The thesis has a number of general aims, which range around conceptualising the Loyal Orange Institution [LOI] and laying it open for a fruitful theoretical approach. There is first in Section One, a demarcation of the object of study, drawing a rigorous line between the LOI and a much more indefinite body of militant Protestant and anti-Catholic sentiment. Following on from this, the causal regress is shifted beyond a commonsense attribution of `sectarianism', and the conspiratorial or functionalist emphases which tend to dominate the existing literature. Generally more appropriate, in analysing Orangeism's progress in 19th century Scotland, is a conception of ideology which is structural and objective. Yet care is also taken here not to erase all instances of social control in the Movement's history. These, it is suggested, can be viewed as arising from basic inequalities of power in capitalism, in turn the result of economic inequalities and control of the state apparatus. A further difficulty with the more `sophisticated' Marxist approach is also raised. For, if this is a better fit with Orangeism's political and ideological content; in its embracing of endemic fractionalisation of the proletariat, it does seem to abandon a characteristic Marxist class analysis in favour of a neo-Weberian one. It is agreed that this indicated the need for a new Marxist approach to sectionalism. The construction of such an approach, however, requires concrete historical work rather than more speculative theorising. Accordingly it is the former which is the concern of this thesis, though it does raise a number of themes which are important for further theoretical consumption. Section Two, for example, suggests the necessity of rethinking the relation between sectarianism and sectionalism in the workplace. Related to this must also be a reconsideration of the `labour aristocracy' concept, and the explanatory value of `marginal privilege' in connection with Orangeism. The Section further emphasises the need for a phenomenological dimension in any new theory of working class sectionalism, a sensitivity to self-perceptions being particularly crucial in understanding the sources of motivation for Orangeism and the internal divisions which characterised it. An important substantive problem also structures this, and Section Three dealing with Orange political practice - namely how to account for the LOI's absolute strength, yet relative weakness in Scotland. The predicates for the former, it is argued, are found in a sympathetic ideological climate, and in the impact of successive home Rule and Disestablishment crises. Above all, though, it is suggested that the real backbone of LOI support in 19th century Scotland was formed by Ulster Protestant migrants. In Orange relations with the churches and political parties, however, this `Ulster factor' could prove a double-edged sword. For while the migrants themselves were largely integrated into Scottish society, Orangeism itself was widely perceived as an extension of Irish `party' quarrels. Coupled with a reputation for violence and drunkenness, this factor interacted in turn with broader cultural and political, as well as economic, features of 19th century Scotland. Notably these included schisms in the Scottish churches, the precarious position of the Conservative party here, and the focus of political decision-making outside the country. These points indicate, finally, the importance of an awareness of the specificity of social formations in any new approach to sectionalism.

This study uses qualitative methods to explore how boys’ and girls’ symptom reporting may be influenced by their perceptions of societal gender- and age-related expectations, their conceptualisations of symptoms, and the social context of symptom experiences. Twenty-five focus groups were conducted with girls and boys aged 10, 13 and 15. These took place in one primary and one secondary school, both located in central Scotland, between June 2004 and January 2005. Focus groups were composed of pupils who were the same age and gender. To stimulate discussion and aid comparison across groups, focussing exercises were designed and put into practice. Symptom cards were used to investigate pupils’ conceptualisations of symptoms. Vignettes encouraged pupils to explore how same- and opposite-sex peers might react to a ‘physical’ and ‘malaise’ symptom in different social contexts. Histograms displaying gender differences in symptom reporting were used as a basis for exploring pupils’ explanations for these patterns. This study found that experiences of illness are integral to boys’ and girls’ presentations of themselves and their performances of gender and age. Their efforts to conform to gender- and age-related expectations have a significant influence on their reactions to illness, their conceptualisations and assessments of symptoms, and also their perceptions of the consequences of seeking help for illness in different social contexts. Societal expectations can be seen as representing strict ‘rules’ for boys, which substantially restrict their reactions to ‘physical’ and especially ‘malaise’ symptoms, whereas they can be viewed as more lenient ‘guidelines’ for girls which are more permissive of their help-seeking for either ‘physical’ or ‘malaise’ symptoms. The ‘rules’ and ‘guidelines’ for boys and girls are not as polarised as gender stereotypes would lead us to expect. This study suggests that seeking help for illness can pose a serious threat to boys’ constructions of themselves as ‘successfully masculine’, but is also has a negative impact upon girls’ presentations of themselves as strong and independent. Boys and girls also argued that the transition from childhood to adolescence is more stressful for girls. They portrayed the advert of puberty and menarche, as well as mounting academic pressures, as stressors likely to lead to girls’ increasing experiences of ‘physical’ symptoms and ‘psychological’ distress. In order to reduce help-seeking barriers and improve boys’ and girls’ perceptions of the consequences of reporting symptoms, there needs to be an erosion of the idea that illness signifies weakness or deficiencies of character. Campaigns to reduce the stigma of mental illness would benefit from incorporating boys’ and girls’ conceptualisations of ‘malaise’ symptoms and aiming to change misconceptions which act as barriers to help-seeking.

