Jordan has in general a good healthcare system; yet it has been always exposed to both internal and external challenges which compromise the gains it has achieved over the years. This thesis examines one of the internal challenges, as something that concerns many Jordanians, is arguably holding back and disadvantaging the health sector, yet is something within Jordan’s power to address it. This internal challenge concerns the main constraints to the health sector improvement is the absence of an overall national health policy despite the existence of a constitutional mechanism. This is particularly acute in Jordan as the publicly funded health sector has three largely autonomous and parallel clusters of provision. Thus, this study intends to critically review the options for effective health policy formulation in Jordan based on investigating the current and previous status of the national health policy formulation and its main challenges. This has been done in the context of study of the literature about health policy formulation, and of the potential for and limitations to transfer of policy and mechanisms from one country to another; and with a focus on low and middle income countries. The empirical study uses ‘qualitatively-driven’ mixed methods, the data was primarily obtained by conducting semi-structured interviews with High Health Council members and key Stakeholders in health sector and health related entities. The empirical study uses ‘qualitatively-driven’ mixed methods, the data primarily obtained by conducting semi-structured interviews with High Health Council members and key Stakeholders in health sector and health related entities. The main results reveal that the national health policy formulation in Jordan faces numerous challenges; these challenges are not limited only to internal issues, as Jordan is vulnerable to the regional incidents. The results also reveal that the respondents recommended more than one option for formulating the national health policy effectively. However, based on the evidences and respondents’ views; and the experience reflected in the literature, the most effective option for the national health policy formulation has been identified from the options put forward. This option is argued to give the best possibilities, and harnesses indigenous skills and resources to potentially best effect.

This thesis aims to develop a better understanding of the livelihoods of older people in rural Thailand. It asks whether their involvement in socio-economic activities in their daily life enable them to maintain their livelihoods, highlights implications for Thai government policy. Drawing on a combination of the sustainable livelihoods framework and the gender perspective, the thesis examines the multiple activities performed by older men and women and analyses the factors affecting their engagement in these activities, and their access to different types of capital. The primary data is from 2 phases of fieldwork in a village in the North of Thailand, where 22 focus groups, 69 interviews and community maps and transect walks were conducted with the elderly. Further interviews with 75 carers of the elderly were conducted during the 2nd phase of fieldwork. The thesis highlights the broad range of socio-economic activities at household and community levels in which older men and women engaged, including agricultural and non-agricultural activities for the purpose of generating income and reciprocating or supporting family members and others. These activities enable older men and women to maintain their livelihoods despite of insufficient state support. They also reveal that family support is somewhat not the main support that it is commonly assumed to be in Thai culture, and that older people often continue to support their offspring and family members financially and non-financially. Older men are more likely to provide financial support, reflecting their roles as household leaders who are responsible for financial matters, whereas older women are more likely to provide support that is based on domestic work. Older men’s perspectives of involvement in activities are much focused on income generation, which makes it difficult for them to adapt in later life, situation when they may have to stop or decrease working. Older women are more likely to engage in domestic work and assist their spouses in farming. Both older men and women are willing to engage in any community activities, which in return provide them a link to cultivate other types of capital in maintaining their livelihoods. Therefore, ageing policy should take into account gender differences, the variation in livelihoods of the elderly, and the capacity of the community.

This thesis examines relations between charities and the state in Britain and Canada: it challenges a common view that government responsibility for welfare provision in this century has rendered charities relatively insignificant and isolated from the political process in both countries. By focusing specifically on medical research charities, evidence is presented to show that lobbying has become an increasingly important aspect of their activity, in spite of legal limitations restricting much of their involvement in the policy process. It is concluded that the law restricting charities from engaging in political activities has had limited success both because of its 'vagueness' and poor enforcement. The only countervailing force keeping medical research charities 'out of politics' to any significant degree has come from volunteers and the donating public, but, even they have had only a limited impact. The degree of political involvement by a charity is now contingent on the policy area in which it operates, the degree of 'hostility' of government policy towards the organisation and its objectives as well as the charity's financial resources. In light of cut-backs in government expenditure to medical research in the 1980s, of the need to co-ordinate scientific investigations, and of pressures from some volunteers to represent the interests of disease sufferers, as well as a number of other factors, British and Canadian medical research charities have been drawn increasingly into the political process. This evidence suggests that charity-state relations have changed dramatically since the 19th century when charities not only resisted state encroachment into many areas of social welfare, but devoted much of their resources towards encouraging state withdrawal from areas where tax revenues were already being applied. Now charities frequently criticize government policies aimed at cutting-back state funding for programmes in policy areas where charities are operating and also propose new legislation to ensure minimum levels and quality of state-funded services. Given this, the nature of charity-state relations has changed dramatically and has created difficulties for legislators who have had to reconcile the non-political qualities of philanthropy- including altruism, and community participation - with the reality that much charitable activity is devoted to participating in the policy process. In conclusion the blurring of the distinction between philanthropy and politics has meant that charities have begun to resemble more traditional forms of interest groups while at the same time maintaining their privileged 'tax exempt status'. This is a particularly interesting development given that many British and Canadian medical research charities have been co-opted by pharmaceutical companies to participate in a number of that industry's lobbying campaigns in return for corporate donations.

