This is a study of the social and legal consequences of family breakdown in Nigeria as a whole but with specific reference to Borno State. It examines the effects of family breakdown on the husband and wife or wives and their children under the General Laws, Customary Law and Islamic Law of the people of Maidugurij Biu, and Gwoza areas of Borno State. The study covers the post-Independence period-i. e from 1960 to today. The aim of the study is to show how the social and economic changes in society affect the family at divorce. Although social change is part of any society, this study shows that the formal law on family breakdown and its consequences have not kept pace with social change, and that the dichotomy between state law and customary or Islamic law on family breakdown exists only in court. Thus the authority of the extended family, and within it, the dominance of men over womens, has not been specifically disturbed by the increasing Westernisation and rural-urban migration that has taken place since Independence. It is under this situation that the rights of women, property settlement on divorce, maintenances, and custody of children, as the main indicators of the consequences of family breakdown in any society has to be gauged. The role of the law and the state is also discussed. We argue that all the post-Colonial governments in the Federation were responsible for the present deplorable condition of victims of family breakdown not only in Borno State but throughout the country. Thus there has been no state-provided Social welfare to cater for deserted wivest children, and destitutes despite the ever increasing needs of such persons in a society that is rapidly changing. It is within this context that the effect of family breakdown on the people of Borno State is examined. The study argues that the various state authorities in Nigeria tend to abandon their responsibility to the family to the traditional customary institutions, such as the extended familyf which are now incapable of meeting the needs of victims of family breakdown. Moreoveri, the traditional family based economic system does not help women on divorce because it is predicated on the traditional power structure within the home which is in favour of men. on divorce, women are invariably left high and dry# and with few alternatives than to return home to their parents or other extended family members for support.

This thesis takes a grounded theory approach to researching the lives of 15 couples from the East London borough of Barking and Dagenham: new migrants and UK-born second generation couples, all of whom had recently become parents. The couples were interviewed between 3 − 12 months postpartum, and the interviews transcribed and coded. Themes surrounding the parents’ experiences of childbirth were explored, as were their feelings about their place in the local community, issues of social cohesion and personal identity. As the data were being transcribed, theoretical concepts then began to emerge: a loss of personal control within the health care system; the use of the internet as a resource for new families and also to create family cohesion across continents; becoming a new family and the responsibility which that entailed; geographical transitions; isolation; issues of social cohesion and multiculturalism; and concepts of place, home and personal identity. Findings were viewed through a Ecological Systems theoretical framework (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The study is relevant to providers of community and health care services, local authority and national policy makers who have a responsibility for developing such services and regenerating post-industrial areas.

Under a socio-cultural backdrop where death and loss is heavily stigmatized and community resources for the dying and the bereaved are lacking, Hong Kong requires a public health approach for empowering its people to become active participants in the governance of mortality. “Health-promoting palliative care” (HPPC) translates the hospice ideals of total person care into much broader public health languages and practices, focusing not only on palliation but also prevention, harm reduction, community action, policy advocacy, and most importantly, education and research. Despite their significance, life and death education and Thanatology research has received little attention in Hong Kong. The recent General Education (GE) reform for tertiary institutions, which aims to nurture students’ creativity and civility through the liberal arts, provides a timely opportunity to actualize HPPC. The current study provides a formative account of the development and implementation of a new thanatology course, “The Last Dance: Understanding Death and Dying” offered by the University of Hong Kong, and critically examines its efficacy for reducing negative death perceptions and enhancing positive life attitudes among a group of undergraduate students. Adopting a mixed methods research design and a holistic approach to education evaluation, it utilizes: 1) a quantitative pretest-posttest survey to assess course effectiveness with the standardized tools of Death Attitude Profile-Revised, Meaning-in-Life Scale and Spirituality Scale, as well as a series of ad hoc items on traditional death taboos and death preparedness behaviors; and 2) a qualitative analysis of 100 randomly selected students’ reflective writings for identifying factors that facilitate effective learning. Results from paired-sample t-test with 85 students who have successfully completed the pretest-posttest survey provide robust evidence that The Last Dance was effective in significantly reducing students’ fear of death, death avoidance tendency, and taboo beliefs that oppress death, while promoting active participation in the governance of mortality through increased death preparedness behaviors. Moreover, The Last Dance was found to be effective in enhancing students’ sense of meaning in life, spirituality and interconnectedness. Framework analysis of Students’ reflective writing revealed 12 themes that illuminate the specific learning contents, pedagogy activities, key attitudinal and behavioral changes, as well as significant learning outcomes which supported the quantitative results. These 12 themes were organized into four categories: 1) “Mortality Matters”, which includes Consideration of Palliative Care and Euthanasia, Expression of Death via Arts and Media, and Exploration of Death Rituals and Spirituality; 2) “Teachable Moments” which includes Multi-Media Lectures, Funeral Home Visitation, and Examination of life; 3) “Shifting Perspectives”, which encompasses Cultivating Insights, Renewing Meaning, and Applying Knowledge; and 4) “Ego Awakening” which encompasses Normalization of death, Appreciation of Life, and Recognition of Common Humanity. These 4 categories and their respective 12 themes together form a “Thanatology Pathway to Transformative Growth”, highlighting the vital significance of carefully integrating stimulating learning contents with engaging pedagogical activities for developing an effective and holistic thanatology curriculum; one that focuses not only on skills and knowledge transfer, but also on cultivating life appreciation and compassionate living through an enhanced understanding of death, dying and bereavement.

