The PhD submission centres primarily on the book Testing the Limits of Foster Care, which reports on a piece of applied social work research, and the paper Critical Times: a critical realist approach to understanding services for looked after children which examines key theoretical issues relevant to the study. Two other book chapters ‘Changing Perceptions of Children and Childhood’ and ‘Risk and Opportunity in Leaving Care’ are included as supplementary examples of the applicant’s work. In common with Testing the Limits of Foster Care, these seek to understand aspects of child welfare practice in light of wider changes in society and social policy and so are consistent with a critical realist perspective. The study reported in the book Testing the Limits of Foster Care was an evaluation of a foster care project set up to provide an alternative to secure accommodation (Community Alternative Placement Scheme). The research was concerned with how the scheme developed, the nature of the service and its capacity to help young people have good experiences and outcomes. Its purpose was to assess the potential and limitations of this form of care provision. The book outlines the development of the service, and the needs, experiences and outcomes for the first twenty young people placed within the scheme. These are compared with similar young people placed in secure accommodation during the same period. In most respects outcomes were similar for both samples. However outcomes were not viewed as directly resulting from one particular placement, but rather influenced by a host of considerations relating to the young person’s own circumstances and nature of services offered. Foster care and secure accommodation offered young people a very different kind of experience, whilst access to other services such as education and support to independent living were equally important in determining how they fared.

A model of the co-parental role based on personal construct theory is described, with inter-parental conflict explained in terms of the constructivist concept of hostility. Four unstructured group interviews, on the theme of the experience of separated parenthood, were conducted with separated fathers (n=14) from throughout Strathclyde. Thematic analysis of the results suggests that while participants recognised the importance of maintaining relations with the other parent, that relationship was seen as adversarial, and fathers frequently feel controlled or powerless; different strategies for coping with this control emerged. From common post-separation parenting experiences recounted by the participants, situational elements were developed for a series of repertory grid interviews, intended to identify and examine the co-parental role construct system. Grids were administered, at three points over a year, to a cohort of separated, non-resident fathers from Strathclyde (n=17) still in contact with their children. The results were analysed using construct content categories developed for this research, inter-element distance measures, and asymmetric coefficients to assess ordinal relationships between constructs. Support was found for the model of a co-parental role covering interactions with children and their mothers. Perceptions of parity in parents' flexibility regarding contact arrangements were associated with recent experience, particularly ongoing disputes over contact allocation, and reflect strategies for dealing with being controlled. Conflict emerges as having distinct and multiple implications for separated non-resident fathers, whose responses to change were also consistent with the constructivist conception of hostility. One strategy for dealing with this may be a gradual distancing from the role of co-parent, in line with recent theories of core construing. These findings are discussed along with strengths and limitations of this research; implications for policy, practice and future research are outlined.

Moving on from Jackson's belief in fantasy as the literature of subversion, this thesis argues that by filtering Todorov's concept of the fantastic through a contemporary theoretical understanding of transgression, the stasis which has resulted from the obsessive desire to pin down a single definition of literary fantasy can be transformed into a dynamic and interactive narrative process. This dynamism then provides a particularly useful strategy for the fictional exploration of the problematic positionality of women within patriarchal society. The Introduction sets out and contextualises this theoretical framework, the particular significance of transgression to socio-political marginalisation being illustrated by reference to the work of post-Bakhtinian theorists such as Stallybrass and White. The importance of the precarious threshold positionality offered by the adoption of fantastic hesitancy on the part of the woman writer is also introduced. The three main textual sections each focuses upon four novels by contemporary women writers, taking as their themes women and the domestic, women and nightmare and women who are "larger than life" respectively. In each case the intervention of the fantastic is seen to be inseparable from the problematic relationship between prohibition and transgression, a relationship largely set up and explored through a preoccupation with enclosure. Throughout there is a presiding concern with the importance of paradox and ambivalence as a radical literary and political strategy. To this end the concluding section sets this thesis within a feminist fantasy framework, arguing that the problematic dynamism of the fantastic offers far more transformative possibilities than the "closed-system" of the feminist utopia. The originality of this thesis resides in the fact that it adds two further dimensions to existing perspectives on the fantastic. By fully integrating the concept of transgression as a narrative positionality as well as a category of content, it aims to extricate fantasy criticism from the bounds of genre theory. In addition, by combining this with a variety of feminist theoretical perspectives and by taking as its focus contemporary women's fiction, this thesis provides something still not otherwise available: a full-length feminist reading of the application of the fantastic to contemporary women's fiction.

