Essa terra que tomo de conta : parentesco e territorialidade na Zona da Mata de Pernambuco

Tese de doutoramento, Antropologia (Antropologia do Parentesco e do Género), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, 2014

The First Government of Northern Ireland, Education Reform, and the Failure of Anti-populist Unionism, 1921–1925

This article examines education reform under the first government of Northern Ireland (1921–5). This embryonic period offered the Ulster Unionist leadership a chance to construct a more inclusive society, one that might diminish sectarian animosities, and thereby secure the fledgling state through cooperation rather than coercion. Such aspirations were severely tested by the ruling party’s need to secure the state against insurgency, and, more lastingly, to assuage the concerns of its historic constituency. The former led to a draconian security policy, the latter to a dependency on populist strategies and rhetoric. It is argued here, however, that this dependency was not absolute until July 1925. Before that, the Belfast government withstood growing pressure from populist agitators to reverse controversial aspects of its education reforms, only relenting when Protestant disaffection threatened the unity of the governing party and the existence of the state.

Reform, Standards and Teacher Identity: Challenges of Sustaining Commitment

Teacher commitment has been found to be a critical predictor of teachers’ work performance, absenteeism, retention, burnout and turnover, as well as having an important influence on students’ motivation, achievement, attitudes towards learning and being at school (Firestone (1996). Educational Administration Quarterly, 32(2), 209–235; Graham (1996). Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 67(1), 45–47; Louis (1998). School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 9(1), 1–27; Tsui & Cheng (1999). Educational Research and Evaluation, 5(3), 249–268). It is also a necessary ingredient to the successful implementation, adaptation or resistance reform agendas. Surprisingly, however, the relationship between teachers’ motivation, efficacy, job satisfaction and commitment, and between commitment and the quality of their work has not been the subject of extensive research. Some literature presents commitment as a feature of being and behaving as a professional (Helsby, Knight, McCulloch, Saunders, & Warburton (1997). A report to participants on the professional cultures of Teachers Research Project, Lancaster University, January). Others suggest that it fluctuates according to personal, institutional and policy contexts (Louis (1998). School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 9(1), 1–27) and identify different dimensions of commitment which interact and fluctuate (Tyree (1996). Journal of Educational Research, 89(5), 295–304). Others claim that teachers’ commitment tends to decrease progressively over the course of the teaching career (Fraser, Draper, & Taylor (1998). Evaluation and Research in Education, 12 (2), 61–71; Huberman (1993). The lives of teachers. London: Cassell). In this research, experienced teachers in England and Australia were interviewed about their understandings of commitment. The data suggest that commitment may be better understood as a nested phenomena at the centre of which is a set of core, relatively permanent values based upon personal beliefs, images of self, role and identity which are subject to challenge by change which is socio-politically constructed.

Marriage and gender inequality: work–family arrangements of Portuguese and British highly qualified women

This article examines work–family reconciliation processes in order to understand if, over the course of marital life, women become socially closer or further away from their partner. Drawing on work–life interviews with highly qualified women in Portugal and Britain, we compare these processes in two societies with different historical and social backgrounds. Findings reveal three main configurations of social (in)equality which emerge during married life: growing inequality in favour of the man, in favour of the woman or equality between spouses. With due attention to the importance of national specific factors, we present three main conclusions. First, (in) equality is built up over the course of marital life and female strategies for reconciling family and work are at the core of this process. Second, the national specificities can mould the effects of cross-national gender mechanisms. Third, the intersection between cross-cultural phenomena such as conservative attitudes towards domestic work and national specificities (such as the availability of part-time options) is a rather complex process which needs further research.

Why are we Waiting? Research, Policy and Practice in Recruiting and Supporting Same Gender Couples in Child Adoption

The adoption process is renowned for its difficulties, however gay and lesbian couples face unique, additional challenges when choosing parenthood through adoption. The Adoption and Children’s Act (2002), Equality Act (2006) and the Sexual Orientation Regulations act (2007) are some of the recent policy changes aimed at ‘smoothing out’ the adoption process for same-gender couples (Cosis-Brown & Kershaw, 2008). Resultantly, there appear to be more cases of gay adoption than ever before (Equality Britain, 2005), however, anecdotal evidence suggests that across the UK the practice of recruiting and supporting gay and lesbian adopters is inconsistent. Whilst some local authorities encourage and emphasise the importance of stability and high quality care for vulnerable looked after children regardless of parental sexuality (Mallon, 2007); yet case studies of gay and lesbian couples seeking adoption demonstrate the unique challenges they encounter in the adoption process because of religious views (Hicks, 2005) or the attitudes towards same gender parenting of adoption panels and social workers within an unspoken hierarchy (Ahmed, 2008; Dennis, 2006). Government’s drive towards adoption (Unwin and Misca, 2013) of children in care as a favoured alternative should lead to recognition of same-gender couples as an under-utilised resource of potential adopters to be used in the best interest of the children who are looked after. The poster will present the results of research undertaken by the authors during 2012-13 highlighting how research on same-gender parenthood over the past decades has influenced the recent developments in the adoption policy and practice in the UK and worldwide. The poster will identify areas of potential barriers encountered in translating these policy changes in the current practice of adoption with a particular focus on professionals’ attitudes towards same-gender couples as potential adopters.

