Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Leicester'

Background: Urinary incontinence affects people of different ages, gender and ethnic backgrounds. Current review of literature shows very that very little work has been done with regards to urinary incontinence in ethnic minority groups. At Leicester there is a high ethnic minority population comprising of different ethnic groups, the largest in inner city Leicester being the Indians that migrated from the state of Gujarat in India. Observations of clinic attendees, and unpublished data from the Medical Research Council Leicester Incontinence Study, lead us to believe that significant numbers of Indian women have continence problems but do not make use of currently available services. Aims: To explore inequality in health, barriers towards accessing continence care and to further understand how best to provide continence services to this group the research program was formulated comprising of: Prevalence study, Cultural context study, Patients‘ journey through primary care study. These will address the various aspects of the influence and interaction of ethnic origin with incontinence care. Methods: This project uses a mixed method approach combining both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The quantitative arm of the study uses validated self administered questionnaires to determine the prevalence and quality of life scores in women suffering with urinary incontinence in the community. The qualitative arm of the study uses focus groups and interviews to further explore women‘s coping strategies, the effect of migration in their symptoms and help seeking behaviour, the impact incontinence has on their lives and their attitudes towards available continence care, including suggestions for improving services. Results: The South Asian named women in our research reported higher rates and severity of urinary symptoms, with a corresponding greater impact on their quality of life when compared to White British named women and Indian women in Gujarat. It highlights some of the barriers in effective continence care. None of these women were referred to secondary care immediately, unlike their White British counterparts within the same primary care setup. Management of incontinence in primary care is inadequate and doesn‘t comply with the recommendations made in the NICE guidelines. Conclusions: This research project is a unique opportunity to study the impact of ethnic origin upon urinary incontinence. The inequalities in healthcare that have been highlighted together with the suggestions of service improvement that have come from the service users has resulted in the development of a strategic framework of continence care for ethnic minority women. This will aim to ensure accessible and acceptable care for these patients.

Although there have been many studies of the operation of the new poor law in a variety of unions little research has been done on the East Midlands. This region shared features with both southern agricultural areas and northern urban ones and is interesting to study because unions were established there before the onset of the 1837 trade depression which contributed towards the difficulties encountered in establishing northern unions. The Leicester union adds a new dimension to poor law studies: it began fairly successfully but when the trade slump hit the town in 1837 its administration became overwhelmed with the problems facing it and appeared to lurch from one crisis to the next. After several years of poor employment prospects the town's improving economy from about 1850 led to a substantial reduction in the number of paupers. The pressure on the union decreased so that by the beginning of the 1860s it was able to maintain the workhouse test quite successfully. It is the intention of this thesis to show that the improving economy was the single most important reason for the success of the union. It affected many of its actions and was a prime factor in the amount of political activity generated by the board of guardians. The individual chapters discuss various aspects of the union's business and show that, while there may have been some improvement in its finances and staff, these would have been insignificant on their own. The union faced a number of problems throughout the period of this study, some of them found in other unions but some unique to Leicester. Without the drastic amelioration of the town's economy the Leicester union would not have been a success.

This thesis concentrates on elementary and adult working-class education and illiteracy in Leicester between 1780 and 1870. The need for a literate workforce for the town's economic viability is also examined. The introductory chapters argue that economic and social change had had an adverse effect on education. Moreover an educated working class was perceived to be a threat to the existing social order, although the necessity for working-class education became increasingly apparent. Contemporaneously, members of the working class - particularly among the artisans - sought self-improvement, and appreciated the value of education in their desire for political and social reform. A variety of sources were used to trace the development of schools and Sunday schools in Leicester - the majority of which were founded in response to middle-class philanthropy and/or denominational rivalry - but with few exceptions voluntary provision failed to reach the poorest children. The need for more schools, sectarian conflict, and the quality of education were among issues that the Leicester School Board had to resolve. Indeed the effect of education upon illiteracy - measured by the ability to sign the Anglican marriage registers some 15 years later - had become most noticeable by 1890. Evidence for working-class interest in adult education can be seen in an attempt to establish a Mechanics' Institute in Leicester. However this was eventually inaugurated by the middle class to provide scientific and technical education for the working class. Numerous other institutions were founded by philanthropic middle-class reformers, but - with exception of the Working Men's College, and science schools - these tended to concentrate on 'rational recreation'. The study concludes that although Leicester's economy expanded in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was not until about 1881 that the need for a technically-educated literate workforce came to be considered as crucial if Leicester was to compete in foreign markets.

This thesis examines the social and spatial distribution of perinatal mortality in Greater Leicester. The study area comprises the city of Leicester and the surrounding contiguous built up area. Following a discussion of the current status of relevant research in medical geography and perinatal epidemiology the three major data sources used here are described, these being the 1981 Population Census, the Leicestershire Perinatal Mortality Survey to 1982 and the Leicestershire Births records for 1980. The analysis commences with a classification of census enumeration districts into nine socio-economic 'clusters', reflecting demographic, economic and social differences within the study area. The new small areas created by this classification are then used as a basis for mapping census variables and describing the geography of Greater Leicester. In a detailed analysis of the perinatal and births data some 21 variables are found to be associated with adverse perinatal outcome. These describe physical, obstetric, socio-economic and health care characteristics of both mother and infant. Both statistical and cartographical methods are used to examine these in a spatial dimension. It is concluded that neither perinatal mortality nor the risk factors associated with it are uniformly distributed with respect to the 'at risk' population. Further data analysis shows how perinatal, births and census data may usefully be combined. Poisson probability maps are used to show the relative likelihood of perinatal death in different parts of the study area. The thesis concludes with a summary of the main results and some suggestions regarding directions for future research.

This thesis discusses the contribution of voluntary associations to the civic ideal in Leicester between 1870 and 1939. It demonstrates the growth in local voluntary associations over the period and illustrates the role they played in public life. Voluntary associations throughout the period 1870 to 1939 helped in the management of local public affairs and provided an organized social life in the town. They promoted social cohesion and a perception of civic unity as well as allowing an expression of difference. Associational life in Leicester became denser between 1870 and 1939, mutating from an elite to a more inclusive model and involvement in voluntary groups that embraced the civic ideal helped previously marginalised groups to integrate into public life. Although national influence encroached on local associational life over these decades there remained a balance between local bodies and those with a national dimension, with branches of some national associations assuming a strong local identity. The meetings of the voluntary associations helped structure an annual local calendar that was represented by the Leicester newspapers as part of a shared culture of interest to all Leicester residents. This regular programme of associational life underpinned the organisation and credibility of a ‘one off’ spectacular, the Leicester Pageant of 1932, an event which was supported by local voluntary associations, through which thousands of Leicester townspeople were mobilised to participate. The success of this occasion demonstrated that, in the 1930s, Leicester residents still retained a sense of civic and local identity. This is contrary to a perception in recent scholarship that the popularity of civic ceremony in provincial towns had decreased from the end of the nineteenth century and that this was symptomatic of a decline in the credibility of the civic ideal.

A study of the history of the book trade (printing, bookselling, stationery and publishing) in Leicester, from the medieval beginnings of the trade (parchment making etc. ) up to cl 850. The development of the book trade is examined in its local, regional and national contexts, including cultural, social and economic aspects, with the aim of contributing to the growing corpus of historical study of the provincial book trade in England, which has developed considerably over the last thirty years. Extensive use has been made of primary source material, not least the Borough Records of Leicester including the registers of freemen and apprentices, newspaper advertisements, extant locally-printed books and other material. More than three hundred book-trade individuals have been identified. The activities of the leading practitioners are explored, including the stock and services they provided, the economics of their trading activity, their standing in the town (many held civic office), and their interaction within the business community. The impact of the book trade and the printed word in Leicester are discussed, as are other significant aspects of the trade such as the importance of family businesses, the role of women, and the handing on of trade skills from master to apprentice. In the last decade of the eighteenth century and the first part of the nineteenth, the striking contrast between the conservatism of the old Corporation and the strident radicalism, and religious dissent, of many Leicester people provides a vibrant setting for the activities of booksellers, printers and newspaper publishers. Many of the town's leading book-trade practitioners were politically radical - an interesting and historically important dimension to the later development of the book trade in Leicester, to a degree seldom found elsewhere.

