23,718 research outputs found
Consent and the Construction of the Volunteer: Institutional Settings of Experimental Research on Human Beings in Britain during the Cold War
This study challenges the primacy of consent in the history of human experimentation and argues that privileging the cultural frameworks adds nuance to our understanding of the construction of the volunteer in the period 1945 to 1970. Historians and bio-ethicists have argued that medical ethics codes have marked out the parameters of using people as subjects in medical scientific research and that the consent of the subjects was fundamental to their status as volunteers. However, the temporality of the creation of medical ethics codes means that they need to be understood within their historical context. That medical ethics codes arose from a specific historical context rather than a concerted and conscious determination to safeguard the well-being of subjects needs to be acknowledged. The British context of human experimentation is under-researched and there has been even less focus on the cultural frameworks within which experiments took place. This study demonstrates, through a close analysis of the Medical Research Council's Common Cold Research Unit (CCRU) and the government's military research facility, the Chemical Defence Experimental Establishment, Porton Down (Porton), that the `volunteer' in human experiments was a subjective entity whose identity was specific to the institution which recruited and made use of the subject. By examining representations of volunteers in the British press, the rhetoric of the government's collectivist agenda becomes evident and this fed into the institutional construction of the volunteer at the CCRU. In contrast, discussions between Porton scientists, staff members, and government officials demonstrate that the use of military personnel in secret chemical warfare experiments was far more complex. Conflicting interests of the military, the government and the scientific imperative affected how the military volunteer was perceived
Educació postural: avaluació dels coneixements de la salut de l'esquena en activitats de la vida diària en estudiants d'Educació Secundària
Objectiu: Dissenyar i validar un qüestionari sobre coneixements de la salut i la cura de l’esquena en activitats de la vida diària en joves També analizar diferents models de puntuació de les respostes.
Metodologia: Es va seguir un mètode general de prospectiva (Delphi), amb el consens d’un grup de sis experts. Estudi de consistencia interna i fiabilitat en una mostra de 89 xics i 80 xiques. Amb les dades obteses aplicació de cinc models de puntuació basats en donar un pes diferent a les respostes. Consistència interna del qüestionari calculada amb l'Alfa de Cronbach amb cadascú dels models. Estudi de la fiabilitat amb l'anàlisi de mesures repetides test-retest i l’estudi de l’error de mesura amb la representació gràfica dels valors descrita per Bland i Altman. Es calcularen les desviacions estàndard de les diferències, la prova t per a una mostra amb les diferències, els coeficients de correlació intraclasse i els seus intervals de confiança del 95%, l’error estàndard de mesura, el canvi mínim detectable i el coeficient de reproductibilitat. Efecte sòl/sostre calculat amb els percentatges de resposta més alts i més baixos en les puntuacions del primer passe. Per a l'anàlisi de la capacitat discriminatòria de les puntuacions obtingudes es van utilitzar les mitjanes totals del primer passe, es va reagrupar la variable en quatre grups per quartils i es va aplicar una ANOVA d'un factor entres el quartil 1 y el quartil 4.
Resultats: Anàlisi de la validesa tots els valors obtesos sobre la consistència interna són iguals o majors a .6 Als diferents models, l'Alfa de Cronbach va oscil·lar entre .6 i .7. En la representació de les puntuacions mitjanes de totes dues passades i el càlcul del pendent de la seua funció lineal hi ha una relació positiva entre les mesures. El valor del pendent, en tots els models al voltant de .7 excepte en el model C que va ser de .56. L’índex de determinació va mostrar un nivell de coherència de les mesures reals amb les teòriques moderat Coeficient de correlació entre les puntuacions i el coeficient de correlació intraclasse igual o major a .75. Error de mesura i límits d'acord de les puntuacions calculats a partir de la desviació típica de la diferència de les mitjanes van indicar una probabilitat molt baixa de ser diferents entre ells.
L'efecte sòl/sostre va indicar que aquest efecte no es va produir L'anàlisi de regressió de les mitjanes i diferències de les puntuacions totals de tots els models va indicar un augment significatiu de les diferències en les puntuacions a mesura que el valor mitjà d'aquestes va augmentar.
