In this thesis, I use Foucault’s methods of discourse analysis and genealogy, and my own experiences as a Paralympic athlete, to analyze and critique the power relations of the Paralympic Movement. In Chapter 1, I contextualize my study by discussing relevant literature in Critical Disability Studies, Sociology of Sport and Adapted Physical Activity, and by introducing my methodological and epistemological frameworks. In Chapter 2, I analyze two historical accounts of the Paralympic Movement to demonstrate how they discursively represent, reproduce and justify Paralympic power relations. In Chapters 3 through 5, I use genealogy to critique Paralympic power relations: analyzing their systems of differentiation, types of objectives, instrumental modes, forms of institutionalization and degrees of rationalization. This analysis brings to the forefront how discourses of empowerment reproduce, justify and conceal the increasingly rationalized structures that enable Paralympic experts to act upon the actions, bodies and identities of those experiencing disabilities.

The privatised interactions between doctoral student and supervisor as they jointly work on the text are the subject of my thesis. To investigate this important yet neglected aspect of supervision, I use data obtained from interviews with seven doctoral supervisory pairs in the social sciences, arts, and humanities in an Australian university. My methodology comprises a series of close-ups to explore feedback relations within supervision and the ways in which meanings are played out for both supervisors and students. The interpretive approach draws upon Foucaultian theory, critical discourse analysis, and (post)critical theory traditions. Accordingly, the power asymmetries between supervisor and student are seen as productive – in the sense of creatively fertile - and not merely synonymous with prohibition or disempowerment. Within five interpretive chapters, I engage with the productive and problematic aspects of supervisory relations, making visible how supervisory feedback assists in the formation of students’ scholarly identities. My analysis examines how the pressures to ensure the production of timely and disciplined thesis texts are impacting on feedback relations. It also examines various ambiguities and tensions such as those embedded in the supervisor’s position as ‘pastor’ and ‘critic’, between asymmetrical and relational power, between the promotion of authorship/autonomy on the one hand, and the preservation of the canon on the other. My discussion highlights the ways supervisors, notwithstanding their authority, attempt to mediate the power disparity through mechanisms such as standing back, withholding and filtering feedback, or using the invitational strategies of ‘under offering’ which downplay the disciplinary nature of their work. I also reflect on what makes acceptance or resistance more or less likely and what promotes/hinders the transition to and reliance on students’ own expertise. Overall, the interpretations I offer suggest that the exercise of power is never straightforward, is opaque and ambiguous and susceptible to misunderstanding and unpredictability. My research thus reveals a picture of social relations that is less orderly and transparent than assumed in the institutional literature and associated guidelines. In particular, the research qualifies the current institutional faith that PhD research/writing is a transparent process, within which supervisors can be trained in the ‘skills’ for providing effective feedback so students can work at an efficient pace and produce predictable results.

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this research is to explore the impact of the social unconscious on organizational learning in Kazakhstan. Organizational learning is presented as a social process, and interpreted as happening in the interplay between social and unconscious emotions and organizational power relations (Vince and Gabriel, 2011; Vince, 2001). Psychodynamic theory is used to study organizational learning. This approach supports an analysis of the interplay between unconscious emotions and power relations that affect organizational learning processes. The study pinpoints how individuals in organizations are bound to organizational power relations, which both define the learning possibilities of its members, and, at the same time, reproduce those power relations. I focus on the unconscious elements of the reproduction of power relations that harbour and steer individual and collective relations (Frosh, 2001). Particular attention is paid to how power relations, which are influenced by the social unconscious (Weinberg, 2007) regulate individuals’ inner worlds and underlie their social interactions. The empirical part of the thesis presents the fieldwork in five organisations where semi-structured interviews were carried out using elements of photo-elicitation, with records kept in my reflexive diary notes. The work is grounded in my empirical data, and designed to address the research questions by iterative movement between the captured data and the theoretical framework. The research contributes to scholarship pertaining to emotion, politics and organizational learning with the key contribution being the insights gained from probing the role of individuals and their emotions in their efforts to learn in post-Soviet organizations. Elements of the old (Soviet) regime linger in the new organizations that form Kazakhstan's free market economy and the tension between these regimes provides an environment that is rich both in emotion and power/politics. This offers an opportunity to shed light on the interplay between emotion as well as power during individual and organizational attempts to learn. More specifically, emotions and organizational power relations are discussed through five aspects of the social unconscious identified from the empirical data. Subsequently, four sets of emotions pertaining to the five aspects are refined from these findings and discussed in terms of the impact that emotions have on learning processes.

