The current research investigates the professional and administrative expansion taking place in universities over the last twenty years, characterised by the emergence of new roles and functions in areas such as: planning, marketing, student services, student placement, quality control, and external relations. Understanding the forces underlying this change is essential in building a reliable picture of the current state and likely direction of the university as an institution. I engage with the two arguments conceptualizing administrative and professional growth in universities: functionalist (emphasising the role of structural pressures e.g. student numbers) and neo-institutionalist (drawing attention to the cultural forces that shape universities as formal organisations). The first chapter provides a cross-national assessment of the relative significance of functionalist and cultural (neo-institutionalist) explanations in accounting for variation in the levels of administrative and professional staff in 761 universities from 11 European countries. The second chapter provides a national level empirical illustration of how cultural forces such as the diffusion of formal organisation make UK universities’ more prone to expand their professional infrastructure in catering to demographic inclusion. The third chapter extends the national level inquiry with an investigation into whether UK universities’ engagement with professional staff enhances university performance, in line with functionalist expectations. The findings show that the impact of structural needs on the expansion of professional and administrative staff is overestimated, as well as the role that professional staff plays in universities’ performance. The growth in administrative and professional staff is by large a by-product of universities formalising themselves as organisations. In this sense, universities’ engagement with new layers of professional expertise is a purveyor of legitimacy for institutions articulating themselves as highly integrated, strategic, and goal-driven entities.

This thesis addresses the production and reproduction of narratives about people born as a result of war-related sexual violence in Colombia. I focus on the social processes through which these individuals have become part of the realities of the armed conflict that are apprehended by the Colombian government, human rights organisations and transitional justice agencies, the media, and the communities. My project draws on ethnographic content analysis of media, legal documents, and ethnographic research conducted between December 2015 and June 2016 in a rural Afro-descendent community in Colombia that was occupied by paramilitaries for approximately five years. Paramilitaries systematically used sexual violence against women and girls and, because of those abuses, children were born and later single out by members of the community as paraquitos, “little paramilitaries”. I conclude that people born as a result of war-related sexual violence have not emerged as subjects within the realities of the armed conflict that are apprehended by the discourse of transitional justice and human rights. Although information about them has circulated, it has done so within the framework for understanding wartime sexual violence. As a collective subject, they have gained a place in the imaginary of human rights organisations through naming practices that assume they are defined by the violence that conceived them. At the local level these children’s identities are dynamic and their experiences are connected to the experiences of their mothers within their cultural and moral system. For the community, these people do not belong to the collective narratives of the violence of the past. Their absence needs to be understood in relation to gendered notions of identity and reproduction that have denied women’s experiences of the armed conflict, while imposing motherhood. Although the life of people born of war starts as war-affected children, as they grow older their identities and opportunities are under constant negotiation that embody different forms of gender, economic, and social violence and resistance that challenge static notions of victimhood.

The aim of this dissertation was to investigate the geographic and individual/family-level factors influencing the development of psychopathological problems in young people aged between 10 and 15 years old residing in England and Wales. It includes three multilevel model studies based on data from a nationally representative longitudinal study linked to the 2011 UK census. The two outcome measures investigated were mental health and life satisfaction. Aggregated data from the census captured indicators of social capital, ethnic composition, and the socioeconomic and physical conditions of the neighbourhood. Individual/family-level variables included in the models were: youth age, gender and ethnicity, as well as measures relating to parental health, socioeconomic status and demographic characteristics. Study I revealed that the effects of social capital on deprivation depend on whether it is analysed in terms of mediation or moderation. Social capital attenuated the negative effects of socioeconomic deprivation on mental health and life satisfaction. Specifically, the effect of deprivation is reduced by homogenous friendship networks (bonding), civic engagement (bridging), and low average neighbourhood worry about crime (indicator of general trust). As a moderator, homogenous friendship networks and civic engagement buffered young people residing in more deprived neighbourhoods from greater mental health difficulties and low life satisfaction, whilst having little or no impact on those living in less deprived neighbourhoods. These results highlighted the importance of cultivating various forms of social capital because different components appear to offer different benefits. Study II revealed a negative association between socioeconomic deprivation and mental health among White British youths compared to their ethnic minority counterparts, and that ethnic density had a small but mitigating effect on these outcomes, while parental behaviour increased the gap in mental health differences between the two groups. Study III found a strong association between life satisfaction and ethnicity whereby Asian and Black youths reported better life satisfaction than their White counterparts. This differential association was attenuated by ethnic density and neighbourhood socioeconomic status. Overall, the results point to a strong relationship between the social and physical contexts of the neighbourhood, and mental health and life satisfaction. Although much of the observed variability in outcomes was explained by individual/family-level characteristics, the empirical evidence suggested that it was the intersection between neighbourhood composition and the individual/family predictors, which ultimately determined the direction and strength of mental health difficulties and life satisfaction among young people. The findings also suggest that the neighbourhood is an important arena for policies and initiatives targeted at improving the mental health and life satisfaction of young people.

