In spite of the growing awareness of the importance and health enhancing benefits of physical activity (Anderson et al., 2000; Barengo et at., 2004; Kaleta et al., 2006) the population still remain predominantly inactive (Haskell et at., 2007). Limited UK published data (to date) has simultaneously examined children and families health and physical activity patterns (Wing, 2000). The research aimed to explore and better understand the determinants associated with children and families health related behaviour and physical activity patterns and investigate the underlining factors which direct current and guide future health related behaviour choices. Prior to Study 1 an extensive needs assessment of the area (gathering data on the children and families literacy levels and understanding of research) was undertaken to assist in the development of Study 1's measures. Study 1 then utilised a parental (Goding, 1985; Baker et al., 1994) and children's (Baldings, 1997) health related behaviour questionnaire to explore the habitual physical and nutritional behaviours of children and their families in Knowsley (UK) thus creating a baseline of data to investigate further. One hundred and fifteen children (n=115; M=55, F=60) mean age of 8.6 years completed the self-report questionnaire from five Knowsley MBC (UK) primary schools. Fifty-seven parents (n=57; F=54, M =3) completed and returned the postal self-report questionnaire. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS for windows Version 7 and descriptive statistics (cross tabulation with two dimensional tables), frequency distributions and Chi Square used to assess the children and parents' nominal health related behaviour results.

The study focuses on foreign women who have been living in Liverpool from the year 2001. The investigation mainly analyzes the subjective perception of integration and the objective outcome. Literature has neglected, in general, the role of women in migration and in particular the importance of the integration of women, in the host society, for the well being of the whole family. It is often assumed that if the local Authorities adopt policies that respect diversity the immigrants will automatically feel integrated and become a vital part of the wider society. The responses obtained from 100 English women were compared to the ones received from 100 foreigners and 23 respondents who were born in the United Kingdom. The women from the UK: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, were considered as foreigners because people who are born in any of the countries that form part of a Nation State feel strongly about their ethnicity. This research tries to discover whether the perception of the women contacted reflects the objective outcome of the survey that has been conducted with the help of a questionnaire and evaluated by using a purposely created tool. The tool enabled the construction of a table to show the discovered differences. They show that there is a marked difference between the subjective perception and the objective outcome of integration. It is therefore acceptable to speculate that foreign women in Liverpool are integrated in their "diaspora space" but not within the wider society of the city. If the mothers are not integrated is unlikely that their children will be. This condition can, as a first consequence, cause confusion in the children and perhaps lead to their rejection of the local culture and, secondly, prevent any sort of integration that in turn should avert the formation of a cohesive society. Integration in the wider society can only be achieved if the subjects speak the local language. However the learning of English in the country of origin will not encourage the absorption of the culture of the country where the language has originated. Therefore fluency in the host language could be another aspect encouraging the creation of self-segregated communities.

Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-01T23:43:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_10771_Dissertação Ravena Brazil Vinter finalizada v6.pdf: 6898928 bytes, checksum: ad51959019cfa045ff59c61871384bb6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-10 / O presente trabalho se insere nas discussões do grupo de pesquisa Literatura e Educação e investigou, no contexto de uma escola pública de Ensino Fundamental e Médio do município de Guarapari (ES), como são as relações entre livros e leitores - por meio das contribuições teóricas e metodológicas da Nova História Cultural - a partir de três diferentes versões da obra O cortiço do autor Aluísio Azevedo: versão adaptada por Fabio Pinto da coleção É só o começo (2009); adaptação com roteiro de Ivan Jaf e arte de Rodrigo Rosa em história em quadrinhos (2010) distribuída pelo PNBE; e c) versão com texto integral (2014 [1890]); todas encontradas na biblioteca da escola campo. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida em dois momentos, sendo o primeiro de cunho bibliográfico-documental, que buscou perceber como se dão as relações entre livro, leitor e leitura e pensar o modo como algumas adaptações literárias são inseridas no mercado, inclusive as que integram programas de distribuição de livros como o PNBE. O segundo momento foi um estudo de caso com questionário e grupo focal, constituído por alunos de segundo e terceiro ano do Ensino Médio da escola campo, que, no âmbito do processo de educação literária, tentou responder às seguintes questões: a) como se dá a apropriação do texto integral e das diversas adaptações de uma obra pelos estudantes?; b) os textos adaptados despertam no leitor o desejo de conhecer o texto integral?; c) como os alunos agem para (não) realizar as leituras propostas pelo currículo escolar?: A pesquisa justifica-se em face: a) do interesse, nos campos da História e da Literatura, pelas práticas de leitores literários empíricos e pelos usos que são feitos de materiais impressos, em contextos institucionais, em tensão com orientações oficiais; b) da necessidade de se pensar as questões econômico-ideológicas que circundam a leitura em tensionamento com o mercado editorial; c) do nosso diagnóstico tomado aqui como pressuposto de que muitos alunos não leem obras literárias sugeridas pelo currículo escolar; d) da necessidade de se pensar as não leituras literárias para além da culpabilização discente. Com a investigação, conhecemos as formas de aquisição dos livros, algumas preferências, os principais mediadores de leitura, traçando assim um perfil de leitor de leitura literária da escola campo. Chegamos também à conclusão de que algumas adaptações podem ser instrumentos de mediação de leitura em sala de aula. Os autores que nortearam nosso estudo foram: Regina Zilberman (1999, 2013), Márcia Abreu (2001), Edmir Perrotti (1999) e João Wanderlei Geraldi (2010) (livro e leitura no contexto brasileiro); Annie Rouxel (2013), Maria Amélia Dalvi (2012, 2013, 2013a) e Neide Rezende (2013) (educação literária); Roger Chartier (1999, 2002, 2002a, 2010, 2013, 2013a) (práticas e representações, apropriação).

