This project considers contemporary theoretical and practical approaches to the restructuring of work relations by engaging with dominant traditions within micro-economic analysis. It is proposed that a full understanding of the contemporary debates can only be achieved by locating the various contributions within the history of social thought, specifically in terms of the different conceptions of value within economics which underscore different approaches to the world of capitalist work relations. The first section, Chapters Two and Three, considers the theoretical premises of orthodox economics and modern sociology. On the basis of this analysis we offer a critique of the popular 'Transaction Costs' approach to capitalist work organisation. The second section, Chapters Four, Five and Six, considers the dimensions of Marxist social theory. Chapter Four studies the Marxist approach to economic relations and the sphere of production. in Chapter Five we unify certain developments within Marxist economics and sociology in terms of an abstract understanding of capitalist production through a specific analysis of value theory and the method by which it informs an analysis of how the social relations of production endogenously determine the forces of production. in Chapter Six we use this method to offer a critique of 'Labour Process' theory in terms of its theoretical. understanding of the sphere of production, in the concluding Chapters Seven and Eight we return to the notion of restructuring and contemporary industrial relations analysis and offer a critique of contemporary debate determined by our understanding of the status of value within economics and social theory in general.

The academic study of Association Football and other sports is now regularly regarded as a valid and essential part of disciplines including psychology, history, philosophy, geography and sociology. The sociology and social history of Association Football in England for the period after the Second World War has, until recently, been dominated by the study of hooliganism and the recent commercialisation of the game. This has left a significant gap in the historiography of English foothall, particularly in terms of supporters' changing relationships with clubs in the period from 1946 onwards. This project has four principal aims. These are to assess the social make-up of postwar football crowds in Lancashire; to analyse the fall in attendances that occurred at most Lancashire football clubs in the post-war period; to assess the developing relationship between football and social identity in post-war Lancashire; and to evaluate attempts to reconnect football clubs with football communities from the late l970s to the mid-1980s. The project is focused on Lancashire as this region provides an exceptionally good context for analysing post-war football supporters, containing both declining town-based clubs such as Preston North End and Blackpool, and bigcity teams such as Liverpool and Manchester United. It centres on the period from circa 1946 to 1985 as most professional football clubs returned to normality after wartime dislocation in 1946, whilst the game underwent a number of fundamental changes after the Bradford City fire, Heysel Stadium disaster and other incidents that occurred in 1985. Through documentary analysis, the evaluation of socio-economic statistics, oral history interviews, and sociological debates concerning the respective influences of structure and agency on historical developments, the project produced a number of important conclusions. It was found that football crowds in the immediate post-war period were probably more heterogeneous than has previously been thought in terms of class, gender and geographical origins. It was also discovered that a variety of socio-economic influences including increasing affluence and consumption, rising marriage rates, geographical movement, increasing home ownership, and rising unemployment all acted as important factors in determining the frequency of people's football attendance in Lancashire at various points between 1946 and 1985. The project also found that football clubs were central agencies in producing feelings of local and regional identity in Lancashire in the 1940s and 1950s. However, it was noted that people came to construct their social and sporting identities differently from the early 1 960s onwards with the result that a bifurcation occurred between many football clubs and football communities. In the final section of the project, the successes and failures of responses to this situation are judged by studying formal football and community initiatives and changes in football fan culture in Lancashire in the l980s. These developments are used to partly explain how certain Lancashire football clubs and football communities came to be connected once more in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

