Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Women – Great Britain – Social conditions'
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Andrews, Amanda R., University of Western Sydney, of Arts Education and Social Sciences College, and School of Humanities. "The great ornamentals : new vice-regal women and their imperial work 1884-1914." THESIS_CAESS_HUM_Andrews_A.xml, 2004. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/487.
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This thesis traces the evolution and emergence of the new-vice regal woman during a high point of the British Empire. The social, political and economic forces of the age, which transformed British society, presented different challenges and responsibilities for all women, not least those of the upper-class. Aristocratic women responded to these challenges in a distinctive manner when accompanying their husbands to the colonies and dominions as vice-regal consorts. In the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign a unique link was established between the monarchy and her female representatives throughout the Empire. The concept of the new vice-regal woman during the period 1884-1914 was explored through three case studies. The imperial stores of Lady Hariot Dufferin (1843-1936), Lady Ishbel Aberdeen (1857-1939), and Lady Rachel Dudley (c.1867-1920), establishes both the existence and importance of a new breed of vice-regal woman, one who was a modern, dynamic and pro-active imperialist. From 1884-1914 these three new vice-regal women pushed established boundaries and broke new ground. As a result, during their vice-regal lives, Ladies Dufferin, Aberdeen and Dudley initiated far reaching organisations in India, Ireland, Canada andDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)
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Malik, Aisha Anees. "Strategies of British-Pakistani Muslim women : 'subject' and 'agency' reconsidered through (an) analysis of marriage, divorce and everyday life." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265512.
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This dissertation explores the experiences of British Muslim women of Pakistani ethnic origin living in Slough in the south-east of England in matters related to maITiage, divorce and everyday life by looking into their private and social worlds in a diasporic space. Pakistanis in Britain have seen a shift in their identity from being cast as south Asians to Muslims. Women belonging to this immigrant group are increasingly being seen as 'Muslim' with an automatic inference of their being oppressed victims. When these women exhibit agency dispelling the victim image, it is read within the sole perspective of religiosity framing them only as 'Muslim women' and ignoring other facets of their being. Their experiences as British citizens and members of an ethnic minority community, the rootedness of their regional affiliations in Pakistan, class, age and their location at intersections of historical and geographical movements are subsumed by an essentialized understanding of their being Muslim. An investigation into the strategies of British-Pakistani Muslim women in Slough negotiating issues of space, clothing, language, education, employment, religiosity, ethnicity, identity, and most importantly, marriage and divorce calls for a reconsideration of notions of subject and agency. Drawing on feminist interpretations, the thesis recasts these women as 'strategizing-agentic' subjects who exhibit agency drawing from diverse even oppositional traditions. Ethnographic research methods are used to generate qualitative data that details the experiences of British-Pakistani Muslim women in Slough.
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Perrone, Fernanda Helen. "The V.A.D.S. and the great war /." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=66086.
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Peri-Rotem, Nitzan. "The role of religion in shaping women's family and employment patterns in Britian and France." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e0cedea1-973c-4395-9916-d47416672802.
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The current study examines the influence of religious affiliation and practice on family patterns and labour market activity for women in Western Europe, focusing on Britain and France. While both countries have experienced a sharp decline in institutionalized forms of religion over the past decades, differences in family and fertility behaviour on the basis of religiosity seem to persist. Although previous studies documented a positive correlation between religion and both intended and actual family size, there is still uncertainty about the different routes through which religion affects fertility, how structural factors are involved in this relationship and whether and how this relationship has changed along with the process of religious decline. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring the interrelationships between religion, educational attainment, female labour force participation, union formation and fertility levels. The data come from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which contains 18 waves from 1991 to 2008, and the French survey of the Generations and Gender Programme (GGP), which was initially conducted in 2005. By following trends in fertility differences by religious affiliation and practice across birth cohorts of women, it is found that religious differences in fertility are not only persistent across birth cohorts, there is also a growing divide between non-affiliated and religiously practicing women who maintain higher fertility levels. Religious differences in family formation patterns and completed fertility are also explored, taking into account the interaction between education and religiosity. It appears that the effect of education on fertility differs by level of religiosity, as higher education is less likely to lead to childlessness or to a smaller family size among more religious women. The findings on the relationships between family and work trajectories by level of religiosity also point to a reduced conflict between paid employment and childbearing among actively religious women, although these patterns vary by religious denomination and by country.
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Clucas, Marie. "Researching Irish health inequalities in England : a case study of first and second generation Irish men and women in Coventry." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2223/.
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Background. Despite consistent evidence that the Irish people living in Britain face a significant health disadvantage, when compared to white British people on a range of health indicators, the reasons and underlying generative mechanisms, need further uncovering. Design and Objectives. This research uses a mixed strategy design compatible with a critical realist perspective. The extensive/quantitative research component aims to evaluate the demi-regularity that Irish people in England have poorer health than the British general population. It engages in a secondary analysis of data from the Census 2001 Individual Licensed SARs, using self-reported Irish ethnicity and self-reported general health. The intensive/qualitative research component explores the generative mechanisms shaping Irish health experiences and inequalities in England, and Coventry in particular, including the contribution of, and interaction between, generative mechanisms of structural and identity/cultural aspects of ethnicity. It carries out an in-depth primary analysis of thirty-two semi-structured interview accounts from two generations of Irish men and women in Coventry, using a framework analytical approach. This is elaborated within a model of ethnicity as structure and identity developed in accordance with a critical realist and sociohistorical perspective. The research is realized through a collaborative community based participatory approach. Results and Conclusions. The extensive findings provide further evidence for an Irish health disadvantage in England, with some differences by country of birth, and provide clues to generative mechanisms for the demi-regularity found. The intensive findings concur with the extensive analysis and show that generative mechanisms from structural and identity dimensions of ethnicity 1) contribute to the health inequalities and/or experiences of first and second generation Irish people in England, 2) interact in complex ways, 3) are impacted by the socio-political context, i.e., British colonialism and a world capitalist economy, and 4) are shaped by interweaving forces of structure and agency.
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Clifton, Naomi. "Women, work and family in England and France : a question of identity." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1999. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d39ca1d0-d8fc-4f54-aea3-fba3fd68e984.
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This thesis explores some of the individual attitudes and choices which may explain differing patterns in women's work in England and France. Women's work, however, cannot be considered outside the context of their family lives, and there exist important differences between England and France in terms of the structures in place to facilitate the combining of paid work and family commitments. It is proposed that these are related to broader social and economic structures which characterise the countries concerned, and the family and gender roles assumed by them. The question addressed, therefore, is the relationship between work identity and female identity. This is examined by comparing full-time working women, both single and with families, in the two countries. Since the question concerns meanings rather than frequencies, quantitative methods such as surveys are rejected in favour of a triangulated methodology combining repertory grid, Twenty Statements Test and in- depth interview. The results from each of these are reported separately. There is strong convergence within and clear differences between national groups, regardless of marital status. French and English groups are both committed to working, but this takes different forms in the two countries. The French women define themselves equally in terms of work, personal relationships and social lives, with relatively little conflict between them. For the English women, work identity comes first, there is more conflict between work and family roles and more tension in personal relationships. This may partly be accounted for by the English women's greater concern with career progression and personal advancement, which is more likely to conflict with family roles. The findings are related to broader issues of economic, social and family policy, historical factors, religious traditions and attitudes towards gender and equality. These themselves are seen as reflecting more general ideologies in the countries concerned. Finally, there is a consideration of questions raised by the study, and suggestions for further research.
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Chung, Wing-yu, and 鍾詠儒. "British women writers and the city in the early twentieth century." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2003. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B2702409X.
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Bowles, Carol De Witte. "Women of the Tudor court, 1501-1568." PDXScholar, 1989. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3874.
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Writing the history of Tudor women is a difficult task. "Women's lives from the 16th century can rarely be constructed except when these women have had influential connections with notable men.This is no less true for the court women of Tudor England than for other women of the time.
The purpose of this thesis is to discuss some of the more memorable court women of Tudor England who served the queens of Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I, 2 and to determine what impact, if any, they had on their contemporary times and to evaluate their roles in Tudor history.
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Bolam, Fiona Louise. "Working class life in Bradford 1900-1914 : the philanthropic, political and personal responses to poverty with particular reference to women and children." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2001. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/4755/.