Background Collaborative working between health and social care professionals in child protection work has been generally promoted in the western world as best practice (Laming 2009, HM Govt 2010). Problems in achieving effective collaborative working have beset child protection systems and have been a constant feature in a number of serious case reviews (Brandon et al 2010). Collaboration between professionals of different disciplines is complex and involves interpersonal, interprofessional and interorganisational dimensions. Aim The aim of this research project was to investigate the extent to which health and social services professionals practising within two health and local authorities perceived that a collaborative approach was adopted between the two agencies when working both with families where there were children in need of services and families where there were children in need of protection. Factors that may enhance or inhibit collaboration were explored. Method The sample used was a purposive sample, comprising social workers and health professionals working in one of two boroughs. A case study approach was adopted and data collection involved a mixed approach of both qualitative and quantitative methods. A postal survey across the two boroughs was undertaken, using a questionnaire which was distributed on two separate occasions to allow comparison of the extent to which there was effective collaboration pre and post the Laming Inquiry. The questionnaire included a series of brief vignettes and a multi staged vignette, based on real life cases which were anonymised and were developed to assess the application of thresholds across the two boroughs and across professional disciplines, and to explore collaboration throughout the safeguarding continuum. The questionnaire used a number of open, closed and scaled questions to generate both quantitative and qualitative data. The questionnaire was distributed to a total of 311 practitioners at the pre Laming stage and to a total of 300 practitioners post Laming. Results In analysing the responses from participants across health and social care, a number of important themes have emerged. The responses to the vignettes demonstrated different levels of professional participation in work both with children in need and at different stages of the process for children in need of protection. Professionals in the borough with established child in need policies valued the multi-agency approach that was adopted in work where there are children in need of services There was lack of consensus in several of the cases in terms of thresholds of concern; a range of factors that may enhance or inhibit collaboration were identified, including shared thresholds, the practice of informal joint meetings, joint assessment and joint training. The majority of respondents believed the Laming Inquiry had impacted on collaboration in both areas of practice, children in need of services and children in need of protection. Although a number of positive outcomes of the Laming Inquiry were identified, the impact in terms of work load and stress generated as a result of policy change from the Inquiry were highlighted. In analysing responses in the current study, a theme that was very evident was the extent to which the emotional impact of safeguarding work affects the ability of professionals to achieve a collaborative way of working. In reflecting on the findings of the research the following recommendations are made: Recommendations In undertaking this current research and reflecting upon the learning that has taken place, as a result of the valuable input from professionals who participated, the following recommendations are made: Recommendations at the level of practice 1. Health and social care organisations should consider the development of multi-agency practice teams to provide services for children in need. 2. Health and social care organisations should consider the development of multi-agency safeguarding supervision, based on a model that allows reflection, particularly for complex cases and includes the supportive element for practitioners. Recommendations at the level of policy 3. Health and social care organisations should undertake assessments at the time of policy change to identify the financial and human requirements to resource the change. Recommendations for future research 4. Further research is undertaken to explore in greater depth the emotional impact of safeguarding work and potential approaches to support professionals. 5. Future research is undertaken to explore the child and young person’s experience of collaborative approaches in safeguarding practice.

