Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 459-490). Also available on the Internet.

Zugl.: Mainz, Univ., Diss., 2007

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, 1971. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Münster (Westfalen), 2003.

Zugl.: Jena, Univ., Diss., 2009

Zugl.: Frankfurt (Oder), Univ., Diss., 2009

Equity of access to health care was the founding aim of the NHS and a recent White Paper on NHS reforms re-emphasised its importance. This thesis consists of two contrasting studies on equity of access using individual patients as units of analysis. The main objective of the first study was to examine the equity of access to primary care services including GP consultation, out-of-hour services and referral to specialist services. The study involved secondary analysis of patient questionnaire data from a national survey. The objectives of the second study were to examine the equity of access to coronary artery surgery in one health district among those who underwent coronary angiography, and to examine whether the waiting time for coronary artery surgery was correlated with clinical need. It involved retrospective collection of data from medical records using the New Zealand Priority scores as an indicator of need. The first study showed that the following patient groups subjectively experienced disadvantages in several aspects of primary care services:- younger people, those with poor subjective physical and mental health, females, non-whites, residents in Inner London and those in paid work or full-time education. The possible reasons for these findings were discussed. It was recommended that the delivery of primary care services should take into account these results and that further research should be conducted into the extent and nature of differential patient expectation amongst different patient groups. The second study did not show any significant inequity of access to coronary artery surgery according to sex, age, smoking status and socio-economic status. However, there was little correlation between clinical need and waiting time for coronary artery surgery. These results informed subsequent development of cardiology and cardiac surgery services in the health district. The methodologies used in these two studies were compared and contrasted.

This paper examines the nature of support for the Reform Party of Canada in the 1993 federal election. First, a general hypothesis of the typical Reform voter is established. This profile is based on an investigation of the party’s historical precedents, the political beliefs of the leader, policies and platforms, and the media portrayal of the Reform party. After establishing the Reform profile, the hypothesis is then compared with data from the 1993 National Election Study (NES). The NES data reflects a wide range of public sentiments, reporting the structure of opinion on many salient public issues. By using the crosstabulation procedure, the extent to which voting Reform is linked with particular sentiments is revealed. The result of this exercise is a confirmation of the Reform profile. Voting Reform was linked to economic liberalism: Reformers are likely to be concerned about the deficit and high taxation, favour freer trade flows, and are likely to cut rather than maintain social programs. Socially and morally, the data confirmed that Reformers are likely to maintain a traditional or conservative position. An exception to this forecast was that one’s position on abortion was irrelevant to voting Reform. As predicted, Reformers are more likely than not to be hostile toward differential treatment for ethnic minorities, and to want decreased levels of immigration. True to the Reform profile, voting Reform was linked to political alienation, but it was also linked to high levels of political interest. In a few areas, the data on demographic variables contradicted the Reform profile: voting Reform was not linked with church membership, nor with a belief in the importance of God. As well, older voters are not more likely to vote Reform, as projected. Overall, the NES data confirms the initial profile of the study and it is concluded that the Reform vote in the 1993 election substantiates the popular image of the party.

This thesis examines the influence of certain British reformist ideologies on the scarcity-relief policies of the British colonial Government of Bombay from 1820 to 1840. It outlines the laissez-faire and utilitarian ideologies of relevance to scarcity-relief and assesses the extent to which these ideologies influenced Bombay’s policies toward the grain trade, charity, public works, agricultural loans, land revenue, and grain duties, during the 1823-5, 1831-5, and 1838-9 droughts. The thesis demonstrates that ideological debate and policy formation engaged officials at various levels within the colonial administration, and was not simply the concern of the Bombay Council. The thesis argues that while reformist ideologies had a genuine effect on the stated beliefs of many of Bombay’s officials, fiscal expediency and, to a lesser extent, humanitarian concern, also contributed to the formation of Bombay policy. It contends that these other factors were sometimes in harmony, and other times at odds, with the new ideologies coming from Britain. It finds that each of Bombay’s scarcity-relief policies was shaped by reformist ideology, but to a varying degree, and at different times, depending on the resistance to changes in policy from conservatives within the administration. This resistance, it argues, was in turn determined by the extent to which officials perceived each policy to be a foundation of the Government’s financial well-being. The findings of this thesis support the consensus among most historians of Indian subsistence crises that reformist ideologies of Britain began to influence the scarcity-relief policies of British Indian administrations in the early nineteenth century.

This is a study of the New Zealand English curriculums, 1969-1996. The study is organised around three phases of reform: the initial changes made to the teaching of English in the first three years of secondary school; the later reform of the senior-school English syllabus; the more recent development of an integrated national curriculum statement for the teaching of English. These reforms are charted in a narrative fashion, although the thesis does not purport to be a full history of English teaching in the period under review. Instead, the various developments and changes to English teaching in New Zealand secondary schools, during a thirty year period, are contextualised under the interpretative paradigm: the management of knowledge. It is argued herein that knowledge, and, in this case, the subject English, has been managed - consciously and unconsciously - in the interests of dominant socio-cultural and socio-economic groups. I aver that even alleged progressive developments in the pedagogy of classroom life have been routinised in the curriculum statements. Consequently, there has been an official sanctioning of established or conservative perspectives on the way English language and literature should be taught, thus often denying the emancipatory themes of respect for the human subject and human agency. My contention is advanced and supported through a careful examination of the curriculum text discourses, and, in several instances, through an examination of the transmission process from the draft statement to the published statement. I am therefore able to argue that the English curriculums must be understood as part of wider social and political processes: the curriculums are produced, managed and reproduced. The influences of the social environment and, in particular, the ideological struggle between State and society, are to be found in the English teaching discourse. This notion is captured in the subtitle of the study: text and context. The thesis concludes with a brief, personal reflection on how an English curriculum might be theorised so that it does not impose on students a definition of reality that declares the values and symbols of the social elites. I assert that an understanding of discourse, or the discourses of knowledge, can provide a way forward for the theorising of the subject English.