Les diferències entre tots els models van ser significatives.
Conclusions: Es presenta un qüestionari per a mesurar els coneixements sobre la postura corporal i la cura de l'esquena en activitats de la vida diària en adolescents validat. Es determina que les mateixes dades, es poden analitzar utilitzant diferents models, proporcionant cadascun d#aquests informació diferent
Building body identities - exploring the world of female bodybuilders
This thesis explores how female bodybuilders seek to develop and maintain a viable sense of self despite being stigmatized by the gendered foundations of what Erving Goffman (1983) refers to as the 'interaction order'; the unavoidable presentational context in which identities are forged during the course of social life. Placed in the context of an overview of the historical treatment of women's bodies, and a concern with the development of bodybuilding as a specific form of body modification, the research draws upon a unique two year ethnographic study based in the South of England, complemented by interviews with twenty-six female bodybuilders, all of whom live in the U.K. By mapping these extraordinary women's lives, the research illuminates the pivotal spaces and essential lived experiences that make up the female bodybuilder. Whilst the women appear to be embarking on an 'empowering' radical body project for themselves, the consequences of their activity remains culturally ambivalent. This research exposes the 'Janus-faced' nature of female bodybuilding, exploring the ways in which the women negotiate, accommodate and resist pressures to engage in more orthodox and feminine activities and appearances
Towards a sociology of conspiracy theories: An investigation into conspiratorial thinking on Dönmes
This thesis investigates the social and political significance of conspiracy theories, which has been an academically neglected topic despite its historical relevance. The academic literature focuses on the methodology, social significance and political impacts of these theories in a secluded manner and lacks empirical analyses. In response, this research provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for conspiracy theories by considering their methodology, political impacts and social significance in the light of empirical data. Theoretically, the thesis uses Adorno's semi-erudition theory along with Girardian approach. It proposes that conspiracy theories are methodologically semi-erudite narratives, i.e. they are biased in favour of a belief and use reason only to prove it. It suggests that conspiracy theories appear in times of power vacuum and provide semi-erudite cognitive maps that relieve alienation and ontological insecurities of people and groups. In so doing, they enforce social control over their audience due to their essentialist, closed-to-interpretation narratives. In order to verify the theory, the study analyses empirically the social and political significance of conspiracy theories about the Dönme community in Turkey. The analysis comprises interviews with conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theory readers and political parties, alongside a frame analysis of the popular conspiracy theory books on Dönmes. These confirm the theoretical framework by showing that the conspiracy theories are fed by the ontological insecurities of Turkish society. Hence, conspiracy theorists, most readers and some political parties respond to their own ontological insecurities and political frustrations through scapegoating Dönmes. Consequently, this work shows that conspiracy theories are important symptoms of society, which, while relieving ontological insecurities, do not provide politically prolific narratives
The Professional Identity of Doctors who Provide Abortions: A Sociological Investigation
Abortion is a medicalised problem in England and Wales, where the law places doctors at the centre of legal provision and puts doctors in control of who has an abortion. However, the sex-selection abortion scandal of 2012 presented a very real threat to 'abortion doctors', when the medical profession's values and practices were questioned in the media, society and by Members of Parliament. Doctors found themselves at the centre of a series of claims that stated doctors were acting both illegally and unethically, driven by profit rather than patient needs. Yet, the perspectives of those doctors who provide abortions has been under-researched; this thesis aims to fill that gap by examining the beliefs and values of this group of doctors. Early chapters highlight the ambiguous position of the abortion provider in Britain, where doctors are seen as a collective group of professionals motivated by medical dominance and medical autonomy. They outline how this position is then questioned and contested, with doctors being presented as unethical. By studying abortion at the macro-, meso- and micro-levels, this thesis seeks to better understand the values of the 'abortion doctor', and how these levels shape the work and experiences of abortion providers in England and Wales. This thesis thus addresses the question: 'What do abortion doctors' accounts of their professional work suggest about the contemporary dynamics of the medicalisation of abortion in Britain?'. It investigates the research question using a qualitative methodological approach: face-to-face and telephone interviews were conducted with 47 doctors who provide abortions in England and Wales. The findings from this empirical study show how doctors' values are linked to how they view the 'normalisation of abortion'. At the macro-level doctors, openly resisted the medicalisation of abortion through the position ascribed to them by the legal framework, yet at the meso-level doctors construct an identity where normalising abortion is based on further medicalising services. Finally, at the micro-level, the ambiguous position of the abortion provider is further identified in terms of being both a proud provider and a stigmatised individual. This thesis shows that while the existing medicalisation literature has some utility, it has limited explanatory power when investigating the problem of abortion. The thesis thus provides some innovative insights into the relevance and value of medicalisation through a comprehensive study on doctors' values, beliefs and practices
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Co-design As Healing: Exploring The Experiences Of Participants Facing Mental Health Problems
This thesis is an exploration of the healing role of co-design in mental health. Although co-design projects conducted within mental health settings are rising, existing literature tends to focus on the object of design and its outcomes while the experiences of participants per se remain largely unexplored. The guiding research question of this study is not how we design things that improve mental health, but how co-designing, as an act, might do so.