Combating poverty in Saudi Arabia has become an important national target; this study researches poverty in Saudi Society and in particular, female poverty, focusing on poor female-headed households (FHHs) in Jeddah City. This is an exploratory study to highlight the social reality of the FHHs and their female heads, with a focus on the details of their everyday lives and their relationships with social support institutions, namely: the Social Security Department (SSD) and the Charitable Women’s Associations. The main aim of this study is to explore the social reality of these families and how, during their struggles to obtain or maintain a standard of living, they interact with these social support institutions. The study investigated a main sample of 112 FHHs represented by their female heads who were selected purposefully according to a matrix designed to ensure adequate representation across the main sample according to marital status, age group and place of residence (south or north) in Jeddah City. They were also selected by their marital status according to five sub-groups: widows’ families, divorced women’s families, abandoned women’s families, prisoners’ wives’ families and finally married women’s families. A further sample was 18 informants (called ‘elites’) who were selected purposefully from a range of experts, officials and decision makers from different governmental and non-governmental departments to explore and interpret issues raised during the women’s interviews. The interviews with the female heads were based on questions designed to achieve four main goals: 1- to study and identify the social, cultural and demographic characteristics of poor FHHs in Jeddah City. 2- to study and present the poor FHHs’ experiences and how they interacted with their social reality. 3- to study social policies in practice and highlight the relationship between the FHHs and the social support institutions. 4- to make recommendations for formulating an effective social policy for combating poverty among women and poor FHHs in Saudi society. The data and information was collected via different methods such as interviews, document searches, observations, field notes and digital recordings. The data was organized and analysed using a thematic approach to reduce the data, present it and provide conclusive statements. The main findings are organized in chapters 5, 6 and 7 and cover the study goals. The main findings are as follows: The typical poor FHHs were mostly large families and the male head tended to be missing from family life, thus the family was headed by the female. The women had suffered divorce, widowhood, imprisonment of their husbands, abandonment, or their husbands suffered sickness, old age or unemployment. These female heads were mostly uneducated or had a low or basic level of education. The families typically had no regular earned income because the head of the family was not in employment. The majority of the FHHs were tenants and lived in small flats. A significant number of FHHs was deprived of both official support from the SSD and from the women’s associations for various reasons. Some of the women were regarded legally and socially as minority groups because of their ethnicity, family backgrounds and/or nationality. These details provided an honest and clear picture of the lives of the poor FHHs and showed the inter-penetrated realms of these families and their heads that were: 1- public realms (society, culture, state, welfare systems and social support institutions); 2- private realms (women’s worlds, specific stories and experiences that had led the women to head their families such as divorce, widowhood, abandonment or the imprisonment of the head of the family). The details of everyday life showed how the sub-categories and their female heads had a similar experience in some aspects of the public realm but they experienced quite different private realms. The study concludes with some important strategic, public and specialized recommendations aimed at improving and reforming the current welfare system and social policies and suggests integrated social policies to eradicate poverty in general and among FHHs in particular.

Focussing on Scotland, this thesis adds a new perspective to the existing discussion surrounding marriage and marriage breakdown in the late twentieth century. It is the lived reality of marriage and marriage breakdown which is a key focus, using oral history and a range of contemporary and archival source materials. Whilst a renewed discursive emphasis on the 'companionate marriage' in the immediate post-war period is evident, in line with the social reconstruction ethos of the period, there existed alongside such enthusiasm a number of alternative, and often conflicting, contemporary discourses. With significant implications for marriage and family relations, sociologists and historians identify a further profound discursive shift as occurring during the 1970s, emphasising the increased availability of contraception, the emergence of second-wave feminism in Britain and landmark equality legislation as crucial factors intertwined with this. Perceived advances in terms of both mainstream ideology and legislation, including, for example, a revived feminist consciousness and the 1976 Divorce (Scotland) Act, did not influence marriage in a discursive vacuum but instead are likely to have integrated and competed not only with generic ideals regarding appropriate gender roles but also embedded local patterns of gender relations. Oral history is a particularly appropriate methodology with which to address this topic as it permits an otherwise unattainable insight into the experience of day-to-day life. Additional source materials drawn on include parliamentary, ecclesiastical and sociological commentary.

This thesis is a critical exposition of attrition in cases involving crimes of child sexual exploitation in England. More specifically, this thesis offers an analysis of policy texts and empirical data, to interrogate the conditions of possibility for attrition in contemporary discourses on child sexual exploitation. It does so by employing a Foucauldian feminist theoretical framework and critical discourse analysis. It shows that knowledge statements within child sexual exploitation discourses around the notion of risk, about children as (un)knowing and as (a)sexual coupled with techniques of power such as the processes of assessing risk, the deployment of the rhetoric of consent and the requirement for an avowing subject, construct multiple subject positions which sexually exploited children come to occupy. It contends that specific rationalities underpinning the current forms of thinking within practitioners' discourse about the problem of attrition in child sexual exploitation cases in conjunction with the deployment within policy discourse of specific strategies for tackling crimes of child sexual exploitation, such as the disruption of perpetrators, lead to the de-prioritisation of prosecutions as a rational response to the crimes of child sexual exploitation. It stresses that children's experiences of sexual exploitation emerge into a discursive space enclosed by three axes namely: the fields of knowledge, processes of normalisation, and the modes of subject formation. It contends that these three axes enclosing the child sexual exploitation discursive space intersect at various sites within child sexual exploitation practice thereby producing the conditions in which attrition in these cases becomes possible.

