Further income redistribution is an obvious way of alleviating child poverty. However, whether this effectively improves life chances of children growing up in poverty is debated, and there might be less expensive ways of doing so. Drawing on competing models explaining intergenerational persistence of poverty, this thesis investigates some of the links between childhood poverty and later economic outcomes in the UK. Aiming to identify policy areas where intervention would be helpful, it examines continuities and changes over time in these links and mechanisms that create them, analysing longitudinal data from people born in 1958, 1970 and the 1980s. This thesis shows that a negative effect of childhood poverty on adult earnings remains for the 1970 cohort (although not for the 1958 cohort), even after controlling for educational attainment in particular, and for other individual and family characteristics. This appears to be a reason that intergenerational persistence of poverty is stronger for the younger cohort. Teenage occupational aspirations do not seem to explain this residual effect, but unemployment in early working life contributes to it. An original contribution is the investigation of different effects of childhood poverty on later onset of and exit from unemployment, and the relative strength of the effects of parental worklessness and income poverty on these outcomes. A main finding is that income poverty more strongly affects the rapid onset of unemployment following employment, although parental worklessness appears to be associated with the slow exit from unemployment. The results suggest that policy interventions in education or (potentially cheaper) interventions affecting youth aspirations would not completely remove the disadvantage experienced by children growing up in poverty. There is therefore evidence that further income redistribution would be beneficial in improving their future life chances, while the findings suggest that the design of income redistribution also matters.

This thesis offers new insights into the challenges and opportunities brought by European Union (EU) integration policies by taking as a case study the process of accessing EU funding in Romania and its impact on the performance and reproduction of contemporary entrepreneurial identities. It is based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Romania between June 2007 and September 2008. The thesis argues that EU funding - as an economic process shaped by EU anticorruption practices, policies and assumptions – configures new political and economic subjects through intertwined vocabularies of corruption and crime, a mix of formal and informal entrepreneurial practices and the commodification of finance. This dynamic process concomitantly enables Romania’s top-down integration into the EU through the adoption of transnational regulations, institutions and anxieties and Romania’s bottom-up integration into the EU through the assimilation of the EU funding regulations into the vernacular practices of doing business.

This dissertation addresses the question of to what extent growing numbers of older people who might have similar preferences regarding public intergenerational transfers (family and pension policies) will limit the scope of future social policy reforms in Germany. We are interested in to what extent the shift in the country's demography will trigger a so-called "gerontocracy." As a theoretical framework, we combine Mannheim's concept of political generations with a demographic life-course approach. According to Mannheim, growing numbers of a societal group, combine with unified preferences within the group, enhance the group's political power. To empirically test this hypothesis, we use three analytical steps: First, we analyse the future age composition of the German population, including familial characteristics, using a micro-simulation approach. The results suggest that the number of older people will grow substantially over the coming decades, particularly the share of older people who will remain childless and who will not be married. Second, we analyse preferences regarding redistributive social policies according to age, parity, and marital status, based on recent survey data. Generalised Linear Models and Generalised Additive Models are applied to examine what the effects of fdemographic indicators are on these preferences. Results show that older people are less in favour of transfers ot the younger generation than their younger counterparts. This is particularly true of childless interviewees. Third, we explore the extent to which these developments are likely to have an impact on the political sphere. How do policy makers perceive ageing and the preferences structures found? How do elderly interest groups define their roles in light of these results? In-depth interviews with these stakeholders provide a mixed picture: whereas most interviewees are convinced that older people have gained more power due to their bigger population share, there is little awareness of differences in policy preferences between various demographic groups. The biggest challenge for social policy makers is, therefore, to find ways to mediate between these two interesrs. if they fail to do so, a conflict of generations might become a realistic scenario for Germany.

