This thesis investigates discourses of age and gender as realised in language used by and about ageing women, with a particular focus on the inseparable and reciprocal relationship between the private voices of individual lived experience of age(ing), and public discourses of ageing generated by the beauty and media industries. Research data collected and analysed for this thesis has three components: spoken data from 19 face-to-face qualitative interviews (the private voices), and a range of anti-ageing skincare and selected media texts (two forms of public discourse). The primary focus for the research is mid-life women, (aged 42-56) transitioning between youth and old(er) age. Principal findings suggest that for them ageing is a complex, non-unitary process, influenced by powerful cultural discourses which idealise youthfulness and problematise ageing, delivering gendered aesthetic judgements which profoundly shape individual discourses and evaluations and can be tracked in specific language features. Appearance is the ‘dominant signifier of ageing’, its changes constantly monitored in daily “mirror moments” and negatively evaluated through comparative language of ‘pinnacle’ and ‘loss’ as pressure of the cultural lens on the personal gaze drives an obligation to conform to external expectations. Here, the intersection of ageing and gendered selves, mediated through the cultural/media mirror, is articulated through conflicting discourses of reluctant acceptance and anxious resistance, in a continuing process of self-evaluation made more complex by the external pressures of beauty discourses and ambivalent media. There are implications both for gender and linguistic studies, not least as age-related stereotypes are increasingly challenged by a growing community of baby-boomers transitioning through mid-life to old(er) age.

This exploratory theory building research examines women’s leadership journeys within Higher Education in the UK. It takes a critical management perspective and draws on Bourdieu’s Social Action theory to provide a view through a new lens to answer the following question. Why, despite advances in equality legislation and policy, are there still so few women in powerful leadership positions in the UK HE sector? A positive deviance sampling approach was used to identify women who have reached very senior positions in HE in pre-1992 universities in the UK. Analysis of career narratives was conducted focusing on women’s world views and drawing on their sensemaking to provide new insights into how gender and power shape the modern, complex world of work. Findings demonstrate that structural power inequalities persist resulting in discrimination and sexism throughout women’s career journeys. Bourdieu’s concepts of the field, capital, habitus and symbolic violence are used to shine a light on the key role of cultural hegemony and symbolic violence. The concept of the internalisation of structural constraints, resulting in psychological constraints to agency and action is introduced.

This thesis seeks to examine the interrelationships between gender, migration and rural livelihoods in Ghana. The central argument of the study is that policy making on migration and livelihood, tends to ignore gender as a critical issue in development planning. The study suggests that effective development policy interventions should take into consideration the dynamics of gender relations because men and women experience migration differently. Employing primary and secondary data, the study demonstrates that when men and/or women migrate, there are consequences for households. For those migrating, this can result in either empowerment or increased vulnerability. And for the agricultural households in the sending areas, the departure of men and/or women affects their livelihood and division of labour. Our investigation shows that migrants are predominantly males, with a relatively smaller but increasing number of women. Drawing on earlier studies, the thesis argues for a more systematic examination of the consequences of migration on rural households, particularly on the economic livelihood and household responsibilities of women. By understanding the conditions of rural households, development practitioners are in a better position to design gender appropriate policies and projects. This approach will significantly improve the economic situation of rural communities and maximize their development dividends. The study has practical significance as it sheds light on the options faced by rural women, and the adjustments they make, when confronted with male out-migration.

