This feminist study of younger and older mothers in the UK analyses the way both groups present and practice moral selves in the context of dominant discourses of good motherhood. Qualitative data were generated during a year of fieldwork, involving repeated in-depth interviews, focus groups and participant observation, with mothers who had their first child when particularly younger or older than average. This methodology allowed me to investigate how the mothers present their moral selves through personal accounts and good mothering practices, as well as how they negotiate discourses of a ‘right’ time for motherhood. The overall contribution of the thesis lies in developing a feminist critique of intensive mothering which also recognizes the significance of mothering as a key site for the construction of gendered and classed moral selves. My thesis demonstrates that the categories of age, social class and gender intersect to powerfully shape mothers’ constructions and performances of their moral maternal selves. For example, I argue that the normalization of the child-focused mother gives the older mothers, all middle-class, greater scope to achieve moral superiority than the younger mothers, almost all working-class. Indeed, throughout the thesis my analysis points to the ways in which mothers engage in practices of ‘othering’ to claim good motherhood. The thesis also develops a multi-dimensional conceptualization of time, which allows me to convey the complex connections between biological, social, biographical and generational times in mothers’ accounts. I conclude by suggesting that the moral script of ‘child’s needs first’ needs to be contested for new alternative meanings of good mothering to emerge which go beyond the autonomy-dependency model.

This thesis is about the meanings that children aged 8-10 years old attribute to family and close relationships. The thesis focuses on how children’s normative expectations about family relate to their lived experiences of family life and relationships. It is based on data from a school-based field study, combining participant observation, interviews, children’s drawings, visits to children’s family homes, and the children’s production of books about their families. The research took place over nineteen months. Its contribution to knowledge lies in a new theoretical framework, combining insights from family and childhood sociology, for the purpose of examining children’s constitution of family. The thesis demonstrates that children conceive of family as a meaningful and highly valued set of relationships, challenging the notion that the concept of ‘family’ has lost its sociological and analytical significance. This thesis illustrates that children consider the family as those people with whom they feel a sense of belonging; a feeling that was achieved across a range of family forms. This conceptualisation of belonging departs from traditional conceptualisations in encompassing face-to-face contact as an important element of belonging to a family. The thesis concludes that an emphasis on children feeling part of a family is more productive than the present policy focus on maintaining nuclear family forms. Particular attention is given to how children identify visible forms of relatedness, through surname, cohabitation and through family members ‘displaying’ family-like relationships and family photographs.

This thesis offers insight into the lives and lived (sporting) experiences of 20 British born Muslim women of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage. [In the interests of anonymity, pseudonyms have been used throughout this thesis.] They comprise working professionals and students who live in the urban diaspora community of Stratley, UK, and have been playing basketball in their local community since April 2007. Adopting a post-colonial feminist philosophical consciousness, this qualitative ethnographic study centralises the voices of subjects who are both pathologised in media-hyped discourses pertaining to the ‘Islamic peril’, and truncated by the affront of fundamentalist Islam. It does this by addressing four inter-related research questions. The first asks how membership of urban diasporic communities contributes to British Muslim women’s self-identifications and whether living in such spaces shapes the nature and context of women’s (social) lives and their entry to sport. The second question explores the extents to which British Muslim women are able to activate a ‘politics of difference’ to (re)-negotiate their access to sport. The third question centralises the complex identity politics of being ‘British Muslims’ and assesses, in particular, whether my respondents’ sporting ambitions have any impact on their identity work as ‘British born’ Muslim women who are of a migrant heritage. The fourth question also addresses British Muslim women’s sense of self, but investigates, in particular, whether playing basketball has any impact on the ‘self/bodywork’ of single, heterosexual ‘British-born’ Muslim women of a migrant heritage. Drawing upon critical literatures rooted in post-colonial, Asian and Islamic feminism the study contextualises the conditions of post-colonialism for Muslim individuals in Britain, especially Muslim women. It also focuses upon debates pertaining to Muslim women and sport. By privileging marginal epistemologies that have often been silenced or distorted through essentialist, uncritical and simplistic understandings of ‘Muslim women’, findings advance arguments about the lives, lifestyles and identities of subjects whose social, gendered, cultural and religious authenticities beneath the (body) veil evoke both sensitive questions and global concerns (especially in the aftermath of 9/11). The overall discussion brings into sharp focus the collective and subjective struggles of respondents in terms of their identity re/construction. I allude to the agentic capacity which my respondents had to re-constitute and re-negotiate aspects of their day-to-day lives, their engagement with sport, their identities and their bodies. I exemplify the myriad ways and extents to which my participants struggle against multiple material constraints that impose a particular ‘identity’ upon Muslim women and enforce a way of life upon them that restricts their access to sports. The thesis concludes that those frequently depicted as being oppressed and voiceless do indeed have the power to relationally make, unmake and/or remake their selfhoods.