This dissertation seeks to contribute to research in the philosophy of social science. The study focuses upon select epistemological and ontological aspects of Hannah Arendt’s work from which methodological implications are drawn pertaining to sociology. Arendt, although critical of the sociology of her time, has become increasingly cited and influential for emerging sociological research and this study seeks to contribute to this by focusing upon the problem of novelty. The aim is to explore the philosophical and methodological implications of novelty for social science by working through three case studies that are theoretically pivotal for social science—action, the ‘social’, and the self—in terms of novelty as expressed in Arendt’s writing. Arendt is critical of methodology and epistemology, aiming to draw her readers to ontological concerns outlined from her preoccupation with the 'world' and social reality. In this aim, Arendt seeks to distance herself from social sciences that she claims ignore human novelty in favour of reading social regularities, tendencies and similarities. Despite her disdain for method, Arendt suggests a anti-methodological 'method' (outlined in an overlooked footnote) for keeping trained upon and for dealing with novel, anomalous events. In the seed of this method lies a unique opportunity for social science to reassess and extend its methods, addressing this oversight and in so doing bring to light the novel social object as a legitimate subject of social research.

This thesis consists of three empirical chapters on the work and family demands of parents in the UK and Germany. The chapters are related in their focus on how parents combine employment careers with family demands, the consideration of financial constraints facing families, as well as the longitudinal approach to answering the research questions. First, the Introduction discusses the overall topic, both in broad terms and in relation to the individual chapters. Chapter 1 analyses the effect of fatherhood on men’s work hours and work hour preferences in the UK. The study shows that it is not fatherhood alone that has an effect on men’s work hours, but that it also depends on the partners’ employment status. It is also shown that the effect of fatherhood in this respect is mainly limited to households with children between one and five years of age. Chapter 2 analyses how UK mothers’ and fathers’ work hour demands affect the time they spend with their children in structured outdoor leisure activities, eating dinner together, and talking about important matters. Parents who work relatively long hours spend less structured outdoor leisure time with their children than other parents, but only in households where both parents are employed. For fathers, longer work hours also affect their frequency of eating with the family, while talking about important matters is not affected. The focus of Chapter 3 is on the relevance, in Germany, of both partners’ resources and especially the impact of career uncertainties for mothers’ returns into full-time and part-time employment after the birth of a child. The results show that both partners’ earning prospects play an important role for mothers’ (re-)entry decisions. Also interesting is that mothers seem to compensate for the negative effects of their partners’ unemployment experiences with increased labour force participation. The thesis finishes with a conclusion that summarises the results of my research.

