This thesis explores the discursive environment in which the ‘interdisciplinary self’ is constructed. Interdisciplinarity is part of research policy agendas across the globe; however, there are competing and contrasting discourses about its value. On the one hand, interdisciplinarity is meant to foster innovation and to address contemporary world problems; on the other hand, it represents an intellectual and a professional risk for those who engage in it. Interdisciplinarity has become a research topic in itself, but scholars have not engaged with contemporary literature on ‘the self’ and on expertise. This limits our understanding of the individuals who engage in interdisciplinary research and how they deal with their intellectual and professional challenges. This thesis aims to fill this gap by reviewing literature on expertise and analysing 27 semi-structured interviews with researchers and administrators from a large research-oriented British university. The analysis draws on an approach that focuses on how ‘the self’ is constructed in discourse and biographical narrative, taking up but also resisting widely established meanings (e.g. what is an expert, what is worthwhile professionally, etc.). The analysis identifies in particular four ‘ideological dilemmas’ that the interviewees struggle with in their arguments about their background, their skills, and the value of their careers; namely the dilemmas of ‘openness and rigour’, ‘individualism and collectivism’, ‘disciplinary tolerance and expert prejudice’, and ‘effort and reward’. These dilemmas suggest that the ‘interdisciplinary self’ is performatively and discursively constructed in a rhetorical context in which no position can remain untroubled. Therefore associating interdisciplinary individuals with idealised traits, personalities and ‘virtues’ is not so adequate. It is suggested that ‘interdisciplinary expertise’ consists of the skills of managing these dilemmas, which may be partially but not permanently solved.

The social scientific debate over consumption is of increasing concern to commentators addressing the cultural implications of socio-economic change. All too often, however, the individual meanings that consumers have for the goods they consume have been neglected by these commentators, notably in favour of abstract discussions of the role of consumption in the emergence of a 'postmodern' culture. Arguing that consumption provides the sociologist with an invaluable means of addressing questions concerning the relationship between structure and agency, this thesis attempts to move beyond the limited conception of a fragmented self, picking and choosing his or her identity from the menu of life, to begin to establish an empirical grounding for the relationship between consumption and identity amongst young people. Data were collected from a triangulated three-stage research process, in the form of a series of focus group interviews, informed by Personal Construct Psychology, a participant observation study in a sports shop, and a Consumer Meanings Questionnaire. Arguing that young people's identities are largely constructed in peer group settings, the evidence presented suggests that consumption provides an everyday cultural framework, within which young consumers negotiate some semblance of everyday stability in a 'risk' society. In this sense, young people appear to pursue a dual task. First, they are intent upon forming group-based identities. Second, they attempt to construct a sense of individuality in this context. Hence, it is argued that whilst young people choose consumer goods according to peer group meanings, they tend to see their own choices as 'individual' and those of their peers as being determined by media and marketing-created desires. As such, whilst it would be misleading to see young people as dupes of the capitalist system, neither are they free agents. Teenagers construct their identities partially through the framework that consumption provides, but not with products of their own choosing. Far from being whimsical consumers in this context, I argue that essentially, young people are modernists, adapting to the rational constraints upon their everyday lives and changing the character of their consumption patterns accordingly. The situated realities of so-called postmodern forms of consumption can therefore only be understood, it is argued, through innovative triangulated research methods which address consumer meanings in routine everyday settings and which, in turn, consider the theoretical implications of such meanings, for both an understanding of the ideological impact of consumerism and it's relationship to debates concerning structure and agency.

