Search

This dissertation tests the theories put forth by Mr. E.P. Thompson (The Making of the English Working Class) where he points to 18th century hunger riots as examples of incipient class formation. Using untapped local source documents, the dissertation examines the hunger riots of 1766 one by one and also in regional contexts. The dissertation concludes that issues of class have very little to do with explaining the origins of the hunger riots. Instead, what was involved was an unexpected European-wide failure of the wheat crop following an unusual weather pattern which interrupted the westerly movement of weather masses. The sudden demand for wheat was picked up by English corn merchants and they quickly acted to export large amounts of wheat to reap windfall profits. The English river and canal system, the turnpike roads and the English coastline made rapid export both possible and expedient. Large populations of rural textile workers in East Anglia, the Upper Thames Valley and the West Country were faced with vanishing supplies of bread which they relied upon. The crowds made use of common law concepts and Tudor statutes restricting sale and resale of wheat and establishing the “assize of bread”. The functioning of the central government is closely examined. The episode caught the establishment entirely off guard. Troops were sent, the riots were quashed, the rioters were quickly tried and either hung, deported to North America or merely chastised. The riots show how the industrialization of Britain led to wholly unexpected events and social situations. E.P. Thompson’s thesis was not directly supported by the evidence adduced in this study. In 1776 Adam Smith used the hunger riots of 1766 to show how the private act of hoarding grain for profitable resale could serve the public purpose of avoiding dearth and starvation. The hunger riots of 1766 are therefore what might justly be deemed the “proximate cause” of the free market economy

This study was conducted to investigate whether cognitive variables (as measured by six self-report inventories) covaried with changes in behavior following group assertiveness training as postulated by several assertiveness training theorists and practitioners. Statistical analysis of the data did not support any of the hypotheses. No significant differences were found between the groups on any of the self-report measures or the behavioral ratings, although experimental group subjects consistently scored higher (in the predicted direction) on all self-report measures or were rated higher than placebo group subjects. The hypotheses that experimental group subjects would exhibit significantly higher levels of self-reported assertiveness, self-acceptance, self-esteem, and self-confidence than placebo group subjects were rejected. The hypothesis that the experimental group would exhibit a significantly greater shift toward self-reported internal locus of control than the placebo group was rejected. The hypothesis that the experimental group would exhibit significantly larger decreases in levels of self-reported anxiety than the placebo group was also rejected. Furthermore, no support was found for the hypothesis that experimental group subjects would exhibit significantly higher levels of objectively-rated assertive behavior than placebo group subjects. An examination of the data revealed substantial improvements on each of the six self-report measures for subjects in both groups. These data were treated statistically with a one-tailed t-test for correlated means. The t-test data indicated that both groups improved significantly on all cognitive variable measures from pretest to posttest.

The central argument of this thesis is that participative approaches to evaluating voluntary rural community-based organisations are an effective tool for organisational learning and ensuing rural community development. This proposition is explored through the evaluation and strategic planning of the Southern Riverina Rural Advisory Service, a community-based counselling organisation. The Service works with families experiencing financial hardship and associated stress. The thesis is multi-faceted and generic issues included: the importance of commitment by rural communities and organisations to creating frameworks for understanding and acting in integrated ways to the diversity, inter-relatedness and conflict of issues, wishes and needs of members, and to develop the capacity to transform contexts of dependency-oriented crisis situations to ones of self-responsible, interdependent change; the need to view contexts through integration of local, regional, national and global perspectives and to develop networks to integrate understanding and action; and to continue learning how to better enhance organisational and community-based learning.