The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 reconstituted English Further Education colleges as incorporated institutions. This led colleges to restructure their governing bodies and leadership teams, introducing managerialist practices and embedding a marketised culture. Despite forming the majority within college workforces, women have long been under-represented within senior leadership and amongst the cohort of principals. This qualitative study gives voice to a mix of white and BME women who offer insights into their experiences as holders of college senior leadership posts. The findings contribute to understandings about women's choice of Further Education as a career and expose the barriers participants faced and the support which sustained them in different phases of their purposeful engagement with leadership transition. The study adds to leadership theory by depicting a summary of responses to these experiences and may interest other researchers in the field of leadership development. Additionally, it may be of value to policy makers and practitioners who seek to promote a more inclusive leadership discourse in the learning and skills sector in a context where a re-launch of national leadership development initiatives is taking place.

Child maltreatment is a pervasive societal concern that has affected countless young people, families, communities and nations with detrimental effects at the physical, psychological, neurobiological and social levels. Despite exposure to chronic adversity, a remarkable number of individuals are able to display resilience and demonstrate positive adaptation following their experience of trauma. This thesis aims to examine the impact of attachment and coping styles in the context of resilience following child maltreatment utilising a systemic framework. Chapter One provides an overview of the theoretical literature relating to resilience, attachment, coping and child maltreatment. Chapter Two explores the construct of resilience and critiques the Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC; Connor & Davidson, 2003) as one of the few standardised measures of resilience. This measure focuses on assessing internal factors that promote positive adaptation following adversity with little attention given to external or systemic drivers in the resilience building process. In order to understand the protective role of attachment and coping and its impact upon resilience at multiple levels of functioning, Chapter Three presents a systematic review that explores the literature on the effects of attachment and/or coping styles on resilience following child maltreatment within the framework of a socio-ecological approach with a particular emphasis on female experiences. Chapter Four presents an empirical paper exploring the impact of multiple maltreatment experiences (victimisation, perpetration and abuse types) upon attachment, coping and resilience with an exclusively female sample. Chapter Five summarises the conclusions and limitations from all the chapters in the thesis discussion.

Rape myth acceptance (RMA) is an important psychological concept in the research, assessment, education, and treatment of sexual violence. The current thesis presents the role, importance, and psychometric measurement of RMA in research and practice. Chapter 1 presents and overview of RMA, highlighting its purpose in sexual violence literature. Chapter 2 presents a systematic review of the literature around adult male rapists’ levels of endorsement of RMA. Chapter 3 examines the psychometric properties of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (IRMA; Payne, Lonsway, & Fitzgerald, 1999), a widely used measure of RMA. Chapter 4 aims to establish the factor structure, dimensionality, and reliability of the IRMA. Chapter 5 draws together the main findings from previous chapters, providing implications for practice and research.

Background: Breastfeeding has the potential to significantly improve public health. As part of UK government policy peer support interventions have been recommended to increase breastfeeding rates but the evidence base for this is of low quality. Methods: The aim of this thesis was to investigate the effect of breastfeeding peer support on initiation though a systematic review; on continuation through an RCT and a systematic review; and to explore women’s experiences through a qualitative study. Results: Universal peer support to improve breastfeeding initiation was ineffective. Peer support for breastfeeding continuation in both the RCT and review findings appears to be effective in low/middle income countries; when provided in an intensive schedule of contacts (>5 contacts); and given in the postnatal period. Women’s experience of peer support is generally positive and those interviewed gave several suggestions to how current local services may be modified. Conclusions: Peer support per se, in any format in the UK-setting, has not been supported. Targeted and intensive peer support may improve breastfeeding rates in the UK but this must be evaluated using high-quality methodologies. Peer support appears to be effective in the developing world, were it is intensive and targeted to those already considering breastfeeding.

This thesis makes clear British women’s experiences of the international between 1945 and 1975. It analyses how international development came to feature at the centre of British women’s organisations’ international programme by the late 1950s. The origins of this process date back to the immediate post-war years. Inspired by a new sense of duty and internationalism, British women embraced the new international institutions that formed after the War with a newfound sense of purpose. In the late 1940s, world peace was taken up by a broad spectrum of British women’s organisations as a potentially powerful means of bringing women together from diverse political, social and cultural backgrounds to co-operate on both national and international levels. The failure of peace to unite women across social and political lines in the face of the ‘red scare’ in the early 1950s forced British women to look for an ‘apolitical’ means of promoting human relations. The UN technocratic approach positioned international development as the convenient space for British women to act out these new post-war international commitments. However, the results of this new international priority were informed directly by histories of imperial power, leaving assumptions about priorities and Western superiority uncontested until the 1980s.

This thesis is a discussion of the ethical issues surrounding the allocation of donated sperm and eggs to patients at fe1iility clinics. It adopts an empirical bioethics approach in which traditional philosophical analysis is combined with the collection and analysis of empirical data in order to ensure that the views of those involved in the field are represented. Following the preliminary philosophical analysis, the second section of this thesis presents the results of a qualitative study, which was undertaken with fertility clinic staff and other relevant professionals such as academics and representatives of patient organisations. The views and ideas that emerged from these data were considered in light of the earlier philosophical analysis, and where relevant, initial conclusions were revised to account for these considerations. The results suggest that the prioritisation of patients based on age, violent history, and health and health behaviours is justified, that allowing conditional and known donations may benefit all patients by increasing the number of donors, and that a national system of allocation may confer similar benefits, as well as being fairer than current, local allocation.