In 1976 the Leicestershire Probation Service established a two-tier system for its work in the assessment and supervision of offenders. The first tier, the Court Intake and Assessment Team, prepared Social Enquiry Reports on offenders not known or not currently being supervised by the agency. If the court made a supervision order the case was transferred to the Treatment Teams, the second tier, who carried out the supervision. Previous research had only examined the work of the intake team in isolation. The aim of this thesis was to examine the intake team in the context of the treatment teams, the offenders and the expectations placed upon it by the agency. The main purpose of the thesis was to trace and evaluate the offender's career with the Probation Service from his original contact with an Intake Officer for the preparation of the report to the supervision he received by the Treatment Team officer. Within that main aim are several important areas. These were whether, by setting up a specialist report-writing team, the courts received reports of higher quality than hitherto and whether the intake team was gearing its recommendations to include or exclude particular types of offenders. The concept of targeting became an important issue within the thesis. The thesis shows how a needs/risk scale used at the report-preparation stage could assist officers in targeting offenders for supervision. The examination of the use of labelling within reports and case records, the transfer process that existed and the amount of supervision offered showed up serious flaws in the intake system. Furthermore, the thesis showed that the intake system created tensions for the officers working within it, especially the Treatment Team ones. The conclusion of the thesis is that the intake system as researched should either be disbanded or seriously modified.

This thesis map crime and risk of three crimes from the historic count data in Leicester city from 1999/2003. Observed risk is assess by mapping the crime data and normalized with beat area and population density. As a result of the normalization different pattern emerges, these reveal the ability the GIS to show risk when normalized using different denominators. Objective risk is measured by statistical relationship between the various socio economic factors or variables that are used as surrogate to arrive at the statistical view of risk. To arrive at the statistical view of risk, these variables are regressed against crime. The model of mathematical risk assessment is the main focus of the current study. Using mathematical method risk assessment can be objectively defined so that two people can take the same data and come up with a similar result. The result of this study may be useful for insurance industry, police operation and decision making.

The original intention of this book was to produce an account of ninety-three songs by the Leicester composer, Benjamin Burrows, written between 1927 and 1929. As work proceeded, it became clear that to consider the songs in isolation from the composer's life and other works would not be very informative to readers, since nothing had been previously written about him save for an article of mine in Luciadi, the student magazine of University College, Leicester, in May 1950. Moreover, though the songs represent Burrows's greatest creative achievement, many other compositions of his deserve attention. The book was, therefore, expanded to survey the composer's life and total output. It is unfortunate that this book was not started until twelve years after Burrows's death. Many of his contemporaries and close associates had then died and their memories with them. Written material, other than the composer's MSS was scarce: much of it, including his highly-organised files of solutions for his pupils of examination questions set by the universities of Belfast, Durham and London and the British music schools, had been destroyed or dispersed when he died. The key figure involved in the series of ninety-three songs, Jane Corbett, née Vowles, died in 1973. Between February 1969 and October 1972, there was a constant correspondence between her and me, but, apart from occasional - and general - comments, nothing of great personal significance about her time as a student of Burrows. Her sudden death on 18 January 1973 occurred before my interest in Burrows had crystallised into a decision to write about him. If the picture of the man that emerges seems shadowy, that is mainly because of the uneventful nature of his life. There are the significant dates that mark any mortal's progress from birth to death but, uncommonly, the intervening years are singularly devoid of the kind of incident upon which biographers thrive. His adventures were of the mind and rarely communicated verbally to others: they emerge most vividly in his compositions, his occasional writings, his even more occasional water-colour miniatures and, in a large measure, in his mechanical inventions. In addition to the research and editing that went into the writing of this book, two offshoots are worthy of separate mention. There is in existence a compilation of the ninety-three Jane Vowles songs in photocopies of the twenty-one that were published and hand copies - and, subsequently computer-generated copies - of the rest. There are four On 27 February 1978 Secondly, a public lecture-recital (see Appendix III) was given in the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery and repeated in a modified form on 11 July 1978 at the University of Evansville, Indiana. The Leicester lecture was recorded by BBC Radio Leicester and subsequently relayed in three instalments. Subsequent developments have included further lectures on the composer and his music, publication of some of his music, and a book and article on his songs, and the issue of recordings of his music. These are described more fully in Chapter Six and listed in Appendix I. Acknowledgement is due to many correspondents who supplied memories of Burrows, especially to Harold Barton, Arthur Kirkby and William Lovelock whose written accounts were invaluable. The debt to Burrows's son, Benjamin H. Burrows, and to his sister, the late Grace Lee, for their time and active interest is considerable, as it is also to Geoffrey Corbett, Elsie Cox, Charles Goodger, Jack Griffin and Eric Jordan for MSS, photographs and written matter. Ben and Jack Griffin also undertook the exacting task of proof-reading the final draft of the original thesis for which I am extremely grateful. The support and encouragement of George Gray, a long-time friend of the composer, was unflagging during my research, and the advice of my erstwhile colleague, Ronald Reah, inestimable. Lastly, my sincere thanks go to Trevor Hold, whose vast knowledge of and mutual interest in the period around which my writing centred, were a happy and fruitful inspiration.

This thesis explores the ways in which the Gujarati communities come to understand, experience and conceptualise ‘mental health’. These were explored under the following categories: social, cultural, economic and institutional. Ethnic inequalities and ‘mental health’ have been widely researched but explanations can provide a distorted picture for particular communities (Raleigh, 1995). Published information on measuring rates of inequalities focus use of services and wide categories such as ‘South Asians’ can be misleading in health research (Nazroo et al., 2002). Not only are current epidemiological studies problematic with the categories they utilise to group people together, but also using the medical model to define ‘mental health’ as an universally applied term indeed has its’ pitfalls. The major one that is inherent to this thesis is the complex relationship culture and social factors has in contributing to understandings of ‘mental health’ and how they are managed. Therefore, the crux of this thesis explores practices and beliefs the Gujarati communities have that help ‘mental health’ management but also their limitations that constrain and restrict help-seeking from western health services. This research is informed by two key phenomena and the complex relationship between the two – ‘mental health’ and culture. There is an exploration of social processes such as culture and the range of identity and historical factors such as migration, family, social capital and religion to name a few. A Bourdieusian analytical framework is used, in particular his forms of capital; social, cultural and economic to illustrate how culture influences conceptualisations, experiences and management of ‘mental health’ and how culture contributes to the complexity that cuts across the universality/specificity binary of addressing ‘mental health’. Qualitative interviews with the Gujarati communities in Leicester were used to explore these issues. 35 interviews were conducted with first-generation Gujarati migrants and 15 were conducted with second generation Gujarati migrants. These were all recorded, analysed using various thematic analytical techniques, analytic induction and cognitive mapping. It is argued that, strong forms of social and cultural capital contribute to and strengthen cultural opinions of mental illness as ‘mad’, ‘crazy’ and ‘slow’. Thus, these attitudes and understandings are lived realities for the Gujarati communities. However, it is also strong forms of social capital that contribute to potential ‘mental health’ problems due to the pressure of ‘social obligations’. This entails, behaving in a certain manner that abides to and maintains acceptable norms in the Gujarati communities. Consequently, social and cultural capital are underlying factors that explain the stigmatized nature of ‘mental health’ and their help-seeking trajectories. Additionally, the empirical data from my interviews has begun to demonstrate that attitudes towards ‘mental health’ are not as simple as being educated about it but rooted deeply in social and cultural practices, beliefs and traditions. Rightly so, Dogra et al. (2005) argues conceptualisations and expressions of ‘mental health’ can vary across cultures and thus these need to be considered when looking at ethnic groups. Additionally, due to the changing nature of cultures, continuous research is required to uphold suitable treatment and support for ‘mental health’. Therefore, I argue that research that informs policy in this area, such as cultural components of ‘mental health’ needs to be inductive rather than deductive in nature.

