No description available.

The first aim of the research was to determine the extent of loneliness among Saudi adolescents and its relationship to psychological and demographic factors. The phenomenon was assessed by means of quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the "meanings" of loneliness. Results indicated a high level of loneliness amongst adolescents in Saudi Arabia. Those with high level of loneliness were found to have fewer friends and scored statistically significantly higher on other psychological measures, particularly depression and anxiety,and lower on self-esteem. An implication of this finding was the need to provide adolescents with a support programme to meet their needs at this critical stage of their development.The argument throughout this study was that the existent counselling/pastoral provision was inadequate to provide adolescents in secondary school with appropriate psychological and personal support.The second aim of the study was to test the applicability of a peer counselling/support programme to prevent loneliness among young people. Implementation of this programme was carried out with comprehensive evaluation, which focused on the peer counsellors and the populations they served. Findings were encouraging in relation to both parties.Those young people who participated as peer helpers reported gains in personal development and said that their participation had benefitted their general lives; clients also reported high satisfaction with the service. Students reported high levels on two areas of social support as measured by Social Provisions Scale, namely guidance and reliable alliance, although a reduction on level of loneliness was not achieved. Additionally, formal record of the school counsellors showed less behavioural and educational problems within the school.Recommendations were made for the introduction of peer counselling programmes in Saudi school system.

This thesis explores the experiences of a group of children with a range of special educational needs within two mainstream schools, using a variety of ethnographic methods. The thesis is sited within the relatively new paradigm of the social study of childhood, which acknowledges children as competent social actors. It explores children's capacity for agency within the structural space of the school, and rejects the notion of the disabled child as passive and dependent. Children's own views are discussed, and the thesis demonstrates how they make sense of concepts such as 'difference' and 'disability', noting how children are influenced by factors such as the primacy of the body in consumer culture and wider social attitudes to disability. Central to the thesis, however, is the crucial nature of the body in adult-child and child-child interaction. Within schools, children are 'civilised' and controlled through the medium of the body and, similarly, children draw upon the body as a means of resistance. During social interaction, all children use the body as a signifier of the social self, as a symbolic resource for playing jokes upon their peers, to evidence changes in status, and to highlight aspects of the 'non-standard' body. They also use aspects of bodily difference to wound and taunt. Whilst all children are subject to these onslaughts upon bodily identity, it is those with special educational needs, whose bodies may appear or behave differently, who are potentially more susceptible to their effect. However, the thesis shows that the experiences of children with special educational needs were not necessarily mediated through those needs, but through particular social skills such as empathy or humour. This thesis demonstrates therefore the manner in which the quality of experience for all children, but specifically those with special educational needs, is mediated through their expertise in particular skills of embodiment.

This thesis investigates the effects on fathers of parenting children with disabilities. In the first chapter, models of family functioning and parental adaptation to disability are discussed. This is followed by an overview of the effects of disability on family members and a review of the literature on fathers in general. The second chapter consists of a review of the literature on fathers of disabled children. Included is a review of personal accounts by such fathers, followed by discussion of previous studies and previous reviews of the literature. The review concludes with consideration of the research evidence in support of seven assertions, about effects on fathers, on which there is a consensus in the literature. Chapter three describes the methodology employed in the current study. From a representative sample of 111 fathers of children with Down's syndrome, 97 were interviewed and 87 completed a booklet of questionnaires. The interviews were semi-structured in order to gain fathers' perspectives of the effects on themselves and their families. The booklet of questionnaires included instruments designed to measure: demographic variables; adaptation; stress; personality; social support; and, marital functioning. In chapter four, the results of questionnaire and interview data were considered in relation to the seven assertions about fathers which emerged from the literature review. Overall findings provided little support for the majority of these assertions. The interview data were analysed into 28 categories of fathers' comments which provided a description of fathers' perspectives of their experiences. The final chapter includes a discussion of the findings from questionnaire and interview data in relation to the existing literature on the effects on fathers. It is concluded that the existing literature may provide a somewhat erroneous picture of the experiences of such fathers. The chapter ends with a discussion of the major weaknesses of the current study, areas for future research, and implications for practitioners.

No description available.

The aim of this thesis is to identify and understand children's relationships with the world of consumption. Through the children's own narratives a picture emerges of the mediating properties of consumer goods in their wider social and personal friendships. Living in what could be described as a materially divided society this project explores how children make sense of those inequalities and what their experiences are in understanding their own socio-economic position compared to others and how it impacts on their relationships to consumer culture. A particular concern is that such relationships may be more complicated than they seem on the surface and that class has an especially significant impact on children's experience of consumption. The contention here is that the impact of material inequality on an individual's capacity to consume is in the context of the sociology of both consumption and childhood remains largely under-explored. Creative child-centred data collection methods were therefore used in order to prioritise children's 'voices' as a means of understanding the impact of consumption on their lives. This data was further complemented by interviews with parents and in this context parents' management of familial household budgets emerged as having a particularly important influence in determining the role of consumption as a resource in the dynamic that exists between children, their parents and friendship groups. The evidence collected here suggests that the role of consumer goods is central to children's participation in what passes for a 'non-nal' life in contemporary consumer society. Both the children and their parents are acutely aware of this and as such go to inordinate lengths to ensure their children are able to have the appropriate signifiers of inclusion in their peer group networks. Material possessions appear to provide a currency with which children trade, whilst offering them inclusion within their wider personal and social networks. This research has given 'consuming children' a forum within which they can articulate what role consumer goods occupy in their lives on a day-to-day basis and what it means to children if they are unable to participate fully in the society in which they live.

