The introduction of the Social Inclusion Partnership (SIP) programme in Scotland in 1999 emerged as part of policy commitment to achieving social inclusion. The significance of this policy context to the SIP programming came through the move within urban policy programmes from focusing solely on tackling urban deprivation to also target resources towards rural and coalfield areas and socially excluded groups. With this change in approach came an explicit commitment to tackling the social exclusion experienced by young people at both the neighbourhood and local authority levels. Within this policy context, this study set out to compare the approach adopted by one thematic SIP (the Big Step) and one area-based SIP (Drumchapel SIP) to promoting social inclusion for young people. Using a care study methodology, data was collected using a combination of interviews with SIP stakeholders, young people and a range of external ‘experts’, supported by analysis of SIP documents and observation of SIP meetings and other formal events. Three key themes frame the focus of this study. First, an investigation of the theoretical and policy influences steering the approach taken within the case study SIPs to achieve social inclusion for young people illustrates a clear theoretical and policy framework driving the work of the SIPs influenced by concerns to achieve social inclusion by promoting a mixture of rights and responsibilities for excluded groups. The result is an explicit programme of work to promote social integration through active participation in society and the economy. Alongside this, however, emerges an implicit concern with managing the individual and social costs of young people’s exclusion from labour market and other socially acceptable activities in order to reduce the problems associated with young people. Second, the practice of the case study SIPs was compared across three key areas: the working practices of the SIPs in responding to the agenda on ‘strategic working’; the views of respondents on the relative value of working in partnership; and the involvement of young people within the decision-making structures of the SIPs. Clear distinctions in the practices of the case study SIPs were identified. This provided an opportunity to reflect on the relative contribution made by area-based and thematic SIPs to the promotion of social inclusion for young people, and from this to review the wider applicability of the findings from the case study SIPs as the third theme of the study. Extrapolating trends emerging from the case study SIPs, the study concludes that both types of SIP contribute towards promoting the social inclusion of young people, with area-based SIPs addressing the social exclusion of young people within the wider community context and thematic SIPs foregrounding the interests of young people.

This dissertation examines the formation of an agro-industrial working class within the citrus industry of Valencia, Spain. In a region that was historically defined by intensive agricultural production for market, the citrus industry in Valencia became the dominant economic sector in the decades prior to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Its workers, straddling the agricultural and the industrial, the rural and the urban, entered into a socio-economic relationship with the rural bourgeoisie in charge of the industry. This relationship was administered through the formation of jurados mixtos (mixed commissions), associations, and citrus cooperatives that directed the harvest, worked out export contracts, began irrigation projects, and organized labor. World War I produced a crisis within the industry due to the collapse of export markets and the lack of available shipping. Workers and small farmers suffered the brunt of the effects, and as a result, their relationships with the bourgeoisie began to break down. By the declaration of the Second Republic in 1931, workers and farmers had become far more politicized and dissatisfied. As landowners and commercial agents fled Valencia after the outbreak of war in 1936, workers and smallholders banded together in collectives, based on the established tradition of cooperation, to preserve the harvest and direct orange exports, the profits of which were increasingly important in the face of prolonged conflict.I rely heavily on documentary evidence from local journals and newspapers, political organizations, contemporary photographs, and local associations. Utilizing gender and labor theory and theories from cultural studies, I show the process of proletarianization through an examination of the labor culture within Valencia in order to complicate our categories of agricultural and industrial work and how the people of Valencia created a regional identity based on orange production.

No description available.

This thesis is an ethnography of how individuals experience urban change and difference on a south London street. My research focuses on the contemporary increase in cultural and ethnic diversity in London, and I explore what this means for social life and shared space on the Walworth Road. The purpose is to observe and interpret the forms of contact and distance people develop in living with difference in their everyday lives. I use a mixture of official, archival and ethnographic data to contrast how individuals transgress or re-inscribe social and spatial boundaries, and how systems of power authorise boundaries between people and places. I also combine ethnographic and visual methods to analyse and illustrate the layers of place, time and experience that are invoked by narratives of change on the Walworth Road. Although my thesis connects the global and local impacts of change, I select the small independent shops along the Walworth Road as the base of my exploration. Within a selection of shop interiors, I explore forms of social contact that are locally constituted through regular, face-to-face interaction, and through shared spaces and practices that engage people across diverse spectrums. I analyse the relationships between proprietors and customers: between workspaces and work skills and social spaces and social skills. Through this empirical process, I emphasise the social and political significance of ordinary spaces and informal memberships that emerge out of everyday contact in neither overtly public, nor overtly private space. This thesis has been edited into a book form to be released by Routledge in May 2012, the title of which is ‘City, Street and Citizen: The measure of the ordinary’.