The Influence of Performance Level, Age and Gender on Pacing Strategy During a 100-km Ultramarathon

The aim of this study is to analyse the influence of performance level, age and gender on pacing during a 100-km ultramarathon. Results of a 100-km race incorporating the World Masters Championships were used to identify differences in relative speeds in each 10-km segment between participants finishing in the first, second, third and fourth quartiles of overall positions (Groups 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively). Similar analyses were performed between the top and bottom 50% of finishers in each age category, as well as within male and female categories. Pacing varied between athletes achieving different absolute performance levels. Group 1 ran at significantly lower relative speeds than all other groups in the first three 10-km segments (all P < 0.01), and significantly higher relative speeds than Group 4 in the 6th and 10th (both P < 0.01), and Group 2 in the 8th (P = 0.04). Group 4 displayed significantly higher relative speeds than Group 2 and 3 in the first three segments (all P < 0.01). Overall strategies remained consistent across age categories, although a similar phenomenon was observed within each category whereby ‘top’ competitors displayed lower relative speeds than ‘bottom’ competitors in the early stages, but higher relative speeds in the later stages. Females showed lower relative starting speeds and higher finishing speeds than males. ‘Top’ and ‘bottom’ finishing males displayed differing strategies, but this was not the case within females. Although pacing remained consistent across age categories, it differed with level of performance within each, possibly suggesting strategies are anchored on direct competitors. Strategy differs between genders and differs depending on performance level achieved in males but not females.

Double-trouble: Negotiating Gender and Sexuality in Post-colonial Women’s Rugby in Fiji

Although women’s exclusion in sport has attracted significant attention in the western context, similar issues in relation to post-colonial societies have remained in the margins of the sociology of sport. By analysing primary, interview-based evidence, in this article we explore the challenges female rugby players face regarding gender and sexuality in Fiji; a male dominated post-colonial society. In particular, we focus on participants’ resistance to dominant cultural practices and ways in which they (re)negotiate gender norms and sexuality in a double-bind struggle against both traditional and sporting male hegemonies. We argue that the case of Fijian women rugby players illustrates an interplay between a multiplicity of power relations in sport in a post-colonial society and the resilience with which the athletes negotiate and respond to them, as well as the dynamic nature and the transformative potential of their everyday practices.

Prospects and Problems for Religious Education in England, 1967-1970: Curriculum Reform in Political Context

This article provides an historical case study of an abortive attempt to revise policy and legislation relating to Religious Education (RE) in English schools in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Drawing upon published sources, including parliamentary debates, as well as previously unutilised national archival sources from the Department of Education and Science, it comments upon events which have hitherto been omitted from the historiography of RE, but which help to contextualise significant changes in RE theory and practice at that time. Moreover, it demonstrates that the current parlous state of RE in schools is in part the result of latent and longstanding issues and problems, rather than a consequence of present-day government policy alone. Therefore, in reviewing and developing RE policies and practices, all stakeholders are urged to look more closely at both changes and continuities in the subject’s past and the contexts in which they occurred.

Before identity, gender and human rights

This is the beginning of an exploration of before as the thesis ‘before’ (temporally) and ‘be-fore’ (spatially) difference. Before denotes the origin and the desired destination. Before (in the double sense of ‘before’ and ‚be-in-the-fore’) opens up a space of pre-difference, of origin and of forgotten memory, as well as a space of desire, objective, illusion of teleology, unity, completion. Applied to the two domains of Human Rights and Sex/Gender, the space of ‘before’ yields two slightly different vistas: in human rights, a premodern, functionally undifferentiated society which had to invent human rights as its safeguards of functional differentiation. In Sex/Gender, 'before' brings a self-referential construction: that of ipseity, as the form of identity beyond comparison that does not play with id but with ipsum. Ipseity is inoperable but not useless. It is inoperable because it cannot be observed from anywhere without suffering rupture. It is not useless because it offers a ground for the reconceptualisation of difference, both through awe and desire.

The Consequences of Gender in Homogamic Couples

In studies which analyse the social distance between spouses at the moment a couple is formed, and which attempt to understand the role of the family, and in particular of marriage, in crystallising social divisions, the concept of homogamy has often been purely descriptive. This article questions this static approach and seeks to pinpoint the changes which social homogamy undergoes in the course of conjugal life, addressing women’s decisions on work–family articulation. Drawing on a critical approach to the concept of rational choice, the article intends to demonstrate the merit of an interpretative approach by analysing how members of a sample of 27 university-educated Portuguese partnered mothers take their decisions in the context of an interdependency framework in which the dynamics of family interaction tend to thwart individual career path development, rendering spouses dependent on each other.

Gender and Assimilation: The Roles and Representation of Women in Modern Jewish History, pt. 1

Explores the relation between gender and the encounter of Jews with various conditions of Modernity. She makes clear that the study of the process of Jewish assimilation in contemporary times must include women and gender in its framework.