This thesis considers the behaviour of 5 groups of primary aged children in the context of school, parenting and cognitive style. Study 1 began with a survey across the author's Local Education Authority to ascertain how schools work in partnership with parents whose children exhibit challenging behaviour in school. It also explored perceived difficulties and ways to alleviate these. The replies indicated that the schools attributed pupil difficulties to the resistance of parents in the collaborative process and a mismatch between home and school expectations. Suggestions for improvement recognised the duty of schools to build good relationships, enhance communication and educate parents. Following the survey the case details of 13 pupils who were experiencing behaviour problems were studied and from these a booklet for parents (Better Behaviour) was developed alongside a guide for professionals in supporting them. The booklet was evaluated with 25 parents over 3 months, during which time they received support and guidance in parenting skills. The parents reported personal benefits from this support, which resulted in improved behaviour in 24 of the children. Study 2 describes a matched group design of 180 pupils from 4 schools. Their behaviour was rated by teachers across 6 aspects. The parents of 1 group were sent a copy of the booklet and encouraged to follow its guidance via a series ofletters from the school. After 2 months the pupils' behaviour was re-rated. The most striking outcome was the major influence of school in both the main and interaction effects. The variability of results highlights the multiplicity of factors, which determine behavioural change. The implications of these findings for the methodology are discussed. Study 3 comprised 109, 9-11 year old pupils from 1 primary school. The teachers rated their classroom behaviour and home background across a 5 point scale. The position of the pupils on the Wholist-Analytic Cognitive Style Dimension was assessed by means of the Cognitive Styles Analysis. There was a significant effect of Wholist-Analytic style on behaviour, with Wholists having the most challenging behaviour. There was also a significant interaction between gender and home background, with females being better than males. This was most pronounced when the home background was rated as poor. Study 4 describes 5 case studies and the relationship between cognitive style, behavioural characteristics and parenting methods. The mothers of 5, year 5-6 boys whose behaviour was beyond their control were supported in their use of the booklet over a 3 months period. Types of behaviour were found to vary with style. All of the boys' behaviour improved in response to changes in parenting strategies. The results of all 4 studies were considered to have implications for the causes and management of challenging behaviour with respect to teaching, parenting and school partnership with parents.

This thesis explores the creative synergy between an era of cultural flux and seismic social upheaval, and a life stage conceived of as fraught, transitional and poised between progress and regress. It contends that adolescence functioned as an organising trope and a dominant paradigm of modern subjectivity in diverse British novels of the period 1918-1939. I develop a wide-ranging thematic analysis which draws established luminaries of the inter-war literary canon into dialogue with neglected mavericks and ‘middlebrow’ authors including Rosamond Lehmann, Patrick Hamilton, E.H. Young, Stevie Smith and Walter Greenwood. The theorisation of adolescence by anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists and cultural critics including G.Stanley Hall, Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Wyndham Lewis is canvassed in detail in Chapter I and provides a vital and enriching context for the close textual analyses which follow. Chapters III and V draw on original archival material to trace the evolution of distinctive adolescent agencies and visions of maturity in the striking inter-war novels of Elizabeth Bowen and Graham Greene. Julia Kristeva’s reflections on the ‘adolescent novel’ and the mechanics of abjection offer salient points of illumination and debate in each chapter. These case-studies are elaborated and contextualised by close scrutiny of the gender differentials shaping literary constructions of adolescence in this era. Chapter IV takes inspiration from the parallel drawn by social psychologist Kurt Lewin between the adolescent and the socially disempowered or oppressed ‘marginal man’. In the light of theories of masochism, it calibrates the interrogative force of novels which accentuate the failures and sufferings of male adolescent protagonists. Chapter II gauges the radical aspirations towards female self-fulfilment and definition embedded in narratives of generational conflict and alliance between women and positions the post-war ‘modern girl’ as an enabling yet also peculiarly problematic avatar of female emancipation.

This thesis explores the increasing representation of sexual dissidence on contemporary Italian mainstream television from 1990 to 2012. It argues that TV programming and regulations have been historically influenced by notions of an ideal family audience assumed to be traditionally nuclear, patriarchal, heterosexual and normative. The visual representation of sexuality in the media has been the subject of considerable international debate which has problematised the historical invisibilisation and misrepresentation of sexual dissidents, particularly in film and with an almost exclusive methodological emphasis on Anglophone texts. Less attention has been given to more integrated and empirical approaches to the representation, circulation and reception of dissident sexualities on TV. This study combines historical examinations of sexual portrayals on Italian television with two online ethnographies targeting non-heterosexual and heterosexually-identified respondents, discursively analysing whether and how these samples of viewers have engaged with this increasing TV visibility. The majority of participants seem interested in these portrayals and disagree with restrictive decision-making by networks. Nonetheless, a considerable portion of respondents appears to be problematically influenced not so much by the content of programmes as by perceptions of the views of others. The thesis demonstrates that audience research is an under-explored, yet very productive, field of enquiry in Sexuality Studies. Further research in this direction could have implications for network recommendations, transnational policy-making and new theoretical approaches.

