Conflicting definitions, understanding and consequent limitations in identifying an appropriate body of knowledge present a major problem for educators who wish to define, adopt and teach cultural competence. A standardised meaning of the term enabling specified outcome measures to be identified could assist effective translation and evaluation of its contribution in developing professionalism in undergraduate health care education. In attempting to seek clarity, perception and relevance of cultural competence in a professional undergraduate programme, a review of the literature and a mixed methods case study of a cohort of 63 undergraduate physiotherapists were undertaken. Constructs of cultural competence were elicited using repertory grids and meanings explored with the use of questionnaires, interviews and evaluation in the teaching and learning of the topic. Results gave new insight into undergraduate physiotherapists’ perception of cultural competence vis-a-vis their clinical competence. Interpretations of perception and expressions of cultural competence varied throughout the literature but, despite this, specific learning and resource needs of students studying the topic were identified. Implications of cultural competence in developing professionalism within health care education were highlighted and evaluated. The need for further research into teaching and learning of the topic in physiotherapy education is supported by the study.

This dissertation examines the correspondence in theology, practice and social views between Early Quakers and John Wycliffe and John Hus (QWH), founders of the late-medieval heretical sects the Lollards and Hussites. It discusses the diversity of religious experience that characterized the first generation of ‘Early Quakers,’ and argues the end of early Quakerism as 1678, when the Quaker establishment completed enforcement of greater conformity in belief and practice. The dissertation examines Wycliffe and the Lollards and Hus and the Hussites, placing them in an experiential religious tradition and exploring their belief in the need to return to a primitive church in reaction to the perceived apostasy of the Catholic Church. By focusing on possible modes of dissemination of Wycliffe’s and Hus’ ideas and personal stories in works such as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, the thesis concludes that there exists a close correspondence among QWH respecting the following characteristics: (1) accessibility of Christ’s message; (2) belief in the visible and invisible church; (3) biblical authority; (4) personal understanding of Scripture; (5) opposition to established churches; (6) return to a ‘primitive church’; (7) attitudes toward reforming society; (8) the imminence of Christ’s return; and (9) the role of women.

This thesis poses the research question of whether curacy in the Church of England, in its current majority model of one curate in one benefice under the supervision of one training incumbent, continues to offer the most productive space for the post-ordination ongoing formation of the newly ordained. It uses an interdisciplinary methodology, in which theology and ecclesiology are brought into dialogue with the sociological thought of Casanova and Bourdieu, with Stanislavski’s theory of method acting, and with performance practice in art music and popular music. It additionally asks questions of how the increasingly complex external and internal contexts for ministry might be productively conceptualized, and of what kinds of ordained ministers might be needed by the twenty-first century Church of England. Consideration of these questions contributes to the conclusion that whilst aspects of good practice can usefully be retained from the current model of curacy, contextual demands and the changing nature of the role of the ordained, coupled with a significant shift in the demographic profile of those coming forward for ordination, call for a reframing of its structures.

One of the tenets of personalisation was that people using services could achieve greater citizenship and help to design better supports if they were able to direct innovation in services. Implicit in this was an assumption that people using services would be able to utilise their social capital (resources based on social networks), an asset which was not prioritised by previous approaches to service delivery. This thesis sought to identify if social capital was present and if it was being accessed to support the personalisation of services, comparing and contrasting the situation in services for older people and for people with learning disabilities. Whilst an initial hypothesis was that service providers for these different groups charged different rates due to different levels of social capital, no difference in social capital was established between these two groups. People did have social capital, but it was not mobilised by individuals or state actors responsible for commissioning support. This led to a consideration of street-level bureaucracy and the environment shaped by austerity and the Care Act. The study concludes that the implementation of personalisation has frustrated the use of social capital, such that it has not contributed to the transformation of care.

In this study I argue that the recent proliferation of punitive and restrictive asylum policies indicates that the British government is prepared to tolerate levels of violence against certain human bodies, from particular countries, to a much greater degree than would be tolerated for others. Archival evidence is presented to show that hierarchical conceptions of humanity have a long history, rooted in British colonial activities, and that such ideologies continue to operate in the contemporary period. The project involves documenting three ‘critical junctures’ when ideas of human hierarchy were challenged at the political institutional level. These critical junctures are used to make the case for a historically informed reading of contemporary British asylum policy which takes seriously the epistemic legacies of colonialism. The study adapts Desmond King and Rogers Smith’s ‘racial institutional orders’ approach, originally conceived in the US context, to the British case, and incorporates a post-colonial perspective into the analysis. Through analysing the debates around these issues, it is possible to glean some insight into both the enduring power of ideas of human hierarchy, and the possibilities for transformative change.