The thesis takes as its subject the development of cultural forms and institutions, exploring constraints on the exercise of choice in the use of non-work time in an evolving capitalist society. By means of a local study, it aims to describe relationships between aspects of popular recreation, especially those involving working class participation, and to relate these to economic and political circumstances. The study focuses upon individuals and organisations providing facilities and creating institutions in which non-work time was spent outside the home. The body of the thesis consists of discrete but interrelated studies of themes in the development of recreation in Leicester. These concern the relationship between recreation and the workplace (ch.1), the role of religious organisations as providers and critics of recreational activities (ch.2), initiatives by the municipal authorities (ch.3) and licensing magistrates (ch.4), the bases of commercial provision in the drink trade, theatre and sport (chs.4-6) and the engagement of the labour movement (ch.7). The thesis is written from a critical standpoint which acknowledges as fundamental to the understanding of 19th century recreation the uneven distribution of free time, power and money within capitalist society. But while social control and hegemony are exploited as pointers to appropriate areas of study, they are found wanting as explanations of complex historical reality. In its empirical conclusions, the study confirms the significance of relationships between work and culture, identifying ways in which the economic development of Leicester constrained recreational provision. Commercial agencies are shown to have been relatively weak during much of the period whereas municipal and religious organisations were of considerable importance from the 1860s until the end of the period of study.

The rise of unemployment in industrialised countries since the mid-1970s, and its likely persistence into the foreseeable future, have stimulated general debate about the future roles of work and leisure. Several writers have claimed that in future leisure may, in part at least, form a 'solution' to the problems of societies in which there is a shortage of paid work. There is, however, substantial evidence that in a contemporary Britain leisure is of limited use as an immediate solution to the problems of unemployed people: when they become unemployed their leisure is more likely to reduce than increase in scale and quality and very few are able to develop a lifestyle in which leisure fulfils the role previously occupied by work. Despite this, since the early 1980s there has been a growth in public sector schemes providing special opportunities for unemployed people to take part in sport and recreation and the view persists that leisure has a special role in the lifestyles of unemployed people. This thesis assesses the response to a local authority scheme for the unemployed, established as an experiment by Leicester City Council in partnership with the Sports Council. The research examines the scale and pattern of attendance at the scheme and identifies wide variations in the participation patterns of users, few of whom became regular participants. The lifestyles of a sub-group of 'committed' frequent users were examined in more detail to identify the distinctive characteristics of those for whom the scheme had apparently become a regular feature in their lives. All of the sub-group of committed users had developed a generally 'active' lifestyle, untypical of that usually associated with the unemployed. Participation in the sports scheme was only one aspect of this. Most were also involved in more purposeful activities such as educational courses and voluntary work, these activities being more important to them and more of a 'work substitute'. The findings indicate that only a minority of unemployed people are likely to participate frequently in active forms of recreation and that those who do are also likely to be active in other ways. For those who do take part in recreation activities, such activities fulfil the 'normal' role of leisure: they do not provide a substitute for work or become an adequate basis for an alternative lifestyle in which the centrality of work is replaced by the centrality of leisure.

The aim of this thesis has been to gain an insight into the process of environmental learning in adults after a move to a new city. In particular, the research has aimed to discover more about the nature of the influences of certain factors that are thought to be a cause of differential environmental learning between individuals. Principal amongst these factors of interest have been gender, spatial ability, environmental disposition and modes of interaction with the environment. As a field of concern, the study has fallen within the domains of behavioural geography and environmental psychology (or within what some choose to call 'environment and behaviour' research). As such, the approach has been multi-disciplinary. Most theoretical input into the study has come from the learning and developmental theories of those who have studied child development. The study has adopted a part-longitudinal, part-cross-sectional framework, in order that the disadvantages of each might be minimized. Four separate field studies have been conducted using groups of individuals who had been living in the city of Leicester for three months, six months, twelve months and three years or more. The three month and three year groups were interviewed only once, but the six and twelve month groups were comprised of the same individuals, thus constituting the cross-sectional element. A total of one hundred and forty-six lengthy interviews were conducted by the researcher over the period of one year. Respondents have been selected on the basis of their length of residence in the city. Limitations of time and manpower have dictated the sample sizes, which have in turn demanded that certain variables not of primary interest to the present research but which might be expected to influence environmental learning, be controlled. As a reasonably homogeneous group on many of these variables (e.g. age, socio-economic status, life-style, life-cycle stage, and location of place of residence and place of work (and thus activity space)), postgraduate students and new members of academic staff to the University in the academic years of 1985 and 1986 have been chosen as the study population. A random sampling procedure has been adopted for the selection of respondents from this population for the sample groups. The interview schedules have contained a mixture of questions and tests/exercises which were aimed at eliciting the following information; the personal characteristics of the respondent, macro-spatial ability, environmental disposition and knowledge of the Leicester environment. Previous studies of this nature have concentrated on certain aspects of environmental knowledge (such as knowledge of distances between landmarks, or knowledge of the layout of the city centre), but this study has adopted a holistic approach aiming to achieve an insight into the acquisition of knowledge in general with all its interacting component parts. Thus the study has concentrated on both the quantity and quality of knowledge, and has questioned respondents on aspects of the city which have ranged from the structure of the city centre, to the nature of local industry and the geographical distribution of the unemployed. Information has been elicited using techniques which included sketch mapping, abstract spatial tests, response to both iconic and aerial photographs and normal questioning. The resulting data has been coded and compiled into a data matrix which was entered onto a Vaxcluster mainframe computer. The data has been processed using SPSSx.

This thesis takes Leicester as a local case study to investigate the impact of Asian migration from the Indian subcontinent and East Africa on the white inhabitants and the migrants themselves. Oral history formed the basis of the research, and this allowed a unique insight into the subjective experiences and perspectives that shaped the respondents' daily lives. The thesis elucidates how and why people used racial narratives to exclude Asians, the influence of inter-ethnic contact, and the situations whereby white respondents' included Asians. This revealed the complex and contradictory nature of white attitudes which was not reducible to racism. The main part of the thesis concerns the difficulties encountered by the Asian newcomers, with a particular focus on the coping strategies they developed to pursue viable lives. These issues are examined in various contexts: the home, the neighbourhood, education and the workplace. These were not neutral spaces but represented key sites where power relations were highly contested.;Findings highlight how the Asian respondents encountered diverse forms of racial exclusion and it is argued that perceptions and experiences depended on the dynamic intersection of a complex factors. Gender was fundamental to the respondents' experiences. Asian women faced both post-colonizing forces and patriarchal systems within the Asian communities. For many women, racism was not the defining problem; instead, isolation was their main concern. The thesis analyses the underlying causes of such concerns and reveals how women actively negotiated constraints. This research, and the conclusions presented, is important since migration studies have been criticised for presenting a homogenised male perspective, ignoring the interplay between structures of domination and agency, and presenting women as disempowered, suffering endemic disadvantage. The research provides significant revisions based on intensive, in-depth interviews of migrants' experiences and those of the indigenous population between 1950 and 2000.

This thesis examines the relationship between local authorities and community groups existing within their boundaries. This is not a new field and a number of significant studies have been carried out on, for example, the classification of community groups or the community groups of which councillors are members. The previous studies are, however, in excess of twenty years old and they need to be updated to take cognisance of the post modernisation era of local government resulting from the Local Government Act 2000. The principal contribution of this research is to fill a gap in the existing knowledge by developing a typology of all relationships.

