Background: Although research suggests that obese children and adolescents are stigmatised, experience victimisation, have poor body image, body dissatisfaction, depression and low self-esteem, these findings have been inconsistent. There is increasing evidence to suggest that body perception rather than actual body size leads to negative psychosocial outcomes with many obese people miss-rating themselves as being ‘normal’ weight; body perception is also the strongest predictor of weight change attempts. The majority of studies in this area have been quantitative; the few previous qualitative studies have either not fully utilised qualitative methods or not focused on adolescents. This study uses qualitative methods, and a unique sampling strategy, to improve understanding of obesity related experiences and reasons for weight change behaviours and success in adolescence. Methods: 35 semi-structured interviews were conducted between November 2007 and April 2008. Young adult (aged approximately 24) males (17) and females (18) were purposively sub-sampled from The West of Scotland 11 to 16/16+ Study cohort based on measured adolescent obese status (SDS > 1.65 at one or more of the 11 to 16/16+ study age 11, 13 or 15 measurement points). A picture task was used to stimulate discussion about perceptions of health and weight and the interviews continued with discussion of adolescent experiences, weight related behaviours (diet and exercise) and any weight change attempts. Framework analysis was used to organise data and facilitate analysis. Findings: Initial quantitative secondary analysis of the 11 to 16/16+ data demonstrated that the majority of participants had been worried about both their weight and putting on weight in the future, although this did not translate into slimming behaviour for all. This study found that body size awareness and related ‘botheredness’ varied greatly and were inconsistently related to each other or to weight. While none of the most obese were among the least aware, some were among the least bothered and vice versa. Botheredness related to body concerns, comparisons with others, clothing, romantic relationships, and for approximately half the sample, victimisation. Although the majority of participants reported using changes in diet or exercise behaviours in order to try to lose weight at some time, botheredness did not always translate into effective weight change attempts. Participants were categorised as effective slimmers (active and successful weight change attempt), failed slimmers (active but unsuccessful weight change attempt), passive slimmers (weight loss without active weight change attempt), and passive maintainers (had made no attempts to change weight and had no weight loss). As young adults, 14 were non obese, 14 were obese and 5 were morbidly obese. Those who made successful long lasting weight changes described determination, a greater degree of behaviour change and continued behaviour monitoring. There appeared to be no real pattern to when or why effective changes were made. Age related transitions were often described as being tipping points as well as ‘just being ready’ to change. Those who described sudden unplanned changes were among those who showed the most sustained improvement in weight Conclusions: Not all those who are obese as adolescents are aware or bothered. Most adolescents are aware of how to lose weight. Being bothered is not enough of a motivator to make long lasting changes – obese individuals need to be ‘ready’ to change regardless of knowledge of health behaviours. More needs to be done to assist individuals in being ready to change, this might include raising; body awareness through periodic body measurements at transition points. Further study of ‘tipping points’ in obese adolescents may aid intervention targeting and design.