This thesis addresses women's agency in the mediation and reception of mid nineteenth-century fiction from the end of the 1840s until the beginning of the 1870s. It demonstrates how women participated in shaping an ideology of the feminine by utilising the platform of periodical reviewing to monitor constructions of womanhood in the novels of women writers. The notion of a feminine critical discourse about gender is a familiar one. There has been academic interest in the reactions of reviewers such as Margaret Oliphant and Geraldine Jewsbury to images of the feminine in sensation novels, but no study exists that brings together a body of women's criticism of this period, or examines the critical responses of women to a much wider spectrum of female representation, for example, in the field of domestic or religious fiction. This thesis explores the critical reaction, not simply to the transgressive or improper feminine, but to idealised images of the domestic angel. It points to a reshaping of the idea of the heroic which allowed women to take centre stage in fiction, and goes on to explore several constructions of the feminine that became a locus of concern for women commentators: the martyr to selfsacrifice; the injured wife; the governess; the religious heroine; the transgressor of sensation novels, and the assertive "Girl of the Period" in her various phases. Interrogating those texts and themes that preoccupied nineteenth-century women critics, the thesis retrieves a lost context to women's writing of the period and argues that the discourses surrounding forgotten novels by writers such as Harriet Parr and Charlotte Riddell provided a forum which allowed representations of gender to be contested, re-negotiated and re-defined. Bringing to light new critical material by reviewers such as Eleanor Eden and Jane Williams, the thesis examines many articles and reviews that have received no previous academic attention.

This study introduces a theoretical and empirical exploration of the issue of participation within the field of adolescent sexual health promotion. It contributes to, and engages in, two kinds of debates: policy and practice discussions on how to involve adolescents in promoting their sexual health, and academic debates on the relevant theory that informs policy and practice. The thesis critically reviews literature on participatory adolescent sexual health promotion arguing that the field is located at the intersection of three central conceptual vectors: adolescence, which is constructed as inevitably transiting towards adulthood from the moment childhood ends; adolescent sexual health, which is primarily dictated by the languages of biomedicine and psychology; and adolescent participation, which appears understood as a process of adult transmission of knowledge onto the participating adolescent. Challenging these coordinates, and by drawing on the works of Jürgen Habermas and Paulo Freire, a framework for understanding participatory processes is elaborated. Participation here is conceptualised as a social process of creation via which those taking part in it concurrently shape and maintain knowledge, mould and stabilise social relations, and care for themselves. A participatory adolescent sexual health promotion initiative implemented in rural and urban-marginal communities of the Andean, Coastal and Jungle regions of Peru, acts as the observational field for the empirical investigation of the conceptualisation of participation advanced in the thesis. Documentaries and dramas produced in video format by the adolescents taking part in the initiative, together with audio-visual recordings of group discussions in which the adolescents presented and problematised these videos constitute the qualitative data gathered in this study. The data was analysed to explore adolescents’ collective elaborations of sexuality in general and of sexual health in particular, and to reconstruct, from these instances of collective creation, the workings of the participation processes that underpin them.

This thesis explores the experience of breast cancer patients' online participation in relation to their illness. The research focuses on the work of narrating as the key process in patients' online communication. Empirically, it stems from the noticeable recent proliferation of breast cancer forums, particularly in online spaces. I argue that the production of a story and its telling online enables the patient to cope with a radically new situation in her life. The claim for the significance of breast cancer patients' online communication, particularly narrating, is located within the historical and cultural context of the illness. In examining the process of narrating and storytelling, I draw on sociological and psychoanalytical theories of narrative and storytelling, and sociological debates on issues of health and illness, everyday life and the nature of agency, social exchange, and the tension between the public and the private. The study is based on a phenomenological study that included twenty nine online (e-mail) and twelve face-toface interviews with breast cancer patients, and a textual analysis of related websites. It shows how the work of narrating is facilitated through the online space, highlighting it as a process that has significant consequences for their ability to cope with their illness. The thesis concludes with a self-reflexive account of the employment of narrating as a conceptual, analytical and methodological tool for the study of breast cancer patients' processes of online communication. It argues for the need to acknowledge the constraints that shape the online space, calling into doubt its supposed openness, borderlessness, fluidity and lack of structure. In particular, the discussion highlights the persistence of the cultural dimension of the online communication, questioning the extent to which the nature of online communication is global, as is often argued. The concluding chapter uses the empirical case to engage with the broader concern with the relationship between media, communication and agency. Key words: narrative; narrating; storytelling; Internet; online; offline; breast cancer; agency; interviews.

