This research examines the trajectories that young men and women in Mexico experienced during their transition to adulthood in the 1980s and 1990s. The study, particularly, considers two groups of significant markers of adulthood: social transitions (leaving education, entry into the labour force, parental home leaving), and family formation transitions (first sex, first partnership, and first birth). The thesis investigates the ways that these transitions were experienced among Mexican youth: first, by establishing the main interactions between social transitions and family formation transitions to adulthood; and second, by providing evidence of the main trajectories followed by young men and women in their passage to adulthood from a life course perspective. Applying Event History techniques to retrospective data from the 2000 Mexican National Youth Survey, results show that young men and women experienced different patterns of trajectories in their transit to adulthood marked by a strong gender component. While young men showed a lag between the experience of social and family formation transitions characterized by work-oriented trajectories, young women often experienced almost simultaneous occurrence of social and family formation transitions leading to predominantly family-oriented trajectories to adulthood. Differences between urban and rural respondents were also found to be significant. Another conclusion of the study is that many young people found great difficulty in obtaining their first job after leaving education, leading to high unemployment. Despite the lack of employment opportunities for Mexican young people, family formation transitions were not substantially postponed until later ages unlike many developed nations. The findings also confirm the importance of education on the experience of transitions to adulthood. The study shows the need to restructure the Mexican educational system to enable young people to work and study simultaneously, without having to leave education immediately after entering the labour force. These findings highlight the need to strengthen and reinforce current education policies to stimulate labour force participation of young women.

This thesis is a study of the urban sporting culture of Middlesbrough between c.1870 and 1914, a period that witnessed an enormous expansion in participant and spectator sports. It examines the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation on the town’s sporting culture, and explains how its social and economic structures shaped the development of sporting organisations. In light of a population dominated by working class men, the thesis contextualises the growth of recreational football into the town’s most popular sport. Through a detailed examination of local newspapers and archival sources, this thesis reveals the depth and diversity of the town’s sporting culture. In particular, it illustrates the role of the middle classes in the development of clubs and the importance of class and social relations in determining an individual’s access to sport. As a consequence, the thesis will demonstrate both how the town’s working class populace were often excluded from the sporting culture, and the lack of sporting opportunities for women. Clubs were given further importance by the involvement of members of Middlesbrough’s elite, and allows for an exploration of the notion of elite withdrawal. The role played by employers in providing leisure opportunities for workers in the early twentieth century was also one of the most important developments in Middlesbrough’s sporting culture. Amateurism is also explored through the initial rejection of professional football, but the thesis will illustrate the increased popularity of the professional game during this period. In addition, in view of Middlesbrough’s migrant population, the extent of football’s role in forming and reinforcing identities will be examined. This thesis offers an original contribution to knowledge by examining the largely unexplored social and cultural history of Middlesbrough and the leisure habits of its people, as well as adding to existing studies of urban sport.

This thesis explores the ways in which social workers conceptualise childhood, and the significance of those conceptualisations in the development of child-directed practice. The research described in the thesis was primarily carried out in Iceland working directly with Icelandic social work practitioners. The methodology adopted used an action research approach in which young people, who had interacted with social services, were engaged as research consultants. The thesis evaluates such an approach paying particular attention to the approach as a method for generating new knowledge, and its usefulness for the development of social work practice. The concept of child-directed practice brings together theoretical debates within the sociology of childhood with practical insights from the action based research findings to develop an approach to social work practice that is directed by children in their interests and by principles of social justice and equality. A constructionist grounded theory perspective was taken in the data gathering and analysis. The action research approach involved three key elements. First, the conceptualisations of childhood of the social work practitioners, and how this affected their practice, were ascertained through qualitative semi-structured interviews and group discussions. Secondly, the young people, acting as a group, were engaged to ascertain their views on how they would like to see social workers treat them. Their knowledge and perspectives were central to the data gathering and intervention with practitioners. Thus, in the third and final element, social work practitioners attempted to develop their practice so that it became more child-directed. Changes in their conceptualisations of children caused shifts in power and control, making their working relationships with children more reciprocal and equal. Evaluation of the action based research approach showed that it can act as a catalyst to changes in social work practice that are beneficial to children.

