Ruth’s Sociology Resources Blog

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 

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

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

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).

A group of researchers at York University have classified the UK’s neighbourhoods according to characteristics of technology uses, in particular looking at internet usage.  It suggests that there are interactions of age, social class, education, wealth and occupational sector that affect how much we make use of IT and the ways in which we use it.  The different classifications are quite detailed and you can search for your postcode’s classification to see where your neighbourhood fits in.

Although the research itself doesn’t seem to be seeking to create any particular social theory, but rather to facilitate future economic and town planning, it does raise some interesting social questions.  The suggestion is that the use or non-use of IT affects individuals purchasing power and habits and their participation in any kind of consumption culture that may exist.  There are also questions about the ways in which groups which are marginalised in terms of access to and knowledge of the internet may, through that process of marginalisation, be further excluded from society in a wider sense.

The rapid pace of technological change impacts on society in a wider way than may initially meet the eye.  This website might make a good starting point for class discussions on social change and stratification, taking it beyond simple divisions of gender, ethnicity and social class and indicating the ways in which all these interact and have far reaching impacts.

Spatial-Literacy.org | esociety | profiler

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.

Booth Poverty Map & Modern map (Charles Booth Online Archive)  Booth’s Poverty map is famous as it mapped London in 1898-9, classifying residential areas and essentially mapping wealth and poverty across the capital.  If you follow the link you can browse the 1898-9 map in comparison to a contemporary map of London - particularly if you know London well this is fascinating as you can look at how the social mix of the capital has changed (or not) over the past 100 years.  From this you can find out a fair amount about social mobility in the area, the gentrification of some areas of London.  Also, particularly if you look at the East End, especially around Wapping,  you can see some interesting evidence of how the occupational structure of the capital has changed, with the disappearance of many of the dock basins and if you walk those streets now you will note that there is much more residential housing now than in 1898, as warehouses have been converted into expensive flats.  You can also see how London was essentially segregated by social class - it would be interesting to see a map like this for London today and see whether such class segregation has decreased or is much the same.

If you click on “Home” you can browse the site further and there is lots of fascinating information on how the data was collected, people’s living conditions at the time and other aspects of Booth’s work.

The Economist also had a fascinating article on this on May 6th 2006 (pp.31-32), looking in detail at how Chelsea has changed.  They have created their own modern Booth map of Chelsea using Census data and talk about some of the social changes that have occurred in the area.  Unfortunately you need a subscription to access this on-line but any library worth its salt will have a hard copy of The Economist and the article is well worth reading.

So we’re still confused about what it means to be middle class or working class?  As suggested by other sociological studies, it seems that people have varying views on what defines their social class and what influences their social class identities.
BBC NEWS | UK | Most Britons ‘are working class’

However, you also have to remember that this survey was done by what is essentially an insurance company - we know almost nothing about the method and research design used - if you click on the link to the company you don’t find out anything more.  We know the sample size - 1000 people, and we know that they were asked questions about their perceptions of social class, however we don’t know:

• sampling technique - was the sample representative? how reliable and generalisable are the findings?
• the wider purpose of the survey - was social class the only aspect tackled, if not, how might this have affected the responses?
• were the questions asked leading? - what kind of bias might this have introduced? how valid is the data as a result?
• what method was used - self-completion questionnaires, pre-coded questionnaires, structured interviews, unstructured interviews?

In order to take this survey seriously you need to know some more about it - yes it could be useful evidence, but always remember that it has some real problems.

Another example of the changing occupational structure in the UK, with a decline in unskilled or semi-skilled manufacturing jobs as they move to countries where the costs of production are lower. Not that long ago there were several motor manufacturing plants around Coventry.

Have a think about the wider social and economic impact this may have both on Coventry and on Slovakia - types of jobs, unemployment levels, roles within the family (think about Mac en Ghaill’s “crisis of masculinity”), other local businesses, education…..

BBC NEWS | Business | Slovaks flock to Peugeot plant