This study investigates the poor mental health of unemployed middle-aged men (with women as a reference for comparison) in Hong Kong, who were unemployed and isolated socially in what is officially described as a new town, Tin Shui Wai. The study also explores the different aspects of social capital that may improve mental health for middle-aged individuals, drawing on data from ten in-depth interviews with five men and five women, two focus groups with five men and six women and a survey using questionnaires completed by 188 men and 215 women. The results showed that men in the sample had poorer mental health than women. In particular, levels of depression and alcohol abuse were higher in the men than the women. By contrast, women in the sample manifested more anxiety than the men. The findings also showed that unemployment had more negative effects on men than on women, with the men having more free time but nothing to do, feeling stressed, going out less with family members, drinking more alcohol and so on. Drawing on theories of social capital (Lin et al. 1985, McKenzie 2006), I argue that the poor mental health among men was associated with weak social capital. The data showed that for both men and women, social capital could have a positive association with reducing depression and anxiety. In particular, for men, community networks and social support had a positive association with reducing depression and alcohol abuse. For women, group membership, community networks and social cohesion had a positive association with reducing depression and anxiety. Based on these findings, I suggest an approach that focuses on increasing social capital to promote mental health among men and women. The approach argues for the need to introduce policies and strategies to promote social capital at the community and individual level for men, and at the community level for women.

This study presents a practitioner perspective analysis of how gangs, gang members and their associated risks are perceived and policed within the organisational structure of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). Drawing on a large-scale survey and in-depth interviews with a variety of gang practitioners, it contrasts and critiques specialist, analytical and local police practice in conceptualising, mapping, monitoring and policing within the gang milieu, focusing on police and partnership use and understanding of the primary tool for gang member management, the MPS Gangs Matrix. Findings highlight a perception of the gang at odds with that captured by the static intelligence mechanisms embedded in operational practice and highlight the tensions created by the complex intra-organisational structures in terms of remit and understanding. It identifies an emerging tendency to align the gang with organised crime; utilising elements of the interconnected theoretical frameworks of interactionism (specifically the activities of the labellers), contextual constructionism, and institutional theory to consider the aetiology and consequences of these actions in the context of policing policy and practice.

Research has shown that loneliness and social isolation have a significant negative impact on the physical and psychological health of older adults living in the UK, impacting not only on their quality of life, but on society as a whole through increased use of health services. There is a movement, however, that is committed to alleviating loneliness in older adults through befriending: where an unrelated volunteer gives their time to provide companionship on a regular basis to an individual in their own home. Drawing on the author’s personal experience as a befriender, there is an emotive and affective dimension to caring, that is often contradictory and conflictual, and that is missing from the current, predominantly descriptive qualitative literature in this area. Applying psychoanalytic concepts to sociological and psychological research, specifically the free association narrative interview technique (Hollway and Jefferson, 2000) and using transference and countertransference to support analysis and interpretation, produces data that contradicts previous views of the volunteer as rational, intentional, and coherent in their understanding and explanation of their own behaviour. This study has shown that the befriending experience is highly affective and often conflictual, producing similar anxiety that the both the befriender and the organisation through which they volunteer strive to alleviate. There are conflicting tensions between caring and sacrifice and in between being a friend but in fact restricted in the ‘behaviours’ that constitute this friendship. A richer understanding of the experience of befriending, from the point of view of the befriender, can help support organisations in the recruitment and retention of volunteer befrienders, as well as helping to develop further befriending services for older people based on this new knowledge.