Keywords: education policy, racial equity, youth, student voice, power relations The confluence of racial equity work – where district policy, students, staff, and administrators converge – creates significant tensions when enacting an educational racial equity policy that is intended to produce meaningful and transformative racial equity for all students. It is not only critical to analyze how educational policies conceptualize race and equity in relation to students’ experiences in schools, but also how students are positioned as recipients, stakeholders, and/or partners within such policies. This study examines the effects of power “at its extremities” when policy, race, and equity are localized in relation to beliefs, actions, and behaviors between students and adults enacting racial equity work. Using student focus groups with students of color and white students, participant observations from positions as a teacher/researcher, the research considers Foucault’s (1980; 1994) work on power to examine how students identify, engage, and address racial equity issues in their school. Educational equity policies discursively constitute racial inequities by defining “racial equity” from positions outside of schools, away from the very places where policies are enacted. The study explores how students of color and white students navigate tensions between themselves, administrators, and staff members as they organized a student-led racial equity club then leadership class to address racial inequities in a predominantly white high school. Despite the implementation of a six-year District racial equity policy, students’ “lived experiences” questioned enactments of the policy by administrators and staff members (see Dumas, 2014). The study argues meanings about race and equity are caught within “divergent discourses” (see Ball, 2013); that is, who is allowed to participate in conversations about race and equity, and who decides what racial equity issues take precedence in a predominantly white high school. Students are positioned in schools in unstable and contested ways to administrators and staff members, even if invited to participate in racial equity work as “student voice.” The concept of “student voice” in school-based decisions or policy work has inherent tensions between adults and students, however this should not dissuade policy processes that include students. Student involvement is strongly, but cautiously encouraged.

Esta dissertação tem como tema central as figuras de autoridade segundo o olhar infantil. O objeto de pesquisa constitui-se a partir da pergunta “Quais as figuras de autoridade para as crianças nas relações de poder que permeiam o ambiente escolar e familiar?”. O referencial teórico principal abarca os conceitos de autoridade, de Hannah Arendt, e de relações de poder, de Michel Foucault, estabelecendo um diálogo com os campos da filosofia, história e da psicanálise. Como metodologia de pesquisa foram realizadas entrevistas abertas com crianças de seis a onze anos do Colégio de Aplicação da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (CAp/UFRGS). Para suscitar o diálogo, foram utilizados três filmes de animação e tiras de histórias em quadrinhos. No total, foram realizadas vinte intervenções, das quais participaram setenta e seis crianças, divididas em cinco grupos. Levou-se em consideração os discursos acerca da crise na educação e de autoridade que se multiplicam em diferentes meios e se fazem presentes em nossa sociedade. O trabalho abrange ainda uma breve definição dos conceitos de infância, imagem e representação; e a ligação do conceito de autoridade com a tradição e a transmissão. Podemos concluir, a partir do referencial teórico utilizado e das análises das falas dos entrevistados, que as crianças percebem e distinguem figuras de autoridade em sua vida cotidiana; observamos, porém, que tais figuras têm se construído discursivamente de modos mais sutis em relação às formas de autoridade experimentadas pelas gerações anteriores às de nosso tempo. Observamos também o quanto as crianças assumem estratégias de resistência nas relações entre pais e filhos, o que faz supor que também o poder dos pais e conseqüentemente dos professores se mantém, mas de formas menos visíveis e num campo de disputa e negociações muito intenso com os filhos e alunos. Supomos que entre os fatores que têm participado de tais modificações, nos âmbitos familiar e escolar, estejam as variadas formas de socialização a que as crianças estão sujeitas atualmente, bem como a fragilidade dos modos de transmissão entre as gerações, que tem reforçado para as crianças a autoridade parental como algo negativo e complexo. Ainda assim, a distinção entre as idades infantil e adulta aparece de forma bem delimitada para as crianças entrevistadas. Salientamos a forte ligação das figuras de autoridade com as funções de cuidado, proteção e sustento (no caso da mãe, do pai e das avós) e de cuidado, organização e disciplinamento (no caso das professoras e do diretor); não havendo ligações explícitas formuladas em torno do saber que estas figuras poderiam deter e da relação deste com a autoridade por eles exercida. Concluímos que as figuras de autoridade fixas e estavelmente legitimadas de outras décadas apresentam-se sob novas configurações e estabelecem-se por movimentos transitórios, passíveis de mudanças. / This dissertation is focused on authority figures on the vision for children. The object of research is from the question "What are the authority figures for children in the power relations that permeate the school environment and family?". The theoretical framework encompasses the main concepts of authority, Hannah Arendt and power relations, Michel Foucault, establishing a dialogue with the fields of philosophy, history and psychoanalysis. As research methodology were conducted open interviews with children aged six to eleven years of the Colégio de Aplicação from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (CAp/UFRGS). To stimulate the dialogue, we used three animated films and strips of comics. In total, we do twenty interventions, attended Seventy-six children were divided into five groups. We took into account discourses about the crisis in education and authority that are multiply in different ways and are present in our society. The work also covers a brief definition of the concepts of childhood, image and representation, and the connection of the concept of authority with tradition and transmission. We can conclude from the theoretical reference and analysis of the interviews, that children perceive and distinguish authority figures in their daily lives; noted, however, that such figures have been discursively constructed in ways more subtle about the ways authority experienced by previous generations to our time. We also observed how the children take strategies of resistance in the relationship between parents and children, which would mean that also the power of parents and consequently of teachers therefore remains, but in ways less visible and a playing field and very intense negotiations with children and students. We suppose that among the factors that have been involved in such changes, in family and school scope, are the varied forms of socialization that children are currently subject, as well as the fragility of transmission between generations, which has reinforce to children the parental authority as something negative and complex. Nevertheless, the distinction between child and adult ages, it is clearly defined for the children interviewed. We emphasize the strong connection of authority figures with the duties of care, protection and support (for the mother, father and grandparents) and care, organization and discipline (in the case of the teachers and director), there is no explicit link made in around to know that these figures could hold and its relationship with the authority they exercised. We conclude that the fixed authority figures and legitimated stably of other decades have occurred in new settings and settle down by transitional movements, subject to change.

