The thesis examines care-seeking for first births in low-income settlements of urban India. Care-seeking is framed as a dynamic, social process. The thesis shifts the research focus from non-use of maternity services to a more holistic notion of care-seeking strategies, and examines how they are shaped by patterned social relationships and their content. The study combines a prospective, qualitative design with multiple household perspectives. Seventy-seven in-depth interviews were conducted in 16 households. Matched data were collected for primiparous women and other household members, and interviews were conducted prospectively during pregnancy with a follow-up after birth. The study was conducted in Indore, a large city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, where a range of maternity care providers operate in a complex urban health system. This population could be characterised as strategic care-seekers, aware and discriminating across the range of care options available. Managing perceived risks was central to strategies, but solutions differed due to variation in perceptions of risks and their management. The notion that childbirth requires medical management was dominant. Yet, health facilities were also regarded as a potential source of risk. Strategies were plural and contingent, combining different providers across and within sectors, giving households control and flexibility in dealing with unfolding circumstances. Local narratives apportion responsibility for care-seeking to the household in which the woman is staying for the birth. The value placed locally on household-level ‘responsibility’ contrasts with the focus on women’s autonomy in the literature on maternal health. A corollary of responsibility is blame in the event of an adverse outcome, which impels households to seek care that meets expectations among their social ties. The thesis generates new insight on an issue that has previously been examined largely with static approaches, underpinned by individual rational actor assumptions. Findings reveal care-seeking strategies that go beyond a decision on whether or not to use a health facility. This partly derives from a complex urban health system providing choice, but it is also a response to the challenges households face in negotiating the health system to receive care they perceive to be ‘safe.’ The findings have implications for the policy goals of increasing births with a skilled attendant and improving quality of care.

Taking Bermondsey as a case study, my thesis examines how two groups of inhabitants - long-term residents and early gentrifiers - respond to and contest changes in urban space brought about by gentrification. Bermondsey is a gentrifying neighbourhood in London that has rapidly changed in social composition over the past thirty years. The research involved two aspects. Firstly, an historical analysis of the area's social, political and spatial trajectories. Viewed through this lens I argue that the character of the area's gentrification stems from the extent of its integration into the cultural and economic functions of the adjacent City of London. Secondly, indepth interviews with members of the two inhabitant groups are also used to understand how they experienced change brought about by gentrification in the context of their everyday lives. The research found that long-term residents did not regard the presence of gentrifiers as a direct threat to their housing security. Rather there was segregation between the two groups and protection provided by a large social rented tenure. A third group - 'low-status incomers' - were, however, seen as a threat both to long-term residents' access to social housing and to their (nostalgic) notions of community. I identify a form of intra-class rivalry, differing from the inter-class rivalry between lower income residents and gentrifiers that the literature typically describes. Instead of housing, I describe how public space was the crucible of tensions over gentrification, demonstrated by long-term residents' negative experiences of the public realm on new-build gentrification schemes. This prompted their withdrawal to familiar neighbourhood spaces, a form of 'internal displacement'. I also found a loss of 'place' displayed by early gentrifiers. Through their political practices, such as lobbying for affordable housing, they aimed to mitigate against the excesses of the gentrification they helped initiate. Despite their own housing security, they felt threatened by the arrival of later gentrifiers with divergent consumption preferences and social ideals. The analysis therefore shows how experiences of gentrification among different inhabitant groups are not fixed but open, ambiguous and layered, with different groups representing real and imagined threats to each other in ways not necessarily typified in the existing literature.

Of the two thousand babies born each day in England and Wales, at least twenty will have an intersex condition (also known as Disorder of Sex Development). For some, the condition lies dormant for many years, if not for the remainder of their lives, whilst others are born with genital differences to such a degree that it is not possible at birth to inform parents whether their child is ‘male’ or ‘female’. This ‘devastating’ announcement commences a lifetime of potential discrimination for these children (and arguably for their parents) both in the healthcare environment and in society in general. It might have been thought that when the Equality Act 2010 was passed such discrimination would cease as, according to the summary of the Act, its two main purposes are to harmonise discrimination law and enhance legal mechanisms to allow equality for everyone. However, the category of 'intersex' is not included in the Act. This thesis aims to build on existing literature, and to investigate and analyse whether current English law prevents or promotes discrimination against the intersexed in the healthcare environment in England today. It further endeavours to propose suitable amendments to current law where such discrimination is identified. Previous literature has indicated that discrimination may arise as a result of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), selective abortions of the intersexed fetus, and ‘normalising’ genital operations of the intersexed child. Further, activists have noted that the withholding of medical records is detrimental to the person concerned. However, to date there has been sparsity of literature to address current English law in these areas. Results of investigations carried out for this thesis indicate that in some aspects, for example access to medical records, current English law supports the rights of the intersexed patient. Research also indicates that in regard to selective abortions current law can be justified. However, in other areas, notably PGD and genital modification operations, English law can be said to discriminate against the intersexed, whilst for neonatal testing, current healthcare policies and procedures can be considered discriminatory. Such provisions require reconsideration. In this respect, legal amendments are proposed to assist in overcoming discrimination. This includes an amendment to the Equality Act itself.

