Traditionally, medicine and psychology have characterised mental handicap as an objectively diagnosable condition of the individual, in no way affected by society. Sociologists have reacted against this dominant paradigm by developing labelling theory accounts of how individuals and state agencies can create and maintain the category of handicap by stigniatization and differential denial of social resources, and there have been attempts to see the category as a functional one for industrial societies. However, these ahistorical accounts do not add up to an adequate sociology of retardation. Tracing the history of the condition, as the core of this thesis does, we find that it was not identified as a distinct 'social problem' in the West until the development of industrial capitalism. The key event appears to be the introduction of compulsory education, which presented to a state committed to universal education a group of children. The reactions to this discovery, however, must be construed as part of a whole culture and ideology, and the thesis traces the parallel development of scientific conceptualistions, popular attitudes and treatment provisions in the light of economic relations. (The historical analysis necessarily confounds industrialisation with the growth of capitalism, but limited cross-cultural material suggests the latter as the crucial variable.) The main aim of the thesis is to illustrate the importance of history for sociological theory. The thesis also considers the necessary role of microsociology and psychology in building a social theory of mental handicap which accounts for the experience of individuals aswell as the structures of society, and Chapter 7 describes three studies illustrative of what could be done. However, microsociology cannot provide a sociological understanding without a historically informed macro-sociology within which to locate it.

Government policy emphasises the role higher education is expected to play in the era of the "information society" and the benefits the increasing use of new technology in teaching and learning within the university will bring. Accordingly, the purpose of this research was to explore the influence of the WWW in teaching and learning in universities. The study was designed in response to a rejection of technological deterministic approaches and the call for more empirically grounded study of the relationships between society and technology. It examines the use of the WWW in six case study modules in two universities in England from a staff, student and institutional perspective, located within the national context. A case study design, utilising a communications framework, was adopted to guide the research process. The methods utilised were: literature review, analysis of national and university policy documents, semi structured interviews with staff and students, two student questionnaires, focus groups with students and analysis of the case study websites. The cases explored here provide a rather different picture to that painted by the dominant discourses about ICTs and higher education. The use of the web in teaching and learning neither appears to be radically transforming the university, nor to be providing (or even regarded as) a ready solution to the problems the sector currently encounters. Yet, the technology is, in places, adding to the experiences of staff and students in a variety of complex ways. Through exploring practical instances of educational innovation this research has indicated the mesh of interrelating factors that are at work when using the web in teaching and learning, and the importance of considering the full range of experiences of the individuals involved, the variable purposes of using the technology, and the influence of the social contexts that surround initiatives. The benefits of the use of a communications model in further research is highlighted, and the use of mixed model studies promoted to gain greater understanding, aid with generalizability, and provide arguments to counter techno deterministic accounts prevalent in this area.

The Children Act 1989 imposes a duty on Local Authorities in England to ‘safeguard and promote the welfare of children’ and to ‘promote the upbringing of children by their families’ wherever possible. If, during pregnancy, concerns are identified that suggest the child may be at risk of harm a referral may be made to the Local Authority for a pre-birth assessment. When completing a pre-birth assessment social workers and other professionals are often involved in the process of collecting and analysing information, which will ultimately be used as a basis for planning and decision-making and can have life long consequences for the family. Removing a baby at birth brings with it an inevitable impact on the process of attachment and bonding, as well as the impact of subjecting a family to court proceedings and all of the emotions that entails. However, allowing a baby to be discharged from hospital to a family who are unable to provide appropriate care and protection or do not have the necessary support in place to assist them may result in irreparable harm to, or even the death of the baby. Sitting within the context of general child and family social work assessment, pre-birth assessment has received a very limited amount of specific research attention. This thesis comprises a report on the outcomes of my own research, which was exploratory in nature, and details the findings from a mixed methods study of relevant legal and procedural frameworks in England, Local Safeguarding Children Board procedures and a case study of pre-birth social work assessment practice in one Local Authority. The findings were that pre-birth assessment is a complex process guided by a national and local procedural framework which does not recognise the unique status of the unborn child. Having evolved from a historical perspective based on protecting live children, the procedural guidance is contradictory as it does not acknowledge that an unborn child has no legal status and a pregnant woman maintains rights over her own body. The case study also revealed that social workers in the host LA were practising in an environment of managerial systems which aimed to improve accountability and yet the very systems designed to ensure children did not fall through the ‘safety net’ of professional support were, ironically, prompting systems which made practice in (and research into) pre-birth social work assessment a challenge. A narrow forensic approach to pre-birth assessment was found to have developed, with the documentary process of completing pre-birth Initial and Core Assessments (as defined by the Department of Health (2003) documentation) becoming split from the process of actually ‘doing’ a social work pre-birth assessment.