This thesis is concerned with the position of women at work and in trade unions. The study focusses on a large electrical engineering company employing mainly women workers and examines how they fared in relation to the union at workplace and branch level. Developing an understanding of the problems the women workers faced through detailed study of the employer's production strategies, it becomes clear that these issues do not appear in the collective bargaining framework. Despite the women's numerical superiority, the grievance procedure at higher levels was dominated by the male workers' problems and formal agreements consistently reflected their interests over and above those of the women. Most of the key positions in the local organisation were held by men and male workers were over-represented in the shop steward system. Arguments are advanced to explain this which go beyond the usual explanations of women's distinctive (and historically sustained) patterns of union representation and involvement. Reconsidering the industrial relations orthodoxy, it is proposed that inequalities in bargaining strength and resources of men and women workers may be reinforced by the process and distributive effects of collective bargaining. This is shown through detailed empirical study of members' problems and responses and shop stewards' grievance handling on the shop floor. Disputes involving men and women workers are examined and the way negotiations were developed and concluded on issues such as pay, discipline, and movement of labour are analysed. The conclusion is reached that collective bargaining has implications which are significant not only for the position of women workers in the workplace and union, but the shape and responsiveness of the institution's representational and bargaining structures as a whole.

This research investigates the varying ways in which two different groups of women workers have been impacted by the neoliberal reforms undertaken by successive Indian governments from the 1990s onwards. The point of departure, substantiated by extant research, is that globalization has been structurally disadvantageous to women, specifically the 'rolling back' of the state has meant that some of the significant gains achieved by and for women in the post-independence period in India have also been 'rolled back' or are being eroded. However, the ways in which women have been impacted by neoliberal globalization in the Indian context varies according to a range of factors including class, occupation, levels of education and specific skills and location (urban or rural). A central contention of the thesis is that the Indian state has played a crucial role in improving the status of Indian women and must continue to make strategic interventions in social and economic relations to ameliorate gender disadvantage and empower women. To that end it also interrogates the role of the Indian state in the quest of gender equality and gender justice in the period from independence up-to the era of neoliberal reforms. The thesis accepts the point that in the context of globalization, the state can no longer be considered a wholly autonomous actor and yet, it remains the major institution charged with the delivery of welfare and social justice to its citizens. As such, the thesis concludes with recommendations for a strategy for empowerment which is both 'top down' and 'bottom-up'; meaning that the delivery of development and social welfare, justice to women specifically necessarily entails negotiating and mediating between 'global' forces (specifically international economic organizations and development agencies) and the needs and demands of citizens as they are articulated at regional and local levels.

Understanding why persons repeatedly place themselves at risk for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), amidst the wealth of prevention information available is of profound importance. Presently, scientific research of this phenomenon has been dominated by the cognitive models of health behaviour, but these were criticised for ignoring emotional, social and cultural influences on sexual behaviour. This thesis explored and investigated some of these non-cognitive factors within the specific cultural context of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with sole reference to women, to understand why women put themselves at risk and also help inform the country’s efforts to tackle the problem. This research comprised of four studies, each targeting women ages (18-40 yrs) and sexually involved in relationships. Study one was a qualitative study (N= 10), which explored women’s perceptions of the socio-cultural influences which contributes to their decision to engage in risky sex. Study two was a quantitative study in which (N=75), HIV+ women were surveyed, on whether they contracted HIV from within their long term relationships. Study three was a qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study (N=9); in-depth interviews investigated the intricacies of long-term relationships that made them more likely to influence unsafe sexual practices. Study four was a quantitative study (N=60) women; used questionnaires to investigate the validity that tolerance to infidelity and non use of condoms in long term relationships, which contributes to HIV transmission amongst Vincentian women. This research confirmed the existing limitations of the Cognitive models on health when applied to sexual behavior and produced evidence that Vincentian women more at vulnerable to contracting HIV within their long term relationships.