This thesis considers social work practice with separated young people who have migrated to Germany and the UK, with a specific focus on the role of human rights perspectives within practitioners’ approaches. The conceptual starting points are the contradictions between human rights frameworks which are commonly conceptualised as universal and inclusive, and the exclusive responses of Western states towards 'irregular' and asylum migration. These contradictions are enhanced and complicated by binary conceptualisations of childhood and adulthood, affording children different rights from adults. In practice, separated young people are treated very differently depending on whether they are considered 'children' or 'adults'. While many face disbelief from authorities regarding their asylum and age claims, even those who are initially accepted as 'children' are faced with uncertain futures as they enter legal 'adulthood'. Social workers, as members of a profession which considers itself a key proponent of social justice and human rights, are at the interface of these dilemmas in their practice with separated young people. They have a central role in inclusive processes, helping young people access support and resources, but they may also be caught up in exclusionary processes which significantly affect their practice, including their commitment to emancipatory values. Seeking to unsettle and transcend dichotomist conceptualisations, the field research for this thesis examined accounts of practitioners in different organisational settings in Berlin and London/Southeast England. The findings suggest that there were different approaches, which were not mutually exclusive, to conceptualising and referring to human rights more or less explicitly in their day-to-day practice. In what can be described as a liminal field of social work practice, practitioners used a range of strategies between accommodation with and resistance to difficult policy contexts.

Post-conflict reconstruction (PCR) policies often highlight gender issues during the agenda setting stage, but they largely fall off policy agendas as PCR processes advance. Interestingly, Rwanda is a counter-example to this trend. In 1994, Rwanda experienced a horrific genocide that caused a complete breakdown of the state. At that time, a new government, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) under the leadership of Paul Kagame, came into power. During the PCR period, gender policies were deemed a priority by the new government and this resulted in gains for women in several areas. The fact that Rwanda has a majority female parliament, for example, has resulted in significant international attention to Rwanda. Much of the credit for these gains and for putting gender issues on the PCR agenda has been given to the RPF and Kagame. However, is political will (as it is often described) a sufficient explanation for the post-conflict gender policy focus? I argue that it is not. By situating this research within a theoretical framework that draws upon feminist theoretical propositions, literature that questions the PCR dynamics of international aid and political outcomes, and Rwanda-specific literature, a fuller explanation of Rwanda’s PCR gender policy focus emerges. The evidence suggests that whilst political will was undoubtedly important, it is only one of five key factors: a majority female population, grassroots actions on the part of women, international aid, and the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women were also drivers behind this policy focus. However, these factors have largely been rendered invisible within PCR analysis on Rwanda. In this research I seek to explain why these factors were critical to setting the stage for a PCR gender policy focus and how this policy focus has been subsumed under a highly political agenda over the last two decades.

