This thesis investigates the views of English social workers and child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) clinicians about how social workers use the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) with looked after children. Focus groups and semi structured interviews (conducted 2011 - 2013) examined social workers' (n = 58, from nine local authorities) understandings of the mental health needs of looked after children and their use of the SDQ in assessing this, as well as how CAMHS clinicians (n = 24, from 11 Health Trusts) viewed the role of social workers in appropriately assessing mental health problems. Normalisation Process Theory was used to appraise how the SDQ had been routinely operationalised in everyday social work practice. A case study of one local authority explored the working practices of looked after children's social workers and specialist CAMHS clinicians working in a co-located (high integration) service which had achieved consistently high annual SDQ returns over a number of years. The study found most social workers were not aware of the SDQ scores of the children or young people they were allocated and did not know how to interpret it in terms of looked after children's mental health. Routinely collected SDQ data on looked after children who had been in care for a year or longer was not utilised by most of the social workers or the local authorities which collected it. Specialist CAMHS used the SDQ alongside social workers in only two local authorities. Level of integration (based on degree of co-location of social workers and CAMHS) did not appear to be associated with social workers' SDQ use. Detailed examination of one local authority showed that although it contained a highly integrated service and was the best in the country at getting completed SDQ forms returned from foster carers, having a robust process for data collection was not enough to ensure the SDQ was integrated within social work practice in the organisation. Given challenges to local authority budgets and services, any recommendations to improve current practice must be mindful of resource implications. Better utilisation could therefore be made of existing local authority processes and resources to embed the SDQ into routine practice. A multi-agency approach remains critical to establish the routinised usage of the SDQ. This has the potential to benefit all agencies and most importantly, looked after children.

This thesis investigates attitudes to sexual violence against children as revealed in penal codes and criminal courts in Florence during the long nineteenth century. The main question is: how did the approach to sexual violence against children shown by institutions of the state, society and family change throughout the so-called century of childhood? The choice of Florence as a case study of child abuse in Italy was made for three main reasons: first, the succession of several régimes –not unusual in Italy during this period- permits me to examine how different governments regulated sexual violence towards children, tracing continuities and changes; second, the considerable attention paid to children, to their health and education, by private and public institutions in Florence throughout the century would lead historians to assume there was a general condemnation of child sexual abuse; last but not least, the widespread historical assumption that Tuscany possessed especially advanced and modern penal codes made me wonder whether Tuscany was also especially progressive in attitudes to sexual violence against children. Given the gulf between law and judicial practice, the latter has been analysed through criminal records. Even though during the body of the thesis sexual violence against girls, and against boys, and within the context of incestuous relationship have been analysed within different sections, in the conclusions they have been brought together offering a nuanced account of varieties of response, while also keeping in mind the central research question.

