Structural limits and teachers' perspectives

This thesis is about the relationship between schooling and the economic and political structures which constrain its institutional framework. It focusses on teachers, as mediators of structural constraints, and on middle schools, as institutions which occupy a functionally transitional place between the primary and secondary traditions. In approaching the problem of linking the different perspectives of macro and micro sociologies, I argue the view that the individual mediates the contradictions between the socially cooperative processes of production and the competitive individualism which legitimates the private appropriation of wealth and income. The link is observable in the schooling process as a pattern of contradictions and tensions mediated by the rhetoric of equality of opportunity. In order to elucidate the link, the processes within the boundaried institutions must be viewed in the context of those changing tensions within the state administrative systems, which reverberate into schools as economic and political constraints. Framed within the ideology of the Flowden Report (1967), middle schooling was set within a discourse which stressed cooperative relationships rather than competitive standards. Since the mid-1970s, administrative policies have heightened the competitive battle for declining resources and attacked the Plowden ideology. Focussing the fieldwork on six middle schools in one local authority, T use an eclectic methodology to relate economic and political policies, generated in the state administrative system, to the situation in the schools between 1979 and 1981. The methodology incorporates a time dimension in order to highlight the tensions as they play upon teachers' changing definitions of the changing situation. I conclude that the intersubjective socio-cultural relations of schooling cannot be properly explained without making explicit the changing tensions in the rule/resource relationships which teachers mediate through their particular institutions.

Fermentation methods for dextransucrase production

Several fermentation methods for the production of the enzyme dextransucrase have been employed. The theoretical aspects of these fermentation techniques have been given in the early chapters of this thesis together with a brief overview of enzyme biotechnology. A literature survey on cell recycle fermentation has been carried out followed by a survey report on dextransucrase production, purification and the reaction mechanism of dextran biosynthesis. The various experimental apparatus as employed in this research are described in detail. In particular, emphasis has been given to the development of continuous cell recycle fermenters. On the laboratory scale, fed-batch fermentations under anaerobic low agitation conditions resulted in dextransucrase activities of about 450 DSU/cm3 which are much higher than the yields reported in the literature and obtained under aerobic conditions. In conventional continuous culture the dilution rate was varied in the range between 0.375 h-1 to 0.55 h-1. The general pattern observed from the data obtained was that the enzyme activity decreased with increase in dilution rate. In these experiments the maximum value of enzyme activity was ∼74 DSU/cm3. Sparging the fermentation broth with CO2 in continuous culture appears to result in a decrease in enzyme activity. In continuous total cell recycle fermentations high steady state biomass levels were achieved but the enzyme activity was low, in the range 4 - 27 DSU/cm3. This fermentation environment affected the physiology of the microorganism. The behaviour of the cell recycle system employed in this work together with its performance and the factors that affected it are discussed in the relevant chapters. By retaining the whole broth leaving a continuous fermenter for between 1.5 - 4 h under controlled conditions, the enzyme activity was enhanced with a certain treatment from 86 DSU/cm3 to 180 DSU/cm3 which represents a 106% increase over the enzyme activity achieved by a steady-state conventional chemostat. A novel process for dextran production has been proposed based on the findings of this latter part of the experimental work.

Farewell, welfare state – hello, welfare regions? Chances and constraints of welfare management in the German federal system

The German welfare state is in crisis. Alarming long-term demographic trends, the still not fully digested consequences of German unification and the current economic downturn in much of the Eurozone have combined to create an urgent need for welfare reform. Yet the constitutional arrangements which govern the German political system, and well-entrenched political practice, mean that any such reform process is a daunting challenge. Thus, the welfare crisis is also a crisis of German-style co-operative federalism. Current empirical evidence makes for uncomfortable reading, and triggers debate on the nature of the German federation: have the two constitutional principles of federalism and establishing equal living conditions throughout the federation become mutually exclusive? However, as much of the welfare state is centred on the best utilisation of scarce financial resources, it is debatable to what extent alterations in the functional distribution of welfare responsibilities among the territorial levels of government can be regarded as a solution for the current problems. The article concludes that in the search for long-term sustainability of the welfare state the territorial dimension is likely to remain a secondary issue.