This study examines the impact of free time activities and companions on juvenile delinquency in the city of Riyadh, in the context of social change in Saudi society as a whole, as new forms of leisure and recreation seem to have arisen as a result of the process of urbanization taking place in the country.The field work was conducted in 1990-91 in the Social Observation Home in Riyadh. Social survey and case study methods were employed in the research.The findings of the study show that the major factors influencing juvenile delinquency in the city of Riyadh, fall into four groups concerning: the family, the school, the community and the society. As expected, the recent economic growth in Saudi Arabia has had a particular influence upon the situation of the youth in the society, in various social and cultural aspects, as a result of the cultural contact with foreigners in and outside the Kingdom and other factors.It is found that the peer-group has a strong influence on its members through many aspects of play, enjoyment, friendship and passing time which may, eventually, lead them to misbehaviour and delinquency. The impact of delinquent companions is visible from many indications: a) The majority of the sample had committed their offences in groups. b) A large number of them mentioned the desire to follow or please friends as the reason for committing the offence. c) Most importantly, about two thirds of the whole sample reported that they had friends with a previous history of delinquency.

No description available.

No description available.

The study reported here was designed to analyse the social and economic conditions underlying the development of class relations in an Egyptian industrial town, al-Mehalla al-Kubra. The research was directed at understanding social and economic relations among groups in the textile industry in al-Mehalla in terms of the reality which exists there, without a priori assumptions regarding the nature of groupings in that community. In investigating the socio-economic conditions underlying the development of class relations, the question of to what extent there is class alignment, class identity and class consciousness is emphasised. Very little such work has ever been done in the Middle East, and it is hoped that the findings of this study will prove useful in illuminating some of the processes of development in the region as a whole. Al-Mehalla provides a particularly good setting for the study and analysis of industrial development and the emerging of certain classes and class conflict. A large, modern industrial centre, it has a long history of textile production. Not only is the transformation of the town due to industrialisation completely within the memories of many living informants, which is of great importance given the absence, of documentation on working and social conditions in earlier years, but various phases in the development of the industry can still be seen in operation. Quite apart from its interest as a case of industrialisation in Egypt, al-Mehalla merits close study because it is inherently fascinating as a community. As will become clear in the course of this study, developments there in many ways contradict commonplace assumptions about the nature of Egyptian industry and Egyptian character. It is a vital, active, committed community of weavers whose history and patterns of social relations throughout the period of industrialisation must be documented at the micro-level now or not at all. Also, in order to meaningfully evaluate the development of al-Mehalla and its contemporary reality, it is imperative to analyse its past history. This thesis is therefore intended primarily as an anthropological study which may serve future social historians as well.Although there is a growing body of sociological studies on urban Egypt, only a handful of these have dealt with class and related topics such as class conflict and class consciousness. Those which do attempt to deal with these phenomena can be broadly classified into two groups: studies which take an economic determinist position (roughly, a Marxist orientation), and those which seek cultural explanations of variables associated with class. The studies in both categories leave something to be desired, though for somewhat different reasons. The present study seeks to overcome these limitations in the literature by examining present-day social relations in the textile industry of al-Mehalla from a broad perspective. Clearly the relations between workers and managers or owners cannot be dealt with properly if they are isolated from the wider socio-economic structure in which they are located, and from the historical development of the Egyptian economy as a whole. On the other hand, questions about class formation and class conflict cannot be understood merely on the basis of gross statistics related to the national economy. Rather, the dynamics of the process must also be investigated at the microlevel. The question of class identity and class relations in Egypt is a very complex one, requiring an elaborate framework for analysis. No pre-established body of theory can be assumed to be suitable for such analysis, although certainly various Western schools of thought regarding social class have much to contribute to the analysis. Nevertheless, these bodies of theory remain, so far as Egypt is concerned, empirically unverified. My main concern, therefore, is to provide as broad a view as possible, in order to highlight the significant elements in the class-relation development in al-Mehalla. Thus from the outset emphasis has been on investigating the complementarity between the macro-level and the micro-level of society. While the research was designed to account for present-day patterns of class relations, a full understanding of these relations requires an examination of the historical development of the industry and the patterns of social relations which developed along with patterns of production, with an analysis of the manner in which international and national economic and political forces have influenced developments within the community of al-Mehalla. Such concern with the impact of external forces and events in no way implies that the community itself may be seen as passively responding to external occurrences. Rather, examination of the dynamics of community responses and adaptations helps to bring to light the linkages which exist, with differential intensity and consequences, between macro-level structures and micro-level processes. This in turn enhances the subjectively-oriented investigation of the various groupings within the textile industry, and an evaluation of, the class structure and the positions of individuals within this structure in terms of people's own definitions and perceptions.

No description available.