Sir John Fleming Leicester, first Baron de Tabley (1762-1827), was widely acclaimed in the early nineteenth century as the first serious patron and collector of contemporary British art. In the words of his obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine, he was "the greatest patron of the native school of painting that our Island ever possessed". As Colonel of the Cheshire Yeomanry, he was also a member of one of the most ancient landed families in Cheshire. This thesis is a case study concerned with the Leicesters' patronage of the visual arts with a particular emphasis on Sir John Fleming Leicester. However, the thesis does not attempt to catalogue the Tabley collection in detail (this has been carried out by other scholars), nor is it aimed to eulogise the family and individual paintings in the collection. Instead, based on unpublished archival materials as well as on published sources, the present study examines the cultural politics of the family's patronage and collecting in order to locate the reception of the visual arts in an internalised historical context. In other words, the purpose of the thesis is to critically investigate how the visual arts were socially consumed by a traditional aristocratic landed family in relation firstly to the externally conditioned historical contingencies- social, political, and economic- and secondly to the question of human interventions- individual desires and dynastic ambitions. In a word, this thesis argues for the indissolubility of specific historical circumstances and private human aspirations in appreciating the polemics of art patronage and collecting. Structurally, the thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter chronicles the family history of the Leicesters down to Francis Leicester, who was the last Leicester in the direct male line. A substantial use of probate inventories is made to illustrate the ways in which the collection of pictures was mobilised to display the power, status, and wealth of the Leicesters. The second chapter interrogates Tabley House both as an architectural entity and a symbolic power house within its eighteenth-century context. Contemporary images depicting Tabley are analysed with a view to uncovering ideological dimensions, personal and social, of seemingly topographical paintings. Chapter three surveys the life of Sir John Leicester, the key figure in this thesis. However, it is not my intention to present a colourful biography of him nor is the chapter intended to delve into his psyche per se. Rather, it is an exploration of representations of a man drawn from material remnants he left behind, especially his amateur paintings. The fourth chapter investigates Sir John Leicester's patronage and collection of British art. Starting with an examination of Sir John's scrapbooks, the cultural politics of collecting is critically interrogated in this chapter. Chapter five further examines what it meant to support British art in public and how such altruistic commitments were inseparably interlocked with Sir John's private agenda. The polemics of his gallery of British art in London and his role in supporting art institutions are fully explored. The sixth and final chapter relates the saga of the sale of Sir John's collection after his death and charts concisely the fate of the family and the house up to 1990.

The repercussions associated with young people's exclusion from policing can be detrimental. The police will lack a basic understanding of young people s problems, needs and expectations. In these situations, young people will be less inclined to report crimes and their own victimisation to the police, provide intelligence, and participate in the criminal justice system. This study is intended to provide a critical appraisal of young people s perceptions of Police and Community Support Officers (PCSOs) and community policing in Leicester, in an effort to delineate the implications of their exclusion from local policing and crime related issues. Community policing is a well-known policing philosophy, particularly for repairing police public relations through engagement and problem solving. The findings demonstrate that despite the fundamental benefits associated with community policing, conventional methods of engagement and problem solving have failed to reach out to young people who are, nevertheless, particularly enthusiastic about collaborating with the police. However, whilst the vast majority of young people are positive about getting involved in policing, there are important variations within young people in their perceptions and attitudes towards the police. Young ethnic minorities in general, blacks in particular, were passive and reluctant to collaborate with the police due to their experiences of stop and search and other repercussion associated with the law enforcement style of policing. A lot of these problems can be subsided by diverting police resources to community policing, but there are going to be strong financial, organisational and cultural challenges.

Once regarded as a nation central to the development of civil society, associational activity in contemporary Britain is perceived by some authors as fragile. Whereas the urban leadership provided by the middle classes was crucial to the trajectory and character of towns and cities all over Britain in the nineteenth century, it has been claimed that their relocation to suburbia has become synonymous with detachment, disinterest and the decline of the associational sphere. Depicted in literary and historical accounts, as well as in the popular media, as pursuing a suburban lifestyle that was both monotonous and disengaged, the middle classes of the twentieth century were assumed to have relinquished the management of a multitude of municipal and voluntary functions that defined an urban place. Yet such accounts stereotyped middle-class lifestyles, oversimplifying their relationship with the city, and prompting a ‘new wave’ of suburban research in America that has offered a revisionism that stresses diversity and challenges prevailing assumptions regarding middle-class behaviour. Assumptions of suburban detachment are contested in the research that underpins this study. The thesis ‘Semi-Detached Britain? Social networks in the suburban fringe of Leicester and Loughborough, 1950-2005’ provides a detailed analysis of social and cultural networks and reviews the consequences of relocation on civic engagement since 1950. Geographically the middle classes may have distanced their home lives from the urban centre, but through an examination of their participation in the associational sphere of clubs and societies it is evident that suburban living was not synonymous with disinterest and detachment. Furthermore, analysis of cultural changes post 1950, including the issue of conservation, the shifting nature of gender relations, and the process of racial assimilation, reveal how voluntary organisations, and their middle-class membership, continued to shape the physical, spatial and cultural landscape of modern Britain. Through the intricate networks of power developed in local clubs and societies, the middle-classes found a continuing utility in the transference of knowledge and expertise, often working as mediator between the citizen and the state. Far from being disconnected, the new ‘suburbans’ were ‘semi-detached’, demonstrating a vigorous and ongoing commitment to the public sphere that contributed to the stock of social and civic capital in both town and city. In this regard the thesis provides a revisionism concerning the middle classes, suburbanisation, and the construction of civil society in the modern era.