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The challenge that faced Edwardian Britain was how to respond to poverty and related social problems. The Victorian ideas on poverty and philanthropy were under attack by the beginning of the twentieth century and had not been replaced by those of the mid to late twentieth century, large-scale state welfare. This meant that the first twenty years of the twentieth century were a time when there was no consensus on how to respond to poverty. The concern about poverty with the lives of the working-class highlighted by Booth, Rowntree and the Boer War led to the development of new responses to poverty. Two groups who attracted attention at this time were working-class women and children whose poverty and related problems were highlighted during the first two decades of the twentieth century. In Bradford there were developments in both the political and philanthropic spheres in response to poverty. This thesis seeks to add to the knowledge of the early twentieth century through focusing on responses to poverty within one English town, Bradford, concentrating on both the philanthropic and political community. No study has investigated the work of both the Guild of Help and the ILP together and examined how their work and their policies impacted on poverty in Bradford. The Guild of Help looked to alleviate the poverty of those best placed to help themselves whereas the ILP aimed to alleviate, if not eliminate problems for all of those in poverty. The working class in Bradford responded to poverty largely through the development of practical strategies that enabled them and their families to survive. They were not able to alleviate their own poverty on a long-term basis and in some cases needed outside assistance in order to survive. The main response of the philanthropic community was the establishment of the Bradford City Guild of Help. It aimed to provide a community wide response to poverty in Bradford and to act as a clearing-house for charity in order to eliminate fraud. This response of the Bradford charitable elite aimed to investigate personal circumstances and provide help in the form of advice rather than money. The Guild of Help looked to alleviate rather than eliminate poverty and helped those in the best position to practice self-help. Although its acceptance of a role of the state in areas that had had been the traditional preserve of charity showed that the Guild of Help had moved on from Victorian charity, it still aimed to preserve the status quo and would not advocate any measures that would change this. The knowledge built up by the Guild of Help in relation to the problems of working-class women and children ensured that it was well placed to deal with these problems. However it preferred to deal with each case on an individual basis by individual Helpers which meant that there was no consistency in dealing with the poverty of working class women and children. The major response from the political community came from the Independent Labour Party. The ILP looked to eliminate poverty and the social ills associated with it and if poverty could not be eliminated without a change in society, then the ILP advocated that society should be fundamentally changed. The ILP lacked a coherent plan to tackle poverty and related problems in Bradford and had little success in responding to problems such as unemployment. However, the ILP did make the issue of education their own and built on the work of Margaret McMillan in Bradford. The ILP did challenge traditional views on responsibility for children and their policies made a difference to the lives of working-class children.
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Violett, Alice. "The public perceptions and personal experiences of only children growing up in Britain, c. 1850-1950." Thesis, University of Essex, 2018. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/22943/.
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This thesis argues that only-childhood was never the sole, and only ever a minor, determinant of only children’s experiences. It analyses autobiographies and oral history interviews of only children who grew up between 1850 and 1950 to show how personal inclinations, parental attitudes, domestic circumstances, geographical location, class, gender, and historical time, alone or in combination, were far more important influences on childhood experiences than only-childhood per se. These factors not only created differences between only children themselves, but also demonstrably influenced sibling children’s experiences. Its findings challenge negative ideas about only children that spread to the public from childrearing manuals through other media from the late-nineteenth century, when numbers of one-child families began to increase. Previous historians have inadvertently maintained these stereotypes by tending to present examples of only children who conformed to them, not seeking alternative explanations for their experiences, and presenting sibling relationships as vitally important. This thesis also questions these largely-positive portrayals of siblings. It additionally shows how some only children use only-childhood as a ‘lens’ through which they present and explain their childhood traits and experiences, attesting to the pervasiveness of only-child stereotypes. By doing so, this research builds upon the work of Raphael Samuel, Paul Thompson, Natasha Burchardt, and others regarding the role of ‘myth’ in adults’ representations of their childhoods. This thesis’ main argument supports sociologists’ suggestions about the influence of factors other than only-childhood, but it takes a more historical and personal approach. It also builds upon, and is informed by, childhood and family historians’ research into the advantages and disadvantages of decreases in family size from the 1870s onwards. Furthermore, it enhances demographic historians’ work on fertility decline by examining why some only children had no siblings, and contributes to the history of emotions by examining loneliness and unhappiness.
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Cawley, Felicity Roseanne Joy. "The effects of parental marital status and family form on experiences of childhood in twentieth century Scotland, c. 1920-1970." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2018. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/16186/.
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This thesis examines the effect of parental marital status and family form on experiences of childhood in twentieth century Scotland, c. 1920 to 1970. During the twenty-first century there has been increasing scrutiny placed of the family in response to a perceived increase in family breakdown since the 1990s. However, existing research has shown that the family has a rich and diverse history and that Scotland in particular has a strong cultural tradition of varying family forms. As such, this thesis examines the experience of childhood in nuclear families, ‘broken’ families, lone parent families, and stepfamilies in a historical context. In doing so, this thesis reveals the meanings of family for both society and individuals during the period of review, problematises the nuclear ideal and the experience of life in the nuclear family, and questions the boundaries of family as it is both lived and understood. This analysis is based on the personal testimonies, both oral history and the memoir, of those who experienced childhood in Scotland between 1920 and 1970, coupled with extensive archival sources including the records of organisations such as the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and mother and baby homes in central Scotland. The first chapter of this thesis introduces the location of study with an essential overview of the distinct aspect of Scotland’s housing, education and welfare structures throughout the twentieth century. Discussion of these environmental circumstances and contexts of childhood is crucial to framing the following analysis of remembered experiences of childhood. This framework is then followed by the first of four analysis chapters, the first of which examines the nuclear family. This formative chapter is shaped by the original oral histories carried out for this research. Interviewee testimonies revealed the importance of housing, community, parental and intrafamilial relationships on the experience of childhood. Recurring themes of alcohol abuse, poverty, and family dysfunction were all revealed as influential in the shaping of memories and narratives of childhood. Building on the themes in chapter two, the first analytic chapter, the third chapter focuses on the transitionary phase of the ‘breaking’ of the family and looks at the impact of parental separation, death, and divorce on experiences of childhood. In doing so, this chapter also includes an experience of childhood outwith the family and examines institutional childhood. In focusing on the ‘breaking’ of the family, this chapter highlights the transient nature of this process and highlights the importance of the coping mechanisms and survival strategies adopted by families during this period. Following this, chapters four and five each examine a subsequent family form, namely the lone parent family and the stepfamily. The examination of childhood within a lone parent family brings a gendered focus to the analysis with a concentration on the impact of lone motherhood on experiences of childhood. Whilst the themes from the previous chapters recur here, the impact of external support networks and the influence of the welfare state are explicitly interrogated for the first time, as well as the continued influence on external institutions and agencies in the shaping of family. Finally, analysis concludes with a consideration of life within a stepfamily. In doing so the chapters of the thesis echo the potential path of the family, from nuclear through to broken and lone parent, to stepfamily. This final chapter questions the ‘return to normality’ of the stepfamily and contrasts the experience of stepfamily life with that of the nuclear, further questioning the idealisation of this ‘traditional model’. Discussions of stepfamily life build on the role of emotions in experiences and definitions of family as well as including a discussion of the changing conceptions of child abuse. Throughout both final chapters the individual complexity of family life and experience is examined.
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Cross, Hayley. "Gender, class and the household economy in Scotland in the 'age of affluence'." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2016. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7747/.
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From early 1950s to the early 1970s Britain is said to have experienced an ‘age of affluence’. Whilst material conditions for many households improved in these decades, this detailed examination of budget management processes shows that for many working-class households, these gains were the product of hard work and careful money management. Using oral history methodology, this thesis explores lived experiences of the household economy to illuminate these qualifications to ‘affluence’. In so doing, this thesis advances analysis which considers the relationship between the macro-level economic conditions of affluence and the everyday economic realities of households in the post-war period. The thesis examines the operation of the household economy and shows how working-class households utilised domestic labour, budgeting, paid work, credit and thrift to make ends meet, as well as to achieve ‘affluence’. Further, by exploring these areas of the household economy, this thesis shows that gendered ideology continued to preserve power and material inequalities between men and women. Although considerable change did occur, particularly involvement in the paid labour market, domestic responsibilities continued to be an important focus of women’s identities and the effective performance of these duties by women remained central to the success of the household. This thesis represents a fresh focus on how the exploration of everyday life, including the salience of ideological continuities in shaping experience, can qualify and refine our understanding of twentieth century economic and social change, and contributes to socio-historical understandings of ‘affluence’ and its intersections with the household, gender, and class.