The aim of this study is to understand how ideas about markets and marketing have shaped food policy. It focuses on the vegetable sector in England in the early years of the new millennium. The study takes the 2002 Report of the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food (Curry Commission) as its starting point. It explores how the Curry Commission’s ‘Turn to the Market’ call was interpreted and acted upon by vegetable production in England, and by UK Government (in practice English) Food Policy 2002-2015. It attempts to understand why and how policy makers turned to the market, what they meant by it, and how it changed how those involved in vegetable production thought about and responded to the marketing challenges they faced. The study centres on theoretical understandings of how food policy develops, and draws in marketing theories to contribute to that policy analysis. The study used qualitative methods - a combination of documentary analysis and fieldwork interviews with practitioners, policy-makers and analysts. Two research questions were formulated from the literature review: (1) how have ideas about markets and marketing shaped UK Food Policy since the Curry Commission?; and (2) what impact did the Curry Commission - and the policy that followed - have on English vegetable production? An analysis was conducted of policy documents of the period 2002 – 2015. Interviews were held with 23 key informants who were experts on and/or actors in English policy and vegetable production. The research adopted a realist and critical pluralist approach to food policy development. The research explored: how particular ideas of markets and marketing shaped wider UK Food Policy 2002-2015; how the marketing themes in UK Food Policy evolved; how UK Food Policy understood and framed the priorities for the vegetable sector which then opened up particular solutions and foreclosed others; and how the marketing ideas in UK Food Policy 2002-2015 affected how those involved in English vegetable production understood and responded to the marketing challenges they encountered. The findings show that UK Food Policy evolved from a proactive ‘Turn to the Market’ Food Policy under New Labour to a reactive 'Market Dominated' Food Policy under the Coalition government (2010-15). Policy framed the problems for the vegetable sector as a failure to market and devised policy mechanisms to support better marketing using ideas from orthodox marketing. The policy based on better marketing did halt the decline in the vegetable sector and helped it engage in more environmentally benign production practices. Growers still found it challenging to generate sufficient profit to reinvest and they felt that support for better marketing did not always work in practice. The thesis concludes that the marketing concepts do enrich food policy understanding. A markets-as-networks (MAN) analysis is proposed to provide a better way of understanding the marketing problems in the context of buyer dominated vegetable supply networks, where interaction is an important feature of supply relations and where exchange is embedded in on-going relationships. The research discussion considers the extent to which markets-as-networks (MAN) ideas offer a better framework for policy goals to increase the production of vegetables in England as part of a sustainable model for agriculture. Relationship marketing, from orthodox marketing, displays some features in common with the MAN tradition. By proposing this common ground between orthodox and heterodox marketing, the thesis offers directions for a revitalised market-oriented understanding of UK Food Policy and its development.

This thesis seeks to provide a comprehensive account of the nature and degree of change in British television news coverage of General Elections. By creating and utilising an in-depth content analysis coding frame, the analysis measures news quantitative and qualitative data across 270 bulletins, approximately 148hrs, of news content across the seven elections from 1979 to 2005. In doing so, it fills two gaps in the existing literature. First, it provides the first dedicated and consistent longitudinal analysis of British election news. Given the acknowledged importance of television news in the modern political process, it is important to develop an understanding of how campaign news content has changed, both as a source of information for the public at moments of democratic renewal, and also in terms of the normative role of journalism in British politics. Second, it develops a toolkit by which political news content can be accurately and reliably measured. Most of the existing empirical research into British television election news content has employed inadequate or non-replicable measures, leaving a fragmentary body of data from which longitudinal conclusions cannot be drawn with confidence. By adapting and applying a series of measures based on other longitudinal media content studies, the thesis sets out a means by which future studies of news content can be guided. The thesis thus generates new data on four aspects of election news content. First, it casts serious doubt on the "tabloidisation" thesis, demonstrating that news in British terrestrial news bulletins has retained both an overwhelmingly serious news agenda, and a substantial commitment to election news coverage. Not only have levels of campaign coverage remained steady, but campaign coverage has been given a consistently prominent place in news bulletins, indicating a lasting commitment to a more „sacerdotal‟ approach to campaign coverage on both BBC and ITV, despite increasing competition in the television environment. Second, an analysis of the balance of substantive policy content and strategic campaign coverage shows that journalists on British television news have adopted aspects of an increasingly adversarial approach to covering campaigns, and have tended to view their role ever more as interpreters of political messages and campaign actions. Third, the research shows comprehensive evidence of a dramatic shrinking of political soundbites over the period of study, and a replacement of disappearing politician speech by journalists who feature more and speak progressively more often over the period of study. Finally, in order to determine the effect of technological changes in television news reporting, the thesis compares campaign and non-campaign news output, determining that, while some aspects of change in election news can be ascribed to technological changes, the rise of the journalist as the most prominent speaker in campaign news items cannot.