In the context of globalisation, not only human movement became more facile between places, but the meaning of people’s locality turned unstable and uncertain. During last four decades, the number of studies on the link between people and place has increased, in order to understand the multiplying and reciprocal interactions between people and place, and to recognize the challenges that the change of place issues to people, and the challenges that migrants’ arrival issues to the receiving place, especially to urban environment. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the discussion about the role of place played in identity, and that how migration influences the place-identity. It investigates the elicitation of attachment to home place, the disruption of place-identity continuity caused by migration, and the reconstruction of homely environment in order to maintain place-identity continuity after the settlement. According to these phases, the research units seek to answer the questions: how home place induces an attachment in people, how the change between places influences the place-identity continuity, and how relocated people manifest and maintain their attachment towards the home place. The study explores the answers in the case of Gujarati immigrants arrived in Leicester and Milan. The cross-urban comparison makes possible to examine the effects of postcolonial relations and migrant community development; size and concentration on the recreation and preservation of place-identity. Empirical inquiry is based on ethnographic field work: in-depth interviews and non-participant observations. The research analyses overall 62 interviews with Hindu Gujarati immigrants and descendants in Leicester and Milan; 36 and 26 interviews respectively, furthermore completed with further 6 interviews gained from research archives. Observation covers the urban public places, focusing on the material environment, social life, and religious ceremonies. The study uses the identity-theory as a theoretical framework to transfer the principles of identity to the concept of place and model the complex entity of people-place relationship. It organises the place, person, and process aspects of people-place relationship into a simple four-party model, applying it to the empirical exploration of research themes. Empirical findings call attention to the outstanding role of home place amongst the places that people come into contact with during their lifetime. First, the research provides clues that due to which particular place features the home place evokes strong positive emotions in Gujarati immigrants. Secondly, examining the emotional effects of migration and resettlement, it reinforces the trace of earlier investigations, proving that migration causes a mental confusion as it is accompanied by change of place. Advancing further, it shows that there is relation between the sense of disruption and certain abilities of immigrants and certain qualities of sending and receiving places. Thirdly, analysing how Gujarati immigrants and descendants maintain and express their attachment to place in Leicester and Milan, the research manifests that immigrants intend to keep up their belonging whenever it is possible, instead an assimilation into the new urban environment. It demonstrated that Gujarati immigrants use the same type of practices to reconstruct the homely environment in the two cities, but they have different outcomes, depending on immigrants’ special skills, labour profile, and the particular environmental factors of settlement place. Cross-urban results also indicate that postcolonial relations between the migrant sending and receiving countries, providing a receptive environment in the destination place and internationally extended social network, guide migratory pattern and favourably influence the immigrant community development, thus they may indirectly facilitate the transformation of urban place. Empirical findings provide evidences that home place, through the emotional bonding felt towards the environment, became part of people’s identity developing place-identity, and the need to regain the sense of home place disturbed by the migration prompts immigrants to recreate the home place in the urban settlement. By its results, the research contributes and provides new empirical findings to the growing body of literature on place-identity and urban ethnic landscape from many sides. However, the conscious adherence to the homely traditions, the maintenance of social group belonging, and the prominent use of religious practice hint that besides the environmental factors, migrants’ culture also plays a significant role in place-identity continuity. This calls attention to the need for further empirical examinations of the effects of cultural belonging on place-identity, and the need to construct a more culture-sensible place-identity framework.
Nel contesto globalizzato, gli spostamenti delle persone sono diventati più facili e il significato di località è diventato instabile e incerto. Nel corso degli ultimi quattro decenni il numero degli studi sul rapporto tra uomo e ambiente è aumentato. Tali studi hanno le finalità di comprendere le interazioni reciproche e multifunzionali tra persone e ambiente, e di riconoscere le sfide del cambiamento che l’ambiente produce sulle persone da un lato, e dall’altro del cambiamento prodotto dall’arrivo dei migranti, in particolare sull’ambiente urbano. L’obiettivo di questa ricerca è quello di contribuire alla discussione sul ruolo del luogo nell'identità, e su come la migrazione influenza l’identità di luogo dei migranti. Indaga l’attaccamento all’ambiente di casa, l'interruzione della continuità dell’identità di luogo causata dalla migrazione, e la ricostruzione di ambiente familiare al fine di mantenere la continuità di identità dopo l'insediamento. Secondo queste tre fasi, i capitoli della presente ricerca cercano di rispondere alle seguenti domande : in che modo l’ambiente di casa induce un attaccamento nelle persone, come il cambiamento tra luoghi influenza la continuità dell’identità di luogo, e infine come la gente trasferita manifesta e mantiene il suo attaccamento verso l’ambiente di casa. È analizzato il caso degli indù gujarati migranti arrivati a Leicester e a Milano. Il confronto cross-urbano permette di esaminare: gli effetti dei rapporti post-coloniali e lo sviluppo delle comunità migranti; le dimensioni e la concentrazione sulla ricostruzione e sul mantenimento dell’identità di luogo. La ricerca empirica si basa su un lavoro di campo etnografico con interviste in profondità e osservazioni non partecipanti. Nello specifico, sono analizzate 62 interviste realizzate con indù gujarati immigrati e discendenti a Leicester e a Milano, 36 e 26 interviste rispettivamente, completate con 6 interviste raccolte da diversi archivi di ricerca. L'osservazione riguarda i luoghi pubblici urbani, con particolare attenzione all'ambiente materiale, alla vita sociale, e ai riti e cerimonie religiosi. Lo studio utilizza la teoria dell'identità come un quadro teorico per trasferire i principi dell’identità al concetto del luogo e forma la complessa entità del rapporto persona-ambiente. Organizza luogo, persona e processo del rapporto persona-ambiente in un modello a quattro componenti, applicanto all'esplorazione empirica dei temi di ricerca. I risultati empirici richiamano l'attenzione sul ruolo eccezionale dell’ambiente di casa tra i luoghi con cui le persone entrano in contatto durante la loro vita. In primo luogo la ricerca rivela quali sono le funzioni particolari dell'ambiente con cui l'ambiente di casa suscita emozioni forti e positive negli immigrati gujarati. In secondo luogo, esaminando gli effetti emotivi della migrazione e del reinsediamento, l'investigazione rafforza i risultati di ricerche pregresse, dimostrando che l'immigrazione provoca una frattura mentale causata da un cambiamento di luogo. Ancora, la ricerca mostra una relazione tra da un lato la frattura sentimentale e dall'altro l’abilità dei migranti e qualità dei luoghi di invio e di ricezione. In terzo luogo, analizzando come gli immigrati gujarati e i loro discendenti conservano ed esprimono il loro attaccamento all’ambiente di casa a Leicester e a Milano, la ricerca mette in evidenza che gli immigrati tendono a mantenere la loro appartenenza quanto più possibile, e non ad assimilarsi nel nuovo ambiente urbano. Gli immigrati gujarati usano lo stesso tipo di pratiche per ricostruire l'ambiente familiare nelle due città, con risultati diversi a seconda delle competenze speciali, del loro profilo di lavoro e dei fattori ambientali particolari del luogo di insediamento. I risultati cross-urbani indicano inoltre che le relazioni postcoloniali tra il Paese di invio e il Paese ricevente dei migranti, fornendo un ambiente ricettivo nel luogo di destinazione ed una rete sociale estesa nell’ambito internazionale, guidano il percorso migratorio e influenzano favorevolmente lo sviluppo della comunità di immigrati. In tal modo le relazioni postcoloniali possono indirettamente facilitare la trasformazione del luogo urbano. I risultati empirici provenienti dalla ricerca mettono in evidenza che l'ambiente di casa fa parte dell'identità tramite il legame emotivo costruito con l'ambiente, sviluppando l'identità di luogo, e dimostrano che il bisogno di ritrovare il senso dell'ambiente di casa disturbata dalla migrazione spinge gli immigrati a ricreare l'ambiente di casa nel luogo urbano di insediamento. La ricerca contribuisce e fornisce nuove scoperte empiriche alla letteratura sull’identità di luogo e sul paesaggio urbano, etnico. Tuttavia, l'adesione cosciente alle tradizioni familiari, il mantenimento dell’appartenenza al gruppo sociale e l'uso prominente delle pratiche religiose suggeriscono che oltre ai fattori ambientali, la cultura dei migranti svolge un ruolo significativo nella continuità dell’identità di luogo. Lo studio richiama l'attenzione sulla necessità di ulteriori esami empirici sugli effetti dell’appartenenza culturale sull’identità di luogo e sulla necessità di costruire un quadro dell’identità di luogo più articolato, includente la cultura.

The late Tudor and early Stuart period is widely considered to be a significant period of transition in English urban society. Numerous towns have been studied in the context of the social and economic difficulties they experienced. Historians have also investigated the formal social organisation structuring human relationships in urban centres. Towns have been largely described as either stable or unstable communities. The study of urban social organisation is important for understanding urban consciousness on the basis of townspeople's everyday experiences. Recent local studies generally fail to recognise those significant social relationships which crisscrossed the boundaries of formal and informal institutions, of social and occupational groups and of town and countryside. Analysis of these aspects are particularly important in the context of middle-sized county towns, since recent detailed studies have tended to focus mainly on the largest urban centres, notably London. This thesis attempts to analyse how a heterogeneous population's social relationships were organised in a complex urban community. The first four chapters examine a range of urban experiences in the context of the regional economy, the urban fringe, household society and poverty. Chapters five and six investigate social relationships in formal institutional settings and townspeople's reactions to these institutional structures. The final chapter demonstrates the patterns of everyday interactions in different types of urban space (as defined in the text). Stressing the significance of informal social links in the urban community, the thesis concludes that urban space gave important structure to a range of social networks, shaping and modifying townspeople's urban consciousness. This study not only highlights the limitation of compartmentalised analysis of individual urban institutions and social groups in an urban context, but also suggests new analytical dimensions in assessing the change and continuity of pre-modern towns without alluding to the concept of stability.

