Neoliberal ideology frames the discourse of the current political rhetoric of education as an economic investment in the preparation of students to compete in a global economy. These discourses that emanate from policymakers shape the construct of schooling and control the trajectory of education in the US. As education policy becomes centralized, accountability systems are assumed to be the driver of positive educational outcomes and higher student achievement; however, the impact of these systems of accountability shape teaching practice and may be pushing students with disabilities out of the competition and violating their right to access and participate in general education. This study examined the outcomes of current educational policy on daily teaching practice and its impact on inclusive practice. In addition, it examined teachers' self-regulation as a means to adapt and remain in a regulated environment. The perspectives of beginning and experienced teachers from an urban and a rural area were analyzed through semi- structured interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis.

Educational disparities in China are rooted in the country’s longstanding rural-urban divide, which the hukou system has institutionalized. However, following a comprehensive reform of the hukou system (2014-2020) disparities in access to education remain ubiquitous. This raises questions regarding the reform itself, in terms of its agenda and effectiveness, as well as regarding the real driving factors of educational disparities in urban China. It is a complex issue that requires a multidimensional analysis, which shall consider both the hukou and other exclusionary factors as potential causes. These include mechanisms inherent to China’s education system, culture, and historical dynamics of social stratification. Making an in-depth review of the literature through institutionalism lenses, this research takes shape in the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of equality of opportunity and social mobility. Supported by empirical indicators and qualitative data, it provides an in-depth and timely understanding of the hukou and underlying factors of educational exclusion that undermine equality of opportunity and hinder upward social mobility among migrant children. This research finds that hukou status is still the biggest determinant of people’s equality of opportunities and social mobility in China and argues that the reform had the potential to make a positive difference. Thereby, this research's main explanation for the resilience of educational disparities in this context is that the 2014 hukou reform’s core intent was to modify migrant spatial distribution in favour of small and midsize cities, as opposed to their current concentration in megacities, and, in doing so, policymakers overlooked many challenges and barriers associated to migrating to lower tier cities and undervalued the importance of education for migrants. This research thus concludes that, rather than a definite lack of political will for solving educational disparities, the reform fell short on schooling issues because economic ambitions have taken precedence over social development and equal access to welfare, including education, among all Chinese citizens.

This research highlights the different coping strategies used by African immigrant parents to surmount social exclusion and marginalization from a professional's point of view. On this note, the authors' objective of this study is to identify the different coping strategies used by African immigrant parents in the face of exclusion and marginalization in Sweden. The study also has an objective to examine the measures taken by professionals in helping immigrant parents to cope with social exclusion and marginalization in Sweden. Following this trend, the study is conducted using a qualitative research approach. An interview guide was drafted, and four professionals who deal with African immigrant parents were interviewed. The authors used social exclusion theory to explain the phenomenon in the study. Finally, the findings from the study reveal that most African immigrant parents face the same problem of the language barrier, which makes them prone to social exclusion. The four professionals interviewed, however, believe that these African immigrant parents have developed coping strategies innately, from good counsel, by creating networks and carving a niche in the labor market whether skilled or not. This makes them better integrated into the Swedish system.

This thesis explores the ideological role of metaphor in British governmental discourses on ¿social exclusion¿. A hybrid methodology, combining approaches from Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis and cognitive theories of metaphor, is used to address how social exclusion and other metaphors are deployed to create an ideologically vested representation of society. The data consists of linguistic metaphors identified from a 400,000+ word machine-readable corpus of British governmental texts on social exclusion covering a ten year period (1997- 2007). From these surface level features of text, underlying systematic and conceptual metaphors are then inferred. The analysis reveals how the interrelation between social exclusion and a range of other metaphors creates a dichotomous representation of society in which social problems are discursively placed outside society, glossing inequalities within the included mainstream and placing the blame for exclusion on the cultural deficiencies of the excluded. The solution to the problem of exclusion is implicit within the logic of its conceptual structure and involves moving the excluded across the ¿boundary¿ to join the ¿insiders¿. The welfare state has a key role to play in this and is underpinned by a range of metaphors which anticipate movement on the part of the excluded away from a position of dependence on the state. This expectation of movement is itself metaphorically structured by the notion of a social contract in which the socially excluded have a responsibility to try and include themselves in society in return for the right of (temporary) state support. Key systematic metaphors are explained by reference to a discourse-historical view of ideological change in processes of political party transformation. / BISA and CSV

