Ruth’s Sociology Resources Blog

The following are two articles on the same book published in two different newspapers:

How adopting an angelic five year old blew our family apart

Adopted Children: Sometimes you can’t mend them

Reading the two articles side-by-side gives two very different pictures of the situation experienced by this family, originally the headline for the Daily Mail article used the word “evil” to describe the child - this was removed after complaints - but gives a very different image to that painted by The Times article of a child damaged by conditions beyond their control.

So why have I pointed these out? - For several reasons:

• it is an interesting example of the way the media can mould our understanding and interpretations of situations and events. It raises the postmodernist question of whether the media moulds or reflects society - does it print what society want to see or does it create society’s tastes?
• even with the seemingly more balanced Times article there is the fact that it is the 30% of adoptive placements that fail that is pointed out - double that number ’succeed’. Obviously the use of the 30% links in with the topic of the article and 1 in 3 is a large proportion but it is still worth turning numbers round in your head when you see them in articles - often you find it gives a very different impression.
• Adoptive families are a family form that are often left out when we talk about family diversity. These articles also challenge the idea that families are always happy places - they remind us of the ‘dark side’ of the family.
• The articles also raise the questions of individuals’ power in society - the first article, published in the Daily Mail, was published 3 weeks ago - it was ‘adapted’ from the mother’s book and has clearly been written to pull out the most ‘juicy’ bits and to summarise the story in a dramatic way - something which the Daily Mail has a reputation for doing and which will probably have boosted sales of the book (I have also heard that authors may have very little control over what is published). The second article was published today in the Times - a paper which has a reputation as a ‘broadsheet’ for being more balanced in its evaluation of stories.  I do wonder whether the Times article is an attempt by the author of the book or their publisher/agent to ‘redress the balance’ of the original article (particularly given the fairly derogatory comments that were posted on the Daily Mail website by readers). If so, it suggests that agency does have a role to play in the machinations of society.
• the issue of different accounts also arises in research - talking to different people or looking at different sources about the same event can give you very different stories - this process of checking data for differing interpretations and meanings and inconsistencies can lead to more valid and reliable research.

So, I would advise you to read with care when you read accounts of events - sometimes it is worth reading more than one account in order to get a fuller picture.

A fabulous article in the Guardian - “Bringing in Baby” takes a light but serious look at the practicalities of bringing a young baby into your workplace - apparently a promoted alternative to expensive childcare in the US where maternity leave is only 12 weeks.

After making some general points, three parents recount their experiences of an ‘experiment’ in the Guardian office. While the experiment is hardly reliable or representative it raises some interesting points. There is also a link to an audio slideshow which brings home some of the points.
As the article points out, such policies essentially negate the fact that childcare is a form of work - the assumption is that ‘real’ work is what is done outside the home and in exchange for payment. The message is that baby-care is easy and not time-consuming and that a young baby can essentially be wheeled into an office and left while the parent works at their ‘proper’ job.

This of course brings up the debate about maternity leave, maternity pay, working mothers, discrimination and whether modern women are trying too hard to ‘have it all’.

A little while ago I visited the current exhibition at The Women’s Library in London looking at Lone Motherhood. It is a brilliant exhibition with lots of information and the education workshops being run alongside it are also stimulating. While I was there I managed to interview Joanna Ingham who runs the education programme at The Women’s Library, she talked about some of the key themes that come out of the exhibition and about some of the surprising things about lone motherhood that go against our common assumptions.

Use the links below to listen to the intervew:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

This article looks at changing patterns in parental custody of children and the social attitudes associated with it.

Hidden heartache of the weekend mothers - Times Online

More fathers are now gaining custody of their children after divorce, however this article suggests that social attitudes and assumptions are not changing at the same rate.  “Part-time” mothers talk of their shame at being separated from their children, shame which seems to come from the fact that being a “weekend mother” is not yet socially acceptable.  This raises the question of whether what happens in the courts reflects social change or creates it.

Another link is to the issue of women’s ‘Triple Shift’ of work - paid, emotional and childcare/housework.  This article claims that it is often women who work full-time outside the home who lose custody of their children, adding another layer to the burden of the Triple Shift.  There is however, at the same time a suggestion that it is becoming more acceptable for fathers to become the main carers and that men may themselves be taking on a new form of triple shift.

BBC NEWS | Health | Teen drinking ‘remains a worry’

This article on teenage alcohol consumption is interesting as much for what it reveals about cultural attitudes towards alcohol and teenagers as for what it tells us about actual teenage drinking and health.

There is a suggestion that teenagers should not be drinking any alcohol at all, however, there is as yet no evidence as to the harm of alcohol upon adolescents as distinct from adults. This suggestion can therefore be seen to some extent as something which is a reflection of a culture in which childhood is seen as discrete and separate from adulthood and alcohol consumption is seen as a mark of adulthood - a pint of beer is one symbol of adult masculinity in particular. There are cultures where the consumption of alcohol is seen very differently - for example in many other European countries where children are given wine with meals from an early age and the consumption of alcohol is not seen particularly as a symbol of maturity.

I would suggest that these cultural differences in attitudes to alcohol have two effects - firstly it impacts upon teenage drinking behaviour - in the UK where alcohol is both a ‘forbidden’ substance for children and its consumption (and the associated drunkenness) is a symbol of maturity it encourages teenage drinking without adult supervision. Secondly it affects our reactions to teenage drinking - you can make links to Cohen’s ideas about moral panics as that is essentially what is happening in this article - there are allusions to crumbling families, irresponsible parents and anti-social behaviour.