Understanding the philosophy of a different culture and integrating this understanding into the provision of pharmaceutical care is challenging and complex. This thesis argues the importance for community pharmacists to acknowledge that culture, religion, family and community dynamics can impact on patients' health, health seeking behaviour and medicines adherence. The perceptions of members of the South Asian population, general practitioners, and community pharmacists about how these factors are viewed in relation to community pharmacy services were explored in this study. It was conducted in Leicester City, which has a South Asian minority ethnic population of more than 25%. Participants' views of the role of extended community pharmacy services in the wider government agenda were explored. South Asians attitudes to healthcare, self care and the management of minor ailments were discussed. A qualitative methodology approach was adopted, which used constructivist and interpretive principles. Data collection for the study was conducted in two phases. In Phase 1, one to one semi-structured interviews were conducted separately with six local GPs and five community pharmacists from both 'white' (European) and South Asian backgrounds. In Phase 2, six gender specific focus groups were convened comprising of fifty five participants in total from the Sikh, Moslem and Hindu communities. Bi-lingual community workers were used in this study which allowed a more 'sensitive' exploration of the sociological aspects of health seeking behaviour and the impact of 'cultural' influences on medicines adherence. The need for 'cultural competence' of community pharmacists is discussed as one of the major contributions to the evidence base for pharmacy practice. Such initiatives would require pharmacists to acquire more effective consultation skills in the first instance. South Asians expressed views that community pharmacists need to be more knowledgeable, responsive and flexible in their professional practice by assessing their pharmaceutical needs and being aware of particular cultural sensitivities when planning their services in line with the new pharmaceutical contract. More specifically, South Asian participants illustrated the need for community pharmacists and their staff to be more 'culturally knowledgeable' about the communities in which they practice. It is argued that the provision of a more culturally sensitive and pro-active service is needed to develop a better patient-practitioner professional relationship that promotes trust. South Asians illustrated how certain behavioural, religious and cultural beliefs impact on medicines adherence, such as compliance issues whilst on holiday to their homeland, the impact of religious pilgrimage and fasts. Many South Asian participants had limited understanding about 'generic' medicines and considered these to be 'inferior' or 'less effective' than 'branded' medication. Participants' views of 'sharing' of medicines and medicines waste were also illustrated. Factors such as 'stress', 'fate' and 'karma' and their impact on health of the participants were discussed. Many of these factors could not be solely attributable to a South Asian 'culture'. However, the findings illustrate a need for a Medicines Use Review (MUR) service to include more 'targeted' exploration of medicines adherence and medicines optimisation for this population. The findings also highlighted why South Asians rarely consult the community pharmacist about sensitive or stigmatised issues such as depression, and how some conditions and symptoms were perceived to have negative impact on the 'social acceptance' of South Asian individuals within their own communities. South Asians suggested that community pharmacists needed to be more pro-active and 'responsive' to their pharmaceutical needs and respect confidentiality through use of private consultation areas for routine counselling, health promotion and medicines information. All participants endorsed a need for more 'professional' recognition of the pharmacist not only as an autonomous health care professional, but as one integral to providing NHS services relating to medicines and public health. The findings illustrated a lack of professional collaboration between community pharmacists and GPs, confounded by community pharmacists being 'subordinate' to GPs and portraying more of a 'shopkeeper' image. South Asians were well informed about the lack of shared medical records and relied heavily on a doctor's definitive 'diagnosis' for somatic symptoms related common ailments. South Asians pro-actively engaged with 'community action' based approaches in health education and health promotion, and an opportunity for community pharmacists to become more involved with social initiatives was inferred from the findings. Candid and animated discussions explored their understanding of exercise as part of weight management and their interpretation of effects of the use of herbal products, alternative practitioners and the importance of collaboration with religious and community leaders in promoting medicines adherence. Participants desired alternative communication methods other than leaflets (translated or otherwise), including the use of audio-visual means and use of media. Communication difficulties were still prevalent, and trained interpreters were rarely used. By embracing some of these challenges, community pharmacists could enhance the value of their services and provide a more meaningful, 'culturally' competent and responsive services based on the needs of their local populations and nurture a better trusting and professional relationship with their service users and healthcare colleagues.

This thesis examines the response of two medium-sized cities, the French city of Reims and the English city of Leicester, to the challenges of globalisation that have intensified since the 1980s. The end of the long post-war economic boom marked by the mid-1970s economic crisis led to global changes that both cities encountered, such as deindustrialisation, the rise of unemployment, urban austerity and inner-city decline. The economic depression of the 1980s marked a turning point for the regeneration policies of Britain and France with municipalities looking to provide a better image of the city in order to adapt and resist the effects of globalisation. I argue that less prominent cities as opposed to ‘global’ or capital cities warrant detailed attention in the global context. Within the homogenous frame of globalisation, both cities adopted different strategies that depended on different political structures, as well as local governance and historical legacies. Recent debates on globalisation have emphasised a process of homogenisation that overlooks the changes that take place at a local level. Local contexts are an important index for understanding the impact of globalisation on the urban environment. The scholarly contribution of this research will enhance our understanding of medium-sized cities and the political, economic and cultural processes of adaptation within an age of globalisation.

This thesis presents a micro-study of the poor law medical services provided by a large provincial union in a rapidly growing industrial town during the central phase of poor law administration. The poor law medical service has been perceived as a second-class service that stigmatised and exploited both medical staff and patients. Working conditions for medical officers were arduous and unrewarding and sick paupers either received limited outdoor medical relief or were treated in institutions that were designed and managed on principles of deterrence and economy. Yet posts were competitively sought after by doctors, who often remained in the service for many years, and it could be argued that sick paupers at least received medical treatment that would otherwise have been denied them. This thesis focuses on local detail and personalities within the Leicester union to provide an insight into the reality of the service as experienced by the medical staff and patients. The thesis begins with a review of the historiographies of the social history of nineteenth-century medicine and the new poor law. Chapter 2 provides the context of the study by explaining the national framework of the poor law medical services and describing the social and economic circumstances of Leicester and its union. The remaining chapters present a thematic exploration of the medical care and treatment provided. Chapters 3 and 4 offer a detailed assessment of the working conditions and practices of the medical officers. Poor law nurses undertook the daily care of workhouse patients, and Chapter 5 explores how nursing developed at this union during this lengthy period. Having considered the providers of medical care, Chapters 6, 7 and 8 examine the perspective of the recipients: the general patients, children, and insane and epileptic patients. Chapter 9 focuses upon the transition at the beginning of the twentieth century from the workhouse-based infirmary to a purpose-built modern separate infirmary. The final chapter concludes that the stereotypical image of poor law medicine has been confounded by some of the evidence offered in this thesis which has revealed a more nuanced and balanced view than previously of the benefits and deficiencies of the poor law medical services.

This study used the concept of everyday multiculturalism to explore how young White British people interpret, negotiate and engage with diversity and ‘difference’ in Leicester. Young people’s views and experiences were captured through employing an ethnographic strategy which facilitated observations, informal conversations and interviews, documenting auto-ethnographical experiences and questionnaire completion. The findings illustrate that the majority of young White British people living in Leicester view multiculturalism, in its ideological form, as being positive for England. However, when the sample was asked to reflect upon their own ‘everyday’ experiences of engaging with people from different backgrounds, the lived reality appears quite different. The findings demonstrate that the ways in which young people encounter and interact with diversity in mundane social spaces can be undermined by fear, prejudice and hostility. At its most extreme this unfamiliarity with ‘difference’ can motivate young people to actively disengage with the multicultural population around them. The intolerance and resentment towards ‘difference’ can be understood as the result of an interplay between socio-economic status frustration, a heightened importance of identity and place to certain groups of young people and the micro-multicultural context. Finally, this study used the concept of everyday multiculturalism to understand the motivation and causation of acts of targeted hostility, incidents in which the victim is selected on the basis of their perceived ethnicity or religion. This study demonstrates that incorporating the concept of everyday multiculturalism within existing theoretical explanations of targeted hostility, achieves a more sophisticated understanding of the real-life situational cues and contexts which give rise to acts of targeted hostility. It is only through a closer engagement with the real lives of young people that a more empirically rooted understanding of targeted hostility can be achieved, and more effective policy and practice recommendations can be developed.

This thesis examines the networks involved in the production of the wardrobe of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (1532/3-1588). It is clearly demonstrated that Leicester’s dress placed him alongside his contemporaries within the nobility. A successful and well functioning wardrobe network was crucial to achieving the required standard of dress. Establishing the identity of the individual members of the network enables the further examination of each person’s role within the network, and in dressing Leicester. Comprised of English masters embedded in their livery company politics and punctuated with foreign masters, the network provides an insight into business practice and social interaction in sixteenth century London.

This thesis studies the formation of the earldom of Lancaster from disparate elements of confiscated honours, in particular the earldom of Leicester, seized by the Crown in 1265, and the earldom of Derby which passed to the Crown through the disinheritance of Robert de Ferrers in 1266. There are three main sections, A study of both earls, their history and the methods by which the Crown took their earldoms in order to re-grant them, in the form of an appanage, to Edmund of Lancaster (1267-96), Henry III's second son. It also analyses the attempts of their families to regain their patrimony. The honours of Tutbury and Leicester were extensive, thus the thesis concentrates on the lands of these honours which fall within the midland counties. The effects of the civil war upon the tenantry, and the holdings of both honours are studied to ascertain whether change or continuity is the overriding factor. The bond between lord and tenant is also examined. The second section deals with the last days of Thomas of Lancaster (1296-1322) and the Crown's confiscation of his lands; the earldom was faced with total abeyance. The third section studies the revival in the fortunes of the earldom under the management of Henry of Lancaster (1326-45). Through astute political manoeuvre and a defiant use of the power afforded him by his retinue, he regained the great majority of the lands over which Edmund of Lancaster had held sway. A further central theme examines the position of the widows involved in the confiscations: Eleanor de Ferrers, Eleanor de Montfort and Alice of Lancaster, Their difficulty in obtaining seizin of their dowers led to a corresponding lack of personal and financial security.