Despite its imprecision, social capital is a powerful tool for examining how and why particular forms of social interaction lead to the health and well-being of communities, organisations, and even businesses. Community cohesion as a policy prescription emerged in the UK, following the social disturbances in certain northern cities and towns in the summer of 2001. The official reports into these disturbances identified lack of social interaction between different ethnic groups as a principal cause. Furthermore, social housing was seen as a key factor that could be used to prevent future disturbances. Accordingly, this research focuses on how the assets and forms of social capital act as good predictors of community cohesion, in the context of the New Labour government¿s aim to use social housing to build cohesive communities. Unless otherwise specified, references to ¿the government¿ throughout this thesis apply to the New Labour administration that came to power in the UK on 2nd May 1997 and ended with the Coalition administration led by the Conservatives on 11th May 2010. This thesis makes use of the linearity between the goals of social capital and the policy aims of community cohesion to match forms of social capital to specific forms of social interaction, in six selected social housing schemes in Bradford. Bradford was one of the cities affected by the disturbances in 2001. Analysis of the forms of social interaction in the case study housing schemes shows that bridging and linking forms of social capital, which could lead to enduring cohesive communities, were mainly latent in the schemes. This suggests that the peaceful co-existence in the case study housing schemes today is, possibly, postponed social conflict in the long term.

Embedded in debates concerning Britishness and citizenship, this thesis considers the influence of the dualistic tradition on citizenship theory and highlights the exclusionary nature of citizenship as founded in this paradigm. Working within this dualistic paradigm means that the lives and practices of being a citizen are not captured, creating an exclusionary cycle whereby the concept excludes the lives of many citizens, and many individuals are excluded from being a citizen as defined by the concept. This thesis used participatory, visual and online methods to explore belonging and exclusion with young people around England. Informed strongly by the field research, this thesis analyses citizenship as defined through dualistic and embodied paradigms and considers the potential of an embodied concept of citizenship for engaging young people.

While most Swedish citizens take advantage of the numerous benefits and conveniences today’s digitalized society offers, many senior citizens are digitally excluded. It is considered that a lack of digital technological knowledge is a big contributing factor. The lack of knowledge and experience with digital technology manifests into different types of fear, where fear of falling victim to cybercrime is the most prevalent. Phishing is a common cybercrime, which is still successfully employed by cybercriminals regardless of the various security measures and information available. Senior citizens are especially vulnerable, as phishing can be hard to recognize for less technical people. To combat this, education designed for increasing a user’s cybersecurity awareness is crucial. However, as cybersecurity can be a complex topic, there is a need for simplifying it and delivering related education in a meaningful way. This is where the method ContextBased MicroTraining (CBMT) comes in. For this thesis, a browser add-on called WebSec Coach, which utilizes the CBMT framework, is used as a tool to investigate how CBMT can support Swedish senior citizens in increasing their cybersecurity awareness regarding phishing. This was examined by conducting semi-structured interviews with eight respondents, from the age of 65 and up, that possessed some level of previous computer literacy. The results were then analyzed using thematic analysis, which showed that CBMT implemented in an embedded learning tool, like WebSec Coach, increased the cybersecurity awareness regarding phishing for all respondents. Regardless of the small sample size, the results in combination with previous research point to CBMT being a directly effective method in increasing cybersecurity awareness. Furthermore, the results showed that all respondents perceived WebSec Coach positively and were interested in using it themselves after the interviews. This indicates a potential acceptance amongst senior citizens, provided that the application reaches that target group.

