The thesis sets out to examine key aspects of the identity formation of the second-generation of Sri Lankan professional expatriate community in Oman. Brought up in a multicultural environment, the respondents of the current study live in a contradiction in terms of their identity. Sri Lankan youths found themselves excluded from both cultures. They found themselves challenging the stereotypes produced by the mainstream society within which they lived, while also demanding freedom from the taboos and customs followed by their parents. Therefore, the thesis sets out to discover the sense of in between-ness felt by the second-generation respondents that was generated through their encounters with family and multicultural society they inhabited. Although a myriad of variables are known to influence an individual’s identity, the current study focuses on the following factors, identified here as having an impact on second-generation migrant identity formation: the complex nature of migration, the resulting cultural encounters and intergenerational tensions that play a role in shaping and framing of migrant youth identities. The study discusses media exposure, in the form of international satellite TV programming in the Middle East, and its possible impacts on migrant identity formation. The study moves from a media-centric view of social development to a more society-centred view in which media are one part of a matrix of migrant youth identity formation. The findings on identity formation of this research are further explored by examining the two main types of identity: hybrid and cosmopolitan, identified within the research as pertinent in understanding the second generation of Sri Lankan youths’ identity formation. By exploring the intergenerational tensions and the occurrence of in between-ness in identities among second-generation of the Sri Lankan professional expatriates in Oman, it is the aim of this research to add to the general understanding of the dynamics integral to the process of identity construction of migrant youths.

<p> The purpose of this project was to locate a potential funding source and write a grant to create a psycho-educational group for family members of adults with a mental health diagnosis. With this program, family members can receive guided and educated support. The additional support they receive will assist them in becoming more supportive to their loved ones who have mental illnesses. The group would take place at Alma Family Services in Long Beach, California. A search was conducted to locate an appropriate funder for this project. The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation had specific criteria about what type of agencies they fund, which was met by the agency and the program. </p><p> Individuals who experience mental health challenges face many difficulties during their lives. The support of knowledgeable, understanding, and caring family members may reduce some of life's challenges for individuals who experience mental illness. If funded, the program would benefit families who need psycho-education about mental illness and assistance with mental health questions. The actual submission and/or funding of this grant was not a requirement for the successful completion of the project.</p>

This thesis investigates the pattern of parental educational homogamy and its implications for parenting practices and children’s early development in contemporary Britain. At the heart of the thesis lies an interest in the mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission of educational success and, more specifically, the consequences for children of new patterns of parental resemblance in education. The thesis is composed of three empirical chapters, each of which is concerned with a different outcome: 1) trends in educational attainment and educational assortative mating amongst parental couples; 2) parents’ childrearing values and stimulation-oriented interactions with children; and 3) children’s early cognitive and behavioural skills. The first chapter combines data from four birth cohort studies from 1958, 1970, 1990 and 2000-01 while the second and third chapters rely exclusively on the latter study. The empirical analyses use Log-linear and Diagonal Reference models. With regard to trends in educational assortative mating, the thesis finds that the strength of homogamy increased between 1958 and 1970 to decrease thereafter and remain stable, at its lowest level, throughout the 1990s. Moreover, amongst recent cohorts of parental couples the percentage of unions where mothers are more educated than their male partners equalled that of unions exhibiting the opposite pattern. The findings concerning the dynamics of parenting in heterogamous couples suggest a pattern of female dominance in the attitudinal domain as fathers align with the views that can be expected on the basis of the mother’s level of education rather than their own; however, no significant adjustments between partners are observed in parenting behaviours. Lastly, the thesis finds a positive gradient in the association between parental education and children’s early cognitive and socio-emotional development but little or no support for the hypotheses of differential effects for sons and daughters or gender biases in parental preferences for children. That is, no significant interactions are observed between the gender of children and the impact of parents’ absolute and relative levels of education. Taken together, the findings of the thesis qualify concerns about the increase of educational assortative mating in industrialised societies and its potential consequences for the intergenerational reproduction of inequalities in education.