This thesis explores the emotions and identity negotiations of former excessive drinkers in the UK when maintaining responsible drinking. Despite the success of social marketing initiatives in promoting the adoption of healthy behaviours, sustaining them has become a major challenge. Paradoxically, this has received limited attention and discourse among social marketers. Thus, drawing insights from theories of social identity (Tajfel and Turner, 1986) and self-identity (Stryker, 1968), this study explores the nature of the emotions and identity negotiations experienced by consumers when maintaining a responsible drinking behaviour and the reasons for them to emerge. Further, the study explains how these emotions and identity negotiations affect the process of sustaining responsible drinking behaviour. Taking the view that reality is socially constructed and subjective, we explored the context specific meanings constructed by consumers using a qualitative narrative methodology. Twenty five narratives were collected using long in-depth interviews and an eight week diary, from self-reported formerly excessive drinkers in the age group of 18-35. Common themes were determined through an iterative process of analysis. In this study, we suggest that neither changing consumption behaviour nor sustaining this change is simple, straightforward or a singular act. Rather, they involve complex and emotional transformations of young adults' lives and their social groups, rituals, possessions and activities. Due to the identity ambiguities, participants experienced emotions that are ambivalent and complex. Therefore, during the process of giving up excessive drinking, individuals were trying to reconcile and reconstruct new identities through various identity negotiations that move beyond disposing of material possessions. While some of these identity ambiguities and emotional challenges hindered the decision of maintaining a responsible drinking behaviour some of the identity negotiations resulted in positive emotions and supported sustaining the behavioural change. Theoretically, this thesis contributes to the social marketing literature by extending the understanding of changing behaviour and exploring the notion of sustaining a behavioural change in light of emotions and identity negotiations. The study also sheds light on the intertwined nature of emotions and identities and suggests the ambivalent nature of emotions by challenging the simple dichotomy (positive and negative emotions) identity theorists use to explain emotions. Further, we also argue that identity disengagement and reconstruction is a complex, holistic and a processual notion that moves beyond material possessions and encompasses consumption lifestyles, people and rituals. The study methodologically contributes to consumer research by highlighting the benefits of using diaries as a method of capturing subtle nuances in consumer behaviour. Practically, this study's findings provide recommendations to social marketers, policy makers, charities and practitioners who are dealing with alcohol related problems, and universities, families, young adults and others seeking to manage excessive drinking. We suggest the importance of promoting alternative positive identities in social marketing messages to young people when encouraging responsible drinking rather than focusing on the negative aspects of drinking. Further, this paper proposes different strategies to normalise responsible drinking and abstinence in UK society. These recommendations highlight the importance of taking a holistic approach to encourage and maintain responsible drinking, which should focus on modifying/maintaining individuals' selves and supporting their transformation, rather than simply their behaviour.

This thesis is centred on education and the humanitarian space, specifically, an analysis of whether there a dissonance between military education and military practice in the Irish Defence Forces. In this context, the research audience is considered to be constituted of two distinct cohorts; military personnel within the Irish Defence Forces and individuals within the development sector, in particular those with responsibility for the education and 'pre-deployment' training of those within the humanitarian space. Broadly speaking, the research is framed to examine education and the humanitarian space through the lens of the human security paradigm using qualitative research methods. To achieve this, a multi-layered strategy was employed focussed on the Strategic and Operational Practice levels using a thematic framework centred on the human security paradigm informed by both the gender and cultural perspectives. At the strategic level a number of published and unpublished documentary resources were analysed in order to explore how Irish identity and concepts of self are presented, while at the operational practice level a number of semi-structured interviews were conducted with an elite group of thinkers and decision makers within the Irish Defence Forces in order to get their unique perspective on policy interpretation, policy implementation and operational practice. The research process identified that there are dissonances between military education and military practice in an Irish Defence Forces context, specifically in respect of military operations within the humanitarian space. The research also indicated that this has contributed to tension within the community of practice and suggests possibilities for further research, which may mitigate the risk of dysfunction within the humanitarian space.

This thesis investigates the complex and heterogeneous regime of government resulting from the failure of the EU attempts to govern asylum seekers through the Dublin system and the harmonisation of reception conditions. Combining the analytical perspective of governmentality with a regime analysis which resembles those proposed by critical migration studies, the thesis aims to identify features and functioning of a possible EU government of asylum seekers, which is defined as EU reception regime. Through a rich empirical study primarily based on semi-structured interviews with a range of different actors in several contexts in Italy and Sweden, three key modes of operation of the regime are identified, which are: logistics, differentiation, and failure. Logistics denotes an increasing importance of operational and organisational concerns in the reception of asylum seekers, which pave the way to the commodification of reception and transform the regime into a reception industry. Differentiation concerns a mode of governing asylum seekers based on the arbitrary multiplication of treatments, conditions, and experiences, across as well as within states, which therefore makes the regime work as a reception roulette. Finally, failure is a key aspect of the regime which is both intrinsic to its functioning and productive, thus making the regime operate as a reception dispositif. In particular, the thesis shows how the failure of the regime to limit movements ends up “illegalising” them and consequently fostering conditions of invisibility, disposability, and vulnerability. In this way, it is argued, the EU reception regime assures an unlimited supply of cheap, precarious, and vulnerable labour for member states’ economies, thus allowing the incorporation of reception into the neoliberal logic of valorisation of mobility which informs the EU politics of migration management.

