This research was undertaken to analyze and to describe the social support networks of a non-random sample of 55 legally blind and visually impaired young adults, 20 to 50 years, inclusive. Modified versions of the Arizona Social Support Inventory Scale (Barrera, 1981, 1983), and the Network Analysis Profile (Cohen and Sokolovsky, 1978) were used to examine key aspects of network structure and to evaluate the attributes of network links. Results from this study indicate that with the exception of network size, the level of visual impairment may have less impact on network structure than such factors as age of onset of blindness, type of school attended, acceptance of blindness, marital status, gender, and mastery. Study findings also contribute some support for optimism with regard to the level of social integration achieved by study subjects. The majority of men and women in the sample showed evidence of access to all essential varieties of social support including: companionship, advice, material assistance, physical assistance, affirmation, and emotional support. A relatively small percentage of the total sample lacked access to all six of the above listed dimensions of social support. Only two of fifty-five subjects had networks that contained fewer than five persons. The average network contained ten persons. Subjects with the smallest networks were prone to be less educated, unmarried/formerly married, and unemployed. Stepwise multiple regression procedures identified employment status, mastery, level of functional vision, and gender as significant predictors of expanded networks. Young adult subjects clearly considered kin as their first line of social support. Kin supporters outnumbered nonkin supporters by close to two to one, however, nonkin proved to contribute a larger proportion of total support than did kin. Degree of visual impairment did not influence the observed pattern of support provision, nor did age. Subjects also demonstrated heavy reliance upon friends, spouses and siblings in the form of a high percentage of multi-dimensional ties. Subjects identified their immediate social surroundings as the context most frequently associated with the origination of new friendships. However, organized programs sponsored and operated by agencies that serve blind and visually impaired persons were frequently associated with the origination of new nonkin ties. Significant relationships also linked residential school attendance to a number of psychosocial measures that indicate successful adjustment to blindness.

I investigate stakeholder experiences in five New York City secondary classes associated with the low end of the civic opportunity gap. Classroom stakeholders are students, teachers, and college mentors participating in the Generation Citizen program. Generation Citizen is a push-in program meant to promote civic engagement opportunities in middle and high schools associated with the civic opportunity gap. The civic opportunity gap refers to observations that opportunities for civic engagement differ based on racial and socioeconomic markers. A conceptual framework based on situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991) guides data collection and analysis. The framework draws attention to the experiences of individuals and groups in specific contexts, called communities of practice. Successful learning in a community of practice begins with legitimate peripheral participation, a process similar to apprenticeship. Situated learning theory considers the ways that people engage with each other around important issues, imagine realities in other communities, and try to align their efforts with existing processes. I present data collected through observations of classroom interactions and interviews with students, teachers, and program mentors. I find that legitimate peripheral participation required classroom stakeholders to engage the root causes of their chosen issues and put their knowledge into practice through actions aligned with the locus of their issue. This finding emerged through three themes, which address the role of classroom pedagogies in supporting or complicating the process of legitimate peripheral participation. Themes allow a discussion of the role that classroom interactions play in framing civic engagement experiences. Opportunities for civic engagement in school can positively address the problems of civic gaps when youth can name and enact legitimate efforts on their own terms.

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The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the strand of research regarding the effects of communist regimes in former Eastern Bloc. We explored the areas that were likely to be affected at the time of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and to test if there are any signs of the impact extending to long-term. This is especially important due to the data scarcity and heavy censorship during the period of the Soviet Union, which does not allow to reliably estimate the contemporaneous effects of the regime. Therefore, the main research questions are: • Did communist regime education policies create systematic differences in educational attainment levels in comparison to the rest of Europe? Increasing educational attainment level within Eastern Bloc was an important political goal. This is partially due to an aim of developing skilled labour force to man factories and contribute towards advancements in science and technology in the cold war competition with the West, and, in part, due to being means to implant and propagate the regime's ideology. • Is the popular stereotype of excessive alcohol consumption in communist Eastern Bloc reflected in the behaviour of those who lived through the regime even after its collapse? Alcohol was anecdotally known to be a popular companion for recreation in Eastern Bloc, the idea frequently found in Russian cinematography of the day. Any signs of systematically more frequent or larger intake of alcohol after the collapse of the regime would indicate a combination of at least some or all listed reasons: spreading of cultural drinking norms, drinking preferences becoming habitual, and alcohol being as a coping mechanism for experienced trauma. It is likely the list could be extended by more possible explanations. • Is living under one of the communist regimes in Eastern Bloc significantly related to any long-term differences in health outcomes in comparison to the rest of Europe? In addition, is there a difference in perception of own health? This could help address a question if the communist regime had an impact on health and perception of people who experienced and survived it. Measuring differences in perception is particularly interesting since perception latently affects behaviour and choices of economic agents. Each question is addressed in a separate chapter, but the overarching questions are: do educational attainment level, alcohol drinking patterns, health and its perception show signs of the communist regime in Eastern Bloc having a long-term impact? How much, on average, an experience of this regime could contribute to changing and shaping cultural norms, agents' choices, behaviour and perceptions? Answers to these questions would contribute to the knowledge about measuring impacts of historical experiences, could inspire further research, and potentially could be taken into account when modelling and predicting agents' behaviour.

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This study was prompted by recent changes in higher education funding policies that have been introduced to encourage greater economic and social impact from investments in academic research. Historically certain elements of the social sciences, particularly business and management, have been criticised for their lack of practical utility outside the realm of the university system (See, for example; Beyer, 1982; Starkey and Tempest, 2009; Mintzberg, 2004). The research is based upon the premise that the current attempts to reverse this trend with modifications to the UK’s ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (REF) may be using too blunt an instrument to change the habits of a community long established in an environment that is not geared to the needs of a practitioner audience. The study draws on literature to identify the components of ‘impactful’ research and considers the extent to which they exist, or otherwise, within a sample of three UK business schools. The purpose of the investigation was to determine the effect of existing policy and practice on academics’ actions with respect to research style, practitioner engagement and dissemination choices. In doing so it sought to identify if current strategies enable impact or pose an operational and motivational constraint. The study finds that business schools are unlikely to deliver their part in the government’s ambitions for economic growth from the impact agenda so long as academics are so heavily incentivised to produce the theoretical and conceptual research preferred by the leading journals in their field. The report concludes that these aspirations require fundamental change and offers a number of strategic options for this purpose. These include modifications to the funding mechanisms of academic research, changes to the REF and a re-evaluation of the criteria that define ‘high quality’ research. The report also raises questions over the role of business and management studies within the university system.