Alcohol-related problems are a worldwide phenomenon and, in the latter part of the twentieth century, have generated substantial academic interest. Some of this research has focussed on the alcohol use and misuse of young people. The present thesis falls squarely into this area, bringing to the investigation of adolescent drinking behaviour an emphasis on family environment from recent studies into problem drinking. The aim of this study, therefore, was to increase understanding of the formation of early drinking patterns by investigating perceived family socialization factors associated with self-reported adolescent alcohol use and misuse. The results should have implications for alcohol education and intervention strategies in the U.K.. Research into problem drinking and drug use/misuse, previous adolescent drinking research, developmental psychology, social psychology, family psychology, family systems and the sociology of deviance all informed this thesis, by contributing to the development of a theoretical model of family socialization influences on adolescent drinking behaviour. Two main areas of family environmental influence are outlined in this model, and demographic and structural variables form a third component of the model. In this study, family process behaviours are viewed as those aspects of family relationships and interactional styles which are important in the socialization of adolescent behaviours and the internalization of norms, are non-alcohol specific, and are characterized by two major dimensions of family functioning - support and control. Underlying the role of alcohol-specific family behaviours in the development of adolescent drinking is family social learning, which is characterized by family models and social reinforcement for drinking. The main study involved administering a fully piloted questionnaire to a large, cross-sectional, random sample of school students, aged 11-18, in Humberside (N=4386). In addition, a small number of semi-structured interviews were carried out, and each written up as a case study, to supplement the quantitative questionnaire data. Data from the questionnaire were analyzed on three levels. Descriptive statistics are presented and comparisons made with information from previous studies. ANOVA's tested for disordinal interactions and for nonlinear effects of family socialization variables on adolescent drinking behaviour. As no marked non-linear patterns or disordinal interactions were found a third level of analysis was carried out, involving structural equation modelling techniques. The main results from the study are summarized below: (i) As expected, both heavy drinkers and non/very light drinkers were more likely to report extreme patterns of family socialization behaviours. Low support and control, indifferent parents and more frequent family drinking were all linked with more self-reported adolescent drinking, whilst high support and control, disapproving parents and non/light family drinking were all linked with less adolescent drinking. The family profile linked with normative levels of adolescent drinking was moderate support and control, a moderating parental attitude, and moderate (mid-range) family drinking. (ii) Multivariate analyses pointed to the predominantly independent and additive effect of each family socialization variable on adolescent drinking behaviour. (iii) On the whole, family social learning variables, particularly parental attitude, were more important statistical predictors of adolescent drinking behaviour than family process variables. (iv) Contrary to predictions, when each school year/sex group was examined separately, an interesting transitional effect was found. For younger males and females, family social learning variables were significant predictors of drinking behaviour, but family process variables were not. However, in older year groups, the effect of family support and control on , drinking behaviour increased whilst, in a complementary fashion, the effect of family models and, in particular, parental attitude, decreased. (v) As expected, knowledge of friends' drinking predicted the respondent's drinking behaviour, but the impact and pattern of family socialization influences on drinking behaviour was not moderated by this peer influence variable. In addition, knowledge of friends' drinking was not as important, statistically, as family social learning influences. The thesis concludes by discussing the above findings and commenting on the generalizability of the results and the implications of the results for current alcohol education paradigms and for future research. The value of the family socialization model for the investigation of other adolescent

In this thesis I examine globalisation as an ongoing social change to understand how it is routinely reproduced by social actors. To do this I consider the impacts of globalisation in an existing social setting and use a conceptual framework from the sociological literature to interpret and explain the evidence. The empirical materials were gathered during an ethnographic case study of The Vegetarian Society - an interest group that actively promoted social change by presenting everyday individual food consumption in the manner of reflexive 'life politics'. I use the concepts of 'interpenetration', 'relativisation', 'detraditionalisation' and 'institutional reflexivity' to indicate that processes of globalisation were routinely reproduced as contexts and consequences of the organisation's motivated social activity. I define globalisation as a change evident in individual consciousness, social systems and in the reflexive relation between them and accordingly, the findings centre on three issues. The first is the use of global images and language in the promotional literature (instrumentally recontextualised to promote vegetarianism) and its relation to global consciousness. The second is the relations between The Vegetarian Society and other agents within globalised social systems (where negotiations to initiate change often required compromise and pragmatism) and the contribution to systemic reproduction. The third is The Vegetarian Society's changing role (as vegetarianism entered the 'mainstream') where it was reflexively repositioning to continue achieving its aims in a 'post-traditional' (global) social order. The Vegetarian Society was enabled and constrained by these intersecting processes of globalisation as it continued to instigate change within globalised social structures (evident in changing opportunities and emerging dilemmas). In this case study, ongoing globalisation was produced and reproduced as an unintended consequence of a social actor's purposeful, localised activity.

Thesis (MEd)--University of South Australia, 1997

Thesis (MEd)--University of South Australia, 1997

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (University of Texas Digital Repository, viewed on Sept. 9, 2009). Vita. Includes bibliographical references.