A vast literature has identified the importance of childcare for understanding cross-national variation in women’s employment, and has particularly emphasised the role of the state in ensuring the delivery of services. This thesis explores variation within market-based childcare systems in order to understand how systems with less state provision may support or constrain maternal employment. The thesis argues that understanding whether childcare markets ‘work’ or not in supporting maternal employment requires a deep understanding of the interplay between market and state, as the specific policy approach taken can shape the structure of the market in profoundly different ways. This issue is explored via comparative case studies of the United States and the United Kingdom, two countries known for their market-based approach to childcare, but with stark and persistent differences in maternal employment behaviour, especially working time. Drawing on a mix of qualitative (policy documents) and quantitative (national statistics) data, the US and UK systems are compared along a series of dimensions comprising the two key components of the market-based system: the structure of market provision and the policy approach. The similarities and differences of these systems are analysed through the lens of the characteristics of services known to be important for the use of care for employment purposes: availability, cost and quality. The United States and United Kingdom have generally similar childcare systems when compared to other countries which rely more heavily on the state or the family to ensure childcare provision, which is in line with their common characterisation as liberal welfare regimes. However, there are important differences in the structure of their childcare markets which affect their ability to support maternal employment: for example, the US market poses fewer affordability constraints for maternal employment given the availability of relatively low cost care provision (albeit of questionable quality); the UK market in contrast provides care at higher cost, although this is likely of better quality. This variation in market provision is shaped by differences in the policy approach taken by each country: the US approach is primarily designed to soften the rougher edges of the market in what is otherwise considered a private sphere; in contrast the UK approach actively attempts to shape the childcare market into a system in line with policy goals. The consequence of this is that the US approach does not prevent a wide range of market provision from forming to cater to diverse tastes and budgets, but this necessarily includes a substantial degree of lower quality care. The UK approach more actively constrains the types of provision which are available, which on the one hand reduces supply and contributes to higher cost provision, but also sets higher standards for care provision. Together these findings suggest that understanding how market-based care systems do or do not support maternal employment requires not only an appreciation of the broader institutional context in which they are situated, but also the intended and unintended ways that policy-making can shape their structure.

Doutoramento em Bioquímica / PhD Degree - Biochemistry / Resumo PT / Resumo UK

This thesis examines the interplay between community development and local government modernisation as practised in three neighbouring London Boroughs in the East and South East of London. By using qualitative approaches to research the field, including ethnography and semi-structured interviews with a range of statutory and community practitioners, the research seeks to examine a variety of stakeholder perspectives. ‘Community development’ in its UK context over recent decades has, as a distinct process, skill set and discipline, attempted to realise the potential of regeneration programmes and address the democratic deficit found in local government. It therefore reflected many of the main concerns of New Labour modernisation policies, appearing to be well placed to make a strong contribution to ameliorating social ills. There is recognition in this research that whilst government policy demonstrably changed some local structures, the corollary of actual community empowerment cannot be guaranteed or assumed. Through the testimony of local politicians, councillors, activists, managers and Community Development Workers the research examines the extent to which the principles and practice of community development were able to support modernisation as a programme of social reform and the wider factors that shaped the efficacy and transmission of policy. The reflexivity of the researcher as a community development practitioner with twenty years experience adds a deep and especially close engagement with the material. The researcher as a practitioner passionately wants to know ‘what works’ in relation to a shifting, often contradictory field of policy. By using ethnographic methods this research examines the concrete experiences and spaces in which community development and modernising reforms take place.

The leadership style of individuals can change and adapt in different circumstances, and this can also be influenced if the person is a natural leader. Leadership theory argues that one can be a natural leader, but also given a situation an individual can become a leader out of circumstance (Northouse, 2013; Leicester, 1989, p. 6). Not only that but a leader can be a manager and a manager can be a leader. The focus group for this study is middle managers; they have a unique position to influence an organisation but are often overlooked (Huy, 2001, p. 73). Middle management is a sociological phenomenon because their influence is normally on the lower level staff. While studying sociology it is important to factor in preconceptions and stereotypes that people have about not only races and genders, but professions and industries. These preconceptions impact how people view a leader or manager and what that person should be in terms of their gender and personality traits. Therefore their perception of what an industry is can also be assigned a gender. These preconceptions can come from an individual’s upbringing and national culture (Hofstede, 1991, p. 8); this thesis looks  into the UK due to the more masculine nature of the culture and my own relation with the country (Hofstede, clearlycultural, 2014). The gender assigning of industries and professions influences how people lead a group as well as how they feel that they should lead to gain respect from their team. Due to the deeper factors in this study, an interpretivist approach has been taken leaning toward hermeneutics which is concerned with an empathic understanding of human action rather than with the forces that act on it (Bryman, 2012, p. 28). This combined with a constructionist view mean that the research attempts to understand the thoughts behind beliefs and preconceptions. The main focus of this investigation is the narrative inquiry, using semi-structured interviews to allow the participants to tell stories about their experiences with managers and being a manager themselves. The interviews are cross-sectional to see how all the participants think a manager should be compared to what they actually are/see as a manager. A pattern analysis will be used to correlate the results with a Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974) test to establish if the participants are more masculine or feminine and how that impacts their leadership style. In conclusion men don’t always have a masculine leadership style and women don’t always have a feminine style. National culture does impact how leadership and management are perceived but that is not the case in an individual’s experience of real life managers and leaders. Gender assigned industries influence what professions people choose but to a lesser extent if that person holds a management position or they are capable leaders within that industry.

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This dissertation examines the conception and performance of masculinities amongst two groups of Russian men, half of whom live in Russia and the other half in the United Kingdom. A total of forty in-depth biographical interviews were carried out, twenty in each country, with men of different ages and highly different social backgrounds. On the basis of these interviews, the thesis portrays contemporary Russian masculinities as a complex, socially and historically constructed phenomenon, situated within large-scale social and political processes. It explores the most prominent reference points and social hierarchies employed by the respondents in order to negotiate their individual gender projects, and shows how these are culture-specific, context-specific, and rooted both in individual life history and in the social, economical and political realities of different historical periods. While the respondents play an active role in defining and constructing their own masculinities, they do so within the macro-parameters laid down by the state, in accordance with broader socio-cultural and political factors. Shifts in the macro-parameters (such as the collapse of the Soviet Union or migration to another country) change the environment in which an individual lives and give rise to new resources for negotiating masculinity. Like the reference points and social hierarchies referred to above, these new resources are rooted in specific historical, cultural, political and personal events. Each resource belongs to a particular social topography that orients people towards the places, practices and discourses which they need to realise their masculinity. The main empirical findings in the thesis are ordered in accordance with the contexts, reference points and hierarchies for making masculinity which were referred to by the research participants themselves. The dissertation is structured around four contexts which emerged from the data: (i) the Soviet past; (ii) the first post-Soviet decade (the 1990s); (iii) the second post-Soviet decade (the 2000s); (iv) the immigration period. I explore different masculinity construction strategies and the reference points on which they rely as the site of a socio-cultural power struggle that offers a unique prism through which to understand how Russian masculinities and gender relations are validated and contested, and how they change.

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