This thesis demonstrates the day-to-day experiences of victimisation and opinions about crime as they were encountered by a group of pupils in a rural school at one particular point in time. A number of key themes are addressed, the first being the notion of the adolescent as a victim of crime. This thesis considers what 'crime' means to the pupils at this school and documents their views of crime in the wider community. The next area addressed is the victimisation of adolescents by fellow adolescents; here the focus is on incidents of bullying that occurred on and off the school premises. Thirdly, boys as victims is an under-researched subject matter. this is regarded and the question of masculine identities is included. Furthermore, the roles the female students play are investigated, paying particular attention to their involvement in acts of violence and bullying. The fourth area explore the limits of moral conduct and how this particular age group makes decisions about the unwritten moral codes and boundaries affecting the display of violence. This in tum invites the question of how teenagers made sense of larger moral problems and problems of living inside a school interpreted as a form of institution with a distinctive 'underlife'. These themes are addressed within an analysis of the larger social organisation of childhood and adolescence. Criminologists have long recognised the importance of peer group influence in the development of offending behaviour, but the research took into account the rural context of that setting, the final analytical lens through which it is focussed. This thesis demonstrates that the intricate patterns of violence and bullying are a process whereby status and power reinforce an established hierarchy of pupil's informal relations. The importance of the peer group emerged as the key to understanding interactions between the pupils at the school researched. The power of the peer group would have to be taken into consideration in any strategies devised to curtail bullying.

How can marginalised communities organise a project to yield significant social change? This thesis theorises the resources which enable such community organisation to work. Participation, empowerment and conscientisation are understood, not through a logic of quantity which creates linear dimensions, but through a logic of concrete qualities. A pragmatist approach is taken, to define our constructs in terms of the actions being undertaken by participants, within specific, qualitatively distinctive domains. Activity theory is used to theorise participation as a process of collective activity, which is supported by shared rules, a division of labour and shared goals, and which is challenged by divergences of interest. A community case study of the Sonagachi Project, a successful HIV prevention project run by sex workers in Kolkata (India), is used to investigate participation. The case study is based on interviews and group discussions with sex workers and Project workers (sex workers employed by the Project), and observation of the daily activities of the Project. Sex workers relate to the Project as a source of support in solving their individual problems, gaining new powers, but not acting as collectivity members. Project workers are constituted as collectivity members, whose action interlocks with that of their colleagues, through participating in the politicising discourse of the Project, which states that sex workers should be granted “workers’ rights”, and through learning the rules of participation in meetings and the hierarchical division of labour. To be allowed to operate, the Project has to carefully adjust to local power relations, with madams, political parties, and funding agencies, in collaborative-adversarial relationships. In conclusion, the scope of participation is defined as producing significant, yet circumscribed, local change. To intervene in a fractured community is a political process in which the provision of new resources is both necessary and potentially divisive.

This methodological investigation set out to examine the use of the Internet as a data collection tool: its potential for sampling gay and bisexual men and gathering data on sexual behaviour. The research took place in the context of the Internet and HIV study, an examination of high risk sexual behaviour among gay and bisexual men seeking sex on the Internet. The Internet and HIV study collected quantitative data using selfadministered questionnaires completed online or by pen-and-paper, and qualitative data using one-to-one interviews conducted face-to-face or online. Its design provides an invaluable opportunity for investigating Internet-based research methods. Methodological issues were explored through collection of primary data from respondents who had participated in the Internet and HIV study and secondary analysis of data collected for the study. The first area of exploration was the use of web surveys for sampling gay and bisexual men. The results indicated that participation in the Internet and HIV web survey was driven by an altruistic desire to contribute to research into sexual health promotion and HIV prevention. Drop out was most likely to occur in the early stages of the survey and minor differences in sub-group drop out were identified. Men who participated in the web survey were broadly similar to the MSM drawn from a national probability sample, but were more likely to participate in high risk sexual activity. Differences were more pronounced when the samples were restricted to London men. The second area of exploration was the effect of the Internet mode on data collection. The web survey reduced item nonresponse in comparison to the pen-and-paper survey but did not improve response to sensitive questions over and above this general mode effect. The results indicated that online synchronous interviews may be suited to a more structured format, given the difficulty of expressing complex ideas through typing in real time. It was concluded that the Internet has excellent potential for researching sexual behaviour among gay and bisexual men. It provides effective access to this population and more complete survey data than the traditional alternative. The application of online interviewing requires further exploration.

