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This study explored discourses surrounding the single payment to couples of Universal Credit). Announced in 2010, Universal Credit is a 'flagship' means-tested benefit reform affecting seven million working-age households. Payment to couples involves various interpretations of 'need', which differ between Scotland's 'administrative' devolution and the policy of the UK Government based at Westminster. The research used poststructural discourse analysis by applying Carol Bacchi's (2009) 'What's The Problem Represented to Be?' and the theoretical lens of Nancy Fraser's (2020) 'politics of needs interpretation'. These frameworks enable a policy to be interrogated for what it problematizes and omits, with a particular focus on needs discourses. Using the qualitative methodology of discourse analysis, this research analysed official documents and semi-structured interviews with policy actors inside and outside of government. Findings highlighted problematizations by the Westminster Government of pre-2010 multiple benefit payments, such as state interference in family life. Newly-devolved powers to Scotland on Universal Credit payment policy created space for thinking differently, and aligning with rights-based social security principles, questioning the framing of devolved payment policy as 'administrative'. Instead, payment to couples concerned policy choices based on different concepts of needs and rights. My original contribution to knowledge builds on Bacchi's concept of problematizations nesting within one another and Fraser's needs interpretation moments, where needs can become 'politicised', rather than private. Needs discourses are contested, engaging different discourse types (dominant, oppositional and expert), and can shift boundaries between political, domestic or economic domains. I identify two 'nesting' dimensions, over time and space, and within wider welfare state discourses. In this study, payment of Universal Credit to couples was nested within the broader discourses of 'family' and UK 'constitutional' issues (whether Scotland should be an independent country). This research is significant and timely because it can inform debates about similar devolution and means-tested reforms.

Adults with an autism spectrum condition (ASC) experience a range of socio-economic disadvantages across the life course including; social isolation, low educational attainment, unemployment, and poverty. These outcomes are also risk factors for homelessness. Whilst emerging research in the UK suggests a disproportionate amount of autistic adults experience homelessness, little is known about what predisposes autistic people to homelessness and how best to support them. Additionally, it is likely that many homeless autistic adults are undiagnosed and unable to access suitable support. Therefore, in order to examine the relationship between autism and homelessness, it is first imperative to explore how ASC is defined and diagnostic criteria applied. This thesis presents a multi-causal, social interpretational model of autism which posits that ASC has no singular biological marker and that diagnostic boundaries are historically and socially constructed. From this position, the label of autism still has meaning, as it describes a set of behaviours which sit outside of normative ideals. Using this model as a framework, study recruitment involved identifying adults with a clinical diagnosis of autism, or those who self-identified as autistic, who had experienced homelessness. Ten participants were accessed through homelessness services and consented to take part in the study. Each participant took part in two to three narrative interviews which centred on their life history and experiences of homelessness. Thematic analysis revealed complexity of life experience, with participants reporting abuse in childhood, multiple co-occurring conditions, historic or current substance dependency, or imprisonment. The majority of participants experienced episodic homelessness, sometimes from childhood, which was usually triggered by relationship breakdown coupled with lack of financial and social support. Participants found it difficult to navigate support systems and statutory accommodation provision was insufficient when considering social and sensory needs. In terms of contributors to homelessness, analysis of narratives revealed social rejection across the life course which impeded participants' ability to do well at school, find and maintain employment, access welfare and expand support networks. Participants responded to this exclusion in two distinct ways; by attempting to mask autistic behaviours in order to fit in, or by rejecting social expectations and withdrawing from society. Whilst neither strategy mitigated against homelessness, the majority of participants went on to renegotiate their autistic identities which enabled them to become self-advocates, challenging discriminatory practice and exclusion. This thesis reinterprets study findings using a critical realist framework. Exclusion across the life course is explained through the lens of Critical Disability Studies, wherein disabled persons are rejected for not meeting normative ideals. This thesis goes on to engage with Dis/human Theory, explaining how the labelling of individuals as autistic can be utilised as a position from which to challenge structural inequities. Study findings suggest a need for increased awareness of autism and flexibility of provision in education, employment, welfare, and homelessness services. Whilst some adaptations can be made within existing frameworks, significantly reducing risk of homelessness for autistic adults requires deeper structural changes and the repositioning of accepted forms of personhood and normalcy.