The rapid expansion, wider distribution and increased readership of print media in the latter half of the nineteenth century helped to foster the process that has been described as the nationalisation of English culture. In a parallel process, however, the same media could also be deployed to construct and to propagate regional cultures and identities. This thesis, concentrating on the period c.1850-1918, uses Yorkshire as a case study. The employment of county boundaries and structures as a delimitation for historical research can be questioned. But it is defensible in the case of the cultural study of a county that, in spite of its size, heterogeneity and industrial transformation, had acquired a set of identities and stereotypes which evolved during the early-modern period and were retained, refined and celebrated in the industrial age. Although it had no political basis, Yorkshireness remained a powerful sub-identity within England, the United Kingdom and the wider British world. By examining the newspaper press, weekly periodicals, dialect almanacs and regional fiction, the thesis explores the evolution and the dissemination of Yorkshire’s cultural identity in an age of popular print. There is also an analysis of attempts to find a deterministic basis for Yorkshire character and a description of county societies in the UK and overseas. The evolution of folkloristic Yorkshire identities and symbols is traced, and illustrated dialect postcards of the early-twentieth century are analysed, on the grounds that they were a widely-transmitted source of Yorkshire stereotypes. Individuals who played a role in the construction of Yorkshireness include the writer James Burnley, the folklorist and humorist Richard Blakeborough, the novelists Halliwell Sutcliffe and William Riley, the dialect writers Charles Rogers and John Hartley, the cartoonist Arthur North and the University of Leeds academic Professor Frederic Moorman, who conceived the project for eisteddfod equivalents in Yorkshire. The conclusion is that Victorian and Edwardian print media and illustrated ephemera were used extensively to construct and convey a sense of Yorkshireness, acting as a countervailing force to the tendency towards nationalisation of culture, and that in the absence of a fully negotiated concept of universal Englishness, county identity was an important factor at home and overseas.

Tate Modern has attracted significant academic interest aimed at analysing its cultural and urban regeneration impact. Yet there exists no research which provides an in-depth and contextual framework examining how Tate Modern was established, nor is there a study which assesses critically the development of Tate’s collection of international modern and contemporary art. Why is this important? It is relevant because a historic conflict of interests developed within the Tate’s founding organisation which was reluctant to host it. The outcome was that gaps were created in the original National Modern Foreign Collection, which had to be later compensated for within the spaces of Tate Modern. Furthermore, Tate Modern was established by the Tate, in place of a London or national government. Manoeuvring to the position of civic patron was a long process for the Tate, which had been affected by changing political and cultural circumstances. From the organisation’s inception, a complex model of public and private vision and patronage emerged, which was impeded by conflicting national and international agendas. Modernisation and modernity impacted on the organisation through political and cultural necessity, forcing it to adjust to the new social climate. However, the underlying theme in the Tate’s development has been the relationship between culture and commerce. These are the reasons why this thesis examines how Tate Modern was established in the particular way that it was, and why it was re-imagined as a distinct kind of museum of modern art in London, and one that was relevant for the new millennium.

This study is a qualitative analysis of direct cultural encounters between China and the West. It examines the subjective experiences of Chinese students in Britain and Western expatriate teachers in China from their own viewpoints – how they understood and interpreted different cultures and made sense of similarities and differences between one another, that is, how they experienced cultural translation. It employs focus group and individual interviewing methods. This study adopts an analytical framework of a before-during-after logic to answer three questions: 1) why did participants come to the host country and what did they think of it before arrival? 2) how did they relate to the host environment and make sense of differences? and 3) how these direct cross-cultural experiences influenced them as well as the wider context of cultural relations between China and the West? It presents the historical background of cultural and educational exchange between China and the West and identifies motives of participants coming to the host country under the current context of global cultural flows. Furthermore, it highlights factors that differentiated the subjective experiences of participants, such as gender, duration of time spent in the host country, relationships with local people and the subjects of study. The effects of participants’ experiences in the host country also varied according to these factors. What underpins the relationship between China and the West in terms of cultural and educational contacts, presented by Chinese students in Britain and Western expatriate teachers in China, is fundamentally an interplay between economic and cultural factors. Differences between China and the West are as much cultural as institutional. This study provides a detailed account of such differences. It discusses what aspects of Western cultural values have a strong influence on China and which traditional Chinese values still hold their importance during direct cultural encounters with the West. It reveals the internal struggle, caused by cultural differences and institutional limitations, amongst both Chinese students in Britain and Western expatriate teachers in China, but it also highlights the ways in which some differences have been exaggerated during direct cross-cultural encounters as well as the profound social and cultural similarities shared by China and the West, which tend to be overlooked.

