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Educational transitions in the UK are related to social background characteristics such as social class and, to a lesser extent, ethnicity and gender. This thesis presents a case study of admission to the University of Oxford to understand why, conditional on application, admissions patterns into selective higher eduction in Britain show an advantage for already privileged strata of society. Specifically, net of attainment, the professional middle class, white, male and state school applicants fare particularly well in securing offers for undergraduate study at Oxford. With the exception of the state school effect, the admissions privilege advantages already privileged strata of society. In the first empirical section, the analysis of purposefully generated survey data on 1,929 applicants for admission to the University of Oxford finds that quantifiable measures of merit fail to fully explain differential admissions patterns. The logistic regression models also uncover that while applicants from the private sector initially have similar gross chances of gaining an offer to their state school educated peers, they actually face a penalty in the selection process when taking into account their higher levels of prior academic attainment. Furthermore, the analysis shows that while measures of cultural capital, motivation, aspiration and learning style are meaningfully related to selection decisions, they do not explain the lower transition rates for ethnic minority applicants, those from non-professional class backgrounds, female applicants and private school applicants. The second step in the empirical investigations then aims to understand the generative mechanisms behind these findings from the perspective of the decision makers in the selection process. This section draws on interviews with 25 admissions tutors and the observation of eight admissions meetings. The analysis here finds that selectors view the admissions exercise as involving risks and uncertainties. Also, many participating tutors routinely considered schooling in their selection decisions and discounted the performance of applicants who had come from very high achieving schools but who were not top achievers within this peer group. The mechanism of homo-social reproduction in decisions involving uncertainty is then put forward as a possible explanation for the unequal transition patterns. Finally, the third empirical analysis section investigates links between degree performance in final university examinations and admissions relevant factors. This section includes the degree performance of Oxford students as well as those who subsequently embarked on their degree course at universities other than Oxford. The most striking finding is that among the Oxford graduates, female and private school students are less likely to achieve first class degrees than their male and state school educated peers. One interpretation of this finding is that the discounting that selectors apply in the admissions process for these applicants is not only justified but may not even go far enough. But it is also possible, in particular with regard to the female effect, that the Oxford study environment or the examination system, or both are more conducive to male achievements. This thesis contributes to sociological theory by showing that existing models of educational transition have paid insufficient attention to the role of gatekeepers and their individual preferences in generating aggregate selection patterns. Incorporating selectors as actors in transition models increases our understanding of unequal access to educational institutions and the challenges faced in striving towards equal opportunities in an education based meritocracy. The findings presented here have implications for other fields of sociological inquiry that need to account for the role of individual decision makers such as labour market research. The work presented here has implications for policy making regarding selection processes within the University of Oxford and British higher education more generally. It could also aid university systems such as Germany, that are moving towards selective admission, to think about the challenges of designing truly equitable selection processes.

The Oxford Knee Score (OKS) is a popular single summary questionnaire developed to measure the effect of knee replacement surgery from the patients' perspective. There has been a recent interest in the use of the OKS in populations of patients and in roles it has not been originally developed for. To date, no evidence has been provided about the measurement properties of the OKS when it is used outside the context or purpose for which it was originally designed. The general aim of this thesis is to investigate the measurement properties of the OKS when used in extended roles: a) within the population for which the OKS was originally intended and developed for (knee replacement) and, b) when applied on a different population, viz. patients undergoing non-operative treatment for knee osteoarthritis (OA). Four existing large-scale databases of patients undergoing knee replacement surgery and a database obtained from a prospective study on patients undergoing non-surgical management for knee OA were analyzed. The results demonstrate that: 1) it is possible to extract separate information on pain and functional disability from the OKS in a meaningful way (in the form of subscales). 2) For the first time, anchor-based Minimal Important Change (MIC) of 9 points and Minimal Important Difference (MID) of 5 points were established for joint replacement surgery. 3) The OKS demonstrated satisfactory evidence reliability, validity, responsiveness, and interpretability, when used in patients who are undergoing non-operative management for their knee OA. 4) Further evidence of validity was demonstrated by fitting the OKS to the Rasch model. 5) Lastly, it was demonstrated that thresholds can be applied on the OKS to distinguish between patients who consider their knee problem to be severe enough to warrant joint replacement surgery versus patients who do not. This supports the potential use of the OKS in decision making aids for secondary care referral. Overall the thesis provides critical evidence, not previously existing, to support the continued use, and extended use, of the OKS in orthopaedic medicine.

This thesis names the Oxford School of children’s fantasy literature as arising from the educational milieu of the University of Oxford’s English School during the mid-twentieth century. It argues that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis lay the foundations for the children’s fantasy genre by introducing an English curriculum at Oxford in 1931 (first examined 1933) that required extensive study in medieval literature, and by modelling the use of medieval source material in their own popular children’s fantasy works. The Oxford School’s creative use of its sources produces medieval ‘afterlives,’ lending the Middle Ages new relevance in popular culture. This research directly compares medieval literature to children’s fantasy works by Tolkien, Lewis, and four other Oxford-educated children’s fantasy authors in order to reveal the genre’s debt to actual medieval texts and to the Oxford English syllabus in particular. The four authors are Susan Cooper, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Diana Wynne Jones, and Philip Pullman. This thesis situates the tendencies of medievalised children’s fantasy in relation to Lewis and Tolkien’s personal and scholarly convictions about the patriotic, moral, and aesthetic qualities of medieval literature and folklore. Building on the theories of Michel de Certeau, this thesis demonstrates how Oxford School fantasy produces new mythologies for England and argues that, as children’s literature, these works have an implicit didactic function that echoes that of the English School curriculum. This thesis traces the attempts of some Oxford School authors to navigate or explode generic conventions by drawing upon new source material, and contends that the structures and hierarchies that underpin the genre reassert themselves even in texts that set out to refute them. It suggests that such returns to the norm can produce pleasure and invite diverse reading, growing out of the intertextual associations of each new rewriting.