This thesis analyses the situation of refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina that arrived in Britain as part of an organised programme. It represents a contribution towards the theoretical understanding of refugees, and develops and refines the theories of other authors. The author used field research methods based on techniques developed in ethnographic studies to generate empirical evidence on the social organisation of Bosnian refugees in Britain. Throughout the thesis it is argued that the situation of the refugees can only be understood through an examination of the influences affecting the refugees, before, during, and after their arrival in Britain. At every stage of the refugees' experience, control over the course of their lives has been taken away from the refugees. The war that took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina became constructed as an ethnic conflict, although there was no strong Muslim identification before the war. The programme removed options over country and place of residence, and created a measure of dependency. Longer term policies of community development, originally designed to meet the perceived needs of labour migrants, have been directed towards the refugees and imposed a model of organisation. Combined with temporary protected status, this has removed control from the refugees and prevented the formation of a new collective or individual positive life project. Refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina represent a new type of refugee in Joly's typology. This is a type of refugee that had no collective project in the country of origin, and also no collective project in the country of exile, and that is unable to make a decision on return because of the constraints around them.

This thesis provides an account of the way in which meaning associated with the term ‘fair trade’ is negotiated within a number of discrete, yet interrelated communities, in a way which influences stakeholder understanding of the concept – and as a result, structures the way in which public procurement strategies integrate fair trade governance into their operation. Building from the identification of ‘fair trade’ governance as a means to embed the intra-generational social justice concerns of sustainable development within the public procurement system, the thesis investigates how the ambiguous meaning of fair trade is reconciled in discourse and practice. Specifically focusing on the case study of Scotland – where Local Authorities are involved in a complex network of state and private governance initiatives – investigation reveals that despite various influences to the contrary, fair trade is strongly conflated with certification administered by the dominant global fair trade certifying body, Fairtrade International (FLO). However, exceptions are argued to demonstrate an active negotiation of this domination over meaning. In particular, one Authority has purchased ‘fairly traded’ Kilombero rice – produced by members of the National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi (NASFAM) – as part of its fair trade strategy, by accepting claims of fairness not on the basis of external certification, but on trust from a socially orientated import organisation. Extending the study along the supply chain, investigation reveals that while the producer organisation sees fair trade as beneficial to their overall objectives, they identify significant limitations with the FLO approach. For this reason they have pursued World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO) accreditation in order to back their claims to fair trade operation. As such, the dominance of FLO certification is seen to be actively contested as part of a wider dynamic in which different approaches vie to influence the understanding, and therefore the praxis of stakeholders.

This thesis is predicated upon a rejection of the existing characterisation of attitudes towards the dead in the eighteenth century. In current thinking this period witnessed the first signs of a reduction in the extent to which people had contact with the dead. However, this assumption is supported by very little research. In focusing on proximity and exposure to the dead body at an ‘everyday’ level this thesis tempers the century’s association with distance and change by revealing a high level of proximity and very significant continuities with both the preceding and proceeding periods. Utilising sources from London, Bristol and York it follows the dead body from the point of death through to its eventual resting place, concentrating in particular on the impact of the newly-emerged undertaking trade and burial practice in the century and a half prior to the widespread establishment of extramural cemeteries and eventual outlawing of burial in towns. The following key questions are addressed: how were spaces shared between the living and the dead; where exactly were the dead present; who had contact with them; and in what ways. The result is a picture which demonstrates that during the long eighteenth century the living shared their private and public urban spaces with the dead to a significant extent. The attitudes governing treatment of the dead body revealed in the process are shown to be at once timeless and period-specific. Foremost among these is the concept of ‘decency’. It is shown that this idea, whilst far from unique to the eighteenth century, had a particular contemporary significance shaped by social and economic factors and their effects on the class structure and urban environment. At the same time, visible in all aspects of treatment of the dead is a pragmatism born of limitations on time and, in particular, space which did not always sit easily with notions of decency, particularly once the dead were underground.

This study explored the views and perceptions about agency social work in England. At its core is the first known case study of adult services social work teams in a rural local authority. The case study took place over the period 2008- 2010 and used qualitative methodology to capture perspectives from agency and employed social workers, agency and employed managers and agency and employed administrative staff. Agency social work was seen to have developed from a background of deteriorating conditions in local government employment and in the absence of effective and flexible workforce planning. Labour process theory provided a meaningful framework to help explore the phenomenon of agency social work within a public sector increasingly dominated by markets and managerialism. A directional tendency towards a degraded workplace was noted despite some perceptions of upskilling in respect of agency social workers. A range of explanations regarding the motivation and the experiences of agency social workers was found that largely supported previous case study findings from urban local authorities. The roles carried out by employed social workers under the care management system were indistinguishable from those of agency social workers, several agency social workers having remained in post for periods of two years or more. No ways of working were identified as being particularly tailored to a rural context. The antipathy toward agency social workers noted in previous case studies was largely absent in the rural case study and agency social workers were not perceived as part of the private sector. Issues regarding the cost-effectiveness of agency social work and its affect on service users and carers were inconclusive. Recommendations for further research were made and agency social work was seen as being likely to remain as a core feature of modernised social work while vacancies remain high and alternative models for contingency workforce planning remain absent.

