13 | Youth: Part 2
The notion of “youth” as a fairly recent (i.e. modernist) phenomenon leads to the question of exactly why this type of life-stage geminates in the transition from pre-modernity to modernity and comes into full-flower in late-modern / postmodern societies? In other words, what Is the role played by youth culture / subcultures in society? The […]
Culture and Identity: Caught Between Two Worlds?
Richard Driscoll teaches A-level Sociology at the Shenzhen College of International Education in China and you may recall an interesting piece of research – The Last Queendom of Women? – carried-out by one of his students, Hecate Li, that provided a contemporary example of an alternative to the “conventional nuclear family”. In this latest piece […]
3 | Socialisation and Identity
The third chapter in what’s rapidly becoming something of a legendary giveaway (in my mind at least) is one that applies the concept of socialisation to the development of a range of social and personal identities in contemporary societies (or as contemporary as things get, given this was first published in 2012). This chapter on […]
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 […]
Gay Best Friends as Consumers and Commodities
If you’re looking for something slightly different to incorporate into your Culture and Identity / Media Sociology teaching this book chapter on “Effeminacy and Expertise, Excess and Equality: Gay Best Friends as Consumers and Commodities in Contemporary Television” by Susie Khamis and Anthony Lambert might well fit the bill. Of particular interest here might be […]
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 […]
Beyond Milgram: Obedience and Identity
Association for the Teaching of Psychology review of our new film by Punam Farmah So you think you know Milgram and his experiments, inside and out? Well, the chances are this film will get you thinking again. Written by Steve Taylor and presented by Clare Parsons, this twenty-minute film is based around the original, re-interpretation […]
Identity
Although the distinction (and relationship) between personal and social identities is an important way of understanding this concept in A-level Sociology, if you want to take your understanding a little further you need to think about two additional, complementary, ideas: 1.Being: This way of thinking about identity focuses on how social identities, considered in terms of […]
7 days of social science research: free films
Although they’re now a few years old (made around 2012) these short (5 – 6 minute) films from the Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC) are loosely based around an interesting conceit – a children’s nursery rhyme – that’s used as brief introductions to a range of topics: Monday’s child is fair of face: […]
Ethnicity: Free Films
These four short films from the University of Manchester focus on two broad aspects of ethnicity – identity and inequality – that might serve as interesting introductions / discussion starters. • We need to find a new way to talk about ethnicity (4 minutes) looks at the history of multi-ethnic diversity in Britain in the […]