Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 2000. Graduate Programme in Political Science. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 284-303). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ56236.

This study investigates how young people and employers perceive equal opportunities in the world of work. Events such as the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (Macpherson, 1999), the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and other legislation to promote equal opportunities, for example, Employment Equality Regulations, 2003 (Phillips, 2007, p.36) have placed this issue high on the political and education agenda. This study also investigates how young people perceive the message of equal opportunities in employers’ recruitment material as employers often declare in recruitment advertising that they are an equal opportunity employer (Dickens, 2000, p.138). A qualitative approach is taken using semi-structured interviews with thirty students in the sixth form in five secondary schools and five employers (The Army, The Fire Service, Metropolitan Police Service, British Airways and Mars UK) in West London. Policy documents on equal opportunities were also collected from the selected schools and employers. All the sources of data, that is the interviews with students and employers and the documentary data were analysed using a thematic approach. This study provides an in-depth insight and a snapshot at a local level of the national picture on equal opportunities in the world of work in relation to gender and ethnicity. The findings are that the young people, employers and the documentation of employers and schools show common understandings but also differences in their perception and portrayal of equal opportunities in the world of work. This study has also found that young people do not perceive the message of equal opportunities in the recruitment material. The implications of these findings are considered for both Careers Education and Guidance in schools and employers. This study concludes that the consensus is inspiring as it shows that young people and employers have a common vision of equal opportunities in the world of work and this consensus is followed through in policy documents. However, the differences, whilst they add variation to the perception and portrayal, need to be addressed if equal opportunities in the world of work are to progress further. To address these issues a model of Embedded Mutual Partnership is recommended between schools and employers.

Philanthropy is often considered an unproblematic way for individuals (and especially the rich) to benefit recipients and society by "giving their money away." But philanthropy also gives donors influence and authority, and these powers can be subject to criticism on democratic and egalitarian grounds. This dissertation frames philanthropy as one way in which private money can shape public options and the choices open to individuals. In light of this, it asks what kinds of regulation of philanthropy are appropriate for states committed both to liberal rights and to some vision of equality. / Government

Rectificatory justice for colonialism has been, in recent years, included in the discussion of global justice. The idea is that former colonial powers acknowledge, apologise and make reparations for the harms caused during colonialism. However, there are some objections to rectificatory justice for colonialism. This paper examines one of the main objections, the counterfactual argument. This objection has been found to have some plausibility due to the difficulty in estimating the effect of past injustice on present conditions, as well as the claim that African countries did indeed benefit from colonialism. However, due to the exploitative nature of colonialism, it is reasonable to argue for rectificatory justice based solely on the harm caused, without having to conceptualise a world without the occurrence of colonialism. The aim of this paper is to claim that the harms of colonialism are partly to blame for the current global inequality and that rectificatory justice will go a long way in decreasing this inequality.

Syftet med denna studie är att se hur några bilderböcker utmanar de stereotypa könsrollerna. Jag kommer att granska hur pojkar och flickor framställs ur ett genusperspektiv och även titta på hur text och bild kompletterar varandra, med hjälp av Nikolajevas (2000) analysmodell för bilderböcker. Jag har valt att analysera tre stycken böcker och två av dessa har pojkar som huvudkaraktärer och en har en flicka som huvudkaraktär. Med den medvetenhet man har idag kring genus så kan dessa böcker vara ett bra material och verktyg i förskolan för att kunna visa att man får vara precis den man vill vara och det är inget som är konstigt med det. / The purpose of this study is to see how some picture books challenge gender stereotypes. I will review how boys and girls are portrayed from a gender perspective and also look at how text and image complement each other, with the help of Nikolajeva’s (2000) analysis model for picture books. I have chosen to analyze three books and two of these have boys as the main characters and one has a girl as the main character. With the awareness we have today on gender are these books a good material and a tool that can be useful in the preschool, in order to show that you can be just the one you want to be and there is nothing strange about it.