The sociological issue addressed in this thesis is the assessment of recent work carried out in relation to questions of architectural and urban transitions. Glasgow’s City of Architecture and Design festival is used as a test case to illustrate and apply the emerging concerns with the role of architecture and design culture in managing and driving urban change. It confirms the current applicability of some distinct theoretical positions drawn from studies of a range of cities. It suggests sociologists ought to be paying more attention to Glasgow as it exemplifies some main tendencies identifying it as a vanguard culture city developing a three dimensional culture of urban space. Writing with a theoretical and empirical focus on the experience of the ‘city of culture’, the thesis works through principal themes to clarify the range of factors driving change in the city of Glasgow. I compare the city’s international exhibitions and modern architectural character to illustrate how centralised and flamboyant observations at festival sites, and a study of some exemplary productions of the festival in relation to the ongoing transformations of urban experience in the central city. The thesis provides a sustained sociological portrait of the city’s architectural and design culture and points to specific questions concerned with the nature of the recolonisation of the valorised central city.

This thesis provides an ethnographic analysis of how Greek gay men experience the ways in which their sexuality is subject to ‘negotiation’ in the family and the military, how these ‘negotiations’ influence and sometimes even inhibit the creation of an LGBT movement. The experiences of my ethnographic informants produced little material for generalisations but the diversity of their voices suggests that they are constantly fighting between the desire to belong and the wish to remain different. I argue that the theoretical framework of timi and dropi (honour and shame) can still be a valuable explanatory tool for an understanding of Modern Greek homosexualities. Yet, this thesis offers a critique of this paradigm for its neglect to account for the possible ways in which the sexual contact of the men in a family may occasionally be seen as a threat to the family’s honour. As a result, silence becomes a defence mechanism that many of my gay interlocutors and their families employ to deal with homosexuality. This varied silence often inhibits the sense of pride in the man’s homosexuality and in turn prevents him from joining the movement that would require him to be vocal about his sexual self. The military experiences of my interlocutors, on the other hand, challenge the assumption that the military is a strictly heterosexual space. What they often describe as the ‘homo-social’ environment of the military acted as a catalyst for several of them to come to terms with their homosexuality. The thesis also explores the history of Greek LGBT activism from its inception in 1976 to today and examines the reasons behind its limited success in capturing the hearts and minds of my interlocutors.

In the autumn of 1997 it was announced that Radio 4's programmes were to be rescheduled and a commitment was given that disability would become a mainstream issue for the network. The new schedule and the mainstreaming initiative were implemented in April 1998. One of the immediate effects of rescheduling was the disappearance of Does He Take Sugar?, the network's weekly programme which presented in-depth treatment of general disability issues. By way of replacement, You and Yours, Radio 4's consumerist programme of longstanding, was given the remit to include regular coverage of disability issues in its content. It was intended that the outcome of these decisions would be that regular coverage of disability would emerge from a niche slot within the network and be positioned within the mainstream of the network's output. On the one hand, the implementation of the proposal to mainstream disability yielded the possibility of an increase in the coverage of disability issues on Radio 4 in an integrated way. On the other hand it could mean a loss of effective and focused treatment of disability issues and a qualitative shift in the nature of coverage. The proposal to mainstream disability issues on Radio 4 thus touched on central issues concerning the treatment of socially disadvantaged groups and the quest for equality. Its implementation took place at a time when the UK disability movement was growing in political power, and disabled people in Britain were becoming aware of the promise of potentially beneficial socio-cultural changes reflected by developments such as the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act CDDA 1995). This thesis examines three aspects of the introduction of the mainstreaming initiative and the early years of its implementation: a) it draws on interviews with key players, conversations with others involved, participant observation reports and documentary evidence to examine the rationale behind the mainstream initiative and, in the light of the decision to drop the network's programme which focussed on general disability issues (Does He Take Sugar?), it examines the decision to retain In Touch, the network's niche programme for blind or visually impaired listeners; b) it presents a quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis of the network's pre and post-mainstreaming treatment of disability issues. This includes analysis of ten editions of Does He Take Sugar? the disability issues covered in You and Yours during the months of September 1998, 1999, 2000 and analysis of the series No Triumph, No Tragedy. presented by a former member of the Does He Take Sugar? team in the summer of 2000.