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The world of higher education is changing and as such what academics must do is different, they must be different. Academic identity is thus considered to be a necessary site of change. This thesis explores what academics are, their identities, as well as what they might be. Identities are considered to be sites of power, in which processes of power, specifically interactions with discourses, produce subjects who think, act and speak in particular ways. Identities allow academics to exert power, both over themselves and others. They are sites of struggle, as particular identities are constrained or enabled by the exercise of power. Focusing on two discourses, leadership and downshifting, this study explores the identities of nine Principal Lecturers within one post-1992 university. Through a discursive analysis of focus group and interview data, and institutional points of contact including; consultation documents, strategy documents and employee opinion survey results, the thesis renders as problematic both the premise for change and the reorientation itself, of what it means to be an academic. The thesis concludes that the focus on the individual and their need to take personal responsibility for change, to in effect change themselves, averts attention from the institution and its practices as necessary sites of change. Instead, academics are encouraged to focus on the notion of performance and to monitor themselves and others in relation to ever more elaborately refined ‘markers of development’, which diverts their attention from their pedagogical and scholarly practices. This creates the potential for a collective misrecognition, as people battle workloads, and the proliferation of these ‘markers of development’, but fail to recognise, what that work does. My hope is that this thesis provides a place to begin the process of developing an understanding of how identities are limited.

This study explores the possible influence of the media on teenagers’ constructions of gendered identities, with a specific focus on drinking alcohol and engaging in sexual/romantic relationships. Understanding the factors underlying alcohol consumption and sexual activity in this age group is an important public health priority. Teenagers in ‘western’ countries are drinking more alcohol than ever before and these drinking habits may be associated with risky behaviour, such as unprotected sex, and with morbidity and mortality. In comparison to other west European nations, the UK demonstrates a poor history of sexual health in teenagers, with the highest levels of teenage pregnancy and the second-highest level of abortions in women under the age of 20. Approximately half of all sexually transmitted infections diagnosed in the UK in 2009 were seen in the under-25s. Research also suggests that the mass media influence teenagers’ behaviours, including drinking alcohol and sexual practices. The question about the influence of the media is complex. There are two opposing theoretical positions which purport to explain the influence of the media: the 'media as powerful' versus the 'media audience as powerful'. This study adopts a theoretical approach which accommodates both of these: the 'influence of presumed media influence' theory (Milkie, 1999). A contentious issue is how the media is understood by teenagers to influence their alcohol consumption and their sexual/romantic relationships. This thesis has sought to address these issues by answering the following research questions: 1: Is the media integrated into the lives of teenage boys and girls? 2: How do teenagers’ understandings of gender-appropriate alcohol-use relate to media portrayals of alcohol use? 3: How do teenagers’ understandings of gender-appropriate engagement in sexual/romantic relationships relate to media portrayals of sexual/romantic relationships? 4: Is Milkie’s (1999) ‘influence of presumed media influence’ theory a useful way to understand the media’s position in teenagers’ lives, and specifically their understandings of gender-appropriate alcohol use, and of romantic and sexual relationships? 5: How are teenagers’ understandings of gender-appropriate behaviours with regards to drinking alcohol and sexual/romantic relationships used in the construction of their gendered identities? Fieldwork was conducted with teenagers aged 13-16 years, specifically in Edinburgh and in Ayrshire. The main sample comprised 25 semi-structured group discussions with 11 follow-up individual interviews, during which participants were asked to reflect on, and interpret, images from popular British television programmes that portrayed instances of alcohol use and sexual/romantic relationships. This method was intended both to prompt discussion on the process of media influence and to allow the participants to reflect on similar situations in their own lives. The research found that the mass media does shape teenagers’ perceptions and expectations of drinking alcohol and engaging in sexual/romantic relationships; and in doing so shapes their gendered identities. Importantly, the research confirmed Milkie’s ‘influence of presumed media influence’ theory that resolved the apparently incompatible ‘powerful media’ versus ‘powerful audience’ approaches to media influence. This suggests that media influence might be all the stronger for not being readily recognised or acknowledged as being influential. Media were more influential for teenagers’ understandings of gender-appropriate engagement in sexual/romantic relationships than they were for teenagers’ understandings of gender-appropriate drinking. The reason that media portrayals of drinking were considered to be only a minor influence among other stronger influences such as peers and family may be that these activities are more public. Sexual behaviour is less public therefore teenagers rely more on media to shape their images of what is considered to be appropriate behaviour. Sexual behaviour and drinking alcohol were intertwined. Many participants talked of how sexual negotiation and activities were often accompanied by drinking. Being drunk, or, importantly, pretending to be drunk, may be understood as a process that is useful for teenagers when trying out perceived gender-appropriate identities as they engage in their relationships. As with alcohol, romantic and sexual relationships are acted out in a particular way which is informed by discourses which specify gender-appropriate behaviour, attitudes and roles (and with the help of alcohol itself, which acts as a social ‘lubricant’) and in doing so is a component of the project of identity construction. The implication of this research is that existing concern about the influence of the media should be concentrated on the media portrayals of behaviours that are less public, such as sexual/romantic relationships, rather than media portrayals of behaviours that are more public, such as drinking alcohol.