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Smitley, Megan K. "'Woman's mission' : the temperance and women's suffrage movements in Scotland, c.1870-1914." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2002. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1488/.
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This thesis discusses the connections that bound together the late-nineteenth-century women’s temperance and suffrage movements in Scotland. The importance of women’s temperance reform in the women’s movement has been discussed in other Anglophone contexts, however there has been little scholarly analysis of these links in British historiography. This study aims to fill some of this gap. Moreover, by focusing on the Scottish case, this investigation adds a more ‘Britannic’ perspective to discussions of Victorian and Edwardian feminism, and thereby reveals regional variation and diversity. My exploration of the women’s suffrage movement focuses on constitutional societies, and offers a fresh perspective to balance the concentration on militancy in the only major monograph on Scottish suffragism – Leah Leneman’s A Guid Cause: The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Scotland. This analysis takes a flexible approach to constitutionalism and argues that the women’s single-sex temperance society, the Scottish Christian Union (SCU) was an element of constitutional suffragism. Likewise, the Scottish Women’s Liberal Federation – peripheral to the historiography of British suffragism – is given a prominent place as a constitutionalist organisation. This study uses women’s roles in social reform and suffragism to examine the public lives of middle-class women. The ideology of ‘separate spheres’ is a leitmotif of much of women’s history, and discussions of the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres are often linked to social class. My discussion of a ‘feminine public sphere’ is designed to reveal the ways in which women negotiated Victorian gender roles in order to participate in the civic life that was intrinsic to an urban middle-class identity. Thus, this thesis seeks to place suffragism and temperature in the context of middle-class women’s public world.
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Thomson, Andrea. "Marriage and marriage breakdown in late twentieth-century Scotland." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5764/.
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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.
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Millman, Margaret. "In the shadow of war : continuities and discontinuities in the construction of the masculine identities of British soldiers, 1914-1924." Thesis, University of Greenwich, 2002. http://gala.gre.ac.uk/6252/.
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The upheavals of the cataclysm of the First World War reverberated through every comer of British society, how society was reconstructed afterwards is the subject of enormous critical debate. This study examines how masculinities were disrupted and. reconstructed during and after the war. It is a study of British men, previously civilians, who became servicemen in the First World War. It aims to map the continuities and discontinuities in the construction of their masculine identities during war and in its aftermath in the 1920s. Pioneered by feminist scholars concerned with analysing the historical construction of femininity, the study of gender relations has become a significant area of historical enquiry. This has resulted in a substantial body of historical scholarship on the history of masculinities and the increasing visibility of men as gendered subjects whose masculinities are lived and imagined. This thesis is informed by, and engages with, the histories of masculinities. It also draws on recent historical research on the cultural legacy of the war. The first chapter explores the subjectiver esponsesto becoming a soldier through an examination of personal memoirs; largely unpublished sources drawn from memories and written or recorded by men as narratives of their wartime experiences. The subject of the second chapter is shell shock. The outbreak of shell shock among the troops aroused anxieties about masculinity. The competing versions of masculinities which emerged in military and medical discourses is examined. Returning to individual memoirs, the chapter examines how men produced their own representations of the shell shocked man contesting other versions. Chapters 3 and 4 focus their attention on the relatively neglected subject of ex-servicemen's organisations and the collectivities of ex-servicemen. During and after the war a movement of ex-servicemen emerged to campaign for justice and fair treatment. Comradeship underpinned the attempt to forge an ex-serviceman identity and an examination of veterans' publications, a largely neglected source, has revealed the tensions and conflicts which contested this form of masculine identity. Masculine identities, as citizens and workers, presented a challenge to the potential for a unified, apolitical movement. Unemployment was a challenge to male identities traditionally secured through work and masculine codes of independence. Unlike many studies, this thesis intentionally straddles war and peace. It begins in 1914 and ends a decade later in a society restored to peace but still essentially in the shadow of war.
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Butler, Meagan Lee. ""Husbands without wives, and wives without husbands" : divorce and separation in Scotland, c. 1830-1890." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5264/.
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This thesis explores divorce and judicial separation as it occurred in nineteenth-century Scotland, between the years 1830 and 1890, predating the phenomenon it came to be in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As Scotland’s history has frequently been incorporated within a general history of Great Britain, this thesis separates it from the widely researched accounts of marriage and marital breakdown in England to highlight the different approach to regulating marriage, divorce and separation under Scots law. Applying Scotland’s distinctive legal, demographic and economic context has provided a social and gender history of marriage breakdown unique to the country, and filled a historiographical gap for the nineteenth century. This research will be presented through separate analyses of divorce for adultery, desertion—both official and unofficial, and marital cruelty in the civil and criminal courts. To present individual experiences inside the courtroom, Court of Session divorce and separation cases are used and supplemented with newspaper accounts of Court of Session trials. To provide context to the related discourses, Parliamentary papers and newspaper articles are used. Lastly, to address the unofficial instances of marital breakdown, criminal court trials of wifebeating and poor relief applications from deserted wives are also analysed. This thesis argues that despite comparably liberal divorce and separation laws established in the sixteenth century, legal, economic, social and cultural factors and discourses imposed on the accessibility of these legal forms of marital breakdown.
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Hopkins, Susan. "Pop heroines and female icons : youthful femininity and popular culture." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1999.
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The thesis suggests much feminist theorising on girls' and young women's relationship to popular culture is limited by a 'moral-political' approach which searches for moral and
political problems and solutions in the consumption of popular images of femininity. The thesis offers a critique of such 'moral-political' interpretations of the relationship between youthful femininity and popular culture. Following thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and
Jean Baudrillard, the thesis opposes the political preoccupation with 'reality' and 'truth'. The study follows Nietzsche's and Baudrillard's notion of the 'Eternal-Feminine' which accepts the necessity of illusion, deception and appearances. Through a close textual
analysis of magazines, films, television and music video, this study offers an aesthetic appreciation of popular culture representations of femininity. The thesis comprises six essays, the first of which explains my Nietzschean inspired aesthetic approach in more detail. The second essay looks at images and discourses of supermodels and model femininity in women's magazines. The third looks at image-based forms of 'girl power' from Madonna to
the Spice Girls. The fourth essay examines the 'Cool Chics' of the pay TV channel TVJ,from Wonder Woman to Xena: Warrior Princess. The fifth essay, 'Gangster Girls: From
Goodfellas to Pulp Fiction' considers the 1990s model of the femme fatale, the bad girl who thrives on moral chaos. The final essay 'Celebrity Skin: From Courtney Love to Kylie
Minogue' suggests some of the most powerful feminine role models of our time have built their careers not on notions of authenticity and truth but rather on the successful management of illusion and fantasy. The essay argues that our social world has outgrown the traditional
moral-political approach which aims to lead girls and young women from 'deceptive''immoral' appearances to moral, 'authentic' 'reality'. The pleasures of popular culture, Isuggest, cannot always be linked to deep meanings but may be drawn from superficial appearances and beautiful surfaces.
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McGuire, Dorothy Ellen. "Go West for a wife : family farming in West Central Scotland 1850-1930." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2012. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3302/.
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The historical geography of farming in the West Central Region of Scotland has been under-researched. Generalisations based on research relating to other parts of the country are misleading because the development and forms of agriculture in the West Central Region were distinctive. Traditionally this is an area of dairy farming which, during the research period (c.1850-1930) was characterised by small family labour farms. The concentration of small farms, on which the faming family and a few hired workers formed the core labour-force, and where the distinctions between employer and employed were less than on the large arable farms of the East, had consequences for rural social structure, mitigating the effects of capitalism. Through a small set of family labour farms, and the families associated with them, the thesis takes a grassroots approach to exploring the pattern of life on the farms of the Region, with particular regard to gender relations. The survival of such farms, contrary to Marxist expectations is investigated, along with the resilience of the farms during the period of ‘The Great Agricultural Depression.’ Glasgow, the economic capital of the Region, underwent phenomenal growth during the nineteenth century, and had a massive impact upon local agriculture. Glasgow and its satellite towns were a market for agricultural produce, and a source of imported livestock feed, and fertilisers. The fashions, in the town, for consumer goods and non-traditional foodstuffs spread out to the surrounding Region, and interaction between town and country was facilitated by the development of the railways. The significance of farm location in relation to Glasgow is assessed.