Many HIV/AIDS prevention interventions have been shown to increase awareness and knowledge but few have been shown to impact on behaviour. This ethnographic study was designed to provide a holistic account of risk perception in order to inform our understandings of how HIV risk is perceived. Through qualitative methods it is both a deductive testing of the risk theories of Douglas and Giddens and an inductive, grounded investigation to identify which risks are prioritised and the discourses which influence risk perceptions in one rural and one neighbouring peri-urban site in north-western Tanzania. Risk perception is framed by multiple, sometimes contradictory, discourses which shape individual perceptions of risk at particular moments. These are defined as a series of ‘risk moments’, each of which is context specific and contingent on dynamic social conditions. Living in a society in flux, where multiple forms of tradition co-exist with modern ideals, rural dwellers’ experiences of past misfortune are often interpreted to inform a future-oriented risk perception. The role of chance and fatalism are dominant public and private discourses, but ones which co-exist with collective and individual capabilities to control risk through reliance on social capital and social networks to create maendeleo(development), despite restricted lifestyle alternatives and vulnerable socio-economic conditions. Responses to some risks are invariable and predictable, such as routinised actions like hand washing. Responses to other risks, such as crop failure, vary according to predictable patterns. These patterns include social position and biography, defined through gender, socio-economic status, partner type and exposure to alternative lifestyle choices through migration. This is one of several ways in which risk perceptions are dominated by social factors. Others are the presumed social causes of many risks, and the social benefits or costs of risk aversion. Conflicting social risks, such as exposure to jealousy and being too trusting, are subject to cautious strategies to manage ambiguous social relations. Within this dynamic social world, characterised by contradictions between adaptation and resignation, risk priorities are constantly re-assessed and management strategies renegotiated as individuals encounter novel circumstances. The results from this research have confirmed this contingent nature of risk perception and contributed to our knowledge of people’s approaches towards health risks and understandings of prevention which may be useful in the design of appropriate behaviour change campaigns.

This thesis explores the recent phenomenon of premarital stag party tours made to Eastern European cities by groups of British men. It is based on ethnographic field research in Krakow, Poland, conducted over the course of one year. The use of qualitative methods, primarily participant-observation, allows for the exploration of the in situ meanings and social interactions which define the stag weekend. The thesis argues that the behaviour of stag tour groups offers considerable insight into masculinity and that the meanings attributed to such behaviour reveal complex construction of contemporary British masculinities. It is argued that the Eastern European stag tour is both sold and consumed on the premise that it represents a distinct physical, social and symbolic space and time within which masculine behaviour can be enacted. This is seen as a liminal space within which an exaggerated hyper-masculinity based on a carnivalesque social transgression becomes possible and desired. It is argued that the stag tour is both performative and embodied. The male body plays a central role through the consumption of alcohol, its effects upon the body and the use of bodies by stag tourists to foster an ethos of playfulness and enact a transgressive release from social restraint. Intimacy, sociability and group cohesion play a significant role in shaping the meaning of the stag weekend for tour participants. The thesis concludes that the stag tour represents a meaningful and symbolic moment for its participants, which is mediated by notions of masculinity and homosociality. While the stag tour represents a manifestation of hegemonic masculinity in a narrow sense, it also highlights the adaptability, rather than „crisis‟, of masculinity for the men involved.

This thesis is a comparative and historical study of nursing in Britain and the USA from 1860 to 1970. The framework for the enquiry is drawn from the sociology of occupations and professions and the material is oriented specifically to the suggestion that occupational groups 'professionalise' and that professionalisation is a quest for power. There are four parts. Part one reviews the literature on professions which was available in the early 1970s, noting the strong consensus of what are called 'sceptical theorists' around the theme of professional power. It also examines a more substantive literature on nursing, for its bearing on this theme, and outlines a research design. The design involves the specification of areas of power and of indicators of the amount of power held. It sugges ways in which empirical materials might be, collected, largely from secondary sources. Part two presents data on control gained by nurses in both countries in relation to two areas of entry and training. Reasons are given why the research design needed to be modified to produce a much more exploratory and interpretative account than had been envisaged. Differences in the matrix of institutions surrounding the regulation of nursing and the ways they function in the two settings are covered, still in the context of asking questions about the locus of power. The weaknesses of this style of analysis prompt an approach in part 3 which departs further from the original specifications. Nursing is seen as engaged less in a direct quest for control and more in a struggle for meaning. Three chapters deal in turn with concepts of the nurse and her work, aspects of the formulation and presentation of nursing knowledge and some of the strategies and struggles in which nurses have collectively engaged. A deliberate effort is made to build on and use the crosscultural, comparative opportunities presented by these data. The concluding section assesses the relevance of these analyses for the sociology of occupations and professions, suggesting that although the sceptical theorists of the early 1970s performed an important service in highlighting the normative nature of the concept of profession, they did not suggest altogether satisfactory ways of coming to terms with it. Two appendices are included, one providing additional statistical material for chapters 3 and 4, the other discussing issues of theory and method which arise in an historical and sociological project such as this.

