Aims: The overarching aim of this thesis was to evaluate the implementation of the MindOut social and emotional learning (SEL) programme with disadvantaged post-primary school students (15-18 years old) in Ireland. This study was conducted in three phases, each of which have been published. Phase 1 aimed to evaluate the immediate impact of the MindOut programme on students’ social emotional skills, mental health and wellbeing and academic outcomes. Phase 2 aimed to examine variability in implementation quality and to identify factors that contributed to this variability. Phase 3 aimed to determine how implementation quality impacted on programme outcomes.

Methods: The study employed a cluster-randomised controlled design with mixed methods approaches. A total of 675 students from 32 disadvantaged schools participated at baseline and data were collected from students and teachers before, during and following programme delivery. Phase 1 employed linear mixed models (LMM) to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme on students’ outcomes. Phase 2 used process measures to determine schools’ level of implementation quality across four implementation dimensions, and to identify factors that contributed to implementation quality. Phase 3 employed LMM’s to assess the relationships between the implementation data and outcome data across three time-points and between three treatment groups (high-implementation, low-implementation and control).

Results: Phase 1 demonstrated significant improvements in students’ social and emotional skills: reduced suppression of emotions (p=0.035), use of more positive coping strategies [reduced avoidance coping p=<0.001) and increased social support coping p=0.044)] and mental health and wellbeing: reduced levels of stress (p=0.017) and depressive symptoms (p=0.030) and reduced anxiety scores for female students (p=0.044). Phase 2 detected variability in implementation quality between schools and assigned eight schools to both the high- and low-implementation groups. Influencing factors were categorised into five themes: Programme Factors, Participant Factors, Teacher Factors, School Contextual Factors and Organisational Capacity Factors. Phase 3 revealed significant positive programme effects at post-intervention for the high-implementation group only (reduced suppression of emotions [p=.049]; reduced avoidance coping [p=.006]; increased social support coping [p=.009]; reduced levels of stress [p = .035] and depressive symptoms [p = .025]. At 12-month follow-up, reduced avoidance coping [p=.033] was the only sustained outcome.

Conclusions: Overall, these findings demonstrate that the MindOut programme can be effective in producing positive outcomes for participants, particularly those students of disadvantaged status. However, these positive outcomes were only evident in schools that implemented the programme with high-quality, signifying the importance of implementation quality in the overall success of a programme. The findings from this study have clear implications for policy, practice and future research and highlight a number of important factors to enhance implementation quality and strengthen programme outcomes.

This thesis examines the social and educational experiences of working-class young women and girls engaged in vocational beauty education in the West of Scotland, with research taking place at three further education colleges. Through qualitative interviews with staff and students, supplemented with classroom observations, the pasts, presents and (imagined) futures of working-class girls are explored.

Taking a feminist-Bourdieusian theoretical approach, the school experiences of working-class girls are identified as a central driver for economic and educational inequalities later in life, with school having been experienced as a space of ‘networks of violence’ relating to fights, bullying and complicated, often hostile, relationships. These inequalities include the structuring of post-compulsory educational pathways which are highly gendered and classed, intergenerationally reproducing working-class women’s disadvantage. At the same time, and contrary to the ways in which vocational education tends to be criticised from both skills-based and feminist perspectives, the thesis (re-)examines beauty education in terms of valuable opportunities for social capital, and ‘use-value’, highlighting the creative, meaningful aspects of beauty education for working-class girls. Finally, participants’ imagined futures are examined. In particular, it is argued that uncertainty represents a key theme of discussions around imagined futures, which manifests as curbed ambitions based on current economic positions and class- and gender-informed plausibility structures. This final findings chapter also examines both the enduring power of the local habitus, as well as its evolution and reconfiguration, through participants’ narratives of aspirations, resistance and meaningful work.