Den Ausgangspunkt für die vorliegenden Ausführungen stellt der Blick auf gegenwärtige und zukünftige gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen im gelebten Miteinander dar. Von Seiten der Öffentlichen Theologie wird der Anspruch erhoben einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Bewältigung gesellschaftlicher Problemstellungen liefern zu können. Die vorliegende Arbeit möchte diesen teilweise eher theoretisch erhobenen Anspruch in Verbindung mit einem praktisch umgesetzten Projekt beleuchten und dabei der Frage nachgehen, wie den bestehenden Herausforderungen begegnet werden kann. Dabei geht es explizit, um partizipative Strukturen und deren Förderung. Partizipation gilt als entscheidendes Element für ein funktionierendes, gesellschaftliches Miteinander. Partizipationsförderung mit Blick auf Jugendliche beinhaltet dabei ein aktivierendes, ein förderndes und ein zuwendendes Element. Im Rahmen dieser Untersuchung soll der Frage nachgegangen werden, welche Zugangswege Jugendliche zu partizipativem Engagement nehmen, wie diese ausgestaltet und erlebt werden und wie es verstärkt oder gefördert werden kann. Von der Beantwortung dieser Fragen werden konkrete Handlungsoptionen für das Forschungsprojekt STC-Bremen abgeleitet und darüber hinaus verallgemeinerbare Interpretationen geliefert, welche anderen konkreten Handlungsfelder bei der Weiterentwicklung helfen sollen. / The basis for the work at hand is a look at current and future societal challenges in living together in communities. Public Theology claims to offer an important contribution as far as the overcoming of societal issues is concerned. The aim of this research is to shed light on this theoretical claim by relating it to a practically applied project while asking the question how the existing challenges can be dealt with. It is explicitly about participatory structures and their advancement. Participation is considered a key element for functioning communities in society. The advancement of participation for young people contains an element of activation, support and care. This research investigates which access paths the young people chose for their participatory engagement, how these are designed and experienced, and finally, how these paths can be strengthened and developed. The response to these questions resulted in concrete courses of action for the research project STC-Bremen, and furthermore, in generalized interpretations which can aid the development of other fields of action. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.A. (Practical Theology)

The aim of this PhD is to draw together two very different strands of rural geography, namely: young people and partnerships. Partnerships and young people have been the subject of growing debate and, although there is interest in both areas, there has been little work carried out that combines the two to date. The aim of this thesis is to address that gap by studying one particular partnership, part of whose remit was to address issues and concerns of the rural young. Young people, despite initiatives such as youth councils, and youth fora, still operate in the shadows of the decision-making process and, as such, do not enjoy full participation; they are occupying a world in which adults still make decisions on their behalf. This is exacerbated by the fact that the decisions that are made are done so from an adult, rather than a young person’s, perspective. Considered from this position all young people, not just those in groups considered to be socially disadvantaged, are excluded by virtue of their youth and their powerlessness in an adult world. Partnerships, that is a group of public, private and voluntary actors working to a shared goal or goals, should have the capacity to overcome this lack of participation, as a significant portion of the partnership rhetoric is based upon integrating voices from the ‘top’ and the ‘bottom’. Hailed as the new form of governance, such collaborative partnerships are being increasingly utilised to deliver goods and services that were previously the exclusive domain of local government. Nevertheless, in their turn, partnerships are also vulnerable to issues of power, conflict and accusations of ineffective working practices. The thesis examines these two disparate groups through a study of one such partnership. However, despite the emphasis on ‘bottom-up’ input, this particular partnership did not have direct representation from the young. This compromised not only its ability to draw young people’s voices into political debate, but also problematised, from a research point of view, the ability to gauge how effective integrative approaches really are. This was overcome by drawing on action research as a methodology which, in effect, situated the researcher between both parties; on the one hand, acting, as far as an adult can, as a ‘voice’ for the young, and on the other, as a researcher, in a position to follow the partnership and gauge the success of integrative approaches to policy-making. Through a combination of focus group discussions and self-completed questionnaires, key findings are: although young people do not see themselves as deprived, they experience exclusion through a paucity of rural services that is exacerbated by their geographical position along a continuum of rurality; young people are not a homogeneous group - although incremental differences in age may be small, the physical and social needs of a 12 year old or a 14 year old are significantly different which, when overlooked by planners, results in the creation of inappropriate facilities; young people exercise power over each other through their own social codes and practices that excludes some groups either socially or spatially; that there is a considerable amount of intergenerational suspicion that is embedded in the cultural practices of adult/child relations. These findings, and more, were reported to the partnership, which, although unable to implement change itself, was able to provide a springboard from which to broadcast the concerns of the young and one particular concern, inadequate transport, was eventually brought into policy recommendations. The results suggest that, although the effectiveness of the partnership was hampered by the fluidity of its membership and the delay in creating a strategic framework, it was its ability to network, during and even post-partnership, that was its greatest strength. The thesis concludes with suggestions for further research.