Slavery is an unjust institution. Indeed, slavery is often seen to be a paradigmatic case of injustice. Despite this, there is little agreement on how to best explain the injustice of slavery. In this dissertation I examine and reject three main explanations of the injustice of slavery: that slavery is unjust because slaves lack freedom, that slavery is unjust because slaves are alienated from their social world, and that slavery is unjust because slaves lack self-respect. Such explanations are unable to explain the injustice of slavery itself because they cannot identify all cases of slavery as unjust. Instead, I argue that slavery is unjust because it makes it impossible for slaves to realise both their interest in self-respect and their interest in being at home in the world. Slavery is not the only institution, however, that places people in this dilemma; any institution that treats some people as inferior to others will be unjust for the same reason, although not necessarily to the same extent. Thus the explanation of the injustice of slavery also provides us with an explanation of the importance of political equality.

Human Genetic Enhancement (HGE) has the potential to provide great benefits to a large number of people in terms of alleviating inherited disease and disability and maximizing individual liberty. There are many arguments against research and application of this new technology based on a variety of grounds, including both deontological and consequentialist objections. In this thesis I examine arguments from both of these positions and argue that neither offers a satisfactory justification for prohibiting research into HGE nor do they demonstrate that the application of the knowledge gained from such research is necessarily wrong. I also suggest that there is a strong argument in favor of HGE in that it may offer a way to reduce the amount of disadvantage currently present in our society as a result of genetic disease and disability by addressing the genetic causes of these conditions. Further, I argue that the pursuit of HGE is necessary in order to promote individual liberty and promote equality of opportunity. Finally, I argue that by examining principles that require us to promote individual liberty we can establish the categories of enhancements which we should publicly fund and those that should merely be permissible. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-18 17:05:35.143

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In constructing and evaluating a theory of justice, it is crucial to determine the scope of justice---that is, the range of cases to which considerations of justice are appropriately applied. One important strand of contemporary political thought, best exemplified by John Rawls, argues that the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of society, i.e., its major political and social institutions. Rawls' position has not, however, been without its share of critics. An alternative to institutional egalitarianism begins by emphasizing that the structure of institutions alone is of uncertain benefit when it comes to meeting the demands of justice. If we are truly concerned with social justice, we should be sensitive to the fact that individual choices can go a long way towards upsetting the balance of equality that justice requires. This thesis defends Rawls' focus on the basic structure against this challenge.

This thesis focuses on the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland (CERES), based in Edinburgh, which was funded by the Scottish Executive and Scottish Government to develop several programmes to promote equality in education. Drawing together the disparate approaches to anthropology of organisations, the methodology has included both a focus on a small core group of workers as well as the flow of the materials produced throughout a larger network. Rather than conduct fieldwork at various locations as network or policy studies emphasise, I chose to work for two years with CERES due to their geographic and creational centrality to the ‘mainstreaming equality’ initiative. Beginning at a time when questions of identity in Scotland flourished as a result of devolution, increased immigration and the UK publication of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, the mainstreaming equality projects signify the Scottish Executive’s attempt to uphold its duty of promoting race equality. CERES managed three of the seven funded mainstreaming equality projects. The production of these resources contributes to a campaign through which the Scottish Government has worked to reformulate understandings of what it means to be Scottish. This is achieved by drawing upon the myths of a new and egalitarian Scotland in order to displace the myth that there is no racism in Scotland. Within this context, the research’s central questions revolve around this creation in the stages undertaken at CERES. Examining the Centre’s daily tasks, this research demonstrates that although commissioned to contribute to the same overall initiative, the way in which CERES depicts equality is ultimately very different than the approaches developed within the government. The materials created by CERES, which unlike One Scotland, do not include national symbols, have engaged with the complexities of equality and discrimination more than the media campaigns yet have had a smaller audience. Once the idea is developed it encounters further manipulation, both physical in the case of teaching tools and ideological in working to make the identities included reflect Scotland through statistics and discussions of subjects already embedded in the national curriculum. From the vantage point of the creation process, this ethnography contributes to the anthropology of organisations and highlights the legal and policy negotiations undertaken across various levels of governance.