This thesis presents an empirical investigation into substance use, situational characteristics and sexual outcomes in men who have sex with men (MSM) motivated by the high rates of substance use in MSM; the association between substance use and sexual risk behaviours in MSM; the lack of specific theory addressing relationships between substance use, sexual interactions and social interactions between MSM; and the need for clearer understandings of encounter-level associations with sexual risk. Qualitative metasynthesis. This thesis begins with laying the methodological groundwork for a qualitative metasynthesis that theorises the relationship between substance use and social spaces in MSM, with a particular focus on sexual outcomes. The qualitative metasynthesis derives the key organising perspective of ‘littoral spaces’ in which substance use is associated with a pre-planned, though temporary, escape from the boundaries of everyday life to engage in maximal sensory exploration, including through sexual contact. <b>Systematic review of multiple-event analyses. The thesis then turns to a systematic review of previous quantitative multiple-event analyses examining associations between situational characteristics and sexual outcomes, which establishes the need for additional multiple-event analyses addressing specific substance use, location of sex, partner serodiscordance and partner type. Multiple-event analyses. Finally, informed by the qualitative metasynthesis and the systematic review of event-level analyses, this thesis presents multiple-event analyses addressing unprotected anal intercourse (UAI), pleasure and control as sexual outcomes in MSM in England. These analyses found that substance use was associated with greater odds of UAI and pleasure, but not with control, and that non-private locations of sex were associated with decreased odds of UAI and pleasure, but not control. Furthermore, there was sparse evidence of interactions between respondent and partner substance use and between respondent substance use and location of sex in associations with sexual outcomes. These analyses contribute to understandings of associations between substance use, situational characteristics and sexual risk behaviour by presenting the first known analyses on MSM in England and by examining sexual outcomes besides UAI.

Modernity has brought many benefits (e.g. technological advances, material comfort, longer life expectancy and improved health). However, it is argued that we are now experiencing 'diminishing returns‘ from and 'adverse effects‘ of a Modernist worldview (Hanlon et al 2011; 2012a; 2012b). Evolutionary theories and models of paradigm change (e.g. Beck and Cowan 2006; Senge et al 2005; Scharmer 2009; Wilber 2001) offer a way of thinking about how our worldviews emerge and shift in response to existential challenges and so called 'wicked problems‘ (Rittel and Webber 1973). This study aimed to explore people‘s experiences of co-production and wicked problems in the context of care for older people in light of theoretical perspectives of evolutionary paradigm change. Method: This study adopted a parallel process of a) an instrumental case study to explore the substantive topics of co-production and wicked problems in the context of care for older people and b) the development of an analytical lens informed by concepts associated with evolutionary theories of paradigm change, through which empirical case study findings were re-interpreted. The case was an older people‘s residential care service within a Scottish Local Authority. This encompassed 11 care homes for older people. 30 in-depth qualitative semi-structured interviews were undertaken with frontline Care Workers, Care Home Unit Managers, Senior Managers and Key Theoretical informants. A constructivist-grounded theory approach was taken to data analysis to produce narratives around care, change and problems. These narratives were then re-interpreted through an evolutionary paradigm change lens. Findings: Using an evolutionary paradigm lens enabled an exploration of the underpinning worldview that is giving rise to patterns of activity and way of organising care observed in the case study. It also led to a reframing of care for older people as an existential issue rather than a conventional wicked problem. Co-production was reinterpreted as a yearning for connection, humanity and aliveness within our health and social care services in response to the dehumanising tendencies and effects of the Modernist paradigm. However, it was found that the organisational response to this yearning was rooted in a dominant Modernist way of thinking, being and doing. Instances of so-called 'horizon capture‘ (Sharpe 2013) were witnessed, suggesting that the spirit of co-production could become thwarted and subsumed within mechanistic approaches. Conclusion: An evolutionary paradigm change lens yields ideas and novel perspectives which may be of use to those in the public sector who are seeking to navigate the uncharted territories inherent to being at the edge of an emerging paradigm.

Contemporary thought on HIV prevention emphasises participatory practices: the empowerment paradigm advocates working with target groups and empowering them to minimise risk of infection, while the collective action paradigm advocates collaborative working that tailors prevention programmes to specific contexts and addresses structural constraints to HIV prevention. Limited attention has been paid to the influence of organisational factors in translating this rhetoric into practice. The current study addresses this gap, using a research framework based on a continuum with bureaucratic authoritarian organisational characteristics at one end and post-bureaucratic democratic characteristics at the other. Comparing HIV/AIDS programmes in three case study organisations (two schools and one non-governmental organisation) located at different points along this continuum yet using similar rhetoric, the study finds that none of the programmes delivered precisely matches the rhetoric. Nevertheless, the findings affirm the proposition that organisations with post-bureaucratic democratic characteristics are better suited to delivering effective self empowerment and collective action prevention programmes than those with bureaucratic authoritarian characteristics. Specific characteristics that contribute to these outcomes are identified, and the implications of the findings, both for the practical application of contemporary approaches and for the movement extolling schools as key settings for HIV prevention programmes, are presented.