There has been considerable interest and sometimes concern for teenage parents. This interest has developed for two reasons, firstly, it has been viewed that teenage parents are inappropriately young to have children, and secondly, it has popularly been thought that the number of female teenagers becoming pregnant and subsequently giving birth to children has dramatically increased over the last twenty years. Much of this attention has focused on the young mother, because she has been thought to shoulder the major responsibility for looking after the child. This is not untypical of research on parenting which has adopted a mother biased approach, although there has been a more recent interest in the fathers. The object of this study was to examine the experiences of one hundred young fathers, aged seventeen to twenty two, who were regularly involved with their infant. The fathers were interviewed at home and data was collected on all aspects of their family participation. Younger fathers appeared to be an extremely disadvantaged group, many had few or no formal qualifications and during a period of high general unemployment a disproportionate number of the sample were unemployed. The financial responsibilities of fatherhood placed added burdens on this group and restricted many of the opportunities that should have been available to men of this age. Contrary to popular opinion the young fathers interviewed often had long standing relationships with the mother and were highly psychologically involved with their children; although they were not always highly participant in child care activities. As with research on older fathers, younger fathers were shown not to take on the major responsibilities of caring for children, even though some (those who were unemployed) had a greater opportunity to do so. They reported being interested and involved at every stage of the child's life, even during the periods when circumstances made it more difficult for them to be highly participant; the nature of this involvement changed as the needs of the mother and the child altered. However because of their age, and as a consequence their lack of preparation, many young fathers and mothers had to negotiate a turbulent period which was sometimes very stressful. This study suggests that although being young in itself does not necessarily cause younger parents to be qualitatively different from older parents, it does indicate that they face more problems which because of their age they may be more vulnerable to.

This study explores the impact of a Confucian Welfare Regime upon lone mothers in Taiwan, where the family is promoted as the major welfare provider for individuals. Since the 1980s, politicians and welfare scholars --whether New Right or Third-Way-- in the West, particularly in the UK, have been very keen to draw lessons from the Confucian Welfare Model in East Asia. The characteristics of this welfare regime are categorised as "conservative corporatism without Western-style worker participation, solidarity without equality, laissez-faire without libertarianism, far too much social control but too little citizenship, far too little state intervention in welfare provision but too much familial welfare responsibilities"(e. g., Jones 1993). The Confucian Welfare State is in fact much deeply familialised, and the family is "the super-major welfare provider" compared to Western welfare states. This thesis will examine the Confucian Welfare Regime from the point of views of gender, and will argue that its distinctive fractures cannot be understood within existing Western comparative typologies and have not been adequately analysed in East Asian studies. How do lone mothers meet their needs within this deeply familialised welfare regime in comparison with lone fathers? In search of an answer, a qualitative approach, a feminist perspective and an East Asian standpoint were employed to conduct this study in the form of semi-structured interviews in the Taiwanese Confucian social context. The participants included 30 lone mothers and 10 lone fathers with unmarried dependent children undertaking full-time education. The situation of lone parents in combining unpaid care work: and paid work makes them a strong case for understanding the gendering of welfare regimes in the West and in East Asia. Thus the Mother-Worker-Family-Outsider Welfare Regime is created on the basis of women's' status as lifetime family outsiders in the Taiwanese social context. An understanding of this specific Confucian cultural arena is essential if we are to appreciate the situation of lone mothers-and its difference from that of lone fathers-in Taiwan. The main findings of this study confirm that the deeply familialised welfare provision affects women and men differently under the Generation-Age-Gender hierarchy of the Confucian family. The family, as the main welfare provider, is more likely to be effective for lone fathers, who are provided with more accessible childcare, childrearing, housework services, housing, financial investment and resources. They also benefit more from this familial provision to support their continuous employment experience, better career prospects and better entitlement to employment protection. But, in contrast, for the lone mothers in this study, the Confucian family is more likely to be the centre of care responsibilities for young and old, the heart of endless unpaid housework, the battlefield of domestic confrontations and sexual harassment, and the alter of sacrifice of individual well-being. The failure of the family in welfare provision also worsens the situation of lone mothers in- the labour market in terms of interrupted career, -low, wages, lower position in 'occupational hierarchy, more dead-end jobs, and more part-time work, and no or less employment protection. As a consequence of these inequalities the solutions for lone mothers are very different from those for lone fathers in this study. Thus, lone father see the reconstitution of the family via remarriage as their best solution. The retreat from marriage and the family is preferred by most lone mothers, who maintain their current status permanently. And the strategies of improving their human capital via more advanced education, establishing self-employed small business and undertaking extra part-time jobs with full-time work are adopted in order to combine mothering and rice-winning. These disadvantages experienced by lone mothers, seldom by lone fathers, have to be taken seriously into account in response to lone mothers' hopes of being equal and permanent lone parents, fully protected workers and full individual citizens. Therefore, the Mother-Worker-Family-Outsider Welfare Model needs to be transformed into the Parent-Worker-Full-Individual-Citizen Welfare Model based on the notion of "full individual citizens as parents and workers" instead of "family outsiders as selectively protected workers and non-recognised parents", by shifting welfare responsibilities from the family and the market onto the State.