In doing so, the thesis mobilises Bourdieusian concepts of violence (through the application of ‘networks of violence’); habitus and dialectical confrontation; and capital, as a means by which to explore working-class girls’ educational and social experiences, as well as their imagined futures and what structures these. In particular, it will be argued that the local (working-class, feminine) habitus of the participants of this study was in conflict with the institutional habitus of the school, yet aligned well with the institutional habitus at work in beauty learning spaces. The interplay of participants’ local habitus and its evolution is then explored in terms of how this tension impacts imagined futures for working-class girls.

Overall, this thesis contributes to contemporary discussions regarding the function of both class and gender in informing inequalities at work under late modernity, including the structuring of post-16 educational options, and transitions to work for young people. It also contributes to theoretical debates around the application of the ‘institutional habitus’, widening these discussions to include empirically-informed notions of institutional and local habitus alignment. Finally, and building on the work of feminist Bourdieusian scholars, this project contributes empirical data to theoretical discussions of value, in particular the notion of ‘use- value’ and its function for working-class young women and girls.

Email is, in the early part of the 21st century, an integral part of organisational life. Its centrality has resulted in it being more than a mere organisational process. Rather, email represents a vehicle by which organisational culture develops. Using concepts of “email communities” and “insider-outsider social habitus” statuses, this phenomenon is explored through evocative ethnography and is found to be both benign and malign. Issues of alternative hierarchies, bullying, inclusion and exclusion emerge. These issues are characterised by a lack of awareness of the effects of their actions on the part of protagonists. Because the protagonists’ actions are not usually deliberate, those suffering the effects doubt the validity of their experiences and feelings. From the organisational perspective, official notions of organisational culture and organisational values are compromised or even rendered irrelevant. This in turn compromises the honesty and integrity of organisations in respect of the ways in which they present themselves to their employees and the outside world. Organisations, however, are largely unaware of these effects as the insider-outsider social habitus concept does not engage with the structural culture-as-an-entity understanding favoured by organisations. Remedies, examined within the compass of organisational learning and knowledge management are explored, with a need for remedies within both concepts being found to be necessary, together with a need for emotional intelligence.

Children with language impairment (LI) can experience a wide range of social and emotional difficulties in addition to linguistic difficulties, but there is limited understanding about how LI impacts on these broader, psychosocial aspects of children’s lives. Furthermore, psychosocial outcomes for children are not assessed routinely in speech and language therapy research and practice. Studies of experiences of disability and impairment in other areas have highlighted the importance of addressing the psychosocial beyond the medical. This study draws on interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) to explore children’s, parents’, peers’ and professionals’ experiences of children’s LI. Using a phenomenological methodology to explore LI from multiple-perspectives, the study sought to uncover psychosocial features of LI and identify goals for support. Four children, aged 8-10 yrs with a diagnosis of LI, were interviewed about their experiences using arts-based methods. Children’s parents, teachers, learning support assistants, speech and language therapists and siblings and/or friends were also interviewed. Analysis of the 22 interviews is presented as four case studies that include each perspective around the child. Themes were identified through coding and analysing within and across cases. A second stage literature review was undertaken to understand, theorise and discuss emerging themes. Analysis revealed three themes: Agency, Understandings and Misunderstandings, and Making Sense of Difference. Children’s experiences of agency were associated with their emotions and their engagement in classroom and social activities, and not always dependent on their communication abilities. Children with LI often had different understandings of others’ intentions, situations and instructions to that of their peers, professionals and parents. Mismatches in understandings were associated with children being considered unusual, immature, egocentric or rude by others, impacting on their risk for bullying and social exclusion. There were divergent experiences and understanding of LI. Interpretations included impaired speech, language and social communication; social and emotional immaturity; parental neglect; and other people’s attitudes and behaviours. For children, LI was predominantly relational, that is, it was mainly experienced in relationship with others. Psychosocial goals for intervention include addressing attitudes, understandings and behaviours of professionals and peers towards children, in addition to children’s understanding and use of language; promoting children’s experience of agency; and addressing children’s emotional wellbeing and risk for bullying. Good communication and understanding between children, families and professionals is essential for intervention.