The city centre has diminished in importance as a retail and leisure destination due to increased competition, especially from out-of-town developments. It suffers from the disadvantages of inaccessibility and less competitive pricing. Additional to this, it is possible that the city centre is being avoided due to a fear of crime. This thesis recognises that a fear of criminal victimisation, along with a fear of intimidation has a detrimental influence on the vitality, and consequent viability of the city centre. The research takes the form of a broad contextual review of the problem. To date, this has not been undertaken for a U. K. city. The city of Swansea provides the main focus of an applied geographical study. A comparison is developed between the actual incidence of crime, as recorded by the Police, and the fear of crime within the city centre. Consequently, the survey takes on two distinct forms. Firstly, an analysis of crime records is undertaken, identifying vehicle crime, and theft from shops as principal concerns. Additionally, violent crime is recognised as a problem of the evening economy. The second part of the study takes the form of a household questionnaire survey. This identifies the use of the city centre, and the extent to which fear of crime is recognised as an issue. A geography of perceived anxiety, regarding personal safety and car crime, is constructed for both the daytime and night environments. 'Hot spots' of fear are identified at the retail periphery and at pedestrian subways. During the evening, anxieties are accentuated at concentrations of public house and night club activity. The findings of both parts of the survey are drawn together, with implications considered in terms of planning and design. As the thesis is a review of the problem, areas of possible further research are also identified.

National statistics on school exclusions published annually by the Scottish Executive indicate the over-representation of particular groups within the whole group of those excluded. Official and policy accounts of school exclusion were explored and tensions found between social policy constructions of exclusion and school policy. The latter was rooted in understandings of challenging behaviour as an additional support need or as a problem of school functioning. Not only were these discourses in tension with each other, resulting in inconsistencies in practice, but both ignored the social and cultural factors structuring school exclusion statistics. In the first empirical phase of the research, key informant interviews were used to probe professional and personal experience of exclusion, to contrast these with official views, and to inform the main phase of the investigation. The second, main phase of the research used a case-study sample of twenty excluded pupils, in four secondary schools, to investigate inequitable patterns of exclusion. Data was gathered from classroom observation, from school documentation and from interviews with pupils, parents and school staff. The main focus of the enquiry was the social identities of excluded pupils. Gender was a main category of analysis in this research, and especially masculine identities since boys were so predominant in exclusion statistics. The thesis argues that school exclusions are not just an indicator of wider social exclusion but an effect of policy which pursues social justice without fair distribution of social and economic benefits. Structural inequality has ensured that children and families are differently positioned to schooling and has limited the scope of schools in fostering engagement with schooling. Increased participation particularly in curriculum planning, is nevertheless a worthwhile and realistic aim for schools seeking to minimize school exclusion.

