Ruth’s Sociology Resources Blog

One of this morning’s headlines is that the government is planning to reform local government, devolving more decision making power away from local government and encouraging local involvement in policy creation.

Such a move could be seen as evidence supporting Gidden’s theory that globalisation, as well as creating communities and power at a global level, leads to localisation and devolution of power to small, gepgraphically defined communities.  In his book The Third Way (Giddens, 1997), he argues that the devolution of power to Scotland and Wales, as well as increased nationalist sentiments in society are as much part of globalisation as the growth of intenational communications and economic links.
BBC NEWS | Politics | Local government shake-up planned

Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed had an interesting interview today with social historian Dr Selina Todd about her study of the lives of young women between the World Wars.  Contrary to the common portrayal of women of that era as housebound and excluded from economic activity, Todd’s study identifies work as central to women’s lives in terms of identity, relationships, leisure and choice.

Follow the link below to “listen again” to the programme:
BBC - Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed

BBC Radio4 is currently running a very interesting  series on the history or childhood and how it has changed over the years.  This week and next week focus on childhood in the 20th Century.

BBC - Radio 4 - The Invention of Childhood

Unfortunately it seems that only the current week’s programmes are available online (possibly the whole series will be released on CD at some point), however, there is an associated site put together by the OU which has a wealth of information on the ways in which childhood has been socially constructed and altered over the years.
BBC/OU Open2.net - The Invention of Childhood

The gender identities page has been updated with some information on Perrier’s (2006) study looking at the media, feminism and girls’ identities. There is a brief summary of the research on the page, along with a link to the PDF of the paper, which Maud has generously allowed me to share with you.

I have updated the resources page with reviews of some of the most common sociology textbooks and suggestions of other books that I would recommend for teachers and students of Sociology.

I hope these will be helpful, if there is anything else you would like to see on the site please let me know.

This is quite a nice interactive quiz on Marxism at funtrivia.com:

Marxism for Beginners

I’m not sure I’d quite go with the “for beginners” bit but it does have some good questions and at the end you get a page explaining the answers which could be handy to print out and keep as a reminder.

There are other quizzes available but I would say that this is probably the only sociology one that doesn’t run the risk of confusing/misleading as the quizzes can be posted by anyone.

“Unveiled” was a 30 minute programme broadcast on Radio 4 in which a British muslim woman explores the debate around the wearing of the veil which has been brought to the fore again over the past week by Jack Straw’s comments.

This is a sensitive programme which explores issues of ethnic, religious and national identities in a fairly thorough way. The programme material is highly relevant to any students looking at changing identities.

BBC - Radio 4 - Unveiled - 12 October 2006
follow this link to listen to the programme

Compared to countries like the United States there are relatively few private universities in the UK.  Probably the two most famous are the Open University and Buckingham University, and until 1998 students at British universities did not have to pay fees.

With the introduction of “top-up fees” this year it is often argued that the UK is moving closer to privatisation of its universities.  Universities already compete to attract students, with rankings in league tables an annual topic of conversation and many people arguing that which university you attend matters as much as what subject you study and more than what class of degree you get.

Some UK universities are already expanding their “brands” by opening branches overseas.  Warwick University for example, has been involved in discussions about the possibility of establishing a campus in Singapore.

James Tooley, in his book Reclaiming Education (2000) argues that private provision of university education allows for greater flexibility of provision and can actually increase access for socially and economically disadvantaged social groups through the provision of shortened, modular or distance learning options (The Open University is a good example of this kind of flexibility).  Essentially the argument is that when education runs in the form of businesses there is a response to the demands of the market and that those demands will be met creatively.

Others such as Walford (1990) and Brighouse (2004), although not writing specifically about higher education, argue that private education is elitist in that it provides the highest standard of education only to those who can afford to pay the premium price, therefore maintaining and exacerbating social divisions.

It is the second viewpoint that tends to predominate in discussions of education, and this has probably influenced the guarded response reported in this BBC article:

BBC NEWS | Education | Private schools ‘as universities’

It is also interesting to note the comment that the job of private schools (or schools in general) “is to prepare undergraduates”.  This brings out interesting assumptions about  the destinations of  independent school pupils and the purpose of education.    It seems to be assumed that university is the only progression from school, and that the main purpose of education is to achieve that progression.  This cultural assumption has been noted by numerous researchers into independent education, including Roker (1993), Kenway (1990) and Allatt (1996).