Ruth’s Sociology Resources Blog

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.

You may remember that in December I reviewed a talk given by Les Back at a conference I went to. Well last Thursday (22nd March 2007) I went to Goldsmith’s College in London to interview Les Back about some of the themes he raised in that talk. Les Back is best known for his work on ethnicity, racism and ethnic identities in the UK, but he was talking to me about his new book The Art of Listening which will be published this July and about the role of sociology in today’s rapidly changing society.

The interview covers issues around the media, politics, social change and challenges to sociology and can be listened to by clicking on the buttons below.

Introduction

Les talks about his new book, The Art of Listening

Les talks about how sociology can relate to our moral system

Big brother

The art of listening

The role of theory, the role of history, and individuals and structures

Dark times

To read an extract from the book just follow this link: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-11-15-back-en.html

Here is an image of the cover of The Art of Listening - look closely at the photo! If you want to pre-order a copy of Les’ new book you can of course do so - just click on the link below:

The Art of Listening

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.

I was looking for examples of different forms of nationalism to illustrate the concepts for my students and came up with the following which worked well:

“Banal nationalism” - Billig (1995) - this is the idea that nationalism is something that is part of everyday life and is expressed in lots of often un-noticed ways.  For this I used a recent BBC article about a soldier’s death in Iraq - from the outside it is just an ordinary news item but it also subtly reinforces national identity - the article is about a British soldier and it is his death that is focussed on rather than the ‘number of Iraqi casualties’ also referred to.  I could just have easily used a different news item or a song - something like Three Lions or Chumbawumba’s Vindaloo.

“Exclusive Nationalism” - Dowds & Young (1996) - this is a very narrow form of nationalism, usually focussed around one ethnic group and highly resistant to change.  To demonstrate this I used a section from the BNP’s (British National Party) website, which talks about their policy on immigration - it can be found at: http://www.bnp.org.uk/policies/policies.htm

 ”Inclusive Nationalism” - Dowds & Young (1996) - this is the opposite to exclusive nationalism, people who are inclusively nationalistic have a very broad definition of what it means to be British (or any other nationality) and are happy for a national identity to include many different cultural groups.  As an example of this I used a recent article in The Sun which looked at some of the words of abuse used against children from a range of social groups and which pointed out that they were all British.  The article can be found here: http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007040816,00.html

The Economist’s bumper Christmas edition is always a good source of interesting articles.

Pushtunwali | Honour among them | Economist.com

This article looks at the Pushtun tribe in Afghanistan and their unique culture, the article quotes Churchill saying that “Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices … is incomprehensible to a logical mind”.

The article is actually slightly more analytical than this, looking at the ways in which a set of values and norms comes together to create a unique culture, where obligation to murder and gain revenge are balanced by obligations to hospitality and to give refuge to those seek it.

The reasons for Pushtunwali’s long survival are examined and include the remoteness of Pushtun populations as well as the meritocractic structure of social hierarchies, with status gained rather than inherited. The article also outlines the ways in which Pushtuns are negotiating their own cultural structures in relation to Islamic cultural and religious structures and pressures in Afghanistan and also in relation to the presence of US forces.

Much of the Pushtun culture is inherently repulsive to those of us from Westernised cultures because of the clash with the values that we take for granted as “right”.   At the same time it serves as a reminder that values, rather than being absolutes are culturally relative, shifting from social group to social group and shaping the behaviour of individuals.

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

“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

Apologies to all my readers if updates are sparse between now and early September - I am frantically trying to complete my MA research and dissertation, which is proving to be lots of work, and once term ends that will be my main focus.  You are still free to e-mail me and I will try to respond as soon as possible.

This is for  teachers out there who have struggled to think of an interesting Sociology field trip to spice up the course!  It’s especially relevant for those of you teaching the OCR Individual and Society module and if you have students who come from suburban/rural areas.  I took our Lower Sixth group out to London last week and they enjoyed it and learnt a lot.  (Admittedly this is a trip that works best with small numbers of pupils)  I would imagine this could easily be adapted to work for those of you not in reach of London.

Our day went as follows:

• train journey into London - we had looked at Burgess and Park’s (Chicago School) theory of a city being set out in concentric circles, I got the group to make a note of the way the buildings and use of space changed as we moved in towards the city - this appears to support the concentric circles idea (we knocked it apart later as we walked round smaller bits of London)
• tube to Aldgate East, where we visited the exhibition at The Women’s Library which currently has a fabulous exhibition called What Women Want looking at changes in women’s lives over the past century and asking some searching questions about women’s lives today and how they have improved.  The exhibition runs until 26th August 2006 and is well worth visiting, my students became very reflective looking around and had a good conversation about what they had seen and how it linked to what they had learnt in lessons.
• we then walked round the corner and into Brick Lane, part of the fascinating Whitechapel area and a good example of an ethnic minority community, we walked up Brick Lane to Fournier Street and looked at the outside of the mosque there which started life as a Huguenot church and then became a synagogue before becoming a mosque - there is a good article in The Economist on the history of the area
• From Brick Lane we turned left onto Whitechapel High Street and walked past the large mosque and had a wander around the market, which is predominantly Bangladeshi - lots of unfamiliar fruit and veg. 
• We then walked down New Cannon Street towards Wapping, and turned left onto Cable street and then right down Dellow St and crossed The Highway, there is then a cut through into a park where we ate lunch.  For this and the rest of the day we had a Booth Map of the area (created just over 100 years ago to map out the social classes in London - there is a good Economist article here).  The girls were able to compare the Booth map with a current map and what they saw (the park is actually an old dock basin that has been filled in, but you can still see signs like morring rings set in the walls).
• We then walked past Shadwell Basin and along Wapping Wall and Wapping High Street where most of the old warehouses have been converted into luxury flats - this allows you to discuss changing occupational structures as well as consumption patterns.
• Eventually you come to St Katherine’s Docks which have been converted into a luxury marina - a nice place to sit and have a final discussion before heading to Tower Hill Tube station to go home (now accessed by a foot tunnel from St Katherine’s Docks so no busy roads to cross)

The girls are still talking about the trip, especially the Women’s Library, and we’ve just put the date in to do it again in September so the students have the benefit of it before the exams this time.

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | The asylum process is failing too many women

This article outlines some of the horrors women endure, both leading them to seek asylum in the UK and during the asylum process - a real reminder of the fact that women are still the subjects of patriarchal abuse of power, both in the UK and abroad.

It also reminded me that the following is the definition of a refugee as set out in the 1951 Convention on Refugees - a worldwide definition:

A
refugee is a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being
persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country
of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is
unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…”

Notice that the above definition does not include persecution on the grounds of gender.  This has meant that women have not been able to claim refugee status when fleeing from genital mutilation, forced marriage, or other social norms that can be seen to oppress women. 

However, some individual countries and groups of countries have decided that the oppression of women can be grounds for refugee status.  This includes Europe:

“In 1984,
the European Parliament determined that women facing cruel or inhumane
treatment because they seemed to transgress social mores should be
considered a particular social group for the purposes of determining
refugee status.” - UNHCR website

Despite this, the article mentioned at the beginning of this post suggests that women seeking asylum still face discrimination and often the dismissal of their cases because of their gender.