Uganda experienced significant economic growth from 1992 to 2009. Following economic restructuring, the national poverty rate fell from about 56 per cent in 1992 to 25 per cent in 2009/10. However, while the overall proportion of the people living in poverty dropped significantly, in 2007, 64 per cent of older people were still living below the poverty line (Help Age International, 2007). Older people in Uganda make up 4.2 per cent of the total population which is 30.7 million. They are economically active: 84 per cent are involved with agriculture. However, over 90 per cent of the older persons live in rural areas where poverty rates are higher than in urban areas. Older people are vulnerable owing to HIV/AIDs: 12 per cent of Ugandan children are AIDS orphans and a quarter of these live in a household headed by an older person. In addition, out of the 16 per cent of the population with a disability, older people comprise 53 per cent. Furthermore, more than half of the older persons have never been to school. However, the majority of older persons provide for their households, this challenges the government position that ‘older people are generally too weak to perform productive work and are economically dependent on others’ (UNHS, 2009/10:137). This thesis focuses on the following questions: What is poverty? What explains the exclusion of older people from poverty reduction programmes? How do older people address poverty in their households?The study used qualitative methods, employing 120 interviews, including in-depth interviews with 18 representatives of government and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) six focus group discussions and 60 semi-structured interviews, to provide insight into the strategies used to fight poverty at the Sub County level. Narrative interviews and observation of non-verbal communication were employed to analyse older people’s experience of Poverty reduction programmes and identify their poverty alleviation strategies. Programme guidelines and policy documents were reviewed to gain detailed information about the backgrounds to the strategies, the modes of implementation and the theories that influenced the strategies. The study was carried out in Katabi and Mbututumula subcounties of Wakiso and Luwero respectively. This study found that the Government and CBO’s official views of what poverty is do not seem to differ much, but when it comes to identification of the poor then differences arise. The research demonstrates that both sectors support the monetary perspective on poverty and identify minimum income and expenditure in terms of a level of consumption below which poverty is identified. This understanding has its roots in an absolute perspective on poverty. Meanwhile, older people’s perspectives on poverty included a wide range of deprivations in their households. For example, the inability to send their grandchildren to school was a common type of self-reported deprivation for the majority of respondents. Older people used a relative concept to define poverty. What was needed for basic survival did depend on the cultural context and involved comparison with what other people in that context could afford. Despite the government’s objective of fighting poverty at the Sub County level, it was clear that government strategies did not include old-age poverty alleviation. Anti-poverty approaches were more strongly linked to the government’s own agenda than to the needs of older people. Yet in all these the older people in poverty were disadvantaged. Older people tended to be excluded by strict eligibility rules and conditions and by individual relationships within the groups formed to tackle poverty. Older people in poverty shy away from Poverty reduction programmes leaving the relatively poor, but those not in absolute poverty, to participate. The participants’ definitions of poverty and living standards observed during the interviews revealed that they were living well above the official poverty line. Furthermore, findings revealed that the right of older people to participate in government Poverty reduction programmes was not supported by legislation and there was limited information available to enable them to demand accountability or even influence policy strategies to address poverty. v In contrast, community based organisations have been remarkable in seeking to reduce poverty among the older persons. Their approach provided support for participation of older people in Poverty reduction programmes. CBOs have conducted skills and possession audits among older people and, based on the results, old-age poverty has been included in development programmes. Such strategies have led to the establishment of credit facilities through community saving schemes and village banks, and age-friendly projects such as hand craft, mat and basket making, mushroom and vegetable growing. These motivate older people to participate and take into account their physical abilities. The formation of groups seems to be a major strategy used by CBOs to enable members to support each other and facilitate both the collective participation in decision making and the barter exchange strategy for goods and services among group members. This study concludes that despite the difficult living conditions of older people in poverty, the majority live independent lives, are self-reliant and use a variety of strategies to address poverty. These include involvement in agriculture, use of community banks, use of manual and business skills, fostering children, family visits, joining religious and collective social groups and training to gain new skills. The present study extends the literature by showing why old age poverty persists despite efforts to counter it. Some implication of the study’s findings are that strict eligibility rules should be used to ensure that poverty alleviation support reaches those who need it most, the formation of groups should not be used as a condition to qualify for government support, information on anti-poverty programmes should be readily available to older persons in poverty and best practices from CBOs and individuals should be incorporated in anti-poverty policies. Keywords: Uganda, poverty alleviation strategies, anti-poverty, older people, community based organisations, government, older people associations.

