BBC “Analysis” Podcasts

Over the past 10 years BBC Radio 4’s Analysis series has created a range of podcasts “examining the ideas and forces which shape public policy in Britain and abroad, presented by distinguished writers, journalists and academics”. There are over 200 podcasts to trawl through, many of which won’t be of any interest or use to sociology […]

What’s in the Envelope?

This activity from Sharon Martin is relatively simple to set-up and run and, as an added bonus, can be used with any area of the Specification (both Psychology and Sociology): this example is based on the Sociology of Crime and Deviance. The activity is mainly for revision / recap sessions, although there’s probably no reason […]

Making the Sociology of Crime and Deviance 10 Years Younger

Let’s face it the A2 Crime and Deviance syllabus is looking old. The years of blocked aspiration, anomie, unjust labelling and misplaced radicalism have taken their toll. A recent shopping mall poll put most the major theories at pensionable age, and even the dynamic ‘young’ radical ones were seen as ‘pushing 40’! But we have […]

Situational Crime Prevention Video

This is a video version of the Cornish and Clarke Situational Crime Prevention PowerPoint presentation. The film runs for around 3 minutes.

Categorising Situational Crime Prevention Strategies

Situational crime prevention is an area that has grown in significance over the past 30 years, both in terms of social policies towards crime and sociological / criminological solutions to “the problem of crime”; it involves, according to Clarke (1997), a range of measures designed to reduce or eliminate “opportunities for crime” in three main […]

Plus, Minus, Interesting: A Thinking Hats Tool

If you’ve been following recent posts featuring the work of Dr. Jill Swale you’ll have come across her “Thinking Hats” activity  that’s partly designed to structure classroom discussions. If you want an activity that eases your students gently into the whole “6 Hats” process, “Plus, Minus, Interesting” is a simple evaluation exercise that uses the […]

NotAFactsheet: More Deviance

Three new NotAFactsheets to add to your growing collection covering: 1. Interactionism (labelling theory, personal and social identities, master labels) 2. Deviancy Amplification (an outline of the model plus the role of the media) 3. Critical Theory (Instrumental and Hegemonic Marxism, Critical Subcultures) Each NotaFactsheet is available in two flavours: with and without short (1 […]

Why is Gaz in Court for Mugging?

A second example of Jill Swale’s work, lovingly-culled from the ATSS archive, is based around the requirement for students to “solve a mystery by selecting and ordering relevant material through group discussion”. In terms of game mechanics, this is a relatively simple sift-sort-match exercise: students work in small groups to link case study material to […]

NotAFactsheet: Crime and Deviance

I thought it would make a change from research methods to put together a few NotAFactsheets on crime and deviance, so here are the first products of what no-one’s calling a “radical new departure in NotAFactsheet production”. These three efforts focus on and around Functionalist-type approaches to crime: D1. Functionalist Approaches | D1. Functionalist Approaches […]

Connecting Walls Collection

CBSC Sociology has been busy creating and posting a huge number of revision Connecting Walls on Twitter and, in the spirit of “pinching other people’s stuff and sharing it with a wider audience”, I’ve pulled all their tweets together into one handy blog post for your – and your students’ – greater convenience. So, if […]

Connecting Revision Too

If you’ve seen the previous post on Connecting Revision  you may have tried the Family Connecting Wall created by Steve Bishop (and maybe even been inspired to think about creating and sharing your own?). He’s now created a new Wall to add to your revising pleasure and this time it’s on Crime and Deviance. As ever […]

Visualising Strain Theory

Although examples of Merton’s “Responses to Strain” are fairly straightforward I always think it helps students if they can visualise the basic idea involved – something this simple image I came across on Twitter (apologies, but I don’t know who created it) does very well, I think. So, on the basis you can take a […]

Left Realism

A relatively easy way for students to get a handle on Left Realism is through three simple visualisations that can then be used to build-up a picture of this general approach to both explaining crime and deviance and suggesting solutions to the problem of crime. These visualisations involve: A three-cornered approach to deviance The criminogenic […]

Updating Crime & Deviance

Day Workshop with renowned sociologist and film-maker, Dr Steve Taylor Strain, Labelling, Realism etc. are still important because they underpin a lot of research in the contemporary study of Crime and Deviance. But supposing your students could demonstrate this with new concepts & 21st. Century research examples? This Workshop consolidates the key theories and concepts […]