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Dougherty, Devyn T. "Exotic Femininity: Prostitution Reviews and the Sexual Stereotyping of Asian Women." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2014. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc700002/.
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Studies on prostitution have typically focused on the experiences, problems, and histories of prostitutes, rather than examining men who seek to purchase sex. Race has also been overlooked as a central factor in shaping the sex industry and the motivations of men who seek to purchase sex. This study utilizes online reviews of prostitutes to examine the way men who purchase sex discuss Asian prostitutes in comparison to White prostitutes. This paper traces the history of colonialism and ideas of the exotic Orient to modern stereotypes of Asian women. These stereotypes are then used to frame a quantitative and qualitative analysis of online reviews of prostitutes and compare the ways in which Asian prostitutes and white prostitutes are discussed. Further, the reviews are used to examine more broadly what services, traits, and behaviors are considered desirable by men who use prostitutes. The study finds that there are significant quantitative and qualitative differences in how men discuss Asian and White prostitutes within their reviews, and that these differences appear to be shaped by racially fetishizing stereotypes of Asian women. Prostitution also appears to reinforce male dominance and patriarchy in the form of masculine control and the feminine servicing of male sexual and emotional needs.
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Tabet, Marie-Christine. "Household labour supply in Great Britain : can policy-makers rely on neoclassical models?" Thesis, University of Sussex, 2010. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/2358/.
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This thesis empirically examines whether the neoclassical economic model provides an adequate framework to analyse a couple's labour supply behaviour in Britain using recent data from the British Household Panel Survey. The thesis comprises three empirical chapters. The first chapter uses the instrumental variable (IV) estimation procedure to model the hours of work of married couples. This approach allows us to test whether some of the assumptions of the neoclassical model (e.g., income pooling and Slutsky properties) are satisfied by the data. In addition, further variables that have been identified as distribution factors in the literature are introduced to the empirical model to assess whether they play a role in explaining a couple's hours of work. The first chapter only considers couples in which both spouses work. In the second chapter, the sample is amended to include all couples (i.e., those that work and those that do not) and the analysis conducted models a couple's labour market participation decisions rather than their hours of work. After testing for income pooling and the impact of distribution factors, a further variable, the wife's mother-in-law work status when the male spouse was aged 14, is introduced into the model. This is done to determine the effect of 'cultural' variables on labour market decisions. In the last chapter, this issue is explored further by explicitly modelling attitudes to a woman's role in the labour market. This approach uses a bivariate ordered probit model given the ordinal nature of responses to the attitudinal questions and again restricts the analysis to couples only. Finally, gender-role attitudes are introduced to the labour supply framework used in the second chapter in order to evaluate whether beliefs regarding women's role impact on a couple's labour market decisions.
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Neal, Derek. "Meanings of masculinity in late medieval England : self, body and society." Thesis, McGill University, 2003. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=84534.
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Masculinity is a set of meanings, and also an aspect of male identity. Understanding masculinity in history, therefore, requires attention to culture and psychology. The concept of a "crisis of masculinity" cannot address these dimensions sufficiently and is of little use to the historian.This analysis of evidence from late medieval England begins with the social world. Legal records show men defending, and therefore defining, masculine identity through interaction among male peers and with women. Defamation suits suggest a fifteenth-century identification of masculinity with "trueness": an uncomplicated, open honesty. A "true man," in late medieval England, was not just an honest man, but a real man.
Social masculinity constituted honest fairness, permitting stable social relations between men. Transparent honesty, good management of the household ("husbandry"), and self-command preserved males' social substance, their metaphoric embodiment represented tangibly by money and property. Lawsuits and personal letters show how masculine social identity took shape through competition and cooperation with other men. "Power," "dominance" and self-fulfilment were less important than sustaining this network of relations.
Men's relations with women are best understood within this homosocial dynamic. Men's adultery trespassed on other males' substance, while women's adultery indicated poor management of one's own. Sexual slander against men could injure their social identity, but was unlikely to demolish it, as it would for a woman. The celibate minority of men shared these concerns.
Medical texts, late medieval men's clothing, satirical poems, and courtesy texts prescribing self-control show that the male body provided important meanings (phallic and otherwise), through failure, inadequacy or excess as often as not. Sexual activity, and other uses of the body, might be managed differently as self-restraining or self-indulgent discourses of masculinity demanded.
A psychoanalytic reading of medieval romances reveals fantasized solutions to the problem of males' desire for feminine and masculine objects. Romance literature displays a narcissistic subjectivity created in defensive fantasies of disconnection. Such features derive from a culture demanding incessant social self-presentation of its men, which permitted very little in daily life to be kept from the scrutiny of others.
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Whitworth, Adam. "Work, care and social inclusion : lone motherhood under New Labour." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.670080.
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Hodges, Sushmita. "Women and education : social feminism and intellectual emancipation in England and America." Virtual Press, 1989. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/720136.
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Social Feminism, as influenced by the Enlightenment, manifested itself between 1780 and 1860. An important aspect of social feminism was intellectual emancipation for women. Such intellectual emancipation came about through the blending of ideas emanating from prominent cultural and social centers in the western world. Women had been absorbing the reformist ideas of the Enlightenment philosophies, incorporating them into their own lines of thinking, and producing a social theory aiming at educational freedom for women. The individual efforts to initiate change in time reached beyond national boundaries through the pioneer social feminists' literary works and word of mouth. It is the intent of this dissertation to examine and analyze the linkage between the concept of social feminism and educational emancipation.The purpose of this research is to establish the significance of education as a major branch of social feminism within the context of the women's movement. To overcome language barriers that prevented research into other countries' women's movements, I have restricted this study to England and America and developed the concept of transatlantic feminism.Between 1780 and 1860 the women's "question" in England and America gained its theoretical foundations. Although there was no organized feminist movement, societies in both countries were being made conscious of the problems stemming from the subordinate status of women. This social awareness resulted from the tracts and discussions of certain male philosophers and of various exceptional females who focused on the question of women's rights and other related issues.The major emphasis during this early stage of the women's "question" was the issue of education as a vehicle for elevating the position of women. The education of available to women at that time was limited in nature. Training caring mothers was what social feminists protested against in their writings and discourses. Yet they understandably differed in their aims and formulas for change. Some spokeswomen, while accepting the societal status quo, promoted education as a means for women to recognize their moral superiority. There were yet others who demanded a "separate but equal" education so that women could exploit their full potential and, in some cases, assert their economic independence. All these social reformers, through their own unique experiences, also set examples for their contemporaries and future generations to follow.Despite some inconsistencies in their approaches to educational reform for women, almost all of the individual feminists discussed in this dissertation felt that intellectual emancipation would pave the way for improved social standing for women.Department of History
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Haynes, Kathryn. "(Sm)othering the self : an analysis of the politics of identity of women accountants in the UK." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14191.
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This thesis examines the politics of identity of women accountants in the UK who are mothers, by exploring the links between working in the accounting profession and the experience of motherhood. It takes a sociological approach to analyse how social, political, cultural and moral forces, in relation to accounting, motherhood and wider society, affect identity, or the self. The accounting profession is arguably a masculine enviromnent into which the accountant is socialised. Motherhood illustrates the tensions between an essentialist and a non-essentialist view of identity. The thesis explores the contradictions and juxtapositions between these two identities of accountant and mother, and the struggle of women to exercise agency within the confines of the profession. It uses a feminist methodological framework based on the subjective experience of women. As such, I present my own autobiographical account of being an accountant and mother, and the oral history narratives of fifteen other women, arguing that narrative forms an integral part of identity construction. The thesis concludes that the narrative approach and the use of oral histories has much to offer to accounting research and has important implications for our understanding of the interrelationships between accounting and motherhood. These include the emotions, transformations and constructions of identity of women accountants.
