Mothers' and fathers' perceptions of the quality of coparenting – the way in which they work together in their role as parents – forms the focus of three papers that comprise this thesis. Using a novel sample of ‘intact' families with young twins, this research extends the existing coparenting literature beyond its typical focus on first-born children, to include more complex families. Participants were families who were part of the Twins, Family and Behaviour (TFaB) Study, a longitudinal, multimethod study of UK families with twins born in 2009/10 conducted by myself and my colleague over a two-year period. Paper 1 examines bidirectional associations between coparenting and the marital relationship during the transition-to-school period. Controlling for cross-sectional associations and temporal stability, parents' perceptions of higher quality coparenting were associated with their subsequent report of a higher quality marital relationship. Reciprocal associations between the marital relationship and subsequent coparenting, however, were not evidenced. These findings highlight the salience of coparenting for the marital relationship, and suggest that interventions seeking to improve the couples' marital relationship should pay close attention to their coparenting. Paper 2 focuses on parenting sense of competence (PSOC), examining the role of children's disruptive behaviour, coparenting, and their interaction. For both mothers and fathers there was a significant interaction between their perceptions of coparenting and children's disruptive behaviour such that high quality coparenting may protect the PSOC of parents dealing with high levels of children's disruptive behaviour. These findings imply that practitioners and interventions concerned with promoting PSOC should pay due attention to the quality of coparenting as an important family context. Paper 3 examines family-wide and child-specific effects of coparenting and coercive parenting on the development of children's disruptive behaviour. Mothers' perceptions of coparenting interacted with maternal overall coercive parenting such that high quality coparenting intensified the toxicity of maternal coercive parenting for children's disruptive behaviour. This novel – and unexpected – finding indicates that the influence of high quality coparenting is not necessarily always positive. Coparenting interventions aiming to improve child outcomes would therefore be well-advised to also consider parenting strategies. Further research is encouraged to explore these research questions within samples of socioeconomic diversity and across family types, as well as studies designed to examine twin and non-twin family differences.

The overarching goal of this thesis was to examine sibling relationship quality in young twin children, as well as the ways in which this key bond is associated with other familial relationships within the home environment. The three articles included were part of a longitudinal and multi-method study, run by myself and my colleague - the Twins, Family and Behaviour study. Accounts were collected from 282 mothers and 132 fathers of twins, over a two-year time period. Parents completed postal questionnaires and a telephone interview, and observations via Skype recorded them interacting with each of their children. The research was unique, as it employed a number of novel measures and sophisticated analyses that have not yet been used within a longitudinal twin sample such as this. Results showed that, contrary to expectations, no mean level differences emerged when monozygotic twin pairs, dizygotic twin pairs, and non-twin pairs were compared on their sibling relationship quality (Paper 1). Behavioural genetic modelling also revealed that sibling interactions were mainly influenced by the shared environment, common to both children within the dyad, but also by the genetic propensities of the siblings themselves (Paper 1). Using the innovative Preschool Five Minute Speech Sample interview, we found that mothers who expressed more family-wide positive, and less family-wide negative, emotion towards their children reported more positivity within the sibling relationship – even when controlling for questionnaire measures of the mother-child relationship (Paper 2). Finally, opposing the majority of past literature, cross-lagged tests evidenced that earlier positivity within the sibling bond was predictive of later marital satisfaction, and of positivity within both the mother-child and the father-child bond (Paper 3). The implications of the findings include: the generalisability of studies of twins in childhood to the wider non-twin sibling population (Paper 1); the usefulness of maternal speech sample measures in capturing unique variance in sibling relationship quality (Paper 2); and the impact of affectionate sibling exchanges on entire family systems (Paper 3). Future research would benefit from exploring the nature of the relationship between twin brothers and sisters further, using both younger and older children's reports of their family interactions, within a more ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample.