Background: South Asian communities are increasing in the UK and there is a significant growth of this population from the 2001 and 2011 Censuses. In Brent and Leicester more than 30% of the population are from a South Asian background. South Asian men make a significant proportion of this population (Office for National Statistics (2012)). In general men’s health is under-researched and there is little research that focuses on the health of men from ethnic minorities in the UK. The sexual health of men is well researched particularly in the field of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) but this largely focuses on men who have sex with men and there is little UK research that examines the issues surrounding the sexual health of men in the South Asian community. This thesis focuses on producing a better understanding of South Asian men’s perspectives on sexual health through participatory research and dialogue. Methods: A South Asian men’s participatory action research group (PAR) was established to collectively explore South Asian men’s sexual health in Brent; followed by ten semi-structured and five in-depth one-to-one interviews with South Asian men in Leicester. The data from the three phases was thematically analysed using a qualitative descriptive method and key themes identified in relation to the perspectives of South Asian men towards sexual health. . Findings: This study uncovered deep seated cultural and religious issues that are important for those working in the field of men’s sexual health to understand. The themes emerging from the data highlighted that talking about sexual health carries connotations of stigma and shame that are largely associated with non-acceptance 4 of homosexuality and what South Asian communities consider to be western or ‘white’ liberal culture. Generational differences and the strong influence of first generation immigrants and religious leaders emphasised the theme of shame and stigma. Misconceptions about what is meant by sexual health were evident, with participants focusing on infection and promiscuity rather than health and suggesting that culturally sensitive information was lacking. Themes focused on how services could be more accessible and culturally acceptable also focused on the need to ‘be private and discreet’ and to some degree ‘hidden’ to prevent stigma and shame. Conclusion: South Asian men’s sexual health cannot be understood without understanding the wider local South Asian community which encompasses religious and cultural influences which impact South Asian men’s perspectives on sexual health. These perspectives have been shaped by cultural and geographic origins, patterns of migration, religious and family expectations, generational and marital status. These issues result in a lack of engagement amongst South Asian men and sexual health services. The findings of this study suggest that services should target South Asian men at an individual, cultural community and service level to build trust and provide services that are accessible and culturally acceptable. There is also a need to create greater understanding about the nature of sexual health and align it with men’s health issues more generally. Establishing forums and creating information sources that facilitate open discussion among men in South Asian communities to de-stigmatise sexual health would also assist in reducing stigma.

L’étude des politiques du logement et des évolutions résidentielles des minorités ethniques dans deux villes britanniques, Leicester et Bradford, nous amène à proposer les deux constats suivants :le premier est de souligner le lien entre la privatisation du logement social et l’ethnicisation des politiques du logement. En effet, la gestion et la construction du logement public se sont affaiblies depuis le début des années 1980 au profit d’associations de logements, parmi lesquelles les Black Housing Associations. Gestionnaires et productrices de logement social « adapté » aux besoins des minorités de couleur, elles doivent obéir, en même temps, à des impératifs managériaux et financiers, ce qui contribue à leur propre affaiblissement. Le second constat de notre recherche s’inscrit contre le discours du New Labour depuis les émeutes urbaines de 2001 : malgré les propos sur la sécession résidentielle des minorités qui mettrait en péril l’unité de la Nation, on constate une baisse de la ségrégation entre 1991 et 2001, à Leicester, réputée comme le modèle de gestion multiculturelle, comme à Bradford, théâtre des émeutes urbaines de 2001. Or cette évolution s’explique par une double mobilité résidentielle des minorités ethniques et religieuses : d’une part, la déconcentration des minorités des inner cities vers les quartiers plus aisés est une conséquence de l’ascension sociale puissante d’un grand nombre de ménages. D’autre part, les politiques ethniques du logement contribuent, dans une moindre mesure, à la diversification des parcours résidentiels des ménages de couleur et à leur relocalisation en dehors des inner cities des deux villes étudiées

The purpose of this project was to establish whether or not the development of black owned businesses has been impeded by policies and practices in environmental planning. This question was explored in a series of operational hypotheses using data collected in Leicester for the period 1971-81. The main sources of data were a large sample of planning applications records and an extensive survey of businesses who had applied for planning permission since 1984. It was found that Asian businesses had grown in number during the period and had shown increasing spatial dispersal and sectoral diversification. Some of this growth was the result of the displacement of white businesses. There was also evidence that the formation of new Asian firms contributed to increased activity in the local economy. The increase in economic activity generated demands for additional commercial space. This demand was often frustrated by the refusal of planning permission which occurred twice as often for Asian businesses as for white businesses. The high levels of refusal of planning permission were consistent with the restrictive nature of planning policies in respect of commercial land uses. There was no evidence that black businesses were discriminated against directly. The hypothesis that there was indirect racial discrimination arising out of differing policy impacts on different racial groups was found to be untestable. The apparent disadvantage of black businesses in planning terms was related to their inner city location and their relative lack of influence on local politics. The latter attribute was characterised as a perception-gap that exists between planners and entrepreneurs. These problems could be addressed by placing increased emphasis on personal contacts between planners and applicants and in the creative use of existing inner city policy instruments.

This thesis examines the response of British urban planners to the rise of private motoring in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The examination begins with an exploration of important planning documents and events of the 1950s and 1960s, relating to the issue of rising car ownership. It is followed by an exploration of the response of urban planners to rising car ownership in Leicester and Milton Keynes. This research covers an important stage in the rise of car culture in Britain and an important stage in the evolution of urban planning. From 1950 to 1960, the number of cars on Britain’s roads rose nearly two-and-a-half times to 5.5 million, which was seen as the beginning of mass car ownership. Although this prospect was often welcomed as a sign of affluence, it was also deemed to require a robust response from physical planners to prevent widespread traffic congestion and environmental nuisance. In this thesis I make four arguments. I argue, firstly, that it was in the 1950s and 1960s that a durable framework for approaching questions of urban transport in a motorised Britain was first worked out. Secondly, the prospect of motorisation posed fresh questions about the type of urban society that planning should be employed to support. The planners elected to encourage automobility and consumerism, but were also obliged to give more recognition to the importance of building conservation, urban environmental quality, and public transport. Thirdly, urban planners were directed by a powerful set of economic and social forces to plan in the car’s favour. Fourthly and finally, I argue that the decision to accommodate motorisation helped to provoke a backlash against sweeping redevelopment and top-down planning that altered planners’ relationship with the public, giving rise to a greater appreciation for the value of the existing urban fabric.

This thesis aims to uncover and explore a series of everyday experiences of migration, a phenomenon which can be both a monumental upheaval and an ordinary activity. The research for this study has been carried out in Leicester, a city recognised for its large and diverse migrant population, orientating around Polish, Greek-Cypriot and Italian immigrants, three relatively small but distinctive migrant groups. Based on evidence collected from 55 oral history/in-depth interviews and supplemented by other sources including the census, local newspapers and several pie-recorded interviews, four overlapping themes are considered. The first studies the migration process itself, highlighting the important contrast between voluntary and involuntary migration and examining the different memories and legacies of migration. While migration has been the pivotal experience in Polish life histories, for example, it has been notably less significant for the Italian and Greek-Cypriot interviewees. Secondly, the national, rather than ethnic, identities of the groups are analysed, demonstrating how national consciousness survives the upheaval of migration to continue through the recognition of national histories, traditional rituals and material culture, and the persistence of national myths and ambiguities. The third theme incorporates the different respondents' memories and experiences of their homelands, focusing especially on the transnational connections that are established with the national territory after migration. Subscriptions to national satellite television channels, for example, have become an important feature in homeland relationships in the past decade. Finally, different experiences of community life in Leicester are studied, considering how 'community' is projected in the interviews, and analysing the shared social and cultural norms and values that underpin community life. Using the individual testimonies, the study highlights the tensions felt between collective ideals and personal autonomy. Overall the thesis seeks to assert the continued importance of national identity in migrants' everyday lives, and the flexibility of collective constructs which allow each respondent to experience migration, nation and community individually.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the problems that five Taiwanese postgraduate students faced in adapting to a British academic community and, more specifically, the learning and writing difficulties they encountered. Qualitative data from three interviews with each student and also one interview with British tutors were collected, and an examination of the standard feedback given by these students' tutors on their written work was conducted. In addition, some attention was paid to the students' structuring of their writing. The data overall illustrated the kinds of cultural and academic difficulties encountered by these subjects in adapting to the requirements of their Master's course.;The findings also showed that the five Taiwanese students brought to their studies different expectations of learning from those of their British tutors, and that both sides should be aware of such differences if they are to work successfully together in the British academic system.;A preliminary model of Taiwanese Students' Writing and Learning in the UK is proposed based on the findings of this study. It shows the interrelationship of the British academic culture, teachers' feedback, and students' writing and learning. Implications and directions for further research are also discussed.