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Childs, Michael James 1956. "Working class youth in late Victorian and Edwardian England." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=74015.
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McLaughlin, Janice. "Discursive strategies within Thatcherism : family and market representations in its rhetoric and Community Care Documents /." Thesis, This resource online, 1993. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-06302009-040329/.
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Withall, Caroline Louise. "Shipped out? : pauper apprentices of port towns during the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1870." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:519153d8-336b-4dac-bf37-4d6388002214.
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The thesis challenges popular generalisations about the trades, occupations and locations to which pauper apprentices were consigned, shining the spotlight away from the familiar narrative of factory children, onto the fate of their destitute peers in port towns. A comparative investigation of Liverpool, Bristol and Southampton, it adopts a deliberately broad definition of the term pauper apprenticeship in its multi-sourced approach, using 1710 Poor Law and charity apprenticeship records and previously unexamined New Poor Law and charity correspondence to provide new insight into the chronology, mechanisms and experience of pauper apprenticeship. Not all port children were shipped out. Significantly more children than has hitherto been acknowledged were placed in traditional occupations, the dominant form of apprenticeship for port children. The survival and entrenchment of this type of work is striking, as are the locations in which children were placed; nearly half of those bound to traditional trades remained within the vicinity of the port. The thesis also sheds new light on a largely overlooked aspect of pauper apprenticeship, the binding of boys into the Merchant service. Furthermore, the availability of sea apprenticeships as well as traditional placements caused some children to be shipped in to the ports for apprenticeships. Of those who were still shipped out to the factories, the evidence shows that far from dying out, as previously thought, the practice of batch apprenticeship persisted under the New Poor Law. The most significant finding of the thesis is the survival and endurance of pauper apprenticeship as an institution involving both Poor Law and charity children. Poor children were still being apprenticed late into the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Pauper apprenticeship is shown to have been a robust, resilient and resurgent institution. The evidence from port towns offers significant revision to the existing historiography of pauper apprenticeship.
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Magor, Deborah A. "Working women in the news : a study of news media representations of women in the workforce." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/102.
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This study examines how working women are represented in the news media, and its main aim is to determine to what extent ‘social class’ figures in the representations of women in news content. Using language, visual and narrative analysis, the thesis comprises four case studies each focusing on portrayals of different women from different socio-economic backgrounds determined by their occupation. The first two case studies examine portrayals of low paid working women through coverage of the National Minimum Wage introduction into Britain in April 1999 and the Council Workers’ Strike in England and Wales in 2002. The latter two case studies focus on women in particular professions: elite businesswomen, military women and women war reporters. The study concludes by noting that multiple voices occur in news texts around the key contrasting themes of progress/stagnation and visibility/invisibility and which can give contradictory discourses on the intersection of gender and class. From the massification and silencing of working class women, to the celebrity and sexualisation of the business elite, and the professional competency news frames of middle class women, class was shown to be a determining factor in how women figure in news content. However, these class determinants combined with other news frames pertaining to gender, whereby powerful and established myths of femininity can come to the fore. These myths can be particularly powerful when women enter non-feminine work ‘spaces’ such as business and the military, and class, particularly in the latter case, can tend to slip out of view, as sexist coverage is commonplace and debates are formed about the right and wrong behaviour for women.
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McMurray, David, and University of Lethbridge Faculty of Arts and Science. "'A rod of her own' : women and angling in victorian North America." Thesis, Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Arts and Science, 2007, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10133/537.
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This thesis will argue that angling was a complex cultural phenomenon that had developed into a respectable sport for women during the Early Modern period in Britain. This heterogeneous tradition was inherited by many Victorian women who found it to be a vehicle through which they could find access to nature and where they could respectably exercise a level of authority, autonomy, and agency within the confines of a patriarchal society. That some women were conscious of these opportunities and were deliberate in their use of angling to achieve their goals while others happened upon them in a more unassuming manner, underscores how angling also functioned as a canopy of camouflage within Victorian society. In other words, though it outwardly appeared as a simple recreational activity, angling possessed the ability to function as a meta-narrative for its adherents, where the larger experiences and intentions of women became subtly intertwined, if not hidden, within the actual activity itself.viii, 197 leaves ; 29 cm.
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Skillen, Fiona I. "'When women look their worst' : women and sports participation in interwar Scotland." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2008. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/515/.
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The works of historians such as Hargreaves, Tranter, Walvin, McCrone and Bailey suggest that women were, for a variety of reasons, gradually entering into the ‘world of sport’ from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards. Despite a lack of research it has been argued that this trend, of increased participation amongst women, continued into the twentieth century. Recent studies have tended to converged on the broad leisure choices of women, ignoring the place of sport within these experiences. This study therefore addresses an under researched topic: the development of women’s participation in sport in Scotland between 1920 and 1937. Many argue that during the interwar years there was a general distortion of the traditional boundaries between ‘public’ and ‘private’ areas of life for women. However, it has also been acknowledged that notions of gender differences persisted in this period. This study contributes to a wider understanding of gender relations during the period. It probes how women’s involvement in physically demanding sports were influenced by existing discourses and enabled the emergence of new ones. This thesis does not aim to chart the chronological growth and development of specific sports but rather seeks to understand the ways in which sport was incorporated into women’s lives and the meanings which they attached to their experiences. Each section of the thesis deals with a different area of participation. It examines the development of physical education in schools, the establishment and growth of a selection of sports organizations, the growth and use of local council run sports facilities and the development of work-based sport for women. This research focuses on contemporary depictions and discussions of sportswomen during these years as well as drawing on the views of sportswomen themselves. It employs both qualitative and quantitative methodologies in order to achieve a holistic and balanced interpretation of interwar sports participation and the attitudes that influenced it.
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Koch, Insa Lee. "Personalising the state : law, social welfare and politics on an English council estate." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4335c11c-c0a5-44dc-bd15-5bbbfe2fee6c.
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This dissertation offers a study of everyday relations between residents and the state on a post-industrial council estate in England. Drawing upon historical and ethnographic data, it analyses how, often under conditions of sustained exclusion, residents rely upon the state in their daily struggles for security and survival. My central ethnographic finding is that residents personalise the state alongside informal networks of support and care into a local sociality of reciprocity. This finding can be broken into three interconnected points. First, I argue that the reciprocal contract between citizens and the state emerged in the post-war years when the residents on the newly built estates negotiated their dependence upon the state by integrating it into their on-going social relations. A climate of relative material affluence, selective housing policies, and a paternalistic regime of housing management all created conditions which were conducive for this temporary union between residents and the state. Second, however, I argue that with the decline of industry and shifts towards neoliberal policies, residents increasingly struggle to hold the state accountable to its reciprocal obligations towards local people. This becomes manifest today both in the material neglect of council estates as well as in state officials' reluctance to become implicated in social relations with and between residents. Third, I argue that this failure on the part of the state to attend to residents' demands often has onerous effects on people's lives. It not only exacerbates residents' exposure to insecurity and threat, but is also experienced as a moral affront which generates larger narratives of abandonment and betrayal. Theoretically, this dissertation critically discusses and challenges contrasting portrayals of the state, and of state-citizen relations, in two bodies of literature. On the one hand, in much of the sociological and anthropological literature on working class communities, authors have adopted a community-centred approach which has depicted working class communities as self-contained entities against which the state emerges as a distant or hostile entity. I argue that such a portrayal is premised upon a romanticised view of working class communities which neglects the intimate presence of the state in everyday life. On the other hand, the theoretical literature on the British state has adopted a state-centred perspective which has seen the state as a renewed source of order and authority in disintegrating communities today. My suggestion is that this portrayal rests upon a pathologising view of social decline which fails to account for the persistence of informal social relations and the challenges that these pose to the state's authority from below. Finally, moving beyond the community-centred and state-centred perspectives, I argue for the need to adopt a middle ground which combines an understanding of the nature and workings of informal relations with an acknowledgement of the ubiquity of the state. Such an approach allows us to recognise that, far from being a hostile entity or, alternatively, an uncontested source of order, the state occupies shifting positions within an overarching sociality of reciprocity and its associated demands for alliances and divisions. I refer to such an approach as the personalisation of the state.
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Elliot-Cooper, Adam. "The struggle that has no name : race, space and policing in post-Duggan Britain." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7efad2ea-75e2-4a54-a479-b3b2b265e827.