Η συμπεριληπτική εκπαίδευση αποτελεί μια σύγχρονη πολιτική τακτική, η οποία κερδίζει έδαφος σε πολλές χώρες σε όλο τον κόσμο. Οι έρευνες και οι εκπαιδευτικές προσπάθειες προσανατολίζονται προς την εφαρμογή της συμπεριληπτικής εκπαίδευσης και στον χώρο της Τριτοβάθμιας Εκπαίδευσης. Η Ελλάδα ακολουθεί με αργούς ρυθμούς τις διεθνείς αυτές εκπαιδευτικές τάσεις, στην προσπάθειά της να παράσχει εκπαίδευση και σε κατηγορίες ατόμων, που παραδοσιακά αποκλείονταν από το θεσμό και να κατοχυρώσει την ισότητα της πρόσβασης και τη δικαιοσύνη της παροχής για όλα ανεξαιρέτως τα άτομα. Η παρούσα έρευνα στοχεύει να δείξει κατά πόσον η Ελληνική εκπαιδευτική πολιτική προωθεί τη συμπεριληπτική εκπαίδευση στα Ανώτατα και Ανώτερα Ιδρύματα. Η μεθοδολογία που ακολουθείται για τη διεξαγωγή της έρευνας είναι η μελέτη τεκμηρίων, αφού στηρίζεται στην αναλυτική και διαχρονική παρουσίαση των νομοθετικών ρυθμίσεων που αφορούν το συγκεκριμένο ζήτημα. Καταδεικνύεται ότι η Ελληνική εκπαιδευτική πολιτική, ακολουθώντας τα διεθνή ρεύματα, ενδιαφέρεται σταδιακά για την ίση πρόσβαση στην Ανώτατη Εκπαίδευση ορισμένων ατόμων Ειδικών Κατηγοριών. Αρκετές φορές όμως, μέσα από τον ορισμό των Ειδικών Κατηγοριών και τα νομοθετικά κείμενα που τις αφορούν ικανοποιούνται και άλλες πολιτικές από την εκάστοτε κυβέρνηση ώστε να απομακρύνεται από τους αρχικούς στόχους της που είναι η ισότητα των εκπαιδευτικών ευκαιριών για όλους τους σπουδαστές της. / Inclusive Education is developing in many countries all over the world. At present, several studies and educational attempts are focusing on Inclusive Education in the field of Higher Education. Greece tries gradually to follow these international tendencies, in an attempt to offer educational opportunities to some categories of students, who traditionally excluded from the educational system. This study is trying to point out weather Greek educational policy promotes Inclusive Education in Tertiary Education. The method of the study was Study Documents, in an attempt to study the relevant legislation of the issue. The results revealed that the Greek educational policy, based on the international tendencies, is concerned with the equal opportunities given to some students of Special Categories. Nevertheless, each government appears also to develop policies in favour of some groups instead of issuing legislations for all special needs students.

我國於2015年底通過新修正之個人資料保護法（以下簡稱「個資法」），將病歷納入特種個人資料中保護。目前個資法第六條特種個人資料列舉包含病歷、醫療、基因、性生活、健康檢查及犯罪前科之個人資料。雖然該條文係取法自國際賦予敏感性個人資料特別保護的模式，惟在個人相關健康資料保護部分，我國個資法不若歐盟一般資料保護規則（EU General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR）保護寬廣，納入資料之類型仍較國際立法例狹窄。尤其此次GDPR修法擴大特種個人資料空間，增列基因資料、生物性資料和性傾向，檢視我國特種個人資料列舉類型是否符合現今科技社會需求有其必要性。 過去研究針對健康資料個資法適用問題較少。大數據資料來源來自各處，以一般健康保健物聯網模式為例，自行操作之檢查數據或穿戴式裝置所蒐集之資料，若非須由醫師或其他之醫事人員施以檢查，而可由一般民眾自行測量之行為，該民眾自行測量之結果應不屬於個資法所謂之病歷、醫療或健康檢查個人資料，即非為特種個人資料。 惟大數據分析技術進步之環境下，健康資料亦攸關資料主體生理健康之敏感性，且容易連結並識別個人，考量健康資料敏感性提升，蒐集、處理、利用健康資料易侵犯到個人隱私，因此有加強保護之需求。將來可刪除個資法第六條第一項各種個人資料例示之「醫療」、「病歷」與「健康」資料，並新增「健康」或「與健康相關」之列舉項目。 但解釋「與健康相關」資料之內涵時不能無限上綱，在適用時應考量情境說，依據不同使用情境判斷是否為係作為特種個人資料利用，以排除一般性描述健康的使用情境。 / The change to the regulation of special categories of data (sensitive data) in the Taiwan Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) in 2015 comes with the inclusion of medical records. The definition of sensitive data in the PIPA Article 6(1) refers to personal information of medical records, medical treatment, genetic information, sexual life, health examination and criminal records. However, the list of sensitive data in PIPA do not contain categories as broad as foreign legislation such as EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It is important to review the continuing relevance of existing categories of sensitive data in the light of change in social structures and advances in technology. Differ from “medical data” such as medical records, medical treatment and health examination, the collection, process and use of “health data” which is measured from wearable device, is not included in the sensitive data. Concerning the development of big data analysis, the “health data” which sensitivity enhanced is easy to identify an individual. It needs to give a higher level of protection to “health data” under PIPA. Therefore, this thesis suggests that medical records, medical treatment and health examination in PIPA Article 6(1) should be consolidated and amended to health records or data concerning health. However, this is not to say that the processing of all kinds of medical and health data should be regarded as the processing of sensitive data. But data, under certain contexts/circumstances may be treated as the processing of sensitive data.