The increasing emphasis on the relationship between participation in education and social inclusion through employment views non-participating young people negatively by what they are not, exemplified in the label Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET). The UK’s strategy to reduce the numbers of NEET young people includes the provision of government training courses resulting in their increased attendance at further education colleges. This study was motivated by a need to understand these young people in order to work with them and to inform my professional practice. By engaging in purposeful conversation with a group of 14 young people, aspects of their lives, their experiences and perceptions of education, and their aspirations for the future are unfolded through the stories they chose to share. A consideration of the impact of forces of globalisation on opportunities for employment along with a recent history of youth training schemes sets the scene here for the analysis and discussion of these stories. Providing a fair account of stories in a way that allows the teller’s voice to be heard follows an uncharted course employing methods drawn from ethnographic, phenomenographic and narrative inquiry and resulting in a dissertation that blends theory, research and policy with the stories heard. Hearing such stories and considering their implications for working with these young people had a significant personal impact whilst confirming my conviction that in order to work successfully with such young people it is necessary to go beyond the label of NEET to understand something of their lives. Reflective and reflexive discussion around the methods adopted in this study consequently forms a major part of this dissertation as does explicit attention to the research journey travelled. The analysis of the stories of the young people centres here on notions of wellbeing and flourishing using a capabilities approach as a framework. By mapping themes identified in the conversations recorded in this study onto Martha Nussbaum’s list of central capabilities a re-framed version of her capabilities list, contextualised to NEET young lives is presented. It emerges that the perceptions of education and training and aspirations for future employment and wellbeing amongst this particular group do not justify the frequently negative connotations of the NEET label. Individual’s expressed anxieties around contemporary youth culture, their attitudes towards schooling and education and their hopes for their lives lead, in the final chapter of this study, to suggestions for ways forward for schools and colleges working with such young people. Here I emphasise the need for teachers to make space to understand the people behind the labels, to see them as individuals who may flourish more successfully if we are able to construct more compassionate institutions that allow young people to do and to be, to develop the capacities to lead the meaningful lives they desire and will have reason to value.

This thesis reports on a research project investigating how women use the internet, and how this use is productive of femininity. It takes an approach to researching this technology that examines what it becomes when it is used, and looks in depth at this internet use in a small number of women’s lives. Diaries, online and offline interviews, photographs and participation online were used to investigate their use of and experience of the internet, to investigate what is particular about women’s use. The project attempted to think differently about the internet, to use a relational approach, influenced by phenomenology and home geography to argue that in order to understand the internet we need to consider embodied practices and the objects and movements that make it possible. The entity of the internet emerges in a range of modalities, with human, non-human, material and semiotic components in a constantly shifting ecology of relations, many of these gendered. It is not a simple or discrete entity. This means it can operate in the lives of women in very diverse ways, from a formal setting oriented to work, to a purely leisure uses, mediated through rooms, posture, expertise and affect.

Archwilia’r traethawd hwn rai o’r problemau a wynebir wrth hyrwyddo iaith fechan, gan ddefnyddio’r Gymraeg yn brif enghraifft. Amlinella’r bennod gyntaf effaith negyddol unffurfrwydd monolithig y wladwriaeth-genedl ar amlieithrwydd, gan ei wrthwynebu ar y sail y gall medru sawl iaith wella hyblygrwydd meddwl a pherthnasau rhwng gwahanol grwpiau. Yn yr ail bennod cyflwynir damcaniaeth cymdeithaseg iaith a chynllunio ieithyddol ac amlinellir yr hyn y gallai disgyblaeth marchnata ei wneud i newid agweddau ac ymddygiad o blaid dwyieithrwydd. Ym mhennod 3 cyflwynir canlyniadau ymchwil a wnaed ar 219 o breswylwyr Dyffryn Teifi, ardal a chanddi ddwysedd siaradwyr Cymraeg uchel. Archwilir sawl agwedd ar yr iaith, e.e. defnydd iaith, dyheadau siaradwyr at y dyfodol, mesurau cynllunio ieithyddol a phroblemau a photensial grðp ail iaith cynyddol yr ardal. Ym mhennod 4 cymherir agweddau 324 o unigolion tuag at yr iaith, traean ohonynt yn ddisgyblion chweched dosbarth mewn ysgolion Cymraeg, traean arall yn ddisgyblion uniaith Saesneg a thraean yn ddysgwyr. Cyflwynir eu hatebion i restr gyffredin o gwestiynau parthed defnyddioldeb y Gymraeg, hunaniaeth genedlaethol a mesurau cynllunio ieithyddol. Pwysleisir pa mor bwysig yw siaradwyr ail iaith a’r rhai di-Gymraeg wrth geisio goresgyn y rhwystrau i sefyllfa ieithyddol wedi ei ‘normaleiddio’. Ym mhennod olaf y traethawd dadansoddir rhwystr arall i ddwyieithrwydd, sef y methiant anferth i gynhyrchu siaradwyr newydd, rhugl o oedolion. Cynigir mai methodoleg hen ffasiwn sydd ar fai am hyn a chynigir cyrchddulliau ‘ymennydd gyfeillgar’ i gymryd eu lle. Archwilir un o’r rhain, Suggestopedia, yn fanwl, a chesglir ei fod o leiaf mor effeithiol â chyrchddulliau eraill ac, o bosib, yn fwy effeithiol o dipyn. Cloir y traethawd drwy bwysleisio mai dim ond trwy gynllunio’n strategol wrth ystyried anghenion siaradwyr newydd o oedolion y goresgynnir y rhwystrau ar lwybr dwyieithrwydd