Migrant health has increasingly attracted attention in the contemporary global health policy dialogue. The World Health Organisation (WHO) first acknowledged the issue at the 61st World Health Assembly in 2008, encouraging WHO members to ensure the right to health for migrants. The matter is also mentioned in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, which argued that a mechanism for achieving these goals is to offer health insurance and health services for all migrants. Thailand is one of many countries where the issue of migrant health is on the national agenda because of the country's reliance on migrant labour. This research aims to understand how the issue of migrant health insurance and services is constituted as a 'problem' in the 2013 Migrant Health Insurance Card Scheme policy and its practices. This policy is targeted at undocumented migrants who face challenges when accessing health services and registering for health insurance. This study uses a poststructural discourse analytic strategy guided by Bacchi's (2009) What's the problem represented to be? approach and Bacchi and Bonham's (2016) Poststructural Interview Analysis approach to explore the 2013 Migrant Health Insurance Care Scheme. It uses policy document analysis and in-depth interviews with policy agents to analyse the discourse in policy problematisation practices. Moreover, it compares the problematisation process in two border provinces (one at the Myanmar border and the other at the Laos PDR border) to reveal the different discourses of health security, neoliberal health and human rights that shape the issue and highlight the effects on health policy stakeholders' practices. These discourses and discourse attributes like Thai bureaucratic culture reveal the power/knowledge relationship in legitimising the different migrant health understandings between institutions and locations. This thesis introduces the use of critical policy analysis to the Thai public health research community, offering an alternative analytical approach for health policy based on discourse sensitivity. It provides opportunities for rethinking the policy problem and establishing an analytical health policy approach based on discourse sensitivity in ways that can mitigate unintended harmful consequences for migrants and improve migrant health services.

Relationships and sex education (RSE hereafter) is a fiercely political subject, and nowhere is it more contentious than at the primary school where, by some accounts, children's innocence is at risk and which is, by other accounts, an opportune moment for children to acquire important life skills and develop inclusive and informed attitudes about sexuality and relationships. Schools are tasked by the government with developing their own RSE policy, but there is a paucity of knowledge on how they navigate the landscape and what criteria inform their deliberations. I used in-depth interviewing to gather data about RSE policy making from key decision makers - e.g. members of the senior leadership team, teachers, administrators and advisors - at three primary schools, all located in the same English city. Informed by a Critical Realist philosophical approach, my analysis draws on a number of theories to serve my research aims: Macmurray's writing about 'the personal' and 'the functional' and his typology of knowledge in education (1933, 1958, 2012); Social Realist theory about how cognitive norms and values contribute to curricula (Young, 2008; Moore, 2009); Morriss' conceptualisation of power as the capacity to affect outcomes (2008); and Goodnight's framework of argumentative strategies - technical, public or personal (2012). This research is a methodologically innovative approach, relevant for policy as well as scholarly work in the field. This study offers persuasive evidence that in developing their school RSE policy, school decision makers draw significantly upon standards of knowledge, educational values and practices that are defined within the school itself. Decision making sometimes echoes wider public and political discourses - e.g. child protection, educational effectiveness - but local culture and leadership are dominant driving forces. This thesis confirms previous work suggesting that agents are more likely to make appropriate decisions about RSE when they possess epistemic knowledge in the subject, and deepens understanding of structure and agency by demonstrating that agents' capacities to make decisions about RSE are enhanced by collective knowledge of and commitment to the principles of RSE.

Previous decades have seen multi-agency partnerships growing in prominence for policymaking and service delivery. However, when partnership working has been researched in relation to the public service ethos (PSE), studies have tended to investigate collaboration between the public and private sectors and the effect on the PSE. This dissertation contended that discussions about collaboration between the public and private sectors are distinct from other types of partnership working. The study investigated the relationship between the PSE and partnership working in a public setting. The research questions were investigated in a senior partnership board in a city in the UK. A case study approach was used, underpinned by documentary analysis, a board observation and semi-structured interviews. The fieldwork explored the values of staff employed in public services, identified in previous research. Four areas for discussion were identified: the PSE and partnership working; values, the PSE and partnership working; the importance of the PSE and partnership working; and the changing meaning of the PSE and its values. The findings identified three perspectives of the micro, macro and meso PSE. However, in contrast to suggestions that the values of public servants are the most important element of public service, it was found that the language of partnership working was more evident in the case study. The conclusion suggests a number of contributions to understand the PSE and partnership working. Firstly, findings identify the relevance of the PSE in contemporary public services. Secondly, it informs our understanding of the role the PSE plays in multi-agency governance. Thirdly, it identifies the potential use of public service values within the discourse of integration. It also identifies a methodological contribution that it is possible to research the PSE in a public partnership board and use public service values to do so.