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The recent use in criminological and political discourse of concepts such as ‘social capital’, ‘collective efficacy’, ‘trust’ and ‘community’ is problematic. As well as their definitional and operational difficulties, they may not be politically neutral. The inadequacy of these concepts is in part connected with the lack of a systematic approach to the measurement of community dynamics and processes. These current theoretical frameworks desperately require critical assessment. A central concern of the Edinburgh Neighbourhood Study, situated within the Edinburgh Study on Youth Transitions and Crime, is to develop a set of measurements that through systematic application will allow community dynamics to be better understood. The Edinburgh Neighbourhood Study has used a large-scale survey administered across Edinburgh and a case study of three neighbourhoods, in order to explore the key theoretical concepts within contemporary discourse on neighbourhood and crime. This has shown that concepts traditionally regarded as desirable, such as internal networks, may have mixed implications for crime and the neighbourhood. This thesis puts forward a model of neighbourhood dynamics, in the form of three dimensions of neighbourhood, and their relationships to social and economic deprivation, including structural resources, and also to crime and disorder.

In 1914, Church leaders assumed that fighting men would require the ministrations of ordained clergymen close to the front line. The War Office Chaplains' Department had few plans for the deployment of chaplains beyond a general expectation that the Churches would be willing to release men for service as required. Army Officers seemed to have little warning about the arrival of chaplains to accompany their units and very few ideas about the role chaplains could be expected to fulfil once they had arrived. The chaplains themselves embarked on overseas service with no special training and very little guidance about the nature of the task ahead of them. They received very little support from the Chaplains' Department or their home church in the first months of the war. Left to carve out a role for themselves, they were exposed to an environment churchmen at home could not begin to comprehend. Many chaplains left diaries and letters, the majority of which have never been published. They provide a unique insight into life with the troops, seen through the eyes of men who owed their first allegiance to their Church rather than to the Army whose uniform they wore. Post-war criticism of chaplains has obscured the valuable contribution many clergymen made to the well-being of the troops and to the reform movement within the Church of England after the war. The files of the Archbishop of Canterbury also provide important information about the troubled relationships between chaplains and their Department and with Church leaders at home. In seeking to determine the nature of the chaplains' duties and responsibilities, this study attempts to discover why clergymen faced so much criticism and why even their own churches were sometimes alarmed by the views aired by serving chaplains.