This thesis offers a critical history of the Glasgow University Media Group from 1975 to 2005. It argues that, viewed as a whole, the GUMG’s work constitutes a School of media sociology, which can now be recognised as such. The GUMG has lead research into the production, content and reception of public communications and has made a contribution to its field that it as significant as those made by the Birmingham School; the Toronto School and the Chicago School among others. However, there are barriers to that recognition, with which this thesis is also concerned. They are the misperception that the work of the group is biased by Marxist analysis and is motivated by a conspiracy theory of the media. The thesis also looks at the GUMG’s increasingly intimate relationship with broadcasters and examines how that relationship has contributed to a public sociology of the media, which is the most distinctive feature of the Glasgow School of media.

This thesis is divided into three chapters. A general theme running throughout concerns "the social lives of people described as having a learning disability". Chapter 1 is a critical review, focusing on the literature that has sought to understand how people described as having a learning disability negotiate their identities in the routine and mundane social interactions of their lives. In contrast to earlier research, that has attempted to explore how a "learning disabled identity" is perceived and experienced through direct interviews; the literature in this area offers a different perspective in that all of the studies critiqued use Conversation Analysis [CA] as a methodology. What they illustrate is the influential role of the environment, and more specifically, the roles that professionals and staff can play in relation to empowering or disempowering those whom they support. The contributions of these studies are assessed and clinical implications and recommendations for future research are considered. Chapter 2 is a qualitative study using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to explore friendship in the lives of people described as having a learning disability. For participants in the study, friendship was reported as playing an important role in their lives; however other relationships also had considerable significance. Of particular note were relationships with staff and family members. These relationships were at times spoken about as being welcomed and depended on, but at other times seen as a source of frustration. Limitations of the study are discussed, along with clinical implications and recommendations for future research. Chapter 3 is specifically related to Chapter 2, and provides a reflective account of the experience of undertaking a piece of research within the area of learning disabilities. Particular attention is given to some of the dilemmas and challenges that were encountered along the way.

This thesis examines how black masculinity is constructed, drawing on the accounts of black British men. It is based on field research in London, which consisted of a survey, participant observation, as well as interviews with 'representatives' of 'the black community' and black 'individuals', conducted in late 2007 and 2008. The research took place against the backdrop of on-going violence where black males were portrayed as the main victims and perpetrators of knife and gun crime, as well as the main participants in 'gang' related violence and crime. This thesis first maps the ways in which black men have been constructed within British society, with a focus on the present day. It then goes on to investigate the ways in which black British men as well as sections of 'the black community' respond to dominant constructions of black males in policy and media discourse. It finally considers the alternative ways in which black masculinities are constructed according to black men, namely a group of 20 men of Caribbean descent aged between 18 and 45. This study relies on both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore how black men respond to and negotiate negative representations of black masculinity. In particular, the study relies on the use of visual methods, namely photographs along with in-depth interviewing to generate accounts from black men of the alternative ways in which black masculinity is constructed and how such constructions are arrived at in contemporary Britain. The use of photographs allows for the exploration of not only how individuals see things but also how they see things differently, which can in turn invite new ways of seeing. This thesis argues that stereotypical representations of negative, atavistic, and violent black masculinities as routinely portrayed by the British media continue to form a common theme in the construction of 'the black British community' and the Government responses to these representations. I identify that sections of 'the black community' play an active part in responding to these constructions and highlight how this can considerably affect the ways in which black males are represented. While institutions like the mainstream media, parts of the criminal justice system and senior politicians continue to represent black men primarily as victims and perpetrators of violence, this thesis highlights how black men engage in acts of resistance which invite us to think about the roles of resilience amid ambivalence in the construction of identities.