This study within Practical Theology explores the nature of the relationship between women’s identity and religion in Wales, using qualitative and literary methods and in particular poetry as a form of theological reflection. The thesis is structured as a theological ‘critical conversation’. Dialogue partners include Western feminist theologians and their claim that women find it difficult to assert an authentic self and also sociological and historical texts looking at religion, women and identity in Wales. Christianity has played a significant part in Welsh identity construction, particularly in creating a repressive self-image for Welsh women for political reasons. Women’s current perspectives were investigated through life-story interviews, memoirs and the poetry of Menna Elfyn. My own poetry also makes a significant contribution to the reflexive insights within this project, and is an innovative aspect of my methodology. Unlike the representation of women as silent and disempowered within Western feminist theology, Welsh women are resilient and have an empowering and operative stereotype, the Welsh Mam – Strong Woman. Welsh women are at a key stage of constructing a new identity, disconnected from religion and other restrictive influences of the past. I end with a call for the churches in Wales to attend to issues of stratification, stigmatisation, repression and power in order to facilitate the flourishing of women as well as be more effective in their mission.

This research explored the gender dimension of energy poverty in rural Bangladesh. Women’s energy poverty in their everyday lives was investigated and its effects compared with men’s experience. The research also scrutinised whether energy poverty was derived from or reinforced by energy injustice, and explored whether energy poverty has any relationship with the economic situation of women. A qualitative research approach was used, consisting of in depth interviews and observation methods. The research revealed that women’s ‘energy profile’ is not the same as men living in the same household and that they are more affected than men by energy poverty. It also discovered that women’s energy poverty is reinforced due to a lack of ‘energy justice’. All three components of energy justice (distributional justice, justice as recognition and procedural justice) are deficient regarding women in this area. It also found that women’s ability to contribute to the household’s ability to purchase energy can improve their participation in energy decisions at the household level; however, the absence of modern fuel and a reliable power supply, together with patriarchal societal arrangements, restricts women’s opportunity to earn an income. Recommendations for improving the energy situation of women in rural Bangladesh are made.

This thesis addresses new trends in French cinema between 2000 and 2004, in films which have the common motif of a main, protagonist couple whose relationship has subversive potential and may indicate tension, instability, the process of change and transformations in post-2000 French society. The study shows how the chosen films contribute to the ongoing national debate about the following: what it means to speak and to ‘be’ French in post-2000 France, socially, culturally and in relation to how the nation defines itself; how the films project, dramatise and fantasise national identity; and finally, what role the films play in constructing the sense or the image of the French nation in their themes, motifs, and preoccupations with Frenchness. The thesis provides a body of work on gender, ethnicity and sexuality in post-2000 French film which fills a gap in the present literature, as although there are existing gender studies of 1980s’ and 1990s’ French film there is a reworking of film practices (in generic and thematic terms) in the post-2000 unlikely couple group of films which enables comparisons to be made and theoretical frameworks to be suggested, in order to establish parameters against which previous and future periods of this area of French cicnema history can be measured.

In this thesis, I explore the physicality of the pregnant body in the womb imagery in Psalm 139 and Job 3 and in the simile “like a woman in labor,” specifically, the simile of YHWH as a woman in labor in Isa 42:14. I show that the metaphorical pregnant body is not an idea of a body; rather, it is a detailed physical body with images of gestation in the womb, physical descriptions of a body writhing in labor (e.g. face, breath, hands, heart, legs), and descriptions of a baby delivered from the womb. Using Benjamin Harshav’s theory of Integrational Semantics, I mine the text for details of and allusions to the physicality of the pregnant body. I look at the text through the lens of the pregnant female body and ask how the physicality of this body contributes to meaning. I show that the full impact of the text is lost when the physical properties of the pregnant body are not integrated within an interpretation.