Os documentos oficiais e a concretização das propostas no livro didático analisado abordam a ambiguidade lexical como algo a ser evitado e corrigido através de estratégias de desambiguação, ignorando a importância da natureza polissêmica da língua como recurso expressivo na comunicação cotidiana e como instrumento fundamental do humor, especialmente as variantes de humor popular e infantil. O presente trabalho busca abordar a ambiguidade lexical, polissemia e homonímia, no gênero tirinha cômica, texto multimodal e humorístico, visando observar a eficácia da proposta de leitura e produção como exercício de contextualização, levando os alunos a observarem, explicarem e produzirem texto, utilizando-se dos diversos significados possíveis das palavras em uso, em situação concreta de enunciação. A proposta se dá dentro do conceito de multimodalidade, trabalhando a ambiguidade lexical e o letramento visual, objetivando que o aluno não apenas observe e compreenda as tirinhas apresentadas, mas também que produza a sua própria, compondo o texto com os elementos verbal e visual. As atividades foram divididas em dez passos: pesquisa e compartilhamento de HQs, atividade diagnóstica, análise da ambiguidade lexical em tirinha cômica no livro didático, jogo digital Quem ri seus males espanta Piadas, consulta às diferentes acepções no dicionário, escrita do glossário de unidades lexicais polissêmicas ou homônimas, elaboração do roteiro da tirinha, autoavaliação, produção final de uma tirinha cômica e apreciação dos trabalhos das turmas. / The analised official papers and textbook proposals approach lexical ambiguity as something to be avoided and correct through desambiguation strategies, ignoring the importance of the polissemic nature of language as an expressive resource of the language in daily communication and as a fundamental tool of comedy and humor, especially popular and childrens jokes and puns. This paper aims to approach lexical ambiguity, polissemy and homonyms, within the comic strip genre, which is a multimodal and comic text genre, with the objetive of observing how effective this proposal of reading and writing can be to help students comprehend, learn and explain lexical ambiguity, by using a word in multiple possible meanings in the comic strip, in concrete enunciation. This proposal uses multimodality, by combining lexical ambiguity and visual litteracy, aiming to enable the student not only to observe and understand the comic strips presented, but also to produce their own by using verbal and visual components. The sequence is divided in ten steps: research and sharing comics, diagnostic evaluation, lexical ambiguity in the textbook, digital game Quem ri seus males espanta Piadas, searching for different meanings of words in the dictionary, writing a glossary of polissemic unities, production of a scratch comic, self evaluation, final production and appreciation of the classes works.