This thesis provides the first extended and in-depth study of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu?s work on literature. Chapter 1 surveys the problematic from which Bourdieu?s work on literature emerged, and its reception in the Anglophone field of literary criticism. Chapter 2 introduces Bourdieu?s original method of literature analysis, which has yet to have been used widely in literary studies, but which provides analytic purchase at all levels of literary study, from the micro-textual to the macrosocial. Chapter 3 centres on Bourdieu?s notion of autonomy, and explores its relations to his key concepts of habitus, capital, and field. Chapters 4 to 6 then examine the intersections between Bourdieu? work on literature and his other sociological and political projects. Chapter 4 shows how Bourdieu?s theory of sociological knowledge enabled him to set up a distinction between a ?scientific? and a ?literary? representation of the social world, and explores the possibilities for complementarities and exchange between sociology and literature. Chapter 5 shows how Bourdieu hoped to harness the specific skills and symbolic capital of writers in the service of progressive causes, focusing on his plans for an International Parliament of Writers and Liber, his European book review. Chapter 6 explores the cultural policy implication of Bourdieu?s work on literature, both for educational reform and State support for the Arts. Overall, this thesis will show that Bourdieu brings novel solutions to some of the most persistent ? and urgent ? problems facing literary studies today, and not only in France; but also that sociology can learn from literature and from studying literary writers.

This study examines the theoretical and practical tensions and contradictions of multiculturalism in Taiwan. It combines cultural theory, cultural studies, and cultural policy to explore how western theories of multiculturalism can been practised in Taiwan's experience, and discuss the development of cultural policy in Taiwan. Based on its unique history, Taiwanese society is struggling with two problems. One is the lack of common national identity. The clash between Chinese identity and Taiwanese identity has led to other conflicts within the whole society. The other problem is related to inequality among the various cultural communities, which has created a crisis in political legitimacy and social justice. In response to these challenges multiculturalism has become an important influence in cultural policy in Taiwan, and 'multicultural Taiwan' is constructed as a new national identity. Because of the contradictory aspirations of homogeneous national identity and recognition of cultural differences three major challenges are posed by the emergence of multiculturalism in Taiwan. The first is related to national identity. Under the name of 'multicultural Taiwan', the government is seeking to construct a more complex, multifaceted and sustainable version of Taiwanese culture capable of mediating between the diversity and conflicts arising from ethnicity. However, multiculturalism, which is based on the recognition of various ethnic identities, also leads to tension between an integrative national identity and separate ethnic identities. The second challenge is related to cultural policy, which shows the tensions between integration and separation, between individual rights and collective rights in cultural policy. The third challenge is related to citizenship in Taiwan. The new concept of multicultural citizenship demands the acknowledgement of more rights, such as collective rights, cultural rights, minority rights and global citizenship, in defiance of the traditional views of citizenship based on civil, political and social rights, and national boundaries. Three case studies have been selected to reflect each issue: the Taiwanese aborigines, the Hakkas and migrant workers. By considering these three challenges, I try to redefine multiculturalism and cultural policy in the Taiwanese experience. Firstly, I seek to redefine multiculturalism as 'multicultural citizenship' in the case of Taiwan. Multicultural citizenship is seen as a new balance between 'integration' and 'diversity' in the development of multiculturalism in Taiwan. On the one hand, multicultural citizenship is related to the construction of a common public sphere and nation; on the other hand, it is also related to respect for cultural diversity and special communities in the private sphere. Secondly, I try to redefine cultural policy in Taiwan in terms of cultural rights and multicultural citizenship, which embody the link between people and the state. Cultural policy should protect cultural rights and strengthen the relationship between people and cultural policy. Similarly, multicultural policy should be based upon cultural rights and multicultural citizenship. When implemented, it should then improve multiculturalism. Thirdly, I conclude that the problems of national identity and cultural differences should be considered on the basis of multicultural citizenship.