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State violence, and policing in particular, continue to shape the black British experience, racialising geographical areas associated with African and African-Caribbean communities. The history of black struggles in the UK has often centred on spaces of racial violence and resistance to it. But black-led social movements of previous decades have, for the most part, seen a decline in both political mobilisations, and the militant anti-racist slogans and discourses that accompanied them. Neoliberalism, through securitisation, resource reallocation, privatisation of space and the de-racialising of language, has made radical black activism an increasingly difficult endeavour. But this does not mean that black struggle against policing has disappeared. What it does mean, however, is that there have been significant changes in how anti-racist activism against policing is articulated and carried out. Three high-profile black deaths at the hands of police in 2011 led to widespread protest and civil unrest. These movements of resistance were strengthened when the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States mobilised hundreds of young people in solidarity actions in England. In this thesis, I argue that, over time, racist metonyms used to describe places racialised as black (Handsworth, Brixton etc.) and people racialised as black (Stephen Lawrence, Mark Duggan etc.), have led to the rise of metonymic anti-racism. While metonymic anti-racism was used alongside more overt anti-racist language in the period between the 1950s and early 1990s, I argue that such overt anti-racist language is becoming rarer in the post-2011 period, particularly in radical black grassroots organisations that address policing. Intersecting with metonymic anti-racism are gender dynamics brought to the surface by female-led campaigns against police violence, and forms of resistance which target spaces of post-industrial consumer capitalism. Understanding how police racism, and resistance to it, are being reconceptualised through language, and reconfigured through different forms of activism, provides a fresh understanding of grassroots black struggle in Britain.
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Freeman, Mark David. "Social investigation in rural England, 1870-1914." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1999. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1130/.
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This thesis analyses the work of a large group of social investigators who were active in rural areas in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It follows on from studies of the investigations of Charles Booth, Seebohm Rowntree, Henry Mayhew and others, and shows how the investigation of rural life proceeded on different lines from the urban social inquiry of the period. It is argued that the political and social conflicts between town and country, and within the rural community itself, shaped the activities of the investigators considered. The model of a conflict between the 'informant' approach (where trustworthy authorities were asked to comment on the condition of the agricultural labourer) and the 'respondent' approach (where the labourer was consulted at first hand) is used to illustrate the complexity of the structure or rural social inquiries of the period. It is shown that the kinds of information which could be obtained from the two approaches differed, and that the same event or condition could be reported on very differently from two conflicting points of view. This argument is taken a study further by an examination of another genre of writers on the agricultural labourer. It is argued that the social commentary, usually by resident investigators, which tended to be cultural rather than economic in character, was as much a part of the project of social investigation as was the large-scale official inquiry or social survey. Drawing on the work of the few historians who have seriously analysed this genre of writers in its urban context, the thesis applies an analysis of this form of investigation in rural areas. The perceived need to communicate with the rural poor on a deeper level was another aspect of the 'respondent' approach to investigation, and is as much a forerunner of modern sociological method as is the classic social survey. The thesis also shows how the representations of rural communities and of agricultural labourers in the texts of the period affected the practice of investigators, and argues that the notion of the countryside as a scene of social peace and a repository of racial hardihood caused them to approach the task of investigation with particular preconceptions which shaped their diagnoses of the problems of rural life.
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Slade, R. D. "Faith and peacebuilding in UK community cohesion since 2001." Thesis, Coventry University, 2012. http://curve.coventry.ac.uk/open/items/95df9d29-b654-4c08-b3af-70fe5bbdbfdc/1.
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The focus of this study is faith and peacebuilding in UK community cohesion since 2001. The central feature is a presentation of action research findings set in a collaborative relationship between the researcher and an inter-faith community dialogue project established to address divisive right wing extremism in the fieldwork locality of South Yorkshire. A decade of New Labour governance has seen community cohesion policy evolve from initial concerns regarding urban unrest to mainstream strategies targeted on violent religious extremism. Dialogue between ethnically diverse and white mono-cultural communities has been seen as the best way of helping people to get on better with each other. However community cohesion policy can be criticised for a significant failure to address issues of inequality and exclusion that are relevant to inter-community tensions. Since 2001, faith has been an increasingly prominent, albeit ambivalent, presence in UK society. Protagonists, arguing faith should have little or no role in public life, contest bitter disputes with those who perceive that an encroaching tide of secularism is attacking their faith beliefs and identity. Against this background right wing extremists have made astute use of faith identity, embedding their presence in some communities by utilising extremist discourses of Islamophobia that frame Muslims as a threat to the indigenous culture and resources of white communities. However some writers have identified the positive contribution that faith can make to public life. A commitment to social justice and addressing exclusion are examples of the resources faith can bring to addressing societal issues. Peacebuilding methodologies are similarly concerned with such issues. Processes for addressing protracted4 social conflict provide a framework within which faith and secular perspectives can cooperate to address these complex issues. The study’s action research found a strong relationship in the field work locality between electoral support of the extreme right wing BNP party and high levels of deprivation in white mono-cultural communities. Anger and resentment arising from industrial conflict and decline, and perceptions of being ignored by mainstream political parties, have been exploited by the BNP, opening a portal to hostile discourses of racism and Islamophobia. However the study’s research found that faith and faith values can bring rich and positive resources to inter-faith activity that aims to challenge divisive extremism that targets ethnic minority communities in general and Muslims in particular. In such circumstances it is usual practice to reduce hostile perceptions by arranging programmes of community interaction. However this study found that in communities where this strategy is not feasible, implementation of an intra-community dialogue framework may be effective in reducing hostile prejudice and stereotyping on which extremism feeds.
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Whitworth, Lesley. "Men, women, shops and 'little, shiny homes' : the consuming of Coventry, 1930-1939." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1997. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/36346/.
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In the 1930s many people leaving the United Kingdom's depressed areas in search of work were drawn to Coventry. Companies involved in the manufacture of motor cars, electrical goods, artificial silk and machine tools were typical of those located in the city. Most incomers found work: unemployment remained at a low level whilst the city's population exploded. The city boundaries were extended, and Coventry was rapidly suburbanised in response to the heightened demand for accommodation. Private developers noted with surprise how few of the new houses were built to let. The 1936 edition of Home Market placed Coventry first on its national index of purchasing power. From the middle of the decade, the city was closely associated with rearmament and four shadow factories provided further employment opportunities. This research addresses changes in the processes and practices of (primarily non-food) shopping amongst prosperous working-class Coventry people in the 1930s. It assesses the development of new spending patterns In relation to new products and services, and examines the role played by gender in determining the who, what, when, where and why of shopping. The thesis asks how these men and women negotiated financial power and consumer choice between them and discovers that the families who benefitted most from new material opportunities were those which placed a value on togetherness'. A range of source material is utilised to interrogate and contextualise oral testimony, and to explore the development of local retail provision. relationship is established between the city's manufacturing, retail and domestic environments. The research suggests that men spent slightly more time in the home, and women slightly less during this period. It also asserts that going shopping was not necessarily about acquiring goods; that acquir1ng goods did not necessarily involve going to the shops; and that the shopper was not always a woman.
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Humphris, Rachel Grace. "New migrants' home encounters : an ethnography of 'Romanian Roma' and the local state in Luton." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3af69cfa-2cd7-4972-afb2-14d92238d25a.
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This ethnographic study explores how 'Romanian Roma' migrants in the UK, without previous relationships to their place of arrival, negotiate their identity to make place in a diverse urban area. The thesis argues that state forms are (re)produced through embedded social relations. The restructuring of the UK welfare state, coupled with processes of labelling, means that the notion of public and private space is changing. Migrants' encounters with state actors in the home are increasingly important. I lived with three families between January 2013 and March 2014, during a period of shifting labour market regulations and the end of European Union transitional controls in January 2014. Through mapping families' relationships and connections, I identify encounters in the home with state actors regarding children as a defining feature of place-making. The thesis introduces the term 'home encounter' to trace the interplay of discourses and performances between state actors and those they identified as 'Romanian Roma'. Due to the restructuring of UK welfare, various roles assume different 'faces of the state'. These include education officers, health visitors, sub-contracted NGO workers, charismatic pastors and volunteers. The home encounter is presented as a public 'state act' (Bourdieu 2012) where negotiations of values take place in private space determining access to membership and welfare resources. In addition, blurring boundaries between welfare regulations and immigration control mean that these actors' seemingly small decisions have far-reaching consequences. The analysis raises questions of how to understand practices of government in diverse urban areas; the affect of labelling, place and performance on material power inequalities; and processes of discrimination and othering.