The main theme of this thesis is the social, economic and political response of a single community to economic dislocation in the interwar years. The community under consideration is Clydebank., The thesis is divided into several parts. Part I establishes the development of the burgh and considers the physical framework of the community, mainly in the years before 1919. The town's characteristics are examined in terms of population structure and development between the world wars. In the last part of this section there is a review of the economic structure of the burgh and changes occurring in it between 1919 and 1939. In Part II consideration is given to the actual extent and form of the unemployment affecting Clydebank at this time, and comparison is made with other communities and geographic/economic areas. Attention is then focussed more narrowly on the actual individuals suffering unemployment in the burgh during the 1930s, in an attempt to personalise the experience of the unemployed. Part III reviews central and local government responses to the situation in which Clydebank found itself oetween 1919 and 1939. Central government policies discussed include unemployment insurance, public works, the Special Areas legislation, assistance in the construction of the 534 "Queen Mary" and the direction of financial support to areas of particular need. Amongst local authority actions described are additional local support for the poor, public works, efforts to attract new industry to the town, attempts to deal with the housing problem which was particularly acute at times of high unemployment and measures to maintain health standards in the community. In Part IV the responses of the community to unemployment and government policies are detailed. The burgh's commercial sector is surveyed as are developments in leisure provision, religion, temperance and crime, and local politics. A number of individual responses are also given consideration such as migration, commuting, changes in birth and marriage rates and suicide.

This thesis looks into the later ‘Asylum Age’ in Scotland, concentrating on the legislation and construction of Scotland’s district lunatic asylums from the passing of the Lunacy (Scotland) Act, 1857 to the Mental Deficiency and Lunacy (Scotland) Act, 1913. Concentrating on the specific geographies of the asylums, what Foucault refers to as “the space reserved by society for insanity” (Foucault, 1965:251), the thesis weaves a new route between previous radical/critical and progressive/simplistic interpretations of the ‘Asylum Age’, by integrating a Foucauldian interpretation with non-representational theories around the engineering of affective atmospheres. This more nuanced approach, which concentrates on the ‘affective power’ of the institutions across different geographical scales (site and situation, grounds and buildings), recognises the ways in which Scotland’s district asylums, constructed predominantly for pauper patients, were moulded and reshaped as the discourses around the treatment of insanity were developed. The moral, medical and hygienic dimensions to the discourses ultimately outlined the institutional geography, by having a profound influence on asylum location and layout. The ideal district ‘blueprint’ for asylum siting and design, as put forward by the Scottish Lunacy Commissioners, is uncovered and reconstructed by ‘picking out’ the macro and micro-geographies discussed in the annual reports of the General Board. The research then moves to uncover the system ‘on the ground’ as it was constructed in bricks-and-mortar by the various district boards. As asylum location and architecture was a relatively novel concern, questions of siting and design became more pertinent, and indeed central, in institutional planning during the decades after the mid-century lunacy reforms. Thus, despite periods of waning enthusiasm for the institution as a mechanism for ‘curing’ insanity, fitting the building to its purposes continually involved a variety of structural innovations, stylistic refinements and new ways of organising the external and internal spaces of the asylums.