This is a study of the shorts and feature films by the young, prolific French film director, François Ozon. The thesis uncovers the impact of Ozon’s oeuvre on cinematic audiences. The films raise questions about death, desire and sexual relationships in unsettling and surprising ways, through a variety of different genres. This thesis focuses on close textual reading of the films, employing feminist and queer theory to underline and echo the implications of Ozon’s representations of sexuality; here it is argued that Ozon’s work presents a challenge to heteronormative ideology and culture. In particular, this study suggests that Ozonian cinema encourages the spectator to take up a fluid and non-normative viewing position often denied in mainstream narrative cinema. This study focuses on analyses of taboo, trauma and loss, as well as generic conventions and gender performances which refer to psychoanalytic, feminist and queer understandings of certain behaviours and situations; quotidian, but intense, experiences in the films emphasize ways in which the human subject struggles with the expression of desire and sexuality. Although not as radical as queer theorists or film critics may wish, Ozon’s films often use comedy and irony to illustrate the problems of a restrictive patriarchal society and the way it can harm individuals, thus unsettling the normative assumptions on which the majority of social structures are still based. Ozonian cinema, this thesis argues, thus presents a compassionate and, indeed, political comment on contemporary French and European society.

Chapter One: The effects of bilingualism with two spoken languages on a child’s psychosocial development: A critical review. This paper critically reviews the literature to explore the effects of bilingualism with two spoken languages on a child’s psychosocial development. Researchers have primarily been concerned with the effects of bilingualism on intelligence (e.g., Darcy, 1963, as cited in Ricciardelli, 1992, p.301) and educational achievement (e.g., Tucker & d’Anglejan, 1971). More recently research has focused on the psychological impact of bilingualism on a child, and how their social, cultural, and familial relationships may be affected (e.g., Han & Huang, 2010). A search of papers identified 12 papers for review. The findings portrayed that societal, cultural, and familial factors are not only important with regard to language development, but are important for psychological well-being including relationships and behaviours (e.g., Han, 2010). Chapter Two: The experiences of bilingualism within the deaf and the hearing world: The views of d/Deaf young people Research into bilingualism and the learning potential offered by a second language are widely reported, with much of this evidence relating to both languages being spoken. However, further reviews have identified that learning a language in two different modalities, offers a much richer learning environment for children. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the language development of deaf children who access both a signed language and a spoken language. For this empirical paper, 7 deaf bilingual young people were interviewed to explore their views and experiences of bilingualism and deafness. The results were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. It highlighted the experiences for deaf young people of having a strong identity within the deaf and the hearing communities (e.g., Calderon, 2000). Chapter Three: Communication within the d/Deaf world: Reflections on the research and clinical process This paper reflects on my personal and professional learning throughout this research as a hearing person communicating with deaf people. Hearing people, with access, generally use spoken language to communicate. However, deaf people can communicate through spoken language, sign language, and lip-reading. Being aware of the many needs of deaf people has helped me to reflect on my experience of communication in the context of everyday life.

This thesis examines concepts of female honour circulating among the middling and poorer sorts in Elizabethan and seventeenth-century London. Utilising prescriptive advice books, secular and ecclesiastical court records, vestry minutes, ballads, diaries, pamphlets and plays, the thesis explores how ordinary women might fashion respectable identities for themselves. By negotiating some degree of autonomy within the restrictive boundaries imposed by a patriarchal society, women might earn praise and social credit from their families, friends, and neighbours. It starts from the premiss that while sexual honesty remained an essential pre-requisite for female honour, women who sought to acquire a good reputation were required to do much more than protect their virginity before marriage and remain sexually faithful to their husbands. Women as individuals were judged by their physical appearance and the clothes they wore; as members of families and households by the successful performance of their roles as mothers, housewives and mistresses; and as members of local communities by their interactions with their neighbours, both male and female. In addition female honour was linked to the skill with which women negotiated the unique physical environments of early modem London and its hinterlands, in particular the fields, streets, and alehouses of the capital. Women had to undergo constant scrutiny, and often criticism, from both male and female neighbours, but the thesis argues that contemporary codes of honour, reputation, and credit could also empower women, by bringing them respect and admiration.

This thesis is a qualitative sociological study into the phenomenon of gay Nazi fetishism in the Internet age, and its wider social and political implications. This sociological research is timely because of the proliferation of online groups targeted at those with fetishistic sexual interests as well as the increasing adoption of queer theory as a theoretical framework through which to analyse non-normative sexualities. Data was collected through examining a range of websites and groups targeted at gay men who enjoy Nazi fetishism. Drawing on interviews with 22 members of one particular gay Nazi fetish group, it is argued that the Internet provides real and important benefits for those exploring non-normative desires, compensating for a number of perceived offline dis-satisfactions as well as offering opportunities to enhance and experiment with sexual play. Nonetheless, this proliferation of non-normative sex does not mean that the world will necessary be a ‘queerer’ place. Not only do problematic hierarchies and exclusions operate on Nazi fetish websites, but its members demonstrate a firm (over)conformity to heteronormative masculinity. Moreover, the appropriation of Nazism for both sexual fantasy and sexual practice draws from and re-iterates its well-established and horrific history rather than, as some queer theorists assert, providing a means to re-signify Nazi regalia. I conclude that the subversive effects of non-normative sexuality should not be assumed but rather that research needs to pay closer attention to the gendered and sexual identities and political sensibilities of its practitioners as well as the ways through which they frame, experience and understand their embodied sexual practice.

