Ruth’s Sociology Resources Blog

Lives in a Landscape is a BBC Radio 4 series looking at “real lives” in Britain today.  Today’s programme was following 3 “glamour girls”.  It was fascinating to hear the women talking about their perceptions of their bodies, their choices and their perceptions of their power situations - none of them constructed themselves as exploited, but rather as women doing a job that involved having fun.

For those of you who visited the Women’s Library exhibition earlier this year or have made use of their resources this is another angle on the question of power, sexuality and gender.

Unfortunately the Listen Again will probably only be accessible for a week, but you can find it here

Today’s issue of BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed was discussing slum-dwelling and poverty.  Interviewing Mike Davies and Patrick Wakely, Laurie Taylor examines the growth of slums and some of the issues around living conditions such as access to clean water.

There is also some discussion of the power struggles around slums that are tied up with issues such as water supplies where the authorities are reluctant to provide any services that might legitimate the existence of the slum-dwellers, and residents are often exploited through the illegitimate sale of land or the sale of water.  There is also a brief discussion of places where slum-dwellers have started to organise themselves in order to attain some rights.

Many apologies to those of you who have tried to buy resources over the past 24 hours and found that you could not - the problem has now been fixed and you can buy to your heart’s content!

I have just added and updated some of my downloadable resources for the Indivdual & Society Unit. These include an updated Individual & Society Presentation Pack, a Scheme of Work (£3.00) and a Resource Pack (£10.00). These are designed for use together but can also be modified to fit your own teaching styles and preferences.

I have also introduced a combined PowerPoint Pack of Sociology Basics and Individual and Society presentations at a reduced price of £17.00

More resources will be following soon (I hope!)

BBC NEWS | Education | Schools alone ‘cannot help poor’

The report mentioned in this article by Hirsch (2007) is actually a summary of a series of reports on research in progress published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and more details can be found here: Young children see poverty holding them back at school and even more detail here: Experiences of poverty and educational disadvantage. In summary, the round up report suggests that in-school factors when taken together are far less influential in affecting children’s educational achievement than out-of school factors such as socio-economic background, parental education, parental attitudes and housing. There seems to be a strong suggestion that attitudes to education are very important, forming part of social class cultures which affect children’s and parents aspirations and expectations.

This report effectively updates Douglas’ (1964) research which found that out of school factors were more important than in-school factors and that parental attitudes towards education were the most important of all.