The thesis presents two projects that were organized in collaboration with the mental health charity Islington Mind and the Psychosis Therapy Project (PTP) in London.
The project at Islington Mind used a structured design process inviting participants to design for wellbeing. A case study analysis provides insights on how participants were impacted, summarizing key challenges and opportunities.
The design at PTP worked towards creating a collective brief in an emergent fashion, finally culminating in a board game. The experiences of participants were explored through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), using semi-structured interview data. The analysis served to identify key themes characterising the experience of co-design such as contributing, connecting, thinking and intentioning. In addition, a mixed-methods analysis of questionnaires and interview data exploring participants' wellbeing, showed that all participants who engaged fairly consistently in the project improved after the project ended, although some participants' scores returned to baseline six months later.
Reflecting on both projects, an approach to facilitation within mental health is outlined, detailing how the dimensions of weaving and layered participation, nurturing mattering and facilitating attitudes interlace. This contribution raises awareness of tacit dimensions in the practice of facilitation, articulating the nuances of how to encourage and sustain meaningful and ethical engagement and offering insights into a range of tools. It highlights the importance of remaining reflexive in relation to attitudes and emotions and discusses practical methodological and ethical challenges and ways to resolve them which can be of benefit to researchers embarking on a similar journey.
The thesis also offers detailed insights on how methodologies from different fields were integrated into a whole, arguing for transparency and reflexivity about epistemological assumptions, and how underlying paradigms shift in an interdisciplinary context.
Based on the overall findings, the thesis makes a case for considering design as healing (or a designerly way of healing), highlighting implications at a systems, social and individual level. It makes an original contribution to our understanding of design, highlighting its healing character, and proposes a new way to support mental health. The participants in this study not only had increased their own wellbeing through co-designing, but were also empowered and contributed towards healing the world. Hence, the thesis argues for a unique, holistic perspective of design and mental health, recognizing the interconnectedness of the individual, social and systemic dimensions of the healing processes that are ignited
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Meaning-Making Practices of Emergent Arabic–English Bilingual Kindergarten Children in Cairo
The number of British Schools in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is growing. The National Curriculum of England is used by an increasing number of such schools. As well as exporting a culturally-specific curriculum, these schools usually adopt an ideology of monolingualism, thus potentially limiting communication for emergent bilinguals and failing to acknowledge the multiple ways of meaning-making.
Current studies of translanguaging are moving the focus to multimodal forms of communication as a resource for thinking and communicating (García and Wei 2014, Wei 2018). Building on the work of Kress (1997, 2010) I explore pre-school emergent bilinguals’ wider signifying practices and create an analytical framework, which I call MMTL (multimodal translanguaging), used as a lens to illustrate meaning-making.
Valley Hill in Cairo, Egypt is a British school which encourages ‘English-only’ as the medium of instruction in the kindergarten. Using a case study methodology, this research explores the meaning-making practices of eight emergent bilingual children aged 3–4 during child-initiated play, later reduced to four in the thesis to provide a detailed multimodal analysis. The principal aim is to explore their speech, gaze, gesture, and their engagement (layout/position) with artefacts during play.