The first two decades of the twentieth century saw a dramatic period of innovation and expansion in public health programmes in Britain and Canada. This thesis argues that this period of growth and change in public health was one aspect of a major reorientation of social policy. This reorientation had two major features. First, the national working classes of Britain, Canada and other countries were increasingly delimited through immigration controls and similar means of regulating international mobility. Secondly, new social programmes were developed which attempted to improve the physical, mental and moral condition of these delimited working classes, on the basis that their well-being was the foundation of national productivity. Public health played a major role in both the delimitation and improvement of national working classes. In Canada, the first major programme of immigration controls was introduced in this period, centering around the selection or rejection of immigrants on the basis of medical inspection conducted according to public health criteria. In both Britain and Canada, new public health programmes were developed which aimed to improve the condition of the working class. This was to be accomplished primarily through home visiting programmes which attempted through education and Inspection to establish standards for the domestic labour of women as mothers and home-makers. This thesis examines the contribution of public health to this reorientation of social policy primarily through the analysis of the theoretical work of key policy-makers as reported in professional journals and government documents. These officials displayed a keen sociological understanding of the broader significance of their activities in the development of a productive national working class prepared for work or war. Indeed, they understood clearly that the health of nations is an important basis of the wealth of nations.

Professional communication is growing in the field of applied linguistics. A lot of research has been done on business communication in different work places. However there is not much done on Social work professional communication in Botswana. This study analysed the types of texts produced by social workers in their professional setting, in order to find out whether there is a relationship between the writing done by professional social workers and the writing taught to social workers by the Communication and Study Skills department at the University of Botswana. The research method for this study combines two major research tools in qualitative inquiry which are text analysis and interviews. A range of documents were collected from social workers, these included informal documents, hand written during interviews with clients, to more formal reports that were addressed to relevant officers in the position of making decisions recommended in the reports. The documents were analysed using a new rhetoric approach to genre. I used a combination of text analysis and interviews in order to investigate the contexts in which the texts were produced. Academic texts produced by students during their fieldwork placement were also explored. The texts that the students write are long and unlike the reports produced by professionals, which focuses on the client’s story, they describe what the students have done and achieved. The significance is that; this discrepancy raises questions about the extent to which students are being prepared for professional writing. Students have indicated that their academic writing varies according to the preferences of individual lecturers rather than the requirements of the work situation and that after internship they are never given feedback about their performance and they also need additional training before they engage in fieldwork. I found that both formal and informal documents are written following a set format which reflects the precise institutional function of the text, but experienced social workers can manoeuvre the format creatively to communicate effectively about their clients. I have also found that professional genre has 9 moves while the students had 6 moves. This study aims to improve knowledge of writing of professional social workers and the writing of social work students on fieldwork placements in Botswana which might also be applicable to other settings. It will also provide a detailed discussion of effective pedagogies that will help social work students develop more of the competencies that are recognised in the workplace.

Divided into two parts, the thesis seeks to provide a detailed explanation for the emergence and historical development of the outlaw motorcycle subculture as well as the essential structural and Ideological focii which underpin the phenomenon in its contemporary form. Part I charts the progressive expansion from its initial appearance as a specifically distinct form of deviant subculture in Southern California in the latter part of the 1950s to what is today an extremely prolific international, intergenerational and largely interracial mass subculture. Focussing upon the different stages which have characterised the subculture's process of solidification, it examines the series of media-induced moral panics which have periodically elevated it to public prominence and makes intelligible the complex interrelationship between the various disparate contextual strands which have over time coalesced to form that broad strata of motorcycle-borne folk devil ubiquitously and invariably erroneously described as 'Hells Angels'. Part II cuts through the heavily myth-laden skin of the contemporary outlaw motorcycle subculture as it exists in its archetypical form throughout the world, exposing the no less rich layers of subcultural activity underneath. Commencing with an analysis of the genesis of and quasi-criminal in-group behaviour common to that highly-ritualised and tightly-knit subcultural formation, the one-percenter outlaw motorcycle club, it examines the symbolic order of meaning which gives substance to the lives of the membership, looks at the collective decision-making processes which ensure internal solidity, and charts the career pattern of a would-be club member from casual 'hangaround' to full blown 1%er. The remainder of Part II still further separates the myth from the reality by breaking down the very potent barriers of popular imagery which have hitherto so successfully rendered all previous sociological accounts of the outlaw motorcycle subculture absolutely meaningless. It looks at the spheres of politics, race, sex and crime and re-evaluates conventional wisdom on biker attitudes to and involvement in each.