This piece of research explored young children’s (3-8 years) interpretation and understanding of well-being. The majority of research on well-being has been with adults and older children, with a distinct gap in younger children’s perspective being included. Where subjective well-being has been part of research, it has tended to be an add-on to the more weighty and identifiable data from government statistics and pre-determined objective measures. Subjective well-being is prominent in this piece of research, thus securing young children’s perspectives. The research was undertaken with forty children across four year-groups in one large urban community Infant school in the East of England. Drawings, paintings or photographs together with their narrative explanations, were collected from the children. Eight children then categorised the data, ordering it by frequency and importance. The final categorisation resulted in six key themes from the children: 1.Family, 2.Doing things with Family, 3.Being outside, 4.Pets and animals, 5, Activities, games and toys, 6. Friends. The researcher analysed the data using Barthes (1973, 1977) visual semiotic approach alongside a developmental perspective (Einarsdottir et al 2009), then thematic analysis. The researcher’s key themes were 1.Key relationships, 2.Sense of self, and 3.Outdoor world, which encapsulated the children’s themes and ideas. The importance of key relationships to young children has implications for time spent with family having greater status. It was also evident that young children are developing a sense of self, and need support, validation, and time from key people for this to be successful. The outdoor world was also significant, which needs recognition, provision and value attributed to it. The elements that make young children feel well and happy, need recognition and promotion by adults and professionals. Children’s perspectives need greater prominence in the policy domain. This piece of research demonstrated that young children are able to interpret and understand well-being, with the findings showing differences, or differences in degree of emphasis, to those put forward by older children and adults.

This study explores the influence that a mother has upon her daughter’s educational decision-making processes that occur between the age of 14 and the age upon leaving education and, also, her educational and career aspirations. It focuses on subject choice at GCSE, decisions to progress to further/higher education, when to leave education, choice of future career and the mother-daughter relationship. The research findings were based on qualitative research carried out in the form of semistructured, tape-recorded, interviews with 60 mother-daughter pairings (daughters being aged 14-23). The findings show that mothers have contributed to a change in the educational aspirations and achievements of their daughters. Mothers emphasise the acquisition of skills, academic qualifications and they believe in the value of education. Their aspirations for their daughters are passed on via the mother-daughter relationship and resulting messages have a very strong influence upon the daughters with regard to education and, also, help to shape the daughters’ educational experiences and career aspirations. Daughters acknowledge the importance of education and qualifications and know that they are essential for success in the labour market. They desire careers and are happy to embark upon several years of study to acquire relevant qualifications to be able to enter their desired occupation. However, although daughters desire rewarding and well-paid careers they are prepared to shelve these careers, for at least a minimum of five years, in order to perform childcare duties and responsibilities at home. Although they hear their mothers’ messages about the value of education and the benefits it entails and thus make declarations about careers, daughters’ long-term intentions are to revert to the same lifestyle that their mothers had in order to remain at home with young children. Gender continues to influence girls’ behaviour and it is this that appears to have the greatest impact on a daughter’s long-term career aspirations

While there is extensive research on family violence and delinquency in Western literature, this topic is notably rare in Arab literature, including that from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, although the association between being exposed to family violence and committing delinquent acts has been established in several Western studies, less is known about this association in the Saudi setting. This study sought to explore the extent and nature of these two phenomena in Saudi Arabia. It also aimed to examine the risk and protective factors that might be associated with the likelihood that girls who had experienced or witnessed family violence would then go on to commit delinquent acts. Given the dearth of literature on the association between family violence and female delinquency in Saudi Arabia, an exploratory study design was considered as the most appropriate method for this research. Data were collected through a self-completed questionnaire. The study sample consisted of 12- to 18-year-old female students (n=422) from intermediate and secondary schools in the Makkah area (western Saudi Arabia). Both family violence and female delinquency were found to have a relatively high prevalence. Physical abuse was shown to be the most common form of family violence, and brothers were the most common perpetrators of physical and sexual abuse. These results, which contrasted with a number of Western and other Saudi studies, point to sibling abuse as an area that is in need of further investigation. The current study indicated that violent offences, reported by 35 percent of the participants, were the most prevalent type of delinquency. This was unanticipated, given the highly conservative nature of Saudi society. The current study demonstrated significant associations between risk factors and the likelihood of female delinquency. In addition, the research suggests that if protective factors are absent or weak, then the likelihood that a young female will commit an antisocial behaviour offence is higher. Females exposed to family violence were found to be less likely to commit violent offences. The findings of the present study suggest that the problems of family violence and female delinquency are relatively common. More research is needed to assess the extent and nature of these problems at the national level. Moreover, the government should implement new policies and practices to address these problems head-on.