There is increasing evidence to suggest that Corporate Community Involvement (CCI) has gone beyond philanthropy towards more innovative approaches in addressing complex social problems. One example is particularly evident in developing countries where corporations organize the local community in their operational areas into community-based organizations (CBOs), such as self-help groups, and enable them to tackle social problems by themselves. In this thesis, I explore this emerging CCI mode, termed Corporate Instigation of Community-Based Organizations (CICBO), by focusing on the contexts in which such engagement is conceptualized, the process through which it is put into practice and the outcomes of such engagement. I adopt an institutional perspective, grounded in the umbrella concept of institutional work that highlights the recursive relationship between institutional environment and organizational actions within which a new CCI mode emerges. An analytical framework is built around the constituent components of institutional work (e.g., enabling conditions, agency, actions and consequences) that allows for a process-oriented exploration of the emergence of a CCI mode as an organization-level institution. The framework is employed to examine three key aspects of CICBO: company motives to initiate the mode and the contextual factors that influence those motives, the micro-processes through which the mode emerges, and its outcomes at multiple levels. In doing so, my study presents an alternative theoretical perspective on CCI, one based on institutional work. At the same time, it also contributes to the bottom-up theorization of institutional work. This research is interpretive in nature. A case study method is utilised for in-depth investigation of the CICBO mode of two oil and gas companies in India, the Oil India Limited and the Cairn India Limited, applying multiple qualitative research techniques such as interviews, focus group discussions and document analysis. The empirical findings provide valuable insights on the antecedents, processes and consequences in the emergence of the CICBO mode in particular and broader CCI discourse in general. This situates my research among the few studies that contribute to the processual understanding of CCI. The study identifies a legitimacy crisis at the community level arising from incompatible institutional arrangements, recognition of future business threat or opportunity, and a company’s habitual orientation towards community engagement as the key drivers for CICBO. However, prevalence of such a contingent environment alone is not enough to manifest the CICBO mode. As an intelligent and reflexive actor, the company reflects on its past, assesses the present, projects itself into the future, and assigns different levels of importance to each of these factors. As observed in the study, CICBO emerges when securing future business interest is associated with ensuring long-term social legitimacy through effective solutions to critical social issues. This finding makes explicit the connection between strategic motives and subsequent framing of CICBO as the solution to achieve them. CICBO aims to create a community-level practice of CBO-oriented collective problem solving. It focuses on gradually building important community capital in a way that enables the community to maintain the practice without company support. This signifies a dual institutional creation work where the activities for creating community-level practice in the field occur under the umbrella of a temporary CCI practice that is created in parallel. The company’s intention to continue the support for a limited time only reflects its commitment to community empowerment, rather than inflicting further dependence. CICBO unfolds through iterative phases of conceptual (design) and operational (implementation) activities, where a stable template gradually emerges through repeated incorporation of ongoing learning. As such, the emergence of CICBO depicts high interactions among company, community and other social actors. In particular, the process highlights diverse roles of the local community as the initial adopters of the CBO-oriented practice, supporters in the promotional activities, part of the maintenance mechanisms, and most importantly eventual upholder of the practice. The findings identify the ability of CICBO to create shared values for the CCI actors and potential for community empowerment. More importantly, the success of CICBO is observed to inspire various social actors including other organizations and the wider community to engage in similar and complementary practices, resulting in widespread diffusion of CBO-oriented activities. The findings bring new insights for practitioners, policy makers and communities, particularly in developing countries, who seek to design and implement similar practices as effective and sustainable solutions for complex social issues.

The research examined the relationship between knowledge of faith-based church leaders regarding the facts of child sexual abuse and the practice of child sexual abuse prevention steps utilized within the church. It examined the historical, theological, biblical, and ethical concerns about child sexual abuse and the church. The biblical accounts of David and Bathsheba along with the story of Tamar and Amnon were reflected upon within the historical and biblical context of sexual abuse. The theological understanding of sin and its results was analyzed in the context of child sexual abuse. A chronological exploration of the history of child abuse in the United States along with statistics for the represented years was included in the study. Exploration of the abuse of power, the multileveled aspects of denial, the victim, the perpetrator, prevention steps available to the church and parental partnership were included. The common prevention steps discussed were: a written policy and procedure manual, screening form, interview, reference checks by phone or written, criminal background checks (fingerprinting), keeping doors open, windows in the classrooms, hall monitor system, a 2-adult rule, computer on-line check for sexual offenders, waiting six months from membership, prevention training at the local church, prevention training at denominational level, adequate church insurance, and a team of members ready to deal with any accusations that may occur. There was a description of the research process. The study was descriptive quantitative research by use of a research instrument (developed from the precedent literature and validated by an expert panel) that examined the relationship between knowledge and practice of faith-based church leaders regarding child sexual abuse and prevention. The research instrument consisted of five sections: Demographics, Likert Response Scale, Prevention Steps Checklist, Hindrances, and Comments. The Likert Response Scale included questions on knowledge of child sexual abuse facts, knowledge of prevention steps, higher education, and the issue of denial among church leaders. There were 213 seminary students who were church leaders that participated in the research study. Displays of the data, analysis of the data, and interpretation of the data were included along with a description of the research implications and applications, along with possible further research. Pearson r correlation was conducted to determine if there was a relationship found between knowledge and practice of church leaders. Recommendations were made to the church on the subject of child sexual abuse prevention. / This item is only available to students and faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. If you are not associated with SBTS, this dissertation may be purchased from <a href="http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb">http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb</a> or downloaded through ProQuest's Dissertation and Theses database if your institution subscribes to that service.