This study focuses on three major pressure groups involved in the abortion campaign, namely, the two anti-abortion organisations 'Life' and the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, and the National Abortion Campaign, a grassroots organisation which supports the campaign for 'A Woman's Right to Choose'. Participants in moral reform campaigns have been described as status discontents motivated by a desire to enhance or protect a declining status position (Gusfield, 1963; Zurcher and Kirkpatrick, 1976). Gusfield's original theory of moral reform as a mode of status politics contains four main theoretical issues which are outlined and discussed under the following headings: cultural fundamentalism, orientation to reform, expressive politics and status defence. These issues are examined within the context of the anti-abortion campaign. From an examination of pressure group literature, a study of campaign rhetoric and an analysis of questionnaire and interview data obtained from sixty-four active anti-abortion campaigners a number of conclusions are drawn. Firstly, cultural fundamentalism is identified as a feature in the anti-abortionist perspective. Secondly, assimilative and coercive reform strategies are evident in both the campaign literature and the individual accounts of campaign participants. Thirdly, the data do not support the notion of symbolic crusades as a form of expressive politics, indeed campaigners can be seen to be instrumentally oriented. Finally, although status inconsistency is observed this is not a source of moral indignation. This supports the view that moral indignation can be a rational response to the violation of deeply cherished values (Wallis, 1977). Cultural defence rather than status defence is identified as the force behind individual mobilisation. This finding confirms recent research on moral crusades (Bland and Wallis, 1977; Leahy, 1982 and Wood and Hughes, 1984). The influence of the women's movement in the campaign to defend the 1967 Abortion Act is assessed and the feminist interpretation of abortion as a critical indicator of women's status in society is discussed. Data are presented from a study of forty-two pro-abortion supporters.

The purpose of the current thesis is to study various aspects of women’s mobility in the so-called Hellenistic period. It will attempt to provide answers to the questions ‘why did women travel,’ ‘how common was it for women to travel,’ and most importantly, ‘did women take part in the Hellenistic colonisation processes.’ The importance of women’s mobility for the Greek societies as a whole will also be evaluated. To study the mobility of Hellenistic women we shall use a wide variety of literary sources, inscriptions and papyri. The direct sources will be supplemented with some indirect evidence and a few theoretical models. For example, it will be argued that the number of mixed marriages in the new Greek colonies and kingdoms reflects the number of women immigrants. In chapter one, it will be argued that Greek exiles habitually, although not universally, took their wives and families abroad with them. In Chapter two, an argument will be put forward that many Hellenistic mercenaries travelled together with their families. Moreover, it will be suggested that the growing number of female camp followers was one of the things that aided the successful colonisation processes of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies. In chapter three, we draw attention to the many professional, artistic, and athletic women who moved temporarily or permanently because of work. Chapter four on religion and female mobility is primarily concerned with female pilgrims, but it will also be claimed there that because of religion Greek women had to be ‘imported’ to the new Greek settlements in the East. In the fifth and final chapter, it will be argued that many more Greek women took part in the colonisation processes of the era than has previously been acknowledged.