Limited legal reforms took place in England and Wales in 1967 that partially decriminalised private, adult, consensual homosexual acts. These reforms were not implemented in Scotland until 1980. This thesis documents the reasons why Scotland had to wait until 1980 to achieve legal equity with England and Wales and suggests that the combination of cultural and institutional silences regarding legal reform and an immediate valorization of the independent Scots Law system in the post-Wolfenden era hindered any moves for the 1967 legislation to be applied to Scotland. This thesis then examines the life experiences of 24 gay and bisexual males who had experience of living in Scotland during the period when all homosexual acts were outlawed. This thesis offers an examination of how continued criminalisation coupled with the influence of negative and stigmatising discourses influenced self-perception and identity formation amongst gay and bisexual men. The thesis finds that the operation and dominance of negative discourses regarding homosexuality, coupled with the limited public demand for legal reform had significant implications for the identity formation and attitudes among the gay and bisexual men who participated in this research.

This thesis offers new insights into the challenges and opportunities brought by European Union (EU) integration policies by taking as a case study the process of accessing EU funding in Romania and its impact on the performance and reproduction of contemporary entrepreneurial identities. It is based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Romania between June 2007 and September 2008. The thesis argues that EU funding - as an economic process shaped by EU anticorruption practices, policies and assumptions – configures new political and economic subjects through intertwined vocabularies of corruption and crime, a mix of formal and informal entrepreneurial practices and the commodification of finance. This dynamic process concomitantly enables Romania’s top-down integration into the EU through the adoption of transnational regulations, institutions and anxieties and Romania’s bottom-up integration into the EU through the assimilation of the EU funding regulations into the vernacular practices of doing business.

This dissertation addresses critically the role that land tenure plays in housing the poor in rapidly urbanising medium–sized cities in the Global South and in particular, Aguascalientes, Mexico, a city with one of the highest growth rates in the country. Urban sprawl, industrial development, and the increasing impoverished population in these sorts of cities are key variables that demand the attention of scholars and policy makers who have traditionally focused on the largest Mexican cities, i.e., Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara. The urban poor struggle to achieve consolidated housing by means of creative agency strategies operating within restrictive environments, or structures. Thus, this study engages with the implications of poverty, informality, and security of tenure as the starting points to understand the problems of housing the poor. Their experiences and voice were incorporated by following a behavioural approach and contesting the arguments that assert the need for a Western–like legal land and housing system as the only path for such cities to overcome poverty as promoted by influential international bodies. In order to gain the in–depth knowledge required for this research, a qualitative case study methodology was employed, interviewing formal and informal poor settlers, policy makers, and experts. The results showed that more questions are raised by the structure than by the agency strategies utilised by the urban poor, as the latter proved to be more part of the solution than of the problem. Besides the evident overlapping of formal and informal housing mechanisms, institutions must learn from their experiences. Approaching the role played by land tenure in home choices from a behavioural approach enriched this research by assessing it from the perspectives of the main actors involved in the process. It helped understand the problem from a perspective that is rich in experience as settlers provided an honest insight into their problems within the sampled areas by incorporating their voice into the housing equation. Yet, there was still an evident mismatch between the settlers’ and public bodies’ approaches to housing that will probably endure for some time.

In modern capitalist societies such as Britain work performed by children outside school hours is invariably officially portrayed (and, indeed, widely perceived) as a harmless, and even educational activity. However, in recent years research has shown that this ‘idealistic’ conception of employment alongside learning is not necessarily accurate. In relation to the employment of school children, since the early 1970s a host of studies have been published, which suggest that the paid labour activities performed by children in Western European nations are frequently very demanding, arduous and sometimes dangerous. In relation to the employment of undergraduate students, both Conservative and Labour governments have presided over changes to the funding the regime that have generated a significant increase in the employment of undergraduate students. Discussions about child employment have long centred on its supposed ‘beneficial’ aspects, with advocates claiming that it has the potential to enhance pupils’ learning experiences. Since the cuts to student funding have been implemented, similar claims have been made about the ‘educational potential’ of work for undergraduate students. As with child employment, the evidence points to a far more nuanced picture regarding the impact of employment on the studies of undergraduate students, and this non-problematic conception of undergraduate employment has been challenged. Research suggests that students rarely undertake employment of any relevance to chosen studies, and that part-time work frequently appears to have a deleterious, rather than a positive impact upon academic performance. The aim of this thesis is, using a historical perspective, to assess the competing claims that have been made about the educational utility of ‘labour’. It will show, with regards to both child employment and the employment of undergraduate students, the recent fashionable emphasis placed upon the ‘beneficial’ aspects of ‘work experience’ alongside learning is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, it will be shown that this is a recurring, if unproven, theme throughout the history of debates about education reform and child employment. Likewise, that the notion that children (and indeed students) ‘enjoy’ working is not new. Nor is the insistence that employment teaches children and young people about rewards for hard work, value for money and the disciplines of getting up for work particularly novel. As will become evident, whenever further restrictions on school children’s employment have been contemplated in major inquiries into the phenomenon, these same claims have been in defence of a deregulatory approach. Hence, throughout this thesis it will be shown that the arguments today to defend child employment in Britain, and indeed the employment of undergraduate students, have a long historical pedigree. A particular focus in the thesis will be upon those interests that have traditionally defended the ‘right’ of children and young people to work, and their claims about the ‘educationally beneficial’ aspects of employment will be tested by reference to historical evidence.