This thesis concerns musical identities and how they affect health as young people make the transition to adulthood. The primary focus is on music listening, since this is widely reported to be a key feature of adolescents’ and young adults’ leisure time (Roe 1999; Tarrant, et al 2000). Previous studies have investigated the links between specific musical genres and problematic behaviour (Klein 1993), suicidal risk (Lacourse 2001), and emotional turmoil (Roberts 1998), however there is a lack of both longitudinal and qualitative evidence in support of these findings. A number of assumptions are made regarding ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ musical preferences although causal links between music and health are still not clear. Similarly, the extent to which musical behaviour is related to other demographic features (e.g. sex, social class, education) and whether this changes over the lifecourse have yet to be fully investigated. The principal aim of the thesis is therefore to identify how musical identities relate to health and wellbeing over the youth-adult transition. In order to meet this aim a number of objectives have been devised, these are; to trace the development of musical identities and investigate the structure of music preference; to highlight associations between musical identity and risky health behaviours; to study the relationship between musical identities and emotional wellbeing; and to address the significance of musical identities in transitions to adulthood. A dialectical methodology was adopted which synthesises quantitative and qualitative methods. The former involved statistical analysis of a large-scale longitudinal dataset (The West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study). The latter was a qualitative sub-study with 18 participants from the Twenty-07 Study, designed and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Combining methods in this way allowed for philosophical pluralism in the methodological design, as well as for different aspects of the research aims to be addressed. Musical preferences were found to change over the youth-adult transition for most people, and this affected the links between musical identity and health. The overriding distinction was between participants who perceived a strong musical self-identity, and those who claimed a more limited identity. This was evidenced in both quantitative and qualitative findings. The former group were more likely to engage in risky health behaviours, but also indicated a more sophisticated use of music for therapeutic purposes. The latter group were less likely to engage in risky health behaviours, but did not tend to use music as a well-being resource like their strong-identifying peers. Strong musical identities are associated with higher levels of risky health behaviours, but this is also largely limited to a specific period of youth. Many practices associated with maintaining a strong musical identity in youth are limited by the onset of adult responsibilities, and structural identities. The emotional benefits associated with a strong musical identity, however, remain alongside adult identities. Ultimately, the associations between music listening and health are mostly influenced by strength of identity, and the current academic literature highlighting ‘problematic’ genres should be considered with this in mind. The implication of this work is that common sense assumptions about the corrosive nature of certain musical identities and youth cultures should be tempered by an acknowledgement that music tastes, associations, and identities are subject to change, often over very short periods of time.

This thesis examines how discourses are utilised by media and political elites to construct, propagate, and alter national and ethnic identities. It uses Latvia as a case study, focusing on the construction of ‘Russian-speaking’ identity from the late Soviet period to the present. A central aim of this research is to study how discursive constructions of identity are created, and to what extent media and politicians are able to influence such constructions. In order to meaningfully assess the extent of multiple influences over discursive production and consumption this research employs a triangulated approach, using data from focus groups, elite interviews with Latvian politicians, survey data, and discourse analysis of the Latvian press. This has allowed for a fuller examination and assessment of top-down and bottom-up influences and pressures on identity creation and how these are interrelated. Previously conducted research on ethnopolitical identities in Latvia has revealed how collective memories, interpretations of the Soviet past, post-Soviet state-building policies, and issues surrounding language usage are all heavily politicised and used to demarcate the boundaries between the ‘core nation’ (Latvians) on the one hand, and ‘Russian-speakers’ on the other. Accordingly, this research explores how the constructions of these positions are negotiated, propagated, intensified, or mitigated through discursive practices, as manifested in media, political, or personal discourses. This research is concerned with the temporally contingent nature of discourses and as such, considers multiple eras, rather than a single de-contextualised and static time period, to investigate how discourses have evolved in the Latvian context. By comparing discursive productions from the late Soviet period with those of the present, it has been possible to examine how certain discursive positions have become meaningfully embedded within popularly conceived notions of identity. It has also facilitated a study of discursive strategies by people who attempt to represent Russian-speakers in the media and political spaces. This research argues that discourses are firmly rooted in the past, even if their contemporary form differs greatly from that of the past.

This is a study of social and legal change among the Kuria people of Tanzania. It examines the transformation of the Kuria ideas and practices concerning marriage, children and property rights. The study covers a period following the colonial rule in Tanzania beginning about the turn of this century to the present. The aim of the study is to show the relationship between the integration of the Kuria economy into a world economic system and the transformation of extant social relations. Although we recognise that social change is an unceasing process in any society, this study argues that forces associated with capitalist penetration accelerated this process. Thus, for example, the authority and power of the elders who had for many generations dominated the Kuria society was undermined. There was radical transformation of kinship and property relations and elders were no longer influential in matters relating to production. There was progressive individualisation of property rights as sUbsistence production was transformed to serve the needs of the capitalist sector. The role of the law and state is also discussed. We argue that both the colonial and the post-colonial states were instrumental in this process of change even if some of their policies appear to have been aimed at conserving certain forms of traditional relations. Within this context of change the responses of the Kuria people to economic change is examined. The study argues that rather than being passive objects of capitalist penetration the Kuria tried to influence events even though their options were highly circumscribed. For the elders change represented an opportunity to utilise their traditional positions to secure resources from the non-traditional economic sector while for the younger generation and the women, change· opened up the means for them to extricate themselves from relations of subordination.

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The thesis deals with the problems of translating "soft-sell" advertisements between Arabic and English. It is argued that a standardisation strategy of any international advertising campaign across cultures of soft-sell advertising is unsuccessful at any time in the case of Arabic and English. This stems not only from, besides the huge differences already existing between the two languages and cultures, such as socio-economic and socio-political, but also from the different methods and strategies adopted by the copywriters in employing various elements of humour, irony, persuasion, taboos (e.g. sexual connotations), conceptual sarcasm and cultural intertextuality, which are aimed at particular audiences, and the translation of which is determined by the elements of time and space. Localisation, according to the characters of the local market is thus the best solution for any successful cross-cultural advertising. The development of the role of culture and language in a given society has also been illustrated, followed by various approaches to cultural translation equivalence and cultural translation difficulties between Arabic and English. The thesis also contains a study of the techniques and methods of advertising. This includes elements of persuasion, strategies of standardisation, language and paralanguage of advertising, style of advertising and deviation in advertising from the norm of standard English.