This thesis explores implications of support and advocacy with substance-misusing women during and after pregnancy in promoting parental involvement and children’s welfare within the regulatory child care framework. It is uniquely situated in relation to social construction, juridification of family lifeworlds, relations of power, and theorisation of an enabling process informed by a rights discourse that facilitates communicative action. Chapter 1 introduces the rationale for this research and contextualises the work of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s (NSPCC) Liverpool Families and Substance Support Team (FaSST) service for substance-misusing parents. It utilises observation evidence, outlining FaSST’s relationship to wider professional and agency networks. An expanded overview of chapter organisation makes the distinctiveness of this exploratory research clear; as it relates theory and practice within the previously little researched area of advocacy with substance misusing parents to promote the best interests of children’s welfare. Chapter 2 develops issues of social construction, identity, risk and relations of power vi affecting substance misusing parents within the modern state. Chapter 3 considers the development of child protection, children’s safeguarding, actuarialism and issues of governance. Chapter 4 examines Habermas’ theory of communicative action, rights discourses and how support and advocacy might develop. Remaining chapters examine research fieldwork. Chapter 5 explains the qualitative research design, research method and ethical considerations. Chapter 6 analyses data in terms of governance and risk and tentatively theorises those matters, and chapter 7 analyses data and theorises possibilities for support and advocacy. Chapter 8 formulates conclusions regarding how the FaSST has addressed parents’ concerns and promoted involvement in their children’s interests within the regulatory child care framework. It theorises support and advocacy in that context, and it identifies implications for its further development.

Understanding School Buildingscompletes a study ofmodern Swedish school buildings and the ideas behind them. In aseries of case studies of seven schools built between 1953 and2001, changes in architecture have been found to reflectchanges in the ideas and practices of teaching and learning.The study has raised a number of questions, regarding currentdemands on school buildings. Problems and qualities of schoolbuildings demands on school buildings, problems and qualitiesof school buildings form the 1950s, 60s and 70s, problems foundand qualities lost in the process of changing such buildings,and the motives of architects involved in the design ofschools. In practical terms, the research method has includedobservations of buildings in use, interviews with directors,staff and pupils as well as architects, and the study ofliterature, documents and architectural drawings. Intheoretical terms, different perspectives of architecture havebeen discussed and applied, from the phenomenological approachof Norberg-Schulz to the space syntax theory of Hillier, frompractical, social use of symbolic meaning and aesthetics.Finally, some philosophical themes on art, architecture andsociety, from Dewey, Shusterman, Scruton and Sartre have beenintroduced. Partly diverging from the case study model of Yin, the studydoes not simply aim at verifying or falsifying a hypothesis. Ata point in the study, each case is explained in a morenarrative manner. In the final analysis, understanding schoolbuildings in shown to require a multifaceted view. A schoolbuilding must be seen in a historic/political perspective, as atool for teaching and learning and as the life-world ofteachers and pupils. In cases discussed, a school building isalso the object of strong pedagogical or social intensions ofan architect. In other term, a study of school buildings mustbe a study in pragmatist aesthetics. Keywords:School building, architectural theory, recentsocial history of architecture, intention, experience,pragmatist aesthetics

This dissertation examines what happens when NGOs attempt to implement systems to improve their accountability to intended beneficiaries. While NGO accountability is widely discussed in the literature, there has been very little work done on how accountability systems operate in practice. My dissertation aims to address this important gap by providing a detailed case study of one NGO’s initiative in this area using qualitative empirical data. The data relate to the ‘best case’ example of ActionAid, an NGO that has made substantial, high-profile efforts to improve its downward accountability since 2000 through its Accountability Learning and Planning System (ALPS). The case study reconstructs the evolution of ALPS and examines efforts to implement it, both at international level and within a single country setting: Uganda. The data reveal the obstacles which have hindered ActionAid in its attempts to strengthen its downward accountability. Despite positive rhetoric around ALPS and downward accountability, my findings indicate a significant disjuncture between intentions and actual outcomes. Key factors causing this disjuncture include the benefits that the organisation can reap from an appearance of downward accountability, such as enhanced external legitimacy, even if this does not reflect reality. More broadly, my case study suggests that disjuncture between aims and actual practices is a necessary feature of how NGOs function in the aid sector, in terms of accountability and also in other areas. What then can NGOs do to attempt to overcome the negative implications of disjuncture and improve their relationships with intended beneficiaries? My central recommendation is for NGOs to reflect and to recognise their tendencies to promote disjuncture, such as when they over-state achievements to donors. Frank assessments of the actual status of an NGO’s relationships with communities and of the limitations caused by the NGO’s funding structures are important steps to improving these relationships.