The findings of this study suggest that although there is an ‘English-only’ approach, these young emergent bilingual children are meaning-making in a variety of ways. Children are translanguaging but it is never in isolation from other modes of communication. Emergent bilinguals use a range of modes to mediate their understanding and communication with others. They use gesture, gaze, and artefacts alongside translingual practices to move meaning across to more accessible modes, enabling communication and understanding. The implications for schools should be to embrace such hybrid practices and for teachers to be more responsive to young children’s meaning-making to enable learning
Clinicians' experiences of using the MCA (2005) with people with intellectual disabilities
Section A is a narrative synthesis of the empirical literature of professionals’ knowledge of the
MCA and how they apply it when working with people with intellectual disabilities (ID).
Eleven papers were identified for inclusion in this review. Four themes, with subthemes, were
identified: ‘processes involved’, ‘working with complexity’, ‘knowledge gaps and variability’
and ‘assessor needs’. Methodological strengths and weaknesses are also considered. Findings
are discussed in relation to clinical implications and recommendations for future research are
outlined.
Section B is an empirical study using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to explore the
experiences of clinicians using the MCA (2005) with people with ID to assess capacity to
consent to sex. Eight clinicians, who had completed between 2 and 40-50 (mode=2) MCA
assessments regarding consent to sex. Three superordinate themes, with subthemes, are
outlined and discussed in relation to the existing literature. Limitations, clinical implications
and areas of future research are considered
Twitter posts on English language learning in Japan: Attitudes towards 'Neitibu'(‘native speakers’
To critically explore the ideological nature of English and English learning/teaching in Japan, this study, as part of a multifaceted project, explores how attitudes towards English (or learning/teaching English) are displayed on the social media platform Twitter. First, I examined the results of the thematic analysis of Twitter discourse with an analytical viewpoint of native-speakerism, illustrating the underlying assumptions and inconsistencies in attitudes towards English learning. Then, I applied van Dijk’s (2004) analytical framework and explored the recreation of the power relationship between ‘native speakers’and ‘non-native speakers’ in the social media discourse. This study argues that hegemonic ideology is recreated by ‘ourselves’ by unintentionally applying inverted ‘ideological squares’. This study focuses on Japanese society as a case study of learning English as a foreign language, revealing a self-defeating attitude towards ‘native-speakers’, which potentially reinforces their own subjugation, in turn having implications for future studies in global contexts
Coloniality and the Courtroom: Understanding Pre-trial Judicial Decision Making in Brazil
This thesis focuses on judicial decision making during custody hearings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The impetus for the study is that while national and international protocols mandate the use of pre-trial detention only as a last resort, judges continue to detain people pre-trial in large numbers. Custody hearings were introduced in 2015, but the initiative has not produced the reduction in pre-trial detention that was hoped. This study aims to understand what informs judicial decision making at this stage. The research is approached through a decolonial lens to foreground legacies of colonialism, overlooked in mainstream criminological scholarship. This is an interview-based study, where key court actors (judges, prosecutors, and public defenders) and subject matter specialists were asked about influences on judicial decision making. Interview data is complemented by non-participatory observation of custody hearings. The research responds directly to Aliverti et al.'s (2021) call to ‘decolonize the criminal question’ by exposing and explaining how colonialism informs criminal justice practices. Answering the call in relation to judicial decision making, findings provide evidence that colonial-era assumptions, dynamics, and hierarchies were evident in the practice of custody hearings and continue to inform judges’ decisions, thus demonstrating the coloniality of justice. This study is significant for the new empirical data presented and theoretical innovation is also offered via the introduction of the ‘anticitizen’. The concept builds on Souza’s (2007) ‘subcitizen’ to account for the active pursuit of dangerous Others by judges casting themselves as crime fighters in a modern moral crusade. The findings point to the limited utility of human rights discourse – the normative approach to influencing judicial decision making around pre-trial detention – as a plurality of conceptualisations compete for dominance. This study has important implications for all actors aiming to reduce pre-trial detention in Brazil because unless underpinning colonial logics are addressed, every innovation risks becoming the next lei para inglês ver (law [just] for the English to see)
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