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of memoir competitions in communist-era Poland, focusing on contributions to them by Poles of rural origins inhabiting the lands – known as the Recovered Territories – acquired by the postwar Polish state from Germany in 1945. I explore the history of the memoir method in postwar Poland, the processes involved in producing published volumes of competition memoirs – including editing and censorship, and the use of these sources in communist-era and post-1989 sociological, historiographical and interdisciplinary studies. I focus on existing research both on the Recovered Territories, particularly Polish settlement of those lands and the development of new communities there, and also on postwar peasants’ lives, particularly where theories of social advance are applied. In this respect, this investigation adds to existing literature in social history on early postwar Poland. My study also contributes to work in censorship studies by considering Polish censors’ approach to quite exceptional sources. Because in many cases original competition entries are available, it is possible to establish where editors, publishers and censors have intervened, something that is rarely possible with standard works of literature or academic scholarship produced under communism. I consider what strategies different scholars used in presenting published sources and circumventing restrictions imposed. Subaltern studies approaches to speaking and its critique of nation-centred historiography are, meanwhile, applied in investigating the intersection of peasant autobiographies, academic research, scholars and Party-state institutions and their discourses, as I consider how the published communist-era compilations of competition entries framed peasant writing, experience, culture and consciousness, and how these frames potentially conflicted with the authors’ own interpretations of their experiences and social reality. This investigation also contributes to memory studies, a discipline whose approach to communist and totalitarian states is particularly problematic as many studies assume significant restrictions were imposed not only on publication but also on autobiographical memory expressed in usually unrecorded private and local spheres. I explore whether memory studies’ typical approach, based in notions of competing claims might also apply to Poland under state socialism. Bakhtin’s theories of dialogism prove useful in exploring the history of memory under communism, rather than the memory of it – as is commonplace today in oral history-based studies, for example. It is in respect of censorship studies and memory studies that this thesis makes its most substantial original contributions to research. My research draws on substantial archival research conducted in Poland, where I explored censorship archives in Warsaw and Poznań, Party and ministerial archives, and the Polish Academy of Science archive, since numerous memoir sociologists and rural sociologists were based there. I also used archives housing original competition entries, the main locations being: The Institute of Western Affairs in Poznań (Instytut Zachodni – IZ), the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Science (Instytut Historyczny PAN – IH PAN) and the Museum of the History of the Polish Peasant Movement (MHRPL in Piaseczno, near Tczew). I consider published volumes alongside original sources where possible, although substantial losses have occurred to the store of popular autobiography. Chapter 1 outlines the background of Polish memoir sociology and the main methods and theories used in this investigation, ranging from subaltern studies through Bakhtin to autobiography studies. Chapter 2 focuses on memory studies, including the field’s approach to communist and postcommunist countries, before outlining aspects of censorship studies relevant to this investigation. I end Chapter 2 on a case study of the memoir compilation Miesiąc mojego życia [A Month in my Life – MMŻ; (1964)] and its treatment by censors. Chapter 3 explores recent English- and Polish-language historiography on the Recovered Territories, concentrating on, firstly, how historians have used the memoir resources in considering the early postwar years, and, secondly, how peasants are represented within the recent wave of works exploring Polish communism through nationalism and popular legitimation. I end on a case study of one particular memoir by a female settler to the new Polish lands, highlighting the value of the competition entries as thick descriptions. Chapter 4 investigates the mainstream communist-era memoir movement where the leading analytical concept for approaching peasants and social change was ‘social advance’, developed from Józef Chałasiński’s prewar sociology. I explore how the nine-volume series Młode pokolenie wsi Polski Ludowej [The Young Generation of Rural People’s Poland – MPWPL; (1964-1980)] and other memoir-based studies approached peasants and the Recovered Territories, which were often framed as a site of quicker and more intensive social advance and urbanisation. I also explore the autobiographies of Poles who lost their homelands in the prewar eastern borderlands in the context of today’s assumptions that ‘repatriants’, as the eastern Poles were known under communism, were largely absent from communist-era publications. 4 Chapter 5 considers the academic sociology of the Western Territories, developed at IZ, and how materials from its 1956/57 memoir competition on settlers were used alongside fieldwork. I explore the sociological frameworks developed for analysing migration, settlement and community development, noting that some studies from the 1960s can today be considered forerunners of migration studies and memory studies. Chapter 6 specifically considers the publication Pamiętniki osadników Ziem Odzyskanych [Memoirs of Recovered Territories Settlers – POZO; (1963)], investigating original entries alongside published materials to explore editors’ and academics’ role in censorship, while also investigating how the volume was received in the press. Chapter 7 explores the production of the four-volume series Wieś polska 1939-1948 [Rural Poland 1939-1948; (1967-1971)] by historian-editors Krystyna Kersten and Tomasz Szarota, who treated these previously-unpublished texts written in 1948 explicitly as historical sources, thus contrasting with previously dominant sociological approaches while also posing specific problems for censors as the editors employed a unique method of summaries in an attempt to make the entire set of some 1700 texts available to readers. Exploring different approaches to memoir publication, I aim to illustrate the diversity of the published sphere in People’s Poland, while demonstrating the heterogeneity of ordinary Poles’ memories submitted to different competitions between 1948 and 1970. While the value of the archived sources should be quite evident, exploration of censorship and editing processes should demonstrate the value of compilations and indeed communist-era scholarship, which is often overlooked today. By avoiding totalitarian schools of historiography and memory studies, I aim to demonstrate that competition memoirs illustrated ordinary Poles’ agency within historical and social processes, while also stressing their agency over their memories and autobiographical narratives which at the same time were, as in any society, cultural and social constructs.