Although the number of female leaders worldwide has yet to achieve par with that of male leaders, a growing number of female heads of state and female candidacies for that position signal that transformations are underway. Among them is Chile’s current president, Michelle Bachelet. Her first election generated significant debate since she possessed none of the qualities considered essential for eligibility. Attempts to lend logic to the contradictions imposed by that event are still largely inconclusive. This study investigates a deeper root system in Chilean history for causal factors with trajectories that lead into the twenty-first century. Under consideration are ways in which women attain political power, their management of power, and the role of the body politic in both of those. The latter part of the study establishes correlations between recent developments in the Chilean political landscape of female leadership and similar developments across the globe. During Bachelet’s first election, media coined the term—the “Bachelet Phenomenon”—to reference her unprecedented and improbable attainment of the presidency. This research consults a diverse body of resources to offer one interpretation of that. The findings contribute new perspectives to the existing body of literature that can be expanded by future research.

Aims: To compare binge-drinking between a university student and community sample of young females. Methods: A secondary-data analyses of two cross-sectional studies. A total of 409 participants were included (161 community and 248 students). The primary hypotheses explored the differences between the populations with regards to socio-demographic factors and clinical variables stratified by drinking status, the secondary hypotheses were to ascertain the relationship between resilience and mental health and their effect on hazardous drinking. Results: The total prevalence of binge drinking was 56.2%. Students had a higher prevalence (59.7%) than the community (50.9%) but this difference was not statistically significant. However, the community sample was at a higher risk for hazardous drinking and had poorer mental well-being in comparison to the students. No differences were found with regards to resilience. Mental well-being was the factor contributing the most to the variance on hazardous drinking with resilience not playing any part. Discussion: This is one of the few studies that focuses on elucidating binge drinking in young women and attempted to compare binge and hazardous drinking between a university student and community populations. Prevalence rates were similar to published rates for the UK. However, these high rates and the earlier age of onset of alcohol consumption pose a challenge to Public Health, in particular related to harmful effects on future reproductive health. In addition, this study suggests that mental well-being is a strong predictor of hazardous drinking, regardless of resilience. Efforts to improve the mental well-being of children and adolescents is fundamental to avoid problem-drinking later in life.

Volume 1: Research component There are three papers contained in this volume, all concerned with maternal mental health problems in the perinatal period. The first is a review that examines the existing literature on eating disorders in the perinatal period. It examines prevalence, symptomatology levels across the perinatal period and factors associated with development and remission from eating disorders in the perinatal period. The second paper is a report of research, carried out by the author, investigating obsessive compulsive disorder, bonding and meta-cognitions in new mothers. It specifically examines whether bonding is impaired in new mothers with OCD when compared with mothers who have no symptoms of OCD, a subject that has not been investigated in previous research. Both papers have been prepared for submission to Archives of Women‟s Mental Health. The final paper is a public domain paper describing the literature review and empirical papers and has been used to disseminate the findings of the research amongst participants, mother and baby organisations and mental health professionals. The appendices contain information regarding ethical approval, measures used and instructions to authors from the Archives of Women‟s Mental Health. Volume 2: Clinical component This volume contains five clinical practice reports (CPR) submitted during the doctorate course. These reports reflect the training of the course and the work completed over the three years of the course. CPR 1 and 2 were conducted during a child and adolescent placement. CPR 1 describes a doctor phobia in a five year old girl, formulated from a behavioural and a systemic perspective. CPR 2 reports a single case experimental design study on a narrative intervention for sleep difficulties in a nine year old boy. CPR 3 describes a qualitative service evaluation of a waiting list initiative and changes to the referral system to a Psychological Therapies Service within an adult mental health service. CPR 4 is a case study of a CBT intervention for a client with OCD in a specialist adult service. The abstract of CPR 5, a presentation on a CBT and narrative intervention for anger in a woman with a learning disability in an inpatient setting. The names and identifying details have been changed or removed from these reports to protect anonymity.

This thesis explores the interaction of gender and the construction of the Argentine state. It pays particular attention to the emergence of women’s movements as well as women’s writing and the way in which both reflect and express the history of the Argentine state after independence. Beginning with a brief account of Argentine independence and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento as founding-father of the Argentine nation, part one focuses on the historical periods of the Liberal State, Peronism, and the military dictatorships of the 1960s and early 1970s. It investigates how national discourse incorporated gender discourse without including women as citizens in their full right. It then explores how women’s movements articulated their ensuing discontent with the patriarchal system that attempted to ensure continuity of this exclusion. Part two identifies and analyzes selected texts by nineteenth and twentieth century Argentine female authors. Written from a specifically female standpoint, these novels and short stories articulate women’s grievances with the political developments addressed in part one.