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O'Hare, Sian E. M. "Essays on poverty and wellbeing." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/21806.
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Although economic growth has brought significant improvements in the standard of living in the UK over recent decades, there are still individuals living in poverty. Furthermore poverty in the UK is expected to rise. Although monetary poverty has wide ranging impacts such as poor health, low educational attainment and employability and reduced life expectancy, it does not (in the form of a poverty line at 60% of the median equivalised household income) appear to have an impact on wellbeing when the threshold was tested. Instead, multidimensional poverty – that purported by the Capabilities Approach – is a more individually relevant measure of poverty. Using a list, developed by Nussbaum, of core capabilities seen as essential for human life, capability measures were taken from the British Household Panel Survey. In analysis, some are found to be significant determinants of wellbeing, individually and in sum. Furthermore, individuals within the dataset experience loss aversion to capabilities. This thesis concludes that poverty measurement should be meaningful at the individual level, and to that aim, the Capabilities Approach provides a richer and more relevant evaluation of what poverty really means.
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Bannerman, Sheila J., and University of Lethbridge Faculty of Arts and Science. "Manliness and the English soldier in the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 : the more things change, the more they stay the same." Thesis, Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Arts and Science, 2005, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10133/240.
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This thesis uses the Victorian ideology of chivalric manlines to explain the class-oriented army hierarchy developed by volunteer soldiers from northern England during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. Newspaper reports, advertising, and popular fiction reveal a public mythology of imperial manliness and neo-chivalric ideals that was transferred onto civilian volunteers, creating an ideal warrior that satisfied a thirst for honour. This mythology created a world view in which northern communities, once supporters of the burgeoning peace movement, became committed supporters of parochial units of volunteer soldiers that fought in the newly expanded army. Soldiers' letters and diaries reveal that ingrained ideals of manliness and chivalry led to class-differentiated hierarchies within the army that mirrored those in civilian life. Contrary to the conclusions of some current historians, the Regular soldier remained in his traditional place at the bottom of the army structure, so that "the more things change, the more they remain the same."vi, 138 leaves ; 29 cm.
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Dean, Camille K. "True Religion: Reflections of British Churches and the New Poor Law in the Periodical Press of 1834." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1993. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278395/.
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This study examined public perception of the social relevance of Christian churches in the year the New Poor Law was passed. The first two chapters presented historiography concerning the Voluntary crisis which threatened the Anglican establishment, and the relationship of Christian churches to the New Poor Law. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 revealed the recurring image of "true" Christianity in its relation to the church crisis and the New Poor Law in the working men's, political, and religious periodical press. The study demonstrated a particular working class interest in Christianity and the effect of evangelicalism on religious renewal and social concerns. Orthodox Christians, embroiled in religious and political controversy, articulated practical concern for the poor less effectively than secularists.
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Holler, Barbara Eva. "A difficult set of circumstances? : lone mothers and social exclusion in Woodland View." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2014. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/48642/.
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This thesis explores how poor, single mothers on benefits experienced discourses of welfare and social exclusion within the context of New Labour's policy measures. This research is based on thirty-six months ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2007 and 2011 on a housing estate in the South of England among single mothers on benefits. The researcher studied how New Labour social policy initiatives had an impact on their lives. This study argues that while social exclusion and its flexibility constituted a tool to explore multi-dimensional aspects of poverty, the same term had come to entail a much more narrow focus under New Labour. The effects of such a shift in terms of providing services to mothers on benefits provided the framework through which the participants viewed dominant discourses on welfare and social exclusion. In doing so this thesis exposes the contestations and tensions that permeate much of these discourses. In interviews and discussions carried out during the fieldwork, many women located described the official political discourse as an external phenomenon with which they strategically engage, while also internalising it and accepting it as an accurate representation of social reality. On the other hand, most participants critically engaged with the dominant discourse and almost all traversed a tightrope of moral evaluation. This study argues that the importance of placing the experiences of single mothers on benefits in the context of welfare reform measures cannot be overestimated because it offers an understanding of how different social groups experience new social policies. It also suggests the possibility to evaluate the the deeper societal struggles and it constitutes an opportunity to reform existing economic, political and social structures. This thesis shows that the tendency to morally condemn poor and unemployed citizens has been part of social policy landscape in the United Kingdom for a very long time. These include ongoing changes to the welfare system, focusing on key elements such as penalising the unemployed and privatising public services.
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Wilson, John Campbell. "A history of the UK renewable energy programme, 1974-88 : some social, political, and economic aspects." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2012. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3121/.
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Following the global oil crisis of October 1973 the UK government funded and administered a range of R&D programmes in renewable energy. Despite the discoveries of large deposits of oil and gas in the North Sea during the late 1960s and continuing faith in nuclear energy the government was keen to explore the potential of renewable energy as what it described as an ‘insurance technology’. This thesis examines the creation and evolution of the UK renewable energy programme from 1974 until its demise prior to the privatisation of the UK’s nationalised energy industries in the late 1980s. The thesis shows the important role that social movements - in this case, the new environmentalism - played in the promotion of renewable energy in the UK. This will suggest that the programme can be seen in some senses as a tokenistic gesture by the government acting within the uncertain political, social, and economic landscape of the 1970s. This thesis shows that government decisions on renewable energy were continually driven by socio-political factors which overwhelmed the unreliable economic case for renewables at that time. This is achieved by a close historical account of the two key elements of the wider programme: the Wave Energy Programme and the Wind Energy Programme. Using a mix of the existing literature, historical archive and interviews this thesis builds a historical account of renewable energy R&D in the UK between 1974 and 1988.
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Underwood, Scott V. "A revolutionary atmosphere : England in the aftermath of the French revolution." Virtual Press, 1990. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/722223.
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This study is a cross-examination of the theory of revolution and the historical view of English society and politics in the late eighteenth century. Historical research focused upon the most respected (if not the most recent) works containing theory and information about the effects of the French Revolution on English society and politics. Research into the theory of revolution was basically a selection process whereby a few of the most extensive and reasonable theories were chosen for use.The cross-study of the two fields revealed that, although historians view it as politically conservative and generally complacent, English society, fettered by antiquated political institutions and keenly aware of the recent French Revolution, contained all the elements conducive to rebellion listed by the theorists of revolution. In the final analysis, research indicated revolution did not occur in England because of the confluence of political, military and social events in England and France.Department of History
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Mackenzie, Angus. "West of Scotland industrial and commercial elites and their social, political and economic influence in the inter-war years." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2013. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5033/.
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Scotland struggled to come to terms with the collapse in the heavy industries in the early 1920s and the prolonged period of economic dislocation which followed. The pervasive sense that this was a nation in decline sapped self-confidence. This thesis examines the response of the leading West of Scotland industrialists to the extended inter-war trade depression. Focusing on their championing of a series of self-help initiatives firmly rooted in Scotland itself, the thesis reimagines Graeme Morton’s work on Unionist Nationalism for the more challenging conditions of 1930s Scotland, introducing a much stronger economic dimension to Morton’s original argument. Echoing Morton, the rationalisation of the staple industries and the creation of new institutions to aid recovery owed much to the associational culture of West of Scotland business. The Scottish National Development Council and the Scottish Economic Committee - two significant stepping-stones in the rise of corporatist planning - represented a confident assertion of a distinctly Scottish voice and provided a link between business and the increasingly autonomous Scottish Office. The explicit articulation of a Scottish national interest within the parameters of the existing union and imperial relationships sat easily with the progressive, pro-statist views of many inter-war Unionists, helping to consolidate the consensus within ‘middle opinion’. The thesis focuses on the actions of a trio of West of Scotland industrialists: Lord Weir of Eastwood, Sir James Lithgow and Sir Steven Bilsland. It will be suggested that their advocacy of Scottish solutions for Scottish problems represents a more muscular and far-reaching economic Unionist Nationalism which transcends the narrow vision of Morton’s nineteenth century urban Scotland, but also questions Colin Kidd’s dismissal of early twentieth century unionism as ‘banal’.
