Despite the growing evidence of the significant role of fathers in the emotion socialisation (ES) process, their ‘voice’ is scarce within the literature, leading to a dominant discourse surrounding maternal ES practices. ES occurs directly and indirectly with significant ‘scaffolding’ provided by parents, therefore emotion management is heavily socialised. Two ES practices aid or restrict children’s emotional self-regulation. Emotion coaching (EC) parents tend to use expression of emotion as opportunities for learning and development. Emotion dismissing (ED) parents are uncomfortable with negative emotions, so may dismiss, or use punitive responses. Fathers are thought to be shaped by socio-cultural norms and gender biases, therefore emotions may be socialised differentially, according to child gender and the type of emotion being displayed. An exploratory study of five fathers from a local authority in the East of England involved them responding to resource measures employing a combination of spoken and film scenarios reflecting negative emotions of sadness or anger in children. Transcribed data indicated that a number of positive ES approaches were being used. Future large-scale research with fathers from a broad demographic would strengthen the knowledge-base, perhaps also including partner and child opinions. There is a view that research regarding children’s emotional development should be considered incomplete, if data from fathers is not included.

This thesis explores the extent to which the incorporation of same-sex relationships into formal regulatory domains is working to reinforce heteronormativity. It focuses on this issue in relation to the provision of legal advice on civil partnership dissolution. It concentrates on three main questions: 1) How can same-sex relationships, in light of civil partnerships (and, by extension, same-sex marriage), help to challenge social and legal constructions about the gendered nature of roles in intimate relationships? 2) To what extent do solicitors construct the issues and legal framework as being identical in same-sex matters to different-sex cases? 3) How do lesbians and gay men understand and experience the law of financial relief? It is argued that heteronormative conceptions of gender have been carried over from (different-sex) marriage into civil partnership proceedings, and that lesbians and gay men have, to a large extent, been assimilated into the mainstream. That said, civil partner clients have also resisted the imposition of heterosexual norms on their relationship, preferring to settle dissolution matters on their own terms, and opposing substantive financial remedies such as maintenance and pension sharing. In this way, civil partnership dissolution does still pose some novel challenges for family law.

This study focuses upon the experience of identity through gathering and studying accounts of the personal and professional lives of twenty women who are headteachers and mothers in the North Midlands of England. The enquiry is shaped by a conceptual framework which grows out of an in depth review of the UK and international literature. The interplay between agency and structure within the social construction of a gendered identity and the value systems based upon this lead to a consideration of the history of headship and its reworking, within Government agenda, as school leadership through the National College for School Leadership. A consideration of research methodology explains the choice of survey as a qualitative approach influenced by the feminist stance, and a semi-structured interview method. Presentation and analysis of the fieldwork has an emphasis on ensuring that the subjects' voices are prioritised. The complex dialogic nature of identity is clearly heard and the women demonstrate that their struggle for agency within this demands a manipulation of Government and social agenda.

The Collection tells the story of Barbara, a fifty-something, Christian, teacher, wife, and mother, as she is forced to return home after her estranged father's death. Named executrix of his estate, Barbara navigates family secrets, repressed childhood trauma, and her mentally ill father's legacy. Using Attachment Theory and Intergenerational Theories of Personal Development, this research discusses the development and relationships of the characters in The Collection to demonstrate the connections between their child and adult selves—specifically, the role of Barbara's parents and childhood in her suppressed anger. Framed within the context of Carolyn G. Heilbrun's feminist critique of women writers and women characters, this paper connects socio-psychological theories to investigate how the patriarchal gender norms Barbara's mother instilled in her daughter result in Barbara's suppressed anger, strained interpersonal relationships and adult religiosity. The relationship between adult Barbara and her aging mother is discussed in context of these theories and compared against women characters in Siri Hustvedt's The Blazing World and Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge. Finally, the paper calls for further research into and understanding of the causes and effects of women's anger, as well as an essential shift in how both men and women are permitted to express emotions.

This thesis explores advertising as a ‘soft’ mode of governance understood in terms of a form of power which avoids instruments of coercion, involving instead certain practices of freedom and forms of pleasure. The main concern of the thesis is to analyse the mechanisms through which techniques of such ‘modest’ power interact with techniques of representation in order to define forms of femininity and shape self-fashioning practices of female consumers. The study is based on a comprehensive survey of a sample of television advertisements broadcast in Britain on three television channels with national coverage in May 2001 as well as on the analysis of a selected body of advertising trade literature. It draws on theoretical and methodological approaches from social anthropology and various strands of cultural studies. The thesis reveals that the way advertising attempts to influence consumers is in line with some aspects of neo-liberal style of governance. It argues that such a mode of governance seeks to regulate women’s ethical sensibilities by outlining the space of desire, power and pleasure, by stimulating the will for self-improvement and by providing advice about how women should think of and shape themselves.