In the last decade there has been a growth in the number of women seeking asylum in the United Kingdom (UK), yet research remains extremely limited. Negative and disempowering narratives have come to dominate contemporary understandings of women seeking asylum. Taking a relational narrative approach and drawing on feminist perspectives, the main aim of this research was to explore the stories told by women seeking asylum. Placing the stories of women at the heart of this study, I conducted interviews with seventeen women who had made a claim for asylum in the UK. Their interviews were recorded, transcribed and then analysed using the Listening Guide. A further analytical step was developed called ‘letting stories breathe’. Hearing women’s stories of persecution and sexual violence, I present four recurring, inter-linked and, at times, contradictory narratives. These I have called the narrative of resistance, the narrative of reworking, the narrative of resilience and the narrative of ruination. I suggest that women, despite limited opportunities and restricted choices, do not necessarily accept the concepts and notions which have formed a basis for contemporary understandings about women seeking asylum in the UK. Furthering our knowledge of the relationship between stories and the narratives which frame them, I have demonstrated the active role women play in the construction of their own stories. Inspired by the stories told by women, this thesis contributes to creating a space where women seeking asylum can tell their own stories about their lives.

My research examines how middle aged women (35-54 years of age) who live in the UK experience the process of growing older, and it addresses in detail the question of whether, and if so, how, their sense of self changes during midlife. In recent years it has been argued that it is not possible to offer an adequate theory of women’s experience and self-understanding without addressing the bodily aspects of the constitution of identity in their social context. According to the ‘double standard of ageing’ hypothesis, women are not permitted to age in ways that men are; they are marginalised and ignored not only by popular culture but also by some sociologists and gerontologists. Thus, there is a need for rethinking current theory so as to ensure that middle aged women become more visible. The themes explored in my project include: body image in midlife, participants’ notions of middle age, methods women use in order to control or conceal the signs of ageing, female sexuality in midlife, life milestones, ageism, the double standard of ageing in British society. The thesis contributes to the current debates within social sciences by offering new data that corroborate the hypothesis of the embodied nature of female identity, and the view that ageing is experienced as a defining factor in the development of personal female identity. Paricipants acknowledge that ageing is a feminist issue and their disourse confirms that there is a double standard of ageing in British society. In addition, my project challenges the idea that getting older is something pathological. It stresses the importance of diversity among women of different ethnicity and cultural background for the psychological, and social impact of ageing in women’s life. Finally, this project suggests that social scientists need to re-consider their age cohort categorizations and the use of the term ‘middle-age’, which - given the currently popular and medical preconceptions - carries only negative connotations for participants.

Domestic abuse has historically been defined and constructed as an adult issue. However, in recent years there has been increasing awareness that young people also experience abuse within their relationships that can have serious and long-term effects on their health and wellbeing. Research has revealed higher rates of abuse reported by younger women than by adult women (Barter et al, 2009) and young mothers in particular appear to be at significant risk of experiencing relationship abuse (Wood et al, 2011). However, there is a lack of empirical research that has explored young mothers’ experiences of abuse and, therefore, little is known about the ways in which they understand and make sense of relationship abuse and negotiate their mothering within an abusive relationship. By focusing exclusively on mothers who became pregnant before they were 18, this research addresses this gap in knowledge and offers an original contribution to the evidence base. The primary aim of the research was to offer young mothers who experienced relationship abuse an opportunity to tell their stories. Underpinned by a feminist, social constructionist epistemology, the research adopted a narrative methodology and used semi-structured interviews to generate data. Participants were six young women who became pregnant before their eighteenth birthday and who had experienced relationship abuse in the last year; two were pregnant with their first child and four were already mothers. Narrative analysis of the data using The Listening Guide explored how participants constructed themselves and made sense of their relationships, paying particular attention to the ways in which personal stories reflected or contested available narratives about relationships, abuse, motherhood and teenage pregnancy. The emerging stories offer an insight into how these young mothers negotiated limited and sometimes contradictory narratives in order to make sense of their experiences and tell their own story. Participants told stories about their relationships and stories about becoming and being a mother that were inextricably linked. Stories of relationships and abuse overwhelmingly reflected narratives of romantic love; narratives that place responsibility for relationships with women, perpetuate gender inequalities and normalise male control and abuse. Their stories of motherhood reflected currently available narratives of ‘good’ mothering and rejected dominant narratives about teenage motherhood that were inconsistent with being a good mother. The findings highlight the limited repertoire of narratives available to young mothers who have experienced relationship abuse and reveal the potentially constraining nature of dominant narratives. Recommendations are made for policy, practice and future research.