An explicit starting point for this research is to give a voice to the experiences of the victims of safety crime. The accounts of such victims are missing from the criminal justice arena and academia. This research will attempt, in part, to fill the gap in the following ways. First, the longstanding separation between safety crime and ‘real’ or ‘traditional’ crime is both reflected and institutionalised through state responses to the offences committed by corporations. This research offers a critical analysis of the social, legal and political obstacles that victims of safety crime face. Second, the effect of this process on secondary victims is examined. The deaths of their loved ones are, in the first instance, framed as ‘accidental’. The families are an obstacle to the corporations, as they seek to hide or manipulate the truth in the pursuit of their innocence. This is enabled by legal and political processes, which make justice an almost impossible achievement. The thoughts of the families and the long-term impact this has on their lives is explored in detail. The final part of this research is focused on the aims, nature and success of the various groups created in response to the reaction of the criminal justice system following a corporate killing. The visibility of the corporate accountability movement, mounted from the late 1980s against the victimisation of workers, raises questions for future research. It concludes with a discussion of how this situation has altered and the potential site for change in the future. Safety crime in the UK and worldwide, is a regular occurrence, yet popularly and politically, safety crimes are comparatively invisible. Through the experiences of secondary victims, who are neither represented nor treated as real victims, this thesis offers an original contribution to the understanding of how this happens, the effects and the response.

This thesis sets out to explore the influences of unemployment upon senses of identity and involvement in crime in Stoke-on-Trent. It draws upon the Free Association Interview method to explore the lives and experiences of a group of men living in some of the most deprived parts of the city between 2010 and 2014. It looks at experiences of unemployment, underemployment and insecure employment upon the lives and narratives of these men and their perceptions of the world around them. It aims to understand the effect of their experiences and how they have come to reconcile their position in society. The thesis strives to outline how people construct and maintain an identity which makes sense to them in the face of the significant challenges posed by the deindustrialisation and prolonged decline of the city of Stoke-on-Trent. It seeks to reveal how their evolving sense of self is influenced by the communities in which they live, whether that is an urban, social housing estate, a hostel or on the streets. The thesis looks to challenge existing hegemonic depictions of what it is to be part of the homogenously branded socially excluded and the manner in which senses of social order which, although they may not be seen as ‘normal’ or acceptable to wider society, are formed. It argues that the people deemed socially excluded are active and engaged actors seeking to find senses of security, belonging and unity in an increasingly atomised, insecure and fragmented world.

The thesis will examine whether policy considerations based on the normative ethical framework of Principlism are adequate for drug development involving pharmacogenetics. In order to structure the analysis, the main research question will be based on the following three claims: (1) that the overriding deference to the principle of respect for autonomy in the current interpretation of Principlism has asserted a legacy of protectionism towards the research participant at the expense of ignoring pharmacogenetics’ primary ethical issues (which are concerned with equity, fair distribution and research prioritisation); (2) that the principle of justice in Principlism requires specification, and that this principle’s nonspecificity may be a reason for over-compensatory application of respect for autonomy; (3) and finally, that current interpretations of Principlism represent moral values that are culturally dependant. Based on these claims, I argue that a pharmacogenetic research governance ethical framework ought to be representative of common moral values, which are culturally neutral, subscribe to a ‘minimal morality', and are not based on the current precautionary approach that is entrenched in Principlism. From this main argument, I appeal to the principle of justice as fairness from Rawls’s A Theory of Justice to provide specification for the principle of justice inherent in Principlism. As well as establish how the application of this ‘minimal morality’ in governance could be achieved through John Rawls’s overlapping consensus, arguing that this would minimise the variability seen in regulatory decision making. I argue that greater specification of the principle of justice would ensure that this principle could effectively be exercised to alleviate pharmacogenetics’ actual ethical issues, which are not concerned with the inference of disease knowledge, as implied by ethical concerns regarding informed consent, privacy and confidentiality.

This study explored the views of patients, carers and staff within one UK hospice on talking about preferred place of death (PPD). The UK Government's End of Life Care Strategy (EOLC, 2008) states that patients' PPD should be identified, documented and reviewed; yet the hospice in this study did not systematically record such information. It was, therefore, important to ask questions about patient, carer and staff views on PPD as this had not yet been explored. Hence the aims of this exploratory study were to: • Explore key considerations about PPD from the perspectives of hospice patients, carers and staff • Generate theory about the participants’ experience of PPD The methodology of constructivist grounded theory enabled a substantive theory to be generated which offered an interpretative explanation of the participants’ concerns regarding PPD. Data collection methods of focus groups amongst hospice staff, and semi-structured interviews with hospice patients and carers, captured the views of a cross-section of people within the hospice context. The grounded theory demonstrated that recording the patient’s PPD is a means of ‘Enabling the Patient Voice to be Heard’. The ways in which the grounded theory impacts the end of life care landscape were explored including questions around contemporary societal discourses on death; current end of life planning; communication issues at the end of life; health service provision and the roles of healthcare professionals, patients and carers. A reflexive account of the research process and the limitations of the study are also presented. The unique contribution of the study is stated and recommendations for further work are suggested.