Background: The mixed race child population is growing proportionately faster than any other group. Whilst there is a body of research in this country, albeit small, that looks at the experiences of mixed race children, none of this research examines specifically the risks for mental health and the possibilities for developing resilience which may be related to growing up as a mixed race child. Methods: Twenty-one adults, recruited through the internet, were asked to reflect on their childhood experiences in relation to being mixed race. They were offered a choice of response methods. The majority chose to provide a written account. A thematic analysis was carried out, within a phenomenological framework. A further analysis was undertaken to assess whether risks to mental health or opportunities to develop resilience could be identified in the findings from the phenomenological analysis using known risk and resilience factors relating to the mental health of children and young people. Results: The data show that there are some additional risks to the mental health of mixed race young people. As well as difficulties experienced in establishing personal identity, they show that there are specific difficulties in secondary school and that young people of mixed race experience racism and prejudice from both black and white peers. The data indicate a capacity for building resilience, necessitated by their mixedness, linked to supportive families. Conclusions: The overarching findings from this study mirror many of those from other mixed race studies. However this study shows how mixed race young people may experience some additional risks to mental health which need to be understood and considered by professionals in health, social care, education and justice systems.

The area of sexuality for people with learning disability is a much neglected area of research. It is possible that this may be influenced by the attitudes that professionals have towards the sexuality of the people they work with. In order to discuss this issue the literature review in chapter one provides an overview of the studies carried out over the past twenty years concerning staff attitudes towards the sexuality of people with learning disabilities. This discussion will be set within the context of the principles outlined in the Government White Paper. Current research examining the behaviour of men who have a learning disability and sexually offend has been completed without the use of control groups, thus making it difficult to assess whether there are any differences between men who sexually offend and those who do not. Although the current literature identifies some of the characteristics that may contribute towards the risk of offending, it does not present any information regarding models of offending for people who have a learning disability. The research in Chapter two explores the attitudes of men, both offenders and non-offenders with learning disabilities, towards sex and sexuality their experiences. Semi-structured interviews were carried out and analysed using grounded theory methodology and theoretical models developed. Methodological limitations, clinical implications and future research were also considered. Chapter three demonstrates some of the researcher's reflections on research with sex offenders. These include the methodological choice of grounded theory and its' appropriateness when used with people who have a learning disability, the impact of the researcher's gender on the interview process and some of the issues that being pregnant during the interviews posed. Finally, supervision and its' significance in terms of the subjectivity and bias of data interpretation is discussed.

My understanding of 'race' and racism in Britain is that it is discussed variously. Sometimes it steals the headlines as when Stephen Lawrence was murdered (Macpherson 1999). Yet at other times there is a preference not to mention the subject at all. Public discourse on 'race' and racism can be reticent. Why is this? Is 'race' a difficult subject of conversation? The first chapter of this thesis examines the roots of 'race'. In Chapter Two the silence and silencing at a public level but also in everyday interaction becomes the focus. Difficult conversations are considered. The dynamic of reticence and fluency in the discourse of 'race' is explored and conceptualised with reference to the limited material in the literature on the silence and silencing of 'race' discourse. This raises the question as to who is responsible for silence; and, whose interests, if any, might be served. Chapter Three presents a real world enquiry - the Swapping Cultures Initiative in Coventry and Warwickshire; involving over 1,000 children and young people that took place mainly between 2002 and 2004. It reveals that a significant proportion of participants (3 8.1 %) experienced bullying, racism, or being picked on, based on their cultural background, and that these issues are difficult matters for conversation (38%). What is revealed is both the complexity of the participants' identities and the subtle and sophisticated ways in which their cultural backgrounds are managed through conversation. What then does silence mean when the subject is 'race'? Certainly it is nuanced and complex. Chapter Four provides a series of concluding reflections on 'race' and silence, identifying the major factors when seeking to understand and address 'race' issues in their local context. It places centrally the 'discourse of reticence' as a significant, hitherto underestimated, element when considering the prevailing and pervading presence of 'race' and racism.