Background: Research on men’s constructions of fatherhood has proliferated over the last three decades, but most studies have focused on middle-class men. There is a need for more research exploring how disadvantaged men conceptualise good fatherhood and relate to changing societal ideals of fatherhood. In addition, parenting interventions are particularly targeted at disadvantaged parents but little is known about how disadvantaged fathers feel about being targeted, and how best to engage them. This study set out to explore disadvantaged UK men’s constructions of fatherhood and attitudes towards parenting interventions. The THRIVE trial taking place in Glasgow, evaluating two antenatal parenting interventions for vulnerable parents, offered an opportunity to investigate these issues. Methods: Thirty-six fathers or fathers-to-be (aged 15-51) were recruited through their partner’s participation in the THRIVE trial or through community organisations working with families in economically-deprived areas. Men participated in in-depth interviews, incorporating elements of repertory grids method. Interviews focused on the men’s upbringings, current circumstances, understandings of good fatherhood, and attitudes towards parenting interventions. Findings: Socially-disadvantaged men’s constructions of good fatherhood were complex and multi-faceted. Men drew on multiple discourses in constructing fathering identities which combined ideas about ‘involved’ fathering with more ‘traditional’ ideas around provision, protection and responsibility. In doing so, these men worked hard to align themselves with socially-acceptable discourses of good fatherhood, demonstrating their awareness of, and engagement with, societally-dominant discourses of modern-day fatherhood. Barriers to the men enacting their visions of good fatherhood centred around: the legacy of their upbringings; difficult relationships with partners and ex-partners; desire to demonstrate an acceptable masculinity; and their disadvantaged circumstances, including the instability of their lives and lack of work. The majority of these men displayed positive attitudes towards attending a parenting intervention. Factors affecting their intentions to attend included: desire to support their partner and feel involved in her pregnancy, perceiving benefits for themselves and their partners, and the belief that the interventions were relevant and appropriate to their needs. Potential barriers were: fear of public scrutiny, perceived lack of information, perceived lack of ‘need’, and notions of acceptable masculinity. Conclusions: Findings suggest that disadvantaged men held normative ideas about good fatherhood but that there were significant challenges facing them in living up to these ideals. Parenting interventions targeting disadvantaged fathers should therefore: capitalise on men’s excitement and commitment to partner and baby in the antenatal period; emphasize the relevance of content to the needs of disadvantaged men; and bear in mind potential barriers such as perceived lack of ‘need’, overcoming social anxieties, and notions of acceptable masculinity.