This is a sociological study of children's work in Indian families based on research carried out in Coventry (UK) and Lucknow (India). The data was gathered through unstructured and in-depth interviews of children from 10 Indian families in Coventry and 10 Indian families in Lucknow who run small-scale retailing businesses in each city. The research questions the assumptions of the existing literature on children's work in the family, where it is considered as a useful and beneficial task, and something that children ought to learn. Contrary to this understanding which marginalises the importance of children's work in the family, the evidence presented in this thesis demonstrates that children's work in the family is a specific part of their agency, which helps them to construct and reconstruct their own childhood and maintain their family's social order. It is the contention of the thesis that children's domestic activities are to be considered as meaningful 'work' that is not always oriented toward (future) goals of socialization, but rather toward the structuring of social relationships between children and adults. The data shows that although there is a slight difference in the expression of children's agency in Coventry and Lucknow due to different socio-cultural contexts, children's active involvement in housework and shop-work in both cities places them within the division of domestic labour. In particular, children's experiences in family businesses not only demonstrate them to be socially and economically useful members of their families, it also provides them with an opportunity to realise their potential.

The mid-nineteenth century was an age of reform, which affected the whole of British society. Working people in southeast Lancashire were far from passive at this time, and the co-operative experiment in Rochdale was an inspiration. Many had pinned their hopes on the Chartist Land Plan, but when this failed they seized an unintended opportunity offered by changes in company law. The result was that over fifty industrial worker-owned and controlled companies were created in the period from 1850 to the onset of the Cotton Famine in 1861, with shares sold to other local people through pubs and shops. A database of these shares forms the basis of this thesis and their analysis provides much of the raw material. Following the Cotton Famine, a commercial revolution in the Irwell Valley and adjoining districts resulted and by the 1870s brought about a virtual stock market, where companies of all kinds were floated, including traditional family businesses. Many such businesses became worker-owned and added to the prosperity of the Irwell Valley. This valley had a quite unique geography and culture, which bred men and women willing to turn their hands to a variety of tasks. The worker-owned companies were intended to provide profit, but independence, pride and self-help were also important factors. The concept spread, and contributed to the formation of the better-known ‘Oldham Limiteds’. Despite many attempts, the source of industrial finance in the late Victorian period remains an unanswered question. This thesis demonstrates that for some industries, in this area, the finance came from the working classes, including women, a possibility not previously taken seriously. They funded a diversity of industries throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, providing millions of pounds of capital. The thesis also breaks new ground in being able to identify a significant percentage of investors as individuals whose activities can be reconstructed, sometimes in detail.