A stylised analytical framework is used to show how the global carbon tax and the amount of untapped fossil fuel can be calculated from a simple rule given estimates of society's rate of time impatience and intergenerational inequality aversion, the extraction cost technology, the rate of technical progress in renewable energy and the future trend rate of economic growth. The predictions of the simple framework are tested in a calibrated numerical and more complex version of the integrated assessment model (IAM). This IAM makes use of the Oxford carbon cycle of Allen et al. (2009), which differs from DICE, FUND and PAGE in that cumulative emissions are the key driving force of changes in temperature. We highlight the importance of the speed and direction of technological change for the energy transition and how time impatience, intergenerational inequality aversion and expected trend growth affect the time paths of the optimal global carbon tax and the optimal amount of fossil fuel reserves to leave untapped. We also compare these with the adverse global warming trajectories that occur if no policy actions are taken.

The Dumper Dew is a newly discovered pegmatite located on the eastfacing slope of Uncle Tom Mountain in Oxford County, Maine. It is a geochemically evolved LCT-type pegmatite petrogenetically linked to the middle Paleozoic Sebago batholith. Shallow emplacement of the Dumper Dew is evidenced by abundant miarolitic cavities found in the pegmatite. The sheet-like structure of the pegmatite coupled with its intrusion in lowmetamorphic grade country rock suggests rapid crystallization. Northern portions of the wall zone and intermediate zones have undergone hydrothermal alteration by the migration of late-stage fluids. The pegmatite hosts a diverse assemblage of rare-element mineral phases due to its high degree of geochemical fractionation. Trends of geochemical fractionation of individual mineral phases such as K-feldspar, muscovite, garnet, apatite, beryl, spodumene, triphylite-lithiophilite, tourmaline, cassiterite, and columbite-tantalite were attained via instrumentation assay. These trends illustrate an enhanced degree of magmatic differentiation relative to other pegmatites in the area.

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A la fin du Moyen Âge, un nombre croissant de Gallois s'est rendu à l'université d'Oxford. En effet, de la conquête de la principauté galloise en 1282 par Édouard Ier à l'arrivée des Tudors sur le trône d'Angleterre en 1485, 304 étudiants gallois peuvent être repérés. Après avoir expliqué la méthode prosopographique utilisée pour ce travail, cette étude analyse leurs origines sociales et géographiques. Si seul un petit nombre d'informations peut être recueilli concernant leurs origines, il est possible de découvrir un peu plus quant aux lieux de provenance de ces individus. Ils viennent principalement du diocèse de Saint David's. Cet examen met également en lumière les diplômes obtenus. Ils ont étudié en majorité le droit, plus particulièrement le droit civil, bien que le droit canon soit loin d'être négligé. L'étude s'attache ensuite aux types d'emplois qu'ils ont trouvés au service de l'Église ou celui du roi d'Angleterre. À bien des égards, leurs carrières sont similaires à celles des clercs anglais. Tandis que 16,4 % des diplômés gallois ont travaillé dans l'administration ecclésiastique, 6,4 % apparaissent dans différents postes de l'administration royale. Les étudiants les plus talentueux, et qui ont réussi à sécuriser de solides patronages, jouent même un rôle relativement important dans les affaires de la monarchie. Enfin, cette thèse de doctorat dépeint la vie universitaire d'une minorité visible à Oxford. La présence des Gallois à l'université d'Oxford reflète sans aucun doute l'intégration de la principauté galloise au "regnum Anglorum". / In the Later Middle Ages, an increasing number of Welshmen made their way to Oxford University. From the Conquest of the Principality of Wales by Edward I in 1282, to the arrival of the Tudors on the throne of England in 1485, 304 Welsh students can be identified. After explaining the prosopographical method used in this work, this study analyses their social and geographical origins. If only few pieces of information can be collected about their social backgrounds, it is possible to find out a little bit more about the parts of Wales these individuals came from. The diocese of Saint David's was their main place of origin. This examination also highlights the qualifications gained. They studied mainly law, particularly civil law. However, canon law was not neglected. The study then focuses on the types of employment that they found in the service of the Church, or of the King of England. In many respects, their careers are similar to those of many English clerks. While 16.4 % of the Welsh graduates worked in Church administration, 6.5 % of them appear in various positions in the King's administration. The most talented scholars, and those who managed to secure strong patronages, even played a relatively important role in the affairs of state. Finally, this Ph.D. thesis depicts the University life of a visible minority in Oxford. The presence of Welshmen in the University of Oxford undoubtedly reflects the integration of the Principality of Wales within the "regnum Anglorum".