This thesis explores online sociability practices in a discussion website for feminist activists in Central and Eastern Europe. It examines the constitution of identity, community and social action focusing on interactive, generic, technological, and discursive context of online communication. The project draws its methods from action research framework and virtual ethnography, and investigates key themes of the thesis through designing an online discussion forum and participating in its collective discussions. Its analytical strategy is informed by sociolinguistic approaches which perceive language as relational, dialogic and encompassing action. Drawing on a variety of theoretical frameworks, including Bakhtin's philosophy of language, speech act theory, contemporary approaches to genre studies, feminist theory and praxis debates, cyberfeminism and actor network theory, I analyze identity, community, and feminist action as sites of social action shaped by interactive exchanges, generic forms of communication, technology, and feminist discourse. On the one hand, I interrogate how commonsense/popular feminism constructs online feminist action and agency, and on the other how the textual/discursive/virtual context of the Internet challenges and has the potential to shift the understanding of these terms. I argue that on the new terrain of the Internet, speech and action have been reconfigured and that the modernist understanding of embodied action and self determined subjectivity that informs traditional action research as well as activist strategies has to shift. This thesis further argues that certain strands of radical feminism constitute a common rhetorical place through which the participants negotiate their identity, authority, the terms of membership and articulate action in an international and virtual speech community. It describes these 'common places' as idiomatic feminism and implies that they function as a metanarrative/ meta-political commonsense that crosses international borders. This thesis points to\vard the need to rethink questions of action and agency on the Internet and become more attuned to the rhetorical-material-discursive context of their production.

This thesis examines the shifts in political culture effected by the 'X case' (1992), when the State issued an injunction to prevent a fourteen year old pregnant and suicidal rape victim from travelling abroad for an abortion. In so doing, this thesis focuses on the connection between discourses of Irish nationhood, gender and sexuality in the fields of reproductive politics and women's citizenship. Abortion law and politics has had constitutional status in Ireland since 1983, when the right to life of 'the unborn' was officially recognised as ostensibly equal to that of women. This has situated debate on abortion access in an explicitly national framework, since political sovereignty is invested in 'the people'. Shifting articulations of nationhood and abortion are examined in three specific sites of political culture: the national press; political activist discourses; and official legislative debates. The terms of debate in the press and the Oireachtas (legislature) in particular are compared over time, from the 1983 campaign to recognize a foetal right to life, to 1992, when the legitimacy and meaning of constitutional abortion law was thrown into crisis by the X case. Two specific reversals in the terms of post-X case abortion politics are examined. Firstly the anti-abortion construction of the nation in familial terms produced popular pressure in 1992 to allow for a right to abortion in the interests of familial integrity. Secondly, the primary antagonism opposing Irish 'pro-life' traditionalism to English 'pro-abortion' modernism was reversed both by the anti-abortion lobby's key role in 'interning' X within the State, and by the popular perception that feminist advocacy of abortion access would reassert the integrity of the violated family. Significant continuities in the construction of abortion law and politics in national terms are also analyzed.

In the period 1950-1979, there were significant changes in legislation relating to women’s issues, specifically employment, marital and guardianship and abortion rights. This thesis explores the impact of Conservative female MPs on these changes as well as the changing roles of women within the party. In addition there is a discussion of the relationships between Conservative women and their colleagues which provides insights into the changes in gender roles which were occurring at this time. Following the introduction the next four chapters focus on the women themselves and the changes in the above mentioned women’s issues during the mid-twentieth century and the impact Conservative women MPs had on them. The changing Conservative attitudes are considered in the context of the wider changes in women’s roles in society in the period. Chapter six explores the relationship between women and men of the Conservative Parliamentary Party, as well as men’s impact on the selected women’s issues. These relationships were crucial to enhancing women’s roles within the party, as it is widely recognised that women would not have been able to attain high positions or affect the issues as they did without help from male colleagues. Finally, the female Labour MPs in the alteration of women’s issues is discussed in Chapter seven. Labour women’s relationships both with their party and with Conservative women are also examined. This thesis concludes by linking Conservative female MPs’ impact upon women’s issues, their relationships both within and outside of their party, and the effect these had on the ability of women to fully participate in Parliament. In bringing these together, it will be shown that the impact Conservative female MPs had on the various pieces of legislation was of importance and that these women’s hard work allowed them to gain more recognition within the party and society.