Psychiatric distress, smoking and excessive alcohol consumption are common health problems which often occur together and are patterned by socioeconomic position. Smoking and drinking behaviours and mental health problems tend to develop over the transition from adolescence to adulthood, so this thesis aimed to investigate the mechanisms by which socioeconomic factors influence their co-development during this stage of life as young people make transitions into adult social roles. Data were primarily taken from three UK cohort studies (two nationwide birth cohorts respectively born in 1958 and 1970, and a cohort of adolescents from Glasgow who were also born in the early 1970s), so it was possible to examine whether mechanisms were context-dependent. Additional data from the youth sub-sample of the British Household Panel Study allowed investigation of socioeconomic inequalities in early adolescent smoking development in more recent history (1994-2008). A combination of person and variable centred analysis techniques (latent class analysis, structural equation modelling, propensity weighting, and event history analysis) were employed to investigate the role of socioeconomic background and transitions to adulthood in development of smoking, drinking and psychiatric distress in adolescence and early adulthood. Inverse probability weighting and multiple imputation were employed to account for missing data. A strong association was identified between socioeconomic disadvantage and adolescent smoking, despite recent increases in tobacco control in the UK. Smoking appeared to be an important mechanism, or at least a marker for other mechanisms, linking socioeconomic disadvantage to heavier drinking, psychiatric distress, and early school-leaving. Aside from smoking, there were other mechanisms leading to heavy drinking and psychiatric distress. For psychiatric distress, these were still mainly associated with socioeconomic disadvantage, especially in early adulthood, whereas for drinking there were mechanisms associated with socioeconomic advantage. Participation in tertiary education appeared to be an important example of such a mechanism, linking socioeconomic advantage to heavier drinking in early adulthood. Remaining in education was strongly linked to delaying other adulthood transitions, but different patterns of early transitions exhibited different associations with smoking, drinking and distress in different contexts. Tackling inequalities in smoking may help reduce inequalities in drinking and distress in adolescence and early adulthood, and policies increasing access to tertiary education should consider the deleterious effects on drinking behaviours.

This dissertation is about how the concept of harm, damage or wound is applied as a metaphor to a site often called the self or the soul. This is the social space of the individual subject, which is, paradoxically, placed by our language and culture in a person’s interior – a place where we are all said to be vulnerable and endangered by a potentially hostile environment. The thesis consists of a series of studies which are designed to show how the concept of harm to an inner life emerges from different discursive contexts, and how it does so in distinctly variable versions: psychological, emotional, neurological or social, in more or less stable hybrid forms. Using primary sources which are mostly documentary, supported by some interviews, the studies range from a look at the psychiatric history of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and at the story of its rewriting in English tort law; the recent reprised popularity of attachment theory and its marriage to neurology and a look at the career of the concept of the emotional abuse of children as a social problem category in the legal/administrative processes of Child Protection. These are introduced by a first chapter which concentrates on the metaphoric content of invisible wounds or psychic trauma and the way it produces particular forms of the self. The studies which follow this are clustered around the literature and practices of the psychiatric, psychological, psycho-analytic, social work and legal professions, in order to show how the work of these professionals makes the concept of a psychic injury visible, discussible, treatable, administrable and justiciable. Through their efforts, it is argued, the concept moves from being a metaphor, hooked onto the palpable reality of a physical wound, to acquire a ‘facticity’ of its own; it becomes a reality through its achieved status as a social problem category and an ever present risk to self and self regulation at the turn of the 21st century.

There remains a paucity of women in both executive and non-executive director roles in British boardrooms. This research explores how far this is explained by differences in levels of social capital and networking activities between men and women seeking boardroom positions. While it is known that social capital is important at junior and middle management levels (with existing research showing that the quality of men’s and women’s networks differ, and that women are not able to leverage their networks to the same extent as their male colleagues) no rigorous academic research on this issue has been conducted specifically at corporate board level, largely due to the difficulty of securing access to respondents. This thesis addresses the gap in the literature by drawing on data gathered from 82 semistructured interviews with Chairs, head-hunters and aspiring or recently appointed male and female directors. The research questions asked: what is the role of social capital and networking in corporate board selection processes; how far can Human Capital Theory, Preference Theory, Attribution Theory and Self-Efficacy explain the lack of progress of senior women to board level roles?; do aspiring female directors have poorer quality networks and less social capital than their male peers; why might this be; and are female aspiring directors as willing and able to leverage their social capital as their male peers. The findings affirm the importance of social capital theory in relation to selection to boardroom roles. Preference Theory, Human Capital Theory and Attribution Theory and Self-Efficacy are not found to explain the lack of promotion of senior female executives to board director positions. Other key contributions include insights into board director selection processes, the effectiveness of regulatory and voluntary codes, and gender differences in networking and job seeking activities of aspiring directors.