignty and a defense of natural resources. However, in Peru, discursive limitations presented barriers to a shift towards greater state intervention. By emphasizing the impact of discourse and ideas, this thesis aims to provide a novel theoretical interpretation of these events transpiring in Latin America.

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Yes / Changes globally mean that there are now record numbers of mothers in paid employment and a reported prevalence of involved fathering. This poses challenges to mothers and fathers as they negotiate care-work practices within their relationships. Focusing on interviews with three heterosexual couples (taken from a wider UK qualitative project on working parents), the paper considers care-work negotiations of three couples, against a backdrop of debates about intensive mothering and involved fathering. It aims to consider different configurations of work and care within three different couple relationships. We found that power within the relationships was negotiated along differential axis of gender and working status (full or part time paid work) . We present qualitatively rich insights into these negotiations. Framed by a critical discursive psychological approach, we call on other researchers to think critically about dominant discourses and practices of working, caring and parenting, pointedly how couples situated around the world operationalise these discourses in talking about themselves as worker and carers.

Yes / Audio recordings of meetings of two community groups in a deprived inner-city area were analysed, using discursive psychological and conversation analytic techniques to explore situated enactments of ‘community’. Participants situated themselves as members; of a geographical community; of an “imagined” community; and, of other constitutive communities. A sense of community was enacted through five interactional strategies: affirming moral codes, ‘defending’ other members, distinguishing insiders from outsiders, enacting empowerment and challenging institutions. Participants regularly employed emotional displays and affirmed moral positions, both to constitute ‘community’ and to take action in it. In so doing they worked up social capital and positioned community concerns in ways more reflective of their own situated values than of criminal law or government policy.

Yes / This paper sets out to capture the missing voices of fathers in discussions around gender, parenting and work. Using Critical Discursive Psychology (CDP), a qualitative methodology that frames discourse, language and action as socially situated, the paper sets out to understand the complexities of involved fatherhood. Using data from two distinct research projects that considered managing tensions around parenting and paid work, alongside the move to ‘involved fatherhood’, we examine the ways in which different discourses are operating in order to construct stories around gender and parenting. We are particularly interested in the ways in which participants use language and, specifically, discourses of parenting, working and caring. Through the interview excerpts we analysed how simultaneously participants position themselves in the discourses and were also being positioned by the wider societal discourses. We consider how CDP can contribute rich insights into the ways in which fathers are arranging sharing parenting caregiving responsibilities, using these insights to inform the policy landscape. We finish the paper by suggesting that CDP methodology can be mobilised by researchers wanting to capture missing voices in shifting policy landscapes.

In this dissertation, I examine the evolution of the green chemistry movement from its inception in the early 1990s to the present day. I focus my study on the discursive strategies employed by leaders of the movement to establish green chemistry and to develop and institute changes in the practice of the chemical sciences. The study looks specifically at three different strategies. The first is the construction of a historical narrative. This history comes from the intersection of the chemical sciences with environmentalism in the United States retold to place chemistry in a central position for understanding global environmental health issues and green chemistry as the natural response to these problems. The second involves the attempts made to develop a concrete definition for green chemistry as well as a set of guiding principles for the practice of this alternative form of chemistry. The establishment of the definition and the principles, I argue, constitutes an important move in constituting the field as a very specific interdisciplinary group with a forged identity and the beginnings of a system for determining what properly "counts" as green chemistry. The third comes from the intersection of this history within the defining principles of the movement intersect to create a specific set of green chemistry practices, and how these practices manifest themselves in conference and pedagogical settings. Finally, I offer an overview of where the movement currently stands, offering a critical perspective on the future potential of the field. I argue that recent episodes indicate that the movement has not succeeded in accomplishing what it set out to do, and will continue to encounter problems unless a refashioning of the movement takes place. To offer perspective on green chemistry as a movement, I examine it through the lens of other (e.g., Frickel and Gross 2005) attempts to explore scientific movements as a special class of social movements. / Ph. D.