The statistics are also unfortunately vague: “among pupils at 290 English schools who had drunk in the last seven days, the average consumption was 11.4 units” - so the average consumption of 21% of students was 11.4 units - was this per drinking session? or in the previous week?

It would also be helpful here to know the modal consumption of the 21% - the mean of 11.4 units makes it difficult to tell whether there is a very small group of teenagers among that 21% who are consuming a lot of alcohol or whether 1 in 5 teenagers is consuming 11.4 units of alcohol per week.

A little while ago I visited the National Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame in Alice Springs, Australia. Possibly not very handy for your next college or school outing but a fascinating visit all the same! However there is a good website which has lots of information for those unable to visit the museum, including pictures and brief biographies of various pioneer women. The intention seems to be to expand the site over time and to include more educational resources. Go to www.pioneerwomen.com.au to have a look.
The museum has displays about women’s lives in Australia over the past 200 years, looking at the roles women played in the early white ’settlement’ of Australia and also in their pioneering roles in science and technology and other areas. The exhibitions also look at the ways in which individual women have pioneered the breakdown of male dominance in a wide range of fields.

Essentially the exhibitions cover women’s lives from the very ordinary to the extra-ordinary and give an insight into what life has been like in the past and tells some of the often forgotten stories about women’s roles in creating modern society.

My only criticism of the exhibitions is that they centre heavily on the contributions and lives of white European women. There does seem to be some attempt to redress this and the oral rather than written tradition of Aboriginal culture, as well as Australian society’s tendency to ignore and even suppress its Aboriginal heritage until recently, is no doubt partly to blame. However, in attempting to redress the power imbalance between men and women in Australia’s past the Hall of Fame seems to gloss over the role that white European women must have played in the oppression of less powerful groups such as Aborigines and in particular Aboriginal women.

Overall though this is a website (or a venue!) which is worth a visit for the ways in which it highlights women’s lives in what is a predominantly male history.

The Women’s Library have now announced details of their forthcoming exhibition Sinners, Scroungers, Saints: Lone Mothers past and present which will run from October 2007 to March 2008 and looks at lone motherhood both past and present in Britain.

Going on their previous exhibitions, which have always been thought-provoking, informative and absolutely packed with information, I expect that this one will be provide a real insight into single motherhood, its realities and the different attitudes towards it. In the past I have found that my A-level students have got a lot out of the Women’s Library’s exhibitions.

As usual Joanna Ingham, their Learning Coordinator, will be running debate workshops specifically for A-level students and tailored to the A-level specifications (single parenthood is of course a key issue that come up when looking at families as well as gender, welfare and poverty). The 2-hour workshops consist of a guided visit to the exhibition and a facilitated debate for AS and A2 level Sociology students, with a supporting resource pack for teachers (these are usually stuffed full of useful data and good ideas for further learning activities). For those of you on tight budgets, or for whom a trip can be financially difficult it is worth mentioning that the workshops themselves are FREE with a small charge for the resource pack.

Joanna has sent me a flyer and a booking form and has given permission for me to put these here for you to download

Lone Motherhood Flyer (PDF 200KB)

Booking Form (PDF 24KB)

For more information you can give her a call on 020 7320 3504 or e-mail her: joanna.ingham@thewomenslibrary.ac.uk

Personally I’d get booking if you’re in reach of London!

Research findings released on Monday are nicely summarised in this BBC News article

BBC NEWS | Education | Wealth gap in learning, by age 3

Although sociologists have known for some time that socio-economic group has a significant effect on educational achievement, this is some useful up to date evidence on this fact which here seems to be linked both to poverty and to parental education, as well as other factors such as family types.  The study is still ongoing, following a cohort of 15,000 children born between 2000 and 2002, so these findings are what has been found ’so far’.

If you want more detail you can follow the link below to the Institute of Education website where there are very readable ‘briefing sheets’ on the study’s findings.  The material on educational progress is under “cognitive development”.

http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/briefings.asp?section=0001000100060005 

This is a link to a comment piece that appeared on The Times’ website today.  The article is about the situation of Asian (mainly Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi) women brought to the UK as brides and their often vulnerable position as victims of domestic violence with few options and choices for escape.
The secret violence that challenges Britain’s Asians-TimesOnline

Hundai raises issues around Asian communities’ and the authorities’ attitudes towards domestic violence and also expectations of womens’ roles as submissive and housebound, with brides often being “imported” with the expectation that they will be more submissive than British women.

Although it does not offer a huge amount by way of hard research-based evidence this article ties together several important threads and is a must-read for anyone studying gender, ethnicity or the family.

Thinking about the previous post on women’s happiness in marriage and men and women’s roles, reminded me of Fay Weldon’s short story ‘Weekend’ (which can be found online as a PDF here).

Weekend is a fictional story of a normal weekend for a middle class family of five, told from the mother’s point of view as she juggles paid, domestic and emotional work along with social expectations from her husband and other adults.  It is a powerful tale which makes the reader think about contemporary gender roles and although the story was first published in 1978 it does not feel dated and in some ways is possibly more typical now than then.

If you’re a teacher then this would be a good story to use with students to introduce topics around gender or conjugal roles or to contextualise work already done and would promote some interesting discussions.  I would look at the different roles, attitudes and expectations of the characters with students, looking at viewpoints, maybe getting them to write a short piece from Martin or Katie’s point of view and comparing.  The British Arts Council website has some suggestions for questions to ask when looking at the story.