Inter-agency working has been promoted as a way forward to improve public services, including children's services. However, the terminology is problematic because it often overlaps with other terminologies, such as partnership or collaboration. As a consequence, when describing working arrangements between people and organisations, a 'terminological quagmire' results (Leathard, 1994, p5), with 'definitional chaos' (Ling, 2000, p83). This definitional chaos is replicated in the on-going challenges found by research, on inter-agency working. While much literature has focussed on these challenges and solutions, little attention has been given to the processes that make up inter-agency working. My research explored inter-agency working processes at the frontline of children's services in Scotland. It examined formal mechanisms of working together, such as meetings and referral forms, which organised professionals' work and their relationships with one another. I used institutional ethnography to investigate inter-agency working processes. The research was conducted in one local authority in Scotland over a period of eight months and within the framework of Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), which is the country's national policy approach for children. One component of GIRFEC is the Named Person. It is a provision that would provide every child in Scotland a professional (for most children the professional is going to be their health visitor or head teacher) to help safeguard their wellbeing by means of offering advice, support and referral to other services. This service will make teachers at promoted posts responsible for coordinating support for their pupils and will change mechanisms of inter-agency working. The tenets of institutional ethnography allowed me to observe and trace the ways in which professionals worked together. The research found that when professionals worked together, they shared information and that sharing of information was complicated by the burgeoning use of technology. The working processes involved revealed the power relations between people and between people and organisations: specifically, between teachers and the Children and Families team members of the council, as the latter was responsible for maintaining the formal inter-agency working mechanisms of GIRFEC. The thesis highlights that inter-agency meetings, as formalised ways of working together, can boost professionals' confidence as they wrestle with uncertainty about their actions as professionals and how best to address children and young people's needs. This thesis also shows how policy changes changed the ways in which professionals work together. The Named Person provision of GIRFEC has ignited public debates in Scotland. This thesis is contributing to the debates by providing evidence on how this new role has changed the relationships between the teachers and other professionals. This is pertinent as the Scottish Government is currently redesigning the Named Person policy.

The study examines women's use of violence, focusing on the experiences of seven women who disclosed that they had perpetrated serious indictable crimes. The crimes included murder, accessory to murder after the fact, manslaughter, child sexual and physical assaults, grievous bodily harm, stalking and threats to kill. The narratives of the seven women form the central focus of the study and these stories contribute to our understanding of the lives of individual women who perpetrate violence. I also include the narratives of one hundred and twenty workers, analyse relevant sentencing comments, and draw on key insights from other research. I began the study believing that I would discover a single truth as to why women hurt other people. My original hypothesis was that women perpetrate violence because of their previous experiences of violence perpetrated by men and/or disadvantage due to structural oppression. In part this assumption has been borne out, with all of the women who participated in the study disclosing that they have been victims of serious violence as both children and adults. However, during the course of the study, I discovered that women's lives and their choices to perpetrate or participate in violent crimes are more complex and contradictory than my simple original hypothesis suggested. I found that the women whom I interviewed and the women whom the workers worked with, were active agents in their own lives, they made choices and engaged in activities that met some of their own needs. Sometimes these choices meant another person suffered extreme pain, injury or death. I came to the conclusion that all of us have the potential to seriously assault others. Drawing on a feminist analysis of male violence, I believe that women's, like men's, violence is also 'individually willed' and 'socially constructed' (Dankwort and Rausch, 2000: 937). I locate women's behaviour in an analytical framework that views violence as a deeply embedded part of our shared ideology, beliefs and social activities. This social fabric contributes to, and fundamentally influences, the choices of individual women who perpetrate violence. The familial, social, cultural and individual factors that contribute to women choosing to perpetrate violence against others are complex and challenging. The study critically examines these factors and describes how different factors intersect with each other.

This thesis analyzes the westernization of Indians as portrayed through the juxtaposition of the power relations between the Western and Third world cultures, and the power relations between the characters of the novel. Indians had become so Anglicized that some of them took the place of the British rulers after Independence. In the novel the relations between parents and children, elders and youngsters, employers and employees are seen to be quite similar to the power relations that exist between the colonizer and the colonized. In the thesis these relations will be analyzed as the result and mimicry of British colonialism.