The first “citizenship school” (a literacy class that taught adults to read and write in order that they could register to vote) was established by Highlander Folk School of Monteagle, Tennessee on Johns Island, South Carolina in 1957. Within three years, the schools were extended across the neighboring Sea Islands, to mainland Charleston and to Savannah, Georgia. In 1961, after Highlander faced legal challenges to its future, it transferred the schools to the fledgling Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), who extended the program across the South. Historians have made far-reaching claims for the successes and benefits of the schools. For example, they claim that they recruited inexperienced but committed people and raised them to the status of community leaders; that they encouraged civic cooperation and political activism and formed the “foundation on which the civil rights movement” was built and they argue that the schools were an unprecedented opportunity for women to develop as activists and as leaders. Yet, they base these claims on certain myths about the schools: that the first teacher Bernice Robinson was an inexperienced and uneducated teacher, that her class was a blueprint for similar ones and that Highlander bequeathed its educational philosophy to the SCLC program. They make claims about female participation without analyzing the gender composition of classes. This dissertation challenges these assumptions by comparing and contrasting programs established in Lowcountry South Carolina and in Savannah. It argues that not only was Robinson more skilled and better educated than historians have assumed, but that she was not typical of early teachers. On the Sea Islands, teachers tended to be established community leaders, such as ministers. In Savannah, they were young college students involved in direct action spaces. It analyzes the gender composition of classes, the gendered nature of the spaces in which classes were taught, and the different models of black masculinity (based on class, location and generational identity) that the schools emulated. It argues that while Robinson may have been influenced by Highlander philosophy, the educational materials used in classes indicate that the schools drew more on Septima Clark’s experience of African American educational history than on Highlander’s ethos of education for social change. Local variations, including gender, class, location and age, also shaped teaching curricula. Finally, it examines the reasons for the schools’ failure in the mid to late 1960s. Far from fading away because they became superfluous after the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the schools failed both because of factors at the administrative level (disorganization, mismanagement and gender conflict) and at the local (conflict between generations and local groups.)

This thesis examines the experience of a group of mature women students before, during and after their period of study in higher education. Specific research areas of investigation focus on their existing skills, and the value they give to these skills, and those they develop over their time of study. The context for the study is provided by an examination of the historical development of girls’ and women’s education, looking specifically at its gendered nature. Similarly, the development of universities is examined, in particular, debates on what universities are for, and how they are increasingly linked to providing an educated and skilled workforce rather than being autonomous institutions of education. The research is situated in a period of keen interest in skills development, when many universities were considering their development in some form or other. This sets the context for the women participants in this study in schools that were piloting key skills in different ways. This is explored in relation to their experience of this burgeoning interest in skills. The research approach used was chosen to enhance understanding of the issues that affect mature women students returning to learning. It draws heavily on feminist methodology and is also influenced by the work of Michel Foucault and Paolo Freire. These theorists are used to shed light on how issues of power are endemic within the society in which this research takes place. The feminist methodology employed has allowed me to become part of the research, and to reflect upon my own experiences as a mature student in higher education as well as those of the other participants. The research analysis is based heavily upon multiple semi-structured interviews conducted with each of the women. The analysis reveals how the women feel their skills are valued both by themselves and by the institute of higher education where they studied and by wider society. Whilst the women feel that they have considerable skills as mature women, the discussion reveals a number of interesting factors regarding which skills the women expect to be valued in the wider world compared to the skills they value in themselves.

This thesis presents a model for analysing the graphic object as urban object, by considering atypical fields of discourse that contribute to the formation of the object domain. The question: what is graphic design as urban design? directs the research through an epistemological design study comprising: an interrogation of graphic design studio practice and the articulation of graphic design research questions; a review and subsequent development of research strategy, design and method towards the articulation of methodology that reflects the nature of the inquiry; a detailed analysis of five different ways to study and research graphic design as urban design, in geography, language, visual communication, art and design, and urban design. The outcome of the investigation is a model that enables future research in the urban environment to benefit from micro-meso-macrographic analysis. The model endeavours to provide a way to evaluate, design and enhance ‘public places and urban spaces’ by considering different scales of symbolic thought and deed. This has been achieved by acknowledging the relationship between the relatively miniscule detail of graphic symbolism, the point at which this becomes visible through increased scale, and the instances when it dominates the urban realm. Examples are considered that show differences between, for example, the size and spacing of letter shapes on a pedestrian sign, compared to the ‘visual’ impact of an iconic building in the cityscape. In between is a myriad of graphic elements that are experienced and designed by many different professional disciplines and occupations. These are evidenced and explained. Throughout the study an indiscriminating literature review is interwoven with the text, accompanied by tabular information, and visual data in the form of photographs and diagrams. This is mainly research-driven data utilising photographs from fieldwork in Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy, Portugal, South Korea, United Kingdom, and United States of America. The methodology integrates a transdisciplinary adaptive theory approach derived from sociological research, with graphic method (utilising a wider scope of visual data usually associated with graph theory). The following images provide sixteen examples of artefacts representing the graphic object as urban object phenomenon.