The subject of this thesis, career choice for young adults with (specific) learning disabilities, deals with two main issues. The first concerns the decision-making difficulties of young adults with learning disabilities as compared with their nondisabled peers. The second and major part of this thesis, deals with the development and validation of a self-report screening method for identifying those are likely to be at risk of being learning disabled. The primary purpose of this device is to provide career counsellors and other professionals, who generally receive only superficial training in the area of specific learning disabilities, with a tool for identifying individuals likely to have learning disabilities. It is important to emphasise from the outset that screening is not diagnosis. Even a very good screening tool can at best identify those at high risk for LDS. Also screening may identify problem areas but no information is available regarding aetiology or source of the problems. Finally screening is necessary because a large section of the population has been identified as potentially containing large numbers of LDS (Singleton et al. 1998). However, before beginning the research, a thorough review of the issues of definition that plague the field is undertaken. While the issues raised cannot be resolved in this thesis, they form a necessary background to the research done. In principle, learning disabilities are understood to be characterised by poor automisation of learning skills due to neurological malfunction, contrasted by at least average intelligence. Therefore the goal of screening is to identify the presence of these difficulties, while explanation of their causes remains the proper area of expertise of diagnosticians who bear the onus of showing evidence of neurological malfunction. The present research, then, is three-phased. First, the Career Decision Difficulties (CDD) questionnaire (Gati et al. 1996) is applied to establish empirical support for the hypothesis that young adults with specific learning disabilities have greater difficulties making career decisions than their non-disabled peers do and to identify problem areas of particular difficulty for these young adults. The second phase of the research is based on the assumption that the majority of adults with specific learning disabilities have not been diagnosed and are unaware of the reasons for study problems that they encounter. Against this background, a parsimonious and easily administered screening device is needed. The second part of the thesis focuses on the development and validation of a self-report model - the Strengths and Weaknesses Academic Profile (SWAP) - and a questionnaire based on it, and their use as a counselling tool. The questionnaire based on the SWAP model was administered to a sample of about 500 young adults in Israel studying in preacademic schemes, of which 117 were previously diagnosed as learning disabled. The data was then analysed for validation. Finally, the results were normed on a larger sample of just over 900. The third phase was undertaken in order to address outstanding issues of validation resulting from the inherent methodological weakness of the Israeli research, a further sample was tested in Sheffield, UK. Unlike the Israeli sample, the non-diagnosed were tested to reveal any hidden dyslexics and they were subsequently removed from the control group. I present here an epidemiological sample validating a research tool in a real life scenario. In order to check the construct validity of this tool, a stricter research definition of LD was adopted, and the same process was undertaken using a well-defined sample known to be dyslexic and non-dyslexic. In conclusion, the results of this empirical demonstration show that the SWAP model predicts to a satisfactory degree those individuals who are at high risk of dyslexia. This thesis combines the strengths of an experimental qualitative approach with those of a quantitative empirical approach. In the main sample, the Israeli sample, scores were normed and converted into percentiles. Preliminary data regarding the predictive success of the use of SWAP for referral for diagnosis is presented. In addition, several case studies are included as examples of the use of SWAP as a counselling tool.

The purpose of the research was to explore the theoretical models which social workers applied to the understanding of adolescents coming before the juvenile court for troublesome behaviour; and to ascertain whether different models were applied to the behaviour or family situation of black and white adolescents. The study examined the use of models derived from psychology and sociology, and considered the influence of moral values and cultural stereotypes, both within the previous research tradition in this subject, and as possible underpinning to the social workers' use of theory. A sample was drawn of 93 adolescents committed to care in London under Section 1(2)(c-f) or 7(7) of the 1969 Children and Young Persons Act. Data was taken from social work reports on the children's behaviour and family background. Analysis focussed in detail on those adolescents who had been committed to care within 18 months of referral to the social services department, and from this group a sample of 22 matched pairs of black and white children (44 children) was selected for detailed content analysis of the social workers' reports to the court. The research attempted to develop grounded theory to aid the sociological understanding of the substantive problem, and refine the understanding of three relevant sociological models: the marginal position of black social work clients in a white-dominated professional culture; the stigmatisation of social work clients, especially those from ethnic minorities; and the use of social work as a means of social control. Results suggest that social workers' use of theory is more complex than previously thought, with differential strategic use of psychology and sociology in open court and confidential file reports, and when dealing with particularly sensitive subjects such as race. Social workers developed a form of composite theorising which blended sociology and psychology in a coherent whole to meet the complexity of an observed situation. This reflects the impossibility of seeking a whole explanation within any single, pre-paradigmatic discipline. Doubts were also cast on the usefulness of sociological models of marginality, which could not be demonstrated by systematic analysis, as distinct from the use of selective examples. The use of stigmatising mechanisms could be demonstrated. The issue of social control emerged as a multi-faceted negotiating process rather than as a direct two-way struggle between the powerful and the powerless.

The thesis is organised around an empirical investigation of the relationship between residents of a Hertfordshire village and people who are, or who have been, patients at a nearby psychiatric hospital, some of whom regularly venture into the village to use local facilities. The research employs the method of participant observation and draws upon the discourse analytic approach of Potter and Wetherell, together with the rhetorical perspective of Michael Billig. In particular, the research focuses upon the discursive practices of local people, practices which function to sustain, amplify or minimise difference between themselves and others who are patients. The critical theory of Jürgen Habermas is drawn upon to complement and extend the discourse analysis approach, which receives critical evaluation. In addition, the time-geography of Alan Pred is employed as an heuristic for the representation of journeys of patients in the village. The historical dimension of the relationship between village and hospital is addressed by drawing upon Parish Council minutes and local newspaper reports. The thesis contains a conceptual investigation of public anxieties concerning mental disorder, an overview and discussion of the contemporary relevance of the labelling perspective, and a review of relevant literature. In addition it provides an exploration of methodological and textual issues.