This study explores the ways in which the Western concept of child abuse is understood by parents and professionals in Korea and how it is applied to Korean society. In order to address this, attention will be focused on parents' and relevant professionals' attitudes and perceptions in relation to child rearing, along with their responses to the problem of child abuse. Qualitative methodologies were used; semi-structured in-depth interviews with 50 participants. The findings suggest that Korean society may be operating on assumptions about child rearing and family life which differ markedly from those in the West. In particular many Korean parents and some of the relevant professionals did not define or understand `child abuse' as their equivalents in the West. Power relationships and familial collectivism seemed to be interwined in creating situations which Western commentators would see as abusive to children. There was recognition that maltreatment existed and needed to be policed but this had not been internalised by all strata of society. Therefore, there was a deep uncertainty and ambivalence towards the concept of child abuse and good child rearing and its implication for child development. Notably, there was a sense of ambivalence about the appropriateness of using physical chastisement. In spite of the majority saying that it was not right, it was still viewed as a permissible or even necessary form of discipline. This suggests that both parents and professionals face considerable confusion and doubt as to whether certain parenting behaviour is abusive. This study concludes that there is a need for a meaningful national consensus as to the best ways of translating legislation into reality. The acceptance of a degree of intervention in family life by the state, programmes of education about child development and what children need to develop healthily, raising awareness of how children are harmed, and the legitimacy of corporal punishment should be addressed through national debate. The main aim has to be to promote the safety and welfare of children. The first essential is to put consideration of the needs and rights of children at the centre of policy and the development of policy and practice should be shaped by this.

In January of 2001 the Government announced its intention to repeal Part 11 of the Family Law Act 1996. Originally scheduled for implementation in 2000, the Act had provided for fundamental changes to English divorce law, including removing matrimonial 'fault' from the divorce process, and encouraging mediation as the preferred method of dispute resolution. The Family Law Act began life as a set of recommendations intended primarily to bring marriages to an end with minimum hostility and distress. Yet what emerged from the policy 'process' was a piece of legislation that explicitly declared its support for marriage, and which imposed a framework of mechanisms designed to encourage couples to stay together. The first 'phase' of this thesis examines how the Act, with its dual aims of supporting and ending marriage, was reached. Initially the history of divorce law is traced. Through a series of interviews conducted with individuals involved in the Family Law Act 'process', the achievement of this 'middle-way' is then explored in detail. The second 'phase', drawing on a series of interviews conducted with individuals working with families on the ground, subsequently goes on to examine the 'street-level' response to marriage and relationship breakdown. Whilst national policy is something of a compromise between idealism and pragmatism, for those at street-level their work is unambiguously pragmatic - policy is constructed primarily in terms of a non-judgemental 'service' catering to the diversity of the modern family experience. The apparent success of this approach, particularly when compared to the 'failure' of the Family Law Act, prompts the question of whether there are lessons to be learnt for national policy. Indeed the study suggests that a new mind-set and approach akin to that operating on the ground is also needed at national level, if workable divorce law reform is to be achieved.

This study is based on joint and separate in-depth interviews with twenty (female) same sex couples who planned and had their children together in the context of their relationship. These families are one example of the increasing possibilities to live in non-traditional relationships and family forms, in contemporary Western societies. While lesbian and gay parents have a long history, there is little precedence for same sex couples setting up families 'from scratch' i.e. choosing to have children in the context of their relationship. These possibilities can be placed in the context of wider transformations of intimacy. There is widespread agreement that individualism in personal relationships has substantially increased, although opinions differ about the extent to which this individualism is essentially selfish. Lesbian parents, for example, have been portrayed as selfish individuals (Phillips, 1998) or alternatively as 'prime everyday experimenters' (Giddens, 1992), although the reality may be more nuanced than either of these polarities suggests. Overall, recent sociological research into both heterosexual and 'non-heterosexual' family lives suggests that transformations of intimacy are characterised by negotiated commitments and moral reasoning. However, to date, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which these themes may be modified by the presence of dependent children, particularly given the socially constructed nature of children's needs. Respondents in my study are involved in both innovative family practices and the care of dependent children. As such, they can offer new insights to the above debates. They present a radical departure from dominant conventions of heterosexual gendered family norms and the biological imperatives of reproduction. However, while working out new ways of doing family, these practices are located within deeply conventional moralities of motherhood, which leave little space within which to offer up new stories of doing family.