With dramatic changes in family-related behaviours in the past 50 years, there has been an increasing awareness and acceptance of different family arrangements. Subsequently, measuring and studying people’s attitudes towards issues such as commitment to marriage, acceptance of alternative family forms, parental separation and gender roles has gained a lot of attention among those working in the fields of sociology, social psychology and demography. The majority of studies examining the relationship between family-related attitudes and behaviour have focused on either the selection or adaptation effects of attitudes, with fewer (particularly of those using British data) specifically addressing the possibility of both processes taking place. This study’s main goal is to address the latter using the data of two British cohorts born 12 years apart: the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS) and the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS). The cohort’s attitudes are measured by a scale consisting of three items which relate to: marriage being a lifelong commitment, a divorce being easily obtainable these days and the acceptability of parental separation. This work adopts the perspective of value orientation and life course position which implies a recursive nature of attitudes and behaviour whereby behaviour is influenced by people’s values (the selection effect of attitudes) and these values, in turn, adjust following changes in people’s circumstances (the adaptation effect of attitudes). The availability of attitude statements at two time points for each cohort (at age 26 and 30 for BCS; at age 33 and 42 for NCDS) and rich partnership history data allows for such analyses to be carried out as the order of events can be established. Firstly, this research utilises bivariate and multivariate techniques to investigate the determinants of attitudes. Further, it implements regression analyses to explore the relationships between attitude scores and: a) transition to first marriage for non-cohabiting cohort members (BCS and NCDS); b) transition to first marriage of cohabiting cohort members (BCS) and c) dissolution of first marriage (NCDS). The main findings show some evidence of both the selection and adaptation effects of attitudes in relation to marital transitions for both cohorts, indicating the importance of attitudes in shaping people’s behaviour and at the same time showing the tendency of attitudes to change in line with an individual’s personal circumstances.

This thesis explores the impacts of geographical structures of local governance upon the development of passenger rail transport policies in the Merseyside and Strathclyde urban regions. Rather than evaluate policy outcomes, it describes and analyses the systems and processes through which strategic rail transport policy-making is shaped and constrained. The impacts upon urban local rail transport policy-making of the statutory Passenger Transport Authorities and Executives, other local authorities, public and private sector bodies and individuals, which together comprise the prevailing structure of local governance in each area, are traced. The theory of the urban policy regime is applied to explain the development of particular policies from their basis in local political and popular concern, through to their implementation or rejection in order to illustrate the influences of each member of the policy community in practice. The two study areas and 1986-1996 timescale are chosen to represent the period when two differing territorial structures of Passenger Transport Authority (PTA) co-existed in the UK. Strathclyde Regional Council, which acted as PTA for the Clydeside conurbation and surrounding area in the west of Scotland, was the last remaining example in the UK of a strategic urban local government with jurisdiction over an entire city-region. In contrast, Merseytravel, the PTA responsible for local rail transport development in Merseyside, an urban region of similar economic, social and rail transport structure to Strathclyde, was jointly administered by five smaller local authorities acting under the quasi-market principles of public choice theory. Through a detailed exposition of the development of urban rail transport policies in each area, the ways in which both types of institutional arrangement influenced the structure and operation of the local policy regime, and its pattern of policy discourse, are analysed. The opportunities arising for the effective expression of public accountability under each system are highlighted, since this is a central aspiration of the abolition of strategic city-region wide local authorities inspired by public choice theory.

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