Over recent years, the issue of how to manage waste sustainably has intensified for both researchers and policy makers. From a policy perspective, the reason for this intensification can be traced to European legislation and its transposition into UK policy. The Welsh Government in particular has set challenging statutory targets for Local Authorities. Such targets include increases in recycling and composting as well as waste reduction and reuse targets. From a research perspective there has been dissatisfaction with behavioural models and their willingness to explore alternative social science thinking (such as leading approaches to practice). Despite policy interest in sustainable waste practices, there remains little research which focuses specifically on waste minimisation at the individual or household level. What research exists focuses on pro-environmental or recycling behaviour, and tends to focus upon values, intention and behavioural change, rather than on what actual practices occur, and for what reasons. This research focuses on what practices take place in order to access a more complex range of reasons why such practices take place. The methodology adopts a qualitative approach to uncovering practices in a variety of contexts, and discovers a number of key insights which underpin waste minimisation practice. This thesis demonstrates that waste minimisation performances take place, but often do so ‘unwittingly’. Coupled to this, many witting or unwitting waste minimisation actions occur for reasons other than concern for the environment. Furthermore, this research suggests that practices (and their motivations) vary dependent upon the context in which they occur. In general, three key themes were found to be significant in influencing the take up and transfer of practice: cost, convenience, and community. As a waste practitioner, the researcher is able to engage with these themes in order to suggest future directions for waste minimisation policy as well as research.

The overall goal of this thesis is to examine three divergent literature streams, cultural capital, social capital and communities of practice (CoPs), in the context of social marketing theory. The thesis explores the means through which social and cultural capital are exchanged between two groups using social marketing techniques within a CoP framework and considers anti-social behaviour, experiential marketing and relationship marketing literatures. Four theoretical propositions are examined using mixed method and longitudinal action research approaches within a practical road safety intervention. The goal of the ‘live’ intervention sought to encourage the adoption of advanced driving practices in a group of young male drivers. Behaviour change was measured pre- and post- intervention using In Vehicle Data Recorders (IVDRs), questionnaire surveys and measured driver assessments. Supplementary qualitative insights were generated using observations, one-to-one interviews and focus groups. An understanding of advanced driving practices was achieved through extensive participation in advanced driver training by the researcher. The results of the investigation identified two groups of road users each exhibiting distinct tastes and preferences within a framework of concepts derived from the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The evidence suggests that following intervention, and including the socialisation of these groups, a positive shift occurred in the adoption of advanced driving practices. Contribution is made to social marketing theory through the application of Bourdieu’s cultural capital ‘taste zones’ applied to a social marketing context. Social marketing is then portrayed as playing a ‘bridging’ function between two groups. This approach portrays the role of social marketing as a facilitator of positive ‘customer–customer’ interactions as opposed to a more traditional ‘customer–change-agent’ orientation. Furthermore, the CoP concept is suggested as a viable mechanism through which this modified orientation can be achieved. Key words: social marketing, cultural capital, social capital, communities of practice, road safety, advanced driving.