Purpose This dissertation focuses at assessing the efficacy of shorter time intervals in the treatment of medical abortions along with the use of various follow up methods. Methods This initial part of dissertation was carried out as an extensive study of literature, followed by observational study on shorter time intervals and follow up methods for the feasibility of the study. The main dissertation met its research aims through an RCT of 121 women comparing shorter to standard time intervals and assessing the various follow up methods at the end of 2 weeks. The qualitative component of the study was achieved by conducting in-depth interviews of women undergoing medical abortion on various aspects of medical abortions with emphasis on shorter time intervals and follow up. Findings This research produced a number of key findings: the RCT showed that both treatments have equal efficacy and acceptability with minor differences in their side effects however the sample size was small to generalise the findings; the follow up methods showed varied responses with preference to confirmatory investigations at 2 weeks follow up. Conclusions The main conclusions drawn from this research were that shorter time intervals can be offered as an alternative to standard treatment intervals in well informed women, however a larger RCT is needed. In order to provide these treatments as outpatient robust follow up methods will need to be incorporated into the abortion services.

This thesis is concerned with 1) establishing the origins of sex-gender differences and with ascertaining if these are changeable; 2) the structure and function of the postmodern patriarchal family and its role in sex-gender development and sex-gender stereotyping; 3) the role of education in sex-gender/other stereotyping; 4) the development of an holistic inclusive pedagogy; and 5) the implementation of this pedagogy. The thesis is structured around six research questions. The first three research questions What are the origins of sex-gender differences?, What is the structure of the postmodern patriarchal family and what functions does it have? and What role do the patriarchal family and its patriarchal structure play in sex-gender development and sex-gender stereotyping? guide an interdisciplinary enquiry that provides the basis for the development of an holistic inclusive pedagogy. The fourth question What role does education play in sex-gender stereo-typing? delineates the context out of which an holistic inclusive pedagogy is developed. The last two research questions What kind of pedagogy is needed to ameliorate the injustices students suffer as a result of sex-gender/other stereotyping? and How can an holistic inclusive pedagogy raise learner’s-teacher’s awareness of sex-gender/other stereotyping? are concerned with the creation of an holistic inclusive pedagogy, its salient features, philosophical and epistemological assumptions and aims, etc.

The review examined the efficacy of parenting group programmes for foster and adoptive parents at improving the attachment relationships of fostered / adopted children. The reviewed evaluations of the programmes’ efficacy were mostly of a low methodological quality. The quality of the evidence base is currently considered too limited to make conclusions regarding the programmes’ efficacy. An evaluation of the efficacy of the ‘Fostering Attachments’ programme for foster and adoptive parents is reported. Twenty-five carers / parents were allocated to one of two groups which attended the programme, one of which remained on a waiting-list for six months before the programme. Participants were assessed pre-, post-, and eight months following invention and over the waiting-list period. Outcome variables included: children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties and relational security; placement stability; carers’ stress levels, mind-mindedness, sense of self-efficacy, competence and confidence in their parenting. Carers’ sense of competence and confidence improved immediately and eight months following intervention. Sense of self-efficacy improved eight months following, but not immediately post-intervention. In conclusion, the intervention appears affective at improving carers’ sense of competence and confidence, but not at improving the other outcome variables considered. Confidence in this conclusion is moderated by the methodological limitations.

The idea of cross-class families has been controversial over the last three decades. In class analysis literature, the debate was intertwined with issues on the cross-gender class comparison and women’s social class. This thesis will try to deal with the ambiguity in previous cross-class-family studies, which distracted a lot of energy from developing the knowledge of cross-class families. Through the social capital perspective, this thesis examines three key critiques to cross-class families: (1) All families are class homogeneous; (2) Sharing resources is equivalent to class similarity; (3) The occupations of the female and the lower-occupation partners have no empirically significant contribution to their own social class. Through the latest waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and an updated British occupational class scheme, National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) 2000, the thesis examines the three matters. It concluded that there are substantial amount of families where the male and female partners were different significantly in terms of social capital and social class. Couples share social resources may have significant difference in social class. This sharing may only suggest correlations. The occupations of the female and lower-occupation partners should not be ignored in the measurement of their own socio-economic positions.

Through interview generated narratives of subjects of three generations of urban middle-class Bengalis living in Kolkata, India and other auto-ethnographic narrative texts; this research seeks to examine generation, gender and class specific meanings of intimate heterosexual identities and relations. It focuses on the ways in which subjects negotiate institutionalized heterosexuality or hetero-normativity within everyday practices of intimacy. Subjects’ on-going negotiations that tell stories of multiple and contradictory subjectivities, are analysed to show how personal narratives of intimacy vary across a range of conflicting and competing colonialist, nationalist and trans-nationalist discourses of heterosexuality. Through analysing stories of homosocial intimacy, heterosexual coupling and expressions of intimacy; the research examines the power and vulnerability of ‘doing gender’, illustrates how ‘practices of intimacy’ overlap with ‘family practices’ and demonstrates that expressions of intimacy are socially ordered and linguistically mediated. The research critiques the ‘individualization thesis’ of reflexive modernization by showing how practices of intimacy are socio-culturally embedded within family relations, both real and imagined. By appreciating multiple meanings of power and agency, it also critiques a colonial-modernist notion of linear progress by illustrating the shifting meaning and the mutual co-constitution of the categories of ‘past’ and ‘present’, ‘tradition’ and ‘modern’, ‘East’ and ‘West’.