Remittances to sub-Saharan Africa have steadily been on increase in recent decades. However, the full socio-economic benefits of remittances to some countries, such as Tanzania are far from clear. Consequently, the importance of this economic phenomenon in Tanzanian society is rather inconclusive, because their effects on poverty reduction and development in Tanzania are based largely on evidence from the regional area (i.e. sub-Saharan Africa) and from other developing countries. This study has examined the perceived and actual effects of remittances on poverty reduction and development in Tanzania from the viewpoint of Leicester-based Tanzanian diaspora and the remittance receivers’ in Tanzania. The study was, therefore, based in two places, Leicester (United Kingdom- UK) and Tanzania. It adopts an inductive approach to enquiry for which both qualitative and quantitative data were collect from the three case studies: The first case study is Leicester-based Tanzanian diaspora (the remittances senders), the second case study is remittance receivers in Tanzania (the remittances users), and third case study is Tanzanian government officials (i.e. researchers, policy makers and regulatory bodies). The significance of this study is that it is a two-way process conducted from the remittance senders’ (the Leicester-based Tanzanian diaspora) and remittance the receivers’ perspectives (the remittance users in Tanzania). The study, therefore, involve tracking of remittances from Leicester to Tanzania. The study provides better insight and understanding of the effects of remittances on poverty reduction and development in Tanzania. It help to understand how best to harness diaspora and remittances through the understanding of diaspora’s capabilities and interests, as well as types of remittances sent to Tanzania, channels of sending, and any obstacles that hamper the effectiveness of remittances on poverty reduction and development in Tanzania. The study also offers insight into why the Tanzanian diaspora continues to remit. Amongst other reasons, it includes the retained belief in the Ujamaa ideology (family-hood or brother-hood). In turn, this adds significant contributions on the theories of migration and development, and motives to remit. The overall finding of this study is that remittances remain important to Tanzanian society, because they help to increase the amount of disposable money for spending on education, health, consumption, business formation, and investments. Unlike other international aid, remittances go directly to receivers. Thus, remittances tend to have immediate and direct effects on the livelihoods of the receivers. Remittances received from Leicester, therefore, help to improve the quality of lives of the recipients. Hence, they help to reduce depth and severity of poverty on the receiving communities. Nevertheless, the findings of this study clearly show that from a developmental perspective, one of the major challenges to the effects of remittances on poverty reduction and development in Tanzania is to motivate the diaspora to conduct their remittance transfer operations through formal channels. This has remained a major challenge because of high fees associated with transfer of financial and material remittances, lack of formal channels in rural areas of Tanzania, and a total lack of appropriate formal channels for transmitting social remittances to Tanzania. The study recommends that policies on diaspora and remittances should be designed to encourage diaspora to send remittances through formal channels with low transaction costs. This is important because it will make easier to channel remittances into sustainable developmental projects that could fuel community and national development, thereby touching not only the direct recipients but also the general public. The study also recommends that both Tanzania and the UK government need to ensure social remittances (e.g. skills, technology-know-how, knowledge and experiences) are effectively being acquired, utilized and transmitted to Tanzania for the development of the country. This can be achieved by create a common platform for dialogue between diaspora, Tanzania and the UK governments, which will enable to understand local needs alongside the skills, knowledge, capacities and interests of the diaspora. The study concludes that in spite of other interventions and perhaps a lesser emphasis on social remittance sending to Tanzania nowadays, diaspora remittances remain a critical input into poverty reduction and development in Tanzania.

This thesis represents an attempt to encourage a new perspective on health in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth century by concentrating on the ‘mundane maladies’ of the middle classes. The conventional approach to studies of urban health has been to concentrate on the killer diseases of the period. Thus tuberculosis, cholera and typhoid have all received much attention. But what about the everyday experience of health and illness? It is largely unrecorded as the occasional bout of stomach ache, constipation or chesty cough was rarely thought to be noteworthy, except by the odd hypochondriac. However, with the aid of advertisements for health and beauty products published in the provincial press, it is possible to explore the experience of less dramatic and less debilitating ailments. This study, therefore, has analysed the language and strategies employed by advertisers of health and beauty products and services to gain a clearer understanding of the middle-class experience of health and ill-health. Whilst product names and descriptions reveal the range of ‘mundane maladies’ that beset the middle classes, the language employed to sell them offers an indication of the public’s beliefs and expectations surrounding health. Attention has also been paid on how beauty products were employed to manage external appearances. As towns and cities grew during the late-eighteenth and nineteenth century, individuals increasingly judged others by their appearance. By analysing the language used to sell beauty products, it is possible to gain an insight into how members of the middle class wished to be perceived.

This thesis examines popular music in the city of Leicester. It looks at local popular music practice through the activities, values and structures of support associated with local music scenes and music industry. It explores the ways in which popular music contributes to city life through the activities of particular groups involved in the production and distribution of music in Leicester. It also considers how local governance structures influence and shape music practice through cultural policy and municipal government and regulation. Using the concepts 'music scene' and 'music community' I consider how participation in popular music in the city is organised around particular sites, activities, coalitions and alliances. The production and localisation of identities, values and economies through popular music practice are considered via case study and through examination of the relationship between public sector supported initiatives and different social and music communities. In particular, I focus on the ways in which popular music is thought to represent different social groups and how this representation is an important element of local cultural policy. The social function of popular music in marking and contributing to social and cultural identity (Frith 1987) is examined in the context of urban communities and identities, and in terms of its propensity to facilitate public celebration and display of diverse ethnicities in a multicultural city. I consider the history of provision for popular music and recent policy initiatives in Leicester in comparison to other examples of urban cultural policy, which are offered as a framework for considering different strategies for urban regeneration and animation through the popular music sector. In doing so, I question the relationship between cultural value and cultural policy and discuss issues associated with local music scenes and identities and the influences on local music policy and practice.

This thesis provides for the first time a detailed examination of the political and cultural career of the Philip Sidney, generally known by his courtesy title of Lord Lisle. Lord Lisle was one of the members of the court nobility who joined the parliamentarian opposition to Charles I in the 1640s and whose most eminent figures have not recently been the subject of individual biographies. Unlike the rest of his class, however, Lisle, appointed a councillor of state, supported the new governments of both the Commonwealth and Protectorate; he even returned to opposition to the crown in the Exclusion Crisis. It is suggested that such a stance was surprising, given Lisle’s descent from a family elevated to the peerage through service at court and financially dependent on court patronage. In addition, it is shown that Lisle was conscious of the requirements of noble status and sought to maintain the style of life expected of one of his class. To explain this paradox, it is argued that Lisle constructed his identity on the perceived image of his celebrated namesake and great-uncle, Sir Philip Sidney. Above all he was influenced in his move to political opposition by the reputation of Sir Philip as defender of Protestantism against the perils of popery and arbitrary government. Offering more than an account of one man’s political career and his cultural interests in art collecting and literary patronage, this thesis also provides new insights into the nature of religious affiliation in the Civil Wars and beyond, the factional politics of the mid 1640s, the inner workings of the Protectorate and the emergence of changed values after the Restoration.