Today, the rapid growth of aged populations is a pressing issue across the globe. In China, longevity risk is also associated with complex social issues consequent on birth control policies in the 1980s, raising the demand for elder care services in recent years. However, the relatively high cost of elder care services creates financial burdens not only for elderly people themselves, but also for their children. While increasing retirement incomes, the Chinese Government has also promoted new forms of social elder care, introducing market mechanisms into public nursing institutions, to increase financial resources for elder care provision. This thesis analyses these new funding models for elder care, examining supply and demand side factors that shape their effectiveness within a theoretical framework of New Public Management (NPM) and social investment. First, case studies are used to compare funding policies in four types of nursing institutions in and around Wuhan, Hubei Province, to evaluate different Public and Private Partnership (PPP) funding arrangements and their consequent influence on the performance of the nursing institutions. Second, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is employed to calculate and compare the elder care services index in urban and rural areas. The outcomes provide insightful and useful guidance to identify probable problems within the elder care funding system. The results reveal that investment is more efficient when dedicated to financing the incomes of the elderly rather than to the construction of elder care institutions. The conclusions propose the feasibility of public long-term care insurance (LTCI) in China, as an appropriate approach to improve elderly people’s retirement income and thus their ability to purchase long-term care (LTC) in the future.

This thesis seeks to study different gendered practices carried out by incarcerated men and their families (mainly women) that question, contest, attempt to resist and struggle against the way imprisonment is conducted in the federal prison system in Argentina. Based on research conducted in but mainly around different prisons in the City of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and its outskirts, the thesis critically analyses the techniques of governance that these struggles reveal. Situated within the work and thought of Michel Foucault on governmentality and counter-conduct, the thesis explores struggles performed through different forms in diverse sites. The first study analyses the ways in which those incarcerated and their families attempt to resist the power of prison/juridical files in their lives. The second study follows women who visit their husbands, sons and relatives in federal prisons as forms of struggle against their deemed disposability. The third and last study focuses on selected collective strategies initiated by those incarcerated and their families both inside and outside prison buildings to contest the way imprisonment was conducted. The thesis explores the ways in which these struggles are not in exteriority to the technique of power that they aim to contest, but rather are embedded on carceral governmentality. It shows how these techniques of power transcend the prison institution to encompass the everyday life of those who live within but also beyond prison walls. While the thesis critically explores how struggles against the deeming of those incarcerated as disposable are re- inserted in the expansion of carceral forms of power and exclusion, it also aims to overcome binaries that frame practices performed by those incarcerated and their families along a domination/resistance binary.

Base erosion refers to tax avoidance strategies involving multinational enterprises (MNEs) changing the order of worth of their economic activities across host locations. This leads to a loss in corporate tax revenues, unfair competition between domestic enterprises and MNEs, and a challenge to the legitimacy and power of host nation-states. In problematizing base erosion, theories of internationalization and internalization explicate the MNEs’ perspective on their processes, governance modes and value-creation. Host policymakers, however, take a different perspective on firm judgements from top management and their external advisors. Although the theory of social judgements explains how cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy judgements are formed, little attention is paid in the theory to how intra-field cognitive legitimacy judgements may be challenged. Drawing on archival material and in-depth interviews, I make the following three contributions. Firstly, I develop a thick description for a host policymakers’ conceptual model of MNEs’ value- alignment process across host locations. Secondly, I extend the organizing views on transfer pricing to explain base erosion as an MNE practice for changing the order of worth. Thirdly, I contribute to the social judgements literature by identifying the conditions and the means for bridging cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy judgements. These contributions are important because they shed new light on base erosion, providing theoretical constructs for the MNE value-alignment process, the organizing views on transfer pricing and the communicative means for shifting interfield discourse from cognitive to evaluative modes.

Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) are hailed as one of the greatest constitutional reforms of the police in modern times and were elected in 2012 in a blaze of controversy. Whilst some claim these powerful actors can ensure policing is more responsive to local priorities, others claim that PCCs will undermine democratic police accountability by encouraging populism and inequalities, and become too close to their chief constables to ensure that they are more robustly held to account. This thesis investigates whether PCCs have improved local police accountability through a mixed-methods study of how police-initiated stops are governed in three PCC areas, using interviews, observations, and statistical and documentary analysis. As such, it is one of the first empirical studies to explore this new model of police governance, certainly in relation to the operation of police powers. Research suggests that police-initiated stops are a flash-point in relations with ethnic minority communities, are disproportionately used against them, and has reduced perceptions of police legitimacy. Despite this, their use has grown exponentially and, as this thesis argues, is exemplary of a democratic deficit in local police accountability whereby police officers have become more responsive to national government in exercising their powers rather than local priorities. Unexpectedly, stop and search became heavily politicised during the fieldwork, resulting in improved governance and dramatic reductions in their use. The findings suggest that this was due to national developments, thus indicating that although police powers are amenable to external influence, their governance remains highly centralised. However, chief officers remain powerful in determining whether any reforms are implemented locally. Despite potential controversies, PCCs have been able to influence various operational practices but appear too hesitant to risk this for 'minority issues' like police-initiated stops, thus undermining their own capacity to enhance local democratic police accountability.

Dealing with the social phenomenon of the “skills drain”, retired workers leaving companies en masse sometimes even before the recruitment of newcomers and consequently impeding classic training through mentoring, managers are seeking innovative solutions to train new employees and ensure a satisfactory level of competencies, especially in high risk industries. This led to questions to which the present research offers solutions: How are competencies of experienced workers mobilized? How can they be accessed? How are they developed through training? And more especially in full-scale simulation, which is key to occupational training in high risk industries. The literature shows that the relationship between knowledge, know-how, skills and competencies remains unclear. A model is suggested, adapted to the present issue. It shows that competencies must be investigated in action through work activity analysis and leads to an approach to describe competencies in action, as in Le Boterf’s model (1998), which presents a relevant link between competencies and action and was tested in the field. However, its application revealed a dearth of the expected description; pre-tests led to adapt it into a new model and protocol: the Square of PErceived ACtion (SPEAC model). The protocol was used, in the line of Subjective Evidence-Based Ethnography (SEBE) methods, to structure the replay interview following the recording of the workers’ activity by subcams, miniaturized cameras mounted on spectacles (first person perspective). The resulting analysis was applied to full-scale simulation and in real operating situations for which a risk assessment protocol whilst using SEBE equipment was developed, tested and applied. It provided more relevant input data for occupational training, and showed higher performance in training than other methods (more exhaustive and less costly). In order to evaluate the impact of SPEAC-improved training on actual performance at work, the SPEAC improvement in a standard training curriculum was tested in two contexts of high risk industries (medicine and nuclear). In doing so, we tackled also the issue of resistance to innovation in training. The application of the SPEAC method to provide input data and to structure the training sessions improved significantly the work performance both at the end of the training sessions and in real operating situations. When combined with improved pedagogical methods in simulation training, the SPEAC protocol has been shown to provide substantial gains for following real operating situations, both in terms of safety (fewer subsequent complications and less pain for patients in hospital, higher levels of reliability for activities in nuclear industries) and in terms of cost (per year, potentially tens of thousands of euros could be saved in hospitals when considering one operation and several millions of euros for a nuclear power plant when all activities are taken into account). Top management now wishes to roll out the method within their professionalization program in the two institutions where the field experiments and applications were carried out. In parallel, as a theoretical perspective, developments and applications in the framework of the present research have suggested the relevance of a systemic approach of the professionalization cycle in complex socio-technical systems: the Experiential Learning Theory-based excursive cycle of the professional training process developed in this study might contribute towards modelling a systemic approach of simulation training in high risk industries providing areas for improvement and consequently higher performance.