Os debates no universo conceitual sobre exclusão parecem deixar em segundo plano o foco que ilumina as análises baseadas na injustiça social que propõe pensar a exclusão como processo complexo e multifacetado, do qual a inclusão é parte constitutiva. Diante da ineficiência das propostas no atendimento a adolescentes em conflito com a lei que não tem levado em conta tal complexidade; da visão estigmatizada da sociedade sobre eles; e do número elevado de internações por ano na FEBEM-RP, propôs-se este estudo, com o objetivo de caracterizar a vida cotidiana desses jovens, identificar as percepções, concepções e crenças sobre as experiências vividas e, investigar as propostas de mudanças que possam facilitar o processo de inclusão social de jovens que praticaram delito. Participaram deste estudo onze adolescentes, do sexo masculino, com idades entre 15 e 18 anos, internos na FEBEM-RP, e seis funcionários da instituição. A entrevista individual com roteiro semi-estruturado foi o principal instrumento de coleta de dados, sendo complementada por notas em diários de campo e transcrições de trabalhos grupais. As falas dos funcionários também foram utilizadas como dados complementares para conferir ênfase ao tema que estava sendo abordado. A análise qualitativa dos dados, com enfoque interpretativista, privilegiou os pontos de vista dos entrevistados, iluminando os momentos-chave de sua existência. As análises dos dados mostraram que as várias facetas que compõem o processo de exclusão na vida desses jovens parecem ser apontadas por eles como as dificuldades encontradas para viverem o dia-a-dia longe das infrações. A vida concreta dos adolescentes entrevistados é percebida por eles pela precariedade, não só econômica, mas também de vínculos, que são calcados na violência, na provisoriedade e na instabilidade, perpassados por aspectos psicossociais como estigmatização e culpabilização. A vivência dessa realidade parece gerar sofrimento, freqüentemente, expresso pela revolta como forma de demonstrar a inconformidade diante das condições de existência e dos tratamentos recebidos. A coexistência desses motivos, dentre outros, acrescidos da humilhação, tanto na família como na escola, e da discriminação e truculência com que referem ser tratados pela polícia parecem favorecer a inclusão no mundo do crime. Outra faceta que faz com que estejam inseridos no mundo de forma injusta e pouco digna, diz respeito à vulnerabilidade frente ao desenvolvimento e exercício da vida sexual e reprodutiva, além de se perceberem mais vulneráveis em decorrência das rígidas regras de convivência estabelecidas entre seus pares, que tornam iminente o risco de morte. Referem ser coagidos pela polícia para assumirem delitos que não praticaram, o que parece colaborar para que sejam internos repetidas vezes, perpetuando a idéia de um caminho sem volta. Referem que a FEBEM-RP é um local marcado pela diferença de tratamento que privilegia uns e banaliza o sofrimento de outros. Na vida dos jovens entrevistados, a dialética da exclusão/inclusão também se manifesta pela confirmação, negação ou construção da identidade, que no caso deles, parecem forjadas de maneira a manter as estratégias de regulação de poder, sendo reconhecidos, predominantemente, por seus delitos. Expressam o desejo de parar de infracionar e realizam propostas que incluem a profissionalização, a retomada dos estudos, a aplicação da medida de semiliberdade, dentre outros. Para isso, referem a necessidade de apoio profissional e familiar, dentro e fora da FEBEM-RP, sem os quais a inclusão poderá recair na armadilha de uma inclusão ilusória que discrimina, humilha e gera sofrimento. Para eles, a concretização das propostas pode significar o rompimento de um fatalismo cruel e contribuir para uma inclusão mais digna e justa. / The debates in the conceptual area about exclusion seem to omit the focus that elucidates the social injustice-based analysis that has in view the concept of exclusion as being a complex and multi-faceted process, of which inclusion is an essential part. Facing the inefficiency of the proposals in attending adolescents that come into conflict with the law for not taking into consideration such complexity; also facing the social stigmatized view of these same adolescents; and the increased number of new boarders that FEBEM, in Ribeirão Preto, receives each year, this study has been presented, aiming to point out these youngsters´ daily life, identify the insights, conceptions and beliefs of the lived experiences, and investigate the changeover proposals that might favour the social inclusion of these youngsters that have committed some kind of trespass. Eleven male adolescents took part in this study, ranging from 15 to 18 years old, boarders at FEBEM, in Ribeirão Preto, and six employees that work for the institution. The individual interview with a semi-framed script was the major tool to gather data, being completed with fieldwork notes and transcription of group activities. The voices of the employees were also used as supplementary data in order to give emphasis to the topic being approached. The qualitative analysis of data, with an interpretative approach, favoured the point of view of the people interviewed, enlightening the key points of their existence. The analysis of data showed that the multiple facets that form the exclusion process in these youngsters lives seem to be mentioned by them as being the difficulties they come across to live their daily lives away from infractions. The interviewed adolescents´ real life is noticed by them for its precariousness, not only the financial one, but also the precariousness of bonds that are consolidated in violence, transitory feature and inconstancy, due to psychosocial aspects like stigmatization and culpability. Living this reality seems to cause suffering, often expressed by revolt as a way of demonstrating non-conformism before existence conditions and treatment toward them. The co-existence of these reasons, among other ones, added by humiliation, both at home and at school, and discrimination and cruelty they affirm to receive from the police seem to favour their inclusion in the criminal world. Another facet that causes them to live in the world in such an unfair and unworthy way concerns the vulnerability toward the development and practice of sexual and reproductive life, besides viewing themselves as being more vulnerable due to the rigid co-existence rules fixed among their partners, creating an imminent death risk. They affirm to be constrained by the police to take the blame for trespasses they didn´t commit, which seems to contribute for the act of putting them at the institution several times, perpetuating the concept of a situation with no way back. They affirm that FEBEM-RP is a place that is noticed by the difference in treatment that benefits some people while vulgarizes the suffering of others. In the interviewed youngsters` lives, the logic of exclusion/inclusion is also revealed by the confirmation, denial or construction of their identity, that in their case, seem to be engendered in order to support the strategies of authority regulation, being distinguished, predominantly, for their trespasses. They show an urge to quit trespassing and execute proposals that include professionalizing programs, going back to school, the application of a method of semi-freedom, among others. For this reason, they affirm to need professional and familiar support, inside and outside FEBEM-RP, without which their inclusion may fall back in the trap of an illusory inclusion that discriminates, humiliates and causes suffering. For these youngsters, the materialization of these proposals may mean the disruption of a cruel fate and contribute to a more worthy and fair inclusion.