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Duxbury, Catherine Louise. "Animals, science and gender : animal experimentation in Britain, 1947-1965." Thesis, University of Essex, 2017. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/19887/.
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This thesis is an historical analysis of the culture of science and its use of animals in experiments by the British military and in medical scientific research, and its regulation by law, during the period 1947 to 1965. The overall aim of this thesis is to demonstrate the gendered nature of scientific experimentation on animals in mid-twentieth century Britain. To do this, it addresses two aspects of animal experimentation; firstly, exploring how scientific research forms power-knowledge relations through the use of nonhuman animals. Secondly, this thesis analyses the intersection of animal use in science with that of the broader socio-cultural context, asking was science in mid-twentieth century Britain gendered? As a consequence, it explores the effects of this knowledge production upon animals and women. My findings are twofold: that the construction of scientific knowledge through the use of nonhuman animals was one that created subject-object binaries, and this had powerful and detrimental consequences for nonhuman animals. Secondly, this objectification of the nonhuman had resultant power-knowledge effects that reinforced the continuation of specific kinds of scientific knowledge and its associated masculinist ontology of positivism. Consequently, the effects of these power-knowledge relations were gendered and had implications for (and intersections with) normative representations of women at the time.
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Allpress, Roshan John. "Making philanthropists : entrepreneurs, evangelicals and the growth of philanthropy in the British world, 1756-1840." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ab20c0ea-6720-474d-947c-b66f89c37680.
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This thesis traces the development of philanthropy as a tradition and movement within the United Kingdom and the British world, with attention to both the inner lives of philanthropists, and the social networks and organizational practices that underpinned the dramatic growth in philanthropic activity between the late 1750s and 1840. In contrast to studies that see philanthropy as primarily responsive to Britain's shifting public culture and imperial fortunes during the period, it argues that philanthropic change was driven by innovations in the internal culture and structures of intersecting commercial and religious networks, that were adapted to philanthropic purposes by philanthropic entrepreneurs. It frames the growth of philanthropy as both a series of experiments in effecting social change, within the United Kingdom and transnationally, and the fostering of a vocationally formative culture across three generations. Chapter one focuses on John Thornton, a prominent merchant and religious patron, reconstructing his correspondence networks and philanthropic practices, and revealing patterns of philanthropic interaction between mercantile and Evangelical clerical networks. Chapter two uses the reports and minutes of representative metropolitan societies and companies to develop a prosopography of more than 4000 philanthropic directors, mapping their nexus of interconnections in 1760, 1788 and 1800, and arguing for the importance of firstly Russia Company networks and later country banking networks for philanthropy. Chapters three and four offer an extended case study of the 'Clapham Sect' as an example of collective agency, reframing their influence within the philanthropic nexus, and, through a close reading of their published works, showing how as intellectual collaborators they developed a unique conception of 'trust' that informed their activism. Chapter five shows how philanthropists extended their reach transnationally, with case studies in Bengal, Sierra Leone and New Zealand, and chapter six addresses multiple paths by which philanthropy became intertwined with Empire and the globalizing world in the British imagination.
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Yoda, Otoe. "Human capital selectivity, human capital investment, and school to work transition of those from immigrant backgrounds." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.669814.
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Fraser, Stuart. "Exiled from glory : Anglo-Indian settlement in nineteenth-century Britain, with special reference to Cheltenham." Thesis, University of Gloucestershire, 2003. http://eprints.glos.ac.uk/3082/.
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The thesis is a study of the Anglo-Indians, many of whom settled in Cheltenham during the major part of the nineteenth century including a database of Anglo-Indians connected with Cheltenham compiled from a wide variety of sources. A number of conclusions are made about the role of the Anglo-Indians and their position in the middle class. These include estimates of the number of Anglo-Indians in Cheltenham and their contribution to the development of the town. Studies of a number of individuals has provided evidence for an analysis of Anglo-Indian attitudes and values, especially in relation to such issues as identity, status, beliefs and education. Separate chapters deal with the middle-class life-style of the Anglo-Indians as it developed in Cheltenham and elsewhere. The importance of the family and friendship links is examined and compared to the experience of other middle-class people in the Victorian period. The strength of religion and its contribution to Anglo-Indian values is investigated, especially the influence of the evangelical movement. The crucial role of education is highlighted especially with the growth of the public schools. The role of the middle class, and especially the Anglo-Indians, in the rise of voluntary societies and other public work is examined. It is also demonstrated how the Anglo-Indians represented a wide range of incomes, despite the sharing of particular values and beliefs. A study of Anglo-Indian women further develops an understanding of the position of the family and how it differed from the normal middle-class expectations. The study concludes with an appreciation of the circumstances which led many Anglo-Indians to feel alienated to some degree from their fellow countrymen, while at the same time recognising that many of their attitudes and values were very similar to the section of the middle class referred to as the pseudo-gentry.
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Duchemin-Pelletier, Maelle Jessica. "Stillbirth : medicalisation and social change, 1901-1992, with special reference to Scotland." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2017. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8976/.
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In Scotland, medical understanding of, medical practice in relation to, and medical attitudes towards stillbirth, its prevention and management underwent significant changes throughout the twentieth century. This thesis argues that these changes were shaped by technological and scientific advances in medicine, greater specialisation, and changes in public health practices. It also argues, however, that medical developments were closely linked to broader social, legal and religious concerns around the meanings given to stillbirth. This thesis focuses particularly on the ways in which these developments were evident in Glasgow, and locates change more broadly within Scotland, and indeed, Britain as a whole. This thesis underlines the reasons behind the medical attention towards stillbirths and the prevention of stillbirths from the early twentieth century onwards. It also shows how the legislations in regards to stillbirths as well as the societal perspective on stillbirth influenced and were influenced by the changing medical attention. Medical articles and reports on stillbirths in Glasgow, Scotland and the rest of Britain were analysed to investigate the progress and increase knowledge in understanding the causes of stillbirths and how to prevent those stillbirths. It is highlighted how the medical community focused first on purely obstetric causes of stillbirths to then extend their gaze towards broader causes such as social class and nutrition. The thesis also emphasises how the attention towards stillbirth by the medical profession encouraged always greater medicalisation and hospitalisation of childbearing and childbirth, and this trend was accelerated after the establishment of the National Health Service. The welfare system was a promise of a healthy population, in regards to pregnancy and childbirth, of live births. This meant a medical responsibility was felt to offer the best care, skills and technologies available in order to deliver healthy live babies, hence averting any preventable stillbirths. A lower fertility rate, the promise of live birth through highly skilled medical care and the increased use of obstetric ultrasound changed the societal view of fetuses towards them being regarded as babies even during pregnancy, and thus changed societal perceptions of stillbirth. From the late 1970s, the evolution in society’s views towards stillbirth influenced the medical perspective by demanding a change in the management of stillbirth alongside the provision of support to mothers and, where applicable, their families. Medical professionals, for example, stopped telling women to just start planning for a new pregnancy, but emphasis on the loss that was a stillbirth and the need to grieve became central. This is one of the numerous transformations around the management and support to mothers/families that will be highlighted. This thesis also argues that the evolution in the understanding and prevention of stillbirths by the medical profession as well as the changes of the societal view on stillbirth resulted in developments towards the religious perspective on stillbirth in the late twentieth century, with regards to theology and pastoral care. The changes in medical perspectives towards stillbirths are highlighted, and also how they influenced legalisations, and societal and religious views. The evolution throughout the twentieth century, and especially in the late twentieth century, of those different perspectives are the reasons behind our current understanding of stillbirths and the way we respond to stillbirth. This thesis contributes to increase our understanding of the medical developments around stillbirth as well as the inter-relationship between these different aspects influencing stillbirths in twentieth century Scotland and Britain. An example of this would be that the medical advances helped prevent stillbirth as well as increase the fetal viability earlier in pregnancy, explaining the change of the legal definition of stillbirth in 1992 in Scotland, England and Wales.
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Aspin, Philip. "Architecture and identity in the English Gothic revival 1800-1850." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.669903.
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Clyde, Robert Donald. "The rehabilitation of the Highlander, 1745-1830 : changing visions of Gaeldom." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1990. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1952/.
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