The Scandinavian welfare regime is expected to have better aggregate health than other welfare regimes due mainly to its narrow income inequality. This theoretical expectation is in part related to the Wilkinson Hypothesis that, in industrialised nations, a society’s narrow income inequality enhances its aggregate health. This thesis tests both of the above propositions. This is achieved by means of four methods not previously applied to this field, namely a ‘review of reviews’, a decomposition systematic review, a new case selection method, and a use of the OECD regional dataset for the cross-national comparative health study. These new methodological approaches lead to four main findings. First, the Scandinavian welfare regime shows worse-than-expected aggregate health outcomes. This thesis terms this counterintuitive finding as ‘the second Scandinavian puzzle’. Second, the East Asian welfare regime shows unexpectedly good aggregate health, which is proposed as ‘the East Asian puzzle’. Third, regarding the Wilkinson Hypothesis, it is income, rather than income inequality, which is a statistically significant determinant of aggregate health. Fourth, the effects on health of income inequality or welfare regimes reverse over a certain threshold of age, which is termed here ‘the age threshold effect’.

This thesis uses an area studies approach to examine the complex relationship between citizenship, disability and welfare provision. It does so through a bottom-up analysis of how the state welfare system affects the everyday lives of physically disabled adults in contemporary Russia. Drawing on thirteen months of qualitative fieldwork in the city of Kazan, I study how tensions between guaranteeing rights and providing care are balanced in social provision. My focus on physical disability offers a sharp insight into the socially constructed tropes of control and exclusion that can mediate experiences of citizenship and also seeks to rectify the lack of research on disabled people in non-Western contexts, especially the postsocialist region. My research is underpinned by a theoretical and methodological framework that sees ‘social citizenship’ as an explicitly relational, emotional and embodied phenomenon and therefore values lived experiences of welfare provision. Each of my four empirical chapters considers a particular dimension of citizenship: needs interpretation, livelihoods, mobility and personal agency. Together they highlight that welfare provision is not always empowering and can create powerful inequalities. At the same time, I show that citizenship is often reworked from below through actions and discourses that challenge official ideas about the capacities and needs of disabled people.

This research is focused on evaluating NEED Crisis and Information Line's Youth Line training. The training prepares youth, aged 14 -19. to respond to telephone calls from youth in the community who are experiencing distress in their lives. The service is telephone-based and is provided for youth. by youth, from 4 -10 pm daily. The two purposes of this research were to assess changes in knowledge, attitudes and skills of Youth Line volunteers that result from training required for effective suicide intervention response, and to assess what worked and did not work in training. This could lead to future planning and changes for training. A total of 65 participants, divided into four training groups, completed a pre-test questionnaire prior to the start of training and of those, a total of 56 participants completed a post-test after Phase 1 of training. Phase 1 consists of 27 hours of training split into 9 sessions and 12 hours of peer support. Following each training session, each participant completed a questionnaire designed to evaluate their satisfaction with each session. A total of four training groups were evaluated. The questionnaire used to evaluate Youth Line training was comprised of the following; demographic information, a set of true and false knowledge questions. Suicide Intervention Questionnaire (SIQ), Suicide Intervention Response Inventory (SIRI-II), and set of questions regarding satisfaction with training. Following training, significant effects were found collectively for all 56 participants in all three areas, knowledge, attitudes and skills. When the 56 participants were broken down into four individual training groups, no significant results were found in knowledge and skills for one of the four training groups. Implications for further research are discussed.

Theories of anti-oppressive social work address social inequity through social justice perspectives. Recent literature in disability studies and social justice has not been extensively included in social work debate. I locate my research in between these two literatures. I examine how women with disabilities are portrayed in texts used in training undergraduate anti-oppressive social workers. I use an experience-based understanding of knowledge as a feminist social worker and a woman with a disability. The analysis of three texts shows that these particular depictions are wide-ranging though dated, and can unfortunately be mistaken as singularly definitive of all women with disabilities.