This thesis aims to analyse how poverty and social exclusion are visually represented through photographic images in the Greek mainstream media, following relevant articles in 2022. It contributes to the discourse on poverty using visual research methodologies, examining media-generated visuals that accompany articles on the same topic, addressing a gap in similar work within Greek media. Additionally, it seeks to offer insights into the professional use of these visuals. The interpretivist visual analysis is conducted under the ontological assumption of a realist and constructivist epistemological assumption. The analysis reveals that the visual lexicon of poverty in Greek mainstream news outlets in 2022 lacks variation and sustains stereotypical representations, with a focus on energy poverty and housing for which visuals are often inanimate. People are present in less than 50% of the visuals, and among them, figures of authority predominate, while in the rest they do not make direct eye contact with the viewer. Visuals involving refugees are staged by the producer, while stereotypical representations of poverty can be found in the one third of the sample and involve refugees in the most part. This research adopts a qualitative and inductive approach to describe, understand, and interpret the phenomenon. By examining the visual strategies employed by mainstream media outlets to represent poverty, the study aims to contribute to a better understanding of how these topics are constructed and portrayed in the Greek media. The findings hold significance for media practitioners, policymakers, and scholars interested in comprehending the role of media in shaping public perceptions of poverty. / Η μελέτη αυτή έχει ως στόχο να αναλύσει πώς η φτώχεια και ο κοινωνικός αποκλειστισμός αναπαρίστανται οπτικά μέσω φωτογραφικών εικόνων στα κυριότερα ΜΜΕ της Ελλάδας, ακολουθώντας σχετικά άρθρα του 2022. Συμβάλλει στο διάλογο για τη φτώχεια χρησιμοποιώντας μεθοδολογίες οπτικής έρευνας, εξετάζοντας τις οπτικές που παράγονται από τα μέσα που συνοδεύουν άρθρα με το ίδιο θέμα και αντιμετωπίζοντας ένα κενό σε παρόμοιες εργασίες όσον αφορά τα ελληνικά μέσα ενημέρωσης. Επιπλέον, επιδιώκει να ερευνήσει βαθύτερα την επαγγελματική χρήση αυτού του υλικού. Η ερμηνευτική οπτική ανάλυση διεξάγεται υπό την οντολογική υπόθεση μιας ρεαλιστικής και κονστρουκτιβιστικής επιστημολογικής υπόθεσης. Η ανάλυση αποκαλύπτει ότι το οπτικό λεξιλόγιο της φτώχειας στα κυριότερα ελληνικά ειδησεογραφικά μέσα το 2022 δεν διαθέτει ποικιλία και διατηρεί στερεότυπες αναπαραστάσεις, με έμφαση στην ενεργειακή φτώχεια και τη στέγαση, για τις οποίες οι φωτογραφίες συχνά είναι άψυχες. Οι άνθρωποι παρίστανται σε λιγότερο από 50% του υλικού, και μεταξύ αυτών, επικρατούν πρόσωπα εξουσίας, ενώ στις υπόλοιπες δεν έχουν άμεση επαφή με τον θεατή. Οι φωτογραφίες που αφορούν πρόσφυγες είναι σκηνοθετημένες από το δημιουργό τους, ενώ στο ένα τρίτο του δείγματος βρίσκονται στερεότυπες αναπαραστάσεις της φτώχειας που αφορούν κυρίως πρόσφυγες. Αυτή η έρευνα υιοθετεί μια ποιοτική και επαγωγική προσέγγιση για να περιγράψει, να κατανοήσει και να ερμηνεύσει το φαινόμενο. Εξετάζοντας τις οπτικές στρατηγικές που χρησιμοποιούν τα κυριότερα μέσα ενημέρωσης για να αναπαραστήσουν τη φτώχεια, η μελέτη αποσκοπεί στο να συμβάλει στην καλύτερη κατανόηση του τρόπου με τον οποίο αυτά τα θέματα κατασκευάζονται και απεικονίζονται στα ελληνικά μέσα ενημέρωσης. Τα ευρήματα είναι σημαντικά για τους επαγγελματίες των μέσων ενημέρωσης, τους πολιτικούς και τους ερευνητές που ενδιαφέρονται να κατανοήσουν το ρόλο των μέσων στη διαμόρφωση της κοινής γνώμης για τη φτώχεια.

España y Grecia, dos países económica y administrativamente diferentes, teniendo cada uno de ellos que hacer frente por un lado al creciente fenómeno de la fuga de cerebros y por otro a la incesante demanda de mano de obra internacional, principalmente cualificada según el tipo de prioridades productivas que cada uno se ha fijado para su respectivo interés, se examina a través de un análisis completo y exhaustivo de los distintos factores económicos en los que se basa cada país, para obtener una ventaja competitiva sobre el resto, ya sea sobre sus respectivos homólogos europeos o incluso sobre la competitividad internacional a la que se enfrenta la UE. El capital humano que ofrecen los migrantes a los países de destino y la falta de competitividad de los países de origen, también se examina a través de paradigmas y gráficos para ambos Estados. En conclusión, la creación de una legislación más social, junto con la estricta económica que propuso el intento fallido de implementar una constitución europea, a través de reconocidas instituciones de la UE, es una de gran importancia para el logro de un marco social atractivo para ambos, nacionales y la población acogedora.

This case study examines the manifestations and role of exclusionary architecture in Kungsträdgården park and its relation to marginalised groups and undesirable behaviours. Utilising the methods of non-participatory observations in Kungsträdgården and a qualitative content analysis of documents relevant to the thesis aims, the thesis has answered its two research questions. The thesis show that exclusionary architecture is a complex phenomenon in which groups in a space can be simultaneously included and excluded based on the local context of social relations, materialities and actors. The analysis of exclusionary architecture in Kungsträdgården reveal how actors have different rationales and methods and that not all exclusionary architecture is intentionally targeting marginalised groups. In conclusion, the thesis proposes viewing inclusion and exclusion in a continuum rather than as dichotomous and proposes more research in order to further the knowledge available for decision-makers in creating more inclusive cities.