Ruth’s Sociology Resources Blog

I am currently working on the methodology section of my PhD - it needs to be about 10,000 words long and while I have plenty to write it is always a struggle to keep a large chunk of text coherent.  This applies as much to an essay or piece of coursework that is 2,000 words in length as it does to a thesis.

I was thinking about the tips and tricks I have picked up over the years and thought I would pass them on:

1. Plan what you are going to write - even if it is just a set of basic bullet points.  I often draw a mind map of the points I want to make so that I can see how they interrelate and then put them in order.  You can then write to ‘fill in’ the bullet points - it helps to make sure that you have not missed anything out.
2. If possible type straight into a word processor programme - Word, Open Office Writer, Pages rather than writing on paper - this makes editing much easier - you can move things around easily and you don’t have to worry about spelling or missing things out as you can sort that out as you go along.
3. Once you have got all the main points in there have a read over it - if you are like me you will find that you have missed things out or they are not quite in the right order.  If you can see how to fix that then get on and do it, but if you are struggling with how to re-structure something so it makes more sense and reads more fluently then I recommend the paper and scissors solution:
1. print out your writing so far
2. take a pair of scissors and cut it into separate paragraphs (or groups of paragraphs) you can then move things around physically and re-think the structure of the piece
3. once you have laid the piece out in it’s new structure and are happy with it then you can move things around on screen to match what you have on paper and finesse it so it all fits together neatly.

Happy writing.

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

I’ve just added some more resources to the Downloads for Teachers section - a scheme of work for Education and a Resource Pack - also for education.

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!)

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!

There are now a selection of mindmaps available to download from the site to help you with revision. Just go to the Downloads for Students page and they are available to buy for the bargain price of 79p!

Keep an eye out as I will hopefully be adding more mindmaps over the next few weeks.

This article highlights the ongoing, but often hidden issue of prostitution, sex slavery and human trafficking in the UK:

BBC NEWS | England | Sex slavery widespread in England

Women in the sex trade are often forced into it - either by socio-economic circumstances or by boyfriends or other males with power over them (eg traffickers). As well as the bare facts about women being forced into the sex industry against their wills, articles like this also raise wider issues about inequalities of power between men and women in wider society - although women are increasingly able to be independent of men both socially and economically, inequalities remain and these are seen at their most extreme in areas of the economy such as the sex trade.

Human trafficking associated with the sex trade can also be related to World Sociology and issues of power relations between the “developed” and “developing” world. Many of the foreign women involved in the sex trade in Britain are here because they were lured here with promises of ordinary jobs - waitressing, cleaning, kitchen work - where they would earn more than they could earn in their home countries and which would allow them to send money home to their families. International wealth inequalities can of course be linked to issues around international debt.
The issues and debates around the sex industry are explored in greater depth by an exhibition currently on show at The Women’s Library in London, they are also running workshops for groups of A-level Sociology students.

I stumbled across the Worldmapper project by accident and my first thoughts were “Wow! Brilliant for World Sociology”. Actually I suspect it will be useful for a wide range of things throughout sociology including poverty, gender and religion.

The key idea is to represent statistics on a range of topics in the form of a map, so that countries and regions change size according to the statistics - so for example for statistics of people living on less that $1 a day the US and Western Europe are tiny but Africa is relatively large. It is a very powerful visual way to display international comparisons and brings the statistics to life, making them easier to understand at a glance.

As well as viewing the maps online you can also download them as PDFs as well as the graphs and data that have been used to create them, meaning that as well as having a powerful overview of the statistics you can also look more in depth at different countries.

The project is ongoing so new maps will be added over time.
Worldmapper: The world as you’ve never seen it before

I’ve spent some time over the last couple of days playing around with a mindmapping tool called Freemind. I’m very much a visual learner and for me the easiest way to understand or plan something is to draw a diagram.

So how on earth is this relevant to Sociology? Well, mindmapping is often a very useful way of gathering ideas, constructing essay plans and revising topics. On paper it tends to get a bit messy, but on a computer you end up with something that you can change as much as you like. As a teacher I often get my students to construct mind maps of topics or even whole units so that they can see how the bits fit together - with a subject as complex as Sociology it is often the only way to illustrate the links between ideas.

To illustrate, here is an image of a mind map that I’ve constructed using Freemind to help me plan out the writing I’m currently doing on Home Education:

I have to say I’m very impressed with Freemind - it’s easy to use and best of all it’s free. It is a piece of opensource software so it is free for any individual or organisation to download and use. One tip is that once you’ve got it open, if you select the Modes menu and click on Browse you get a mindmap help guide which is very useful.