More Crime and Deviance Learning Tables

A few days ago I did a post on Learning Tables that noted, in passing, that although the numbering system used suggested at least 14 Tables had been created for crime and deviance, I’d only managed to find 10. After a bit of detective work (which sounds a bit mysterious and a touch glamourous until […]

18 | Religion: Part 3

The third chapter in our trawl through the murky waters of organised (and disorganised, come to that) religion looks at the relationship between religion and social position in two broad ways: Firstly terms of the so-called (by me at least) “CAGE” variables: class, age, gender and ethnicity. This section both outlines the relationship between each […]

14 | Youth: Part 3

One area of social life in which the relationship between youth and specific types of behaviour is particularly clear is that of offending behaviour. Young people – principally young, working class, men – are hugely over-represented in the crime statistics and since this series of chapters is linked by ideas about Youth Culture and Subculture […]

6 | Families and Households: Part 3

After the raw, enervating, excitement of Family Trends and the Role of Family in Society, the rollercoaster ride that is Family Life continues with the unalloyed joy that is Family Diversity. While some commentators (who shall remain nameless because I haven’t named them) have described family diversity as a “thrill-a-minute fun-fest filled with fantastic fripperies”, […]

Patterns of Crime and the Social Characteristics of Offenders: Gender and Ethnicity

After a brief hiatus, we’re back to business with a fifth example of Jill Swale’s ATSS work, this one focusing on patterns of offending and how differences based on gender and ethnicity (you can easily add further variables, such as age, to the exercise if you want) can be identified and explained. The exercise itself […]

The Manifest and Latent Functions of CAGE

While mnemonics are not everyone’s favourite hot beverage I’ve always found them a very useful memory device – and I’m particularly fond of CAGE (Class, Age, Gender, Ethnicity) and its less-exulted compatriots CAGES (…Sexuality) and CAGED (…Disability) for a couple of reasons: Firstly, it has a simple manifest function for students. If you’re ever stuck […]

Sociology Stuff: DEA

If you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll tell you a story. A long, long, time ago, when the Internet was still young, there existed a web site, created by Mark Peace, called Sociology Stuff. This web site specialised in producing high quality sociology stuff (hence the name. Probably. I’m guessing) for a few years before Mark got […]

Mapping Differential Educational Achievement

Differences in UK educational achievement are normally categorised across three main dimensions – class, gender and ethnicity – of which the former is generally seen by sociologists of education as the primary determinant of achievement differences (as measured by exam grades), while gender and in some instances ethnicity is generally preferred by politicians and media […]

Media Representations: Part 1 – Traditional Marxism

Continuing the sociology of the media theme that began with moral and amoral panics, this series of posts looks at the idea of media representations from a range of different perspectives. For traditional Marxism, economic power is a key variable; those who own the means of physical production are always the most powerful class and […]

Institutional Racism?

It’s always useful to have a range of examples – especially contemporary examples – to hand when / if you need to illustrate a particular idea, theory or concept. And in the context of Institutional Racism, this Report by the Institute of Race Relations that has uncovered the fact that in terms of the 500+ […]