Volume 23, Number 2, November 2013

Teaching notes

Using this issue

Joan Garrod

This Extras for this issue of the magazine have the usual suggestions on how some of the articles could be used to help with all the important sociology exam skills. There is also a worksheet on Julian Salisbury’s article on religion and modernity, which helps to pick out the most important points. For Power and Politics students there is a wordsearch that will help to test your knowledge of concepts, and there is also a concepts exercise on Religion. The PowerPoint takes a look at a suggested new typology of social class groups, which made the headlines when it came out in the spring. There are also some web links to articles that are of interest to sociology students.

Embracing two worlds (p. 2)

For teachers

This article is ideal as a starting point for a brief class discussion on some of the issues of living in a multicultural society. If the class is ethnically mixed, students may wish to share their own views on this topic. If not, students could explore some of the areas raised in the article — dress, customs, education, employment — and try to identify the kind of difficulties ‘living in two worlds’ might involve. The issue should also be looked at from the point of view of the ‘host’ country — could more be done to ease any tensions on both sides? What efforts were made in their primary/junior school to acknowledge and understand other cultures? What aspects of their culture make the ‘white British’ population feel their ‘Britishness’?

It is also worth briefly discussing the research methodology. The author acknowledges the small sample size, but students could be reminded of general sampling issues, the pros and cons of semi-structured interviews, and what other method(s) might have been employed to explore this topic, identifying strengths and weaknesses.

Doing ethnography (p. 9)

For students

This article, in addition to its interesting subject matter, has a wealth of useful information about sociological research, and is worth some careful note-taking. Although the author is talking about his own research, he makes several important points which can be applied to qualitative research in general. Read the article and note all the points the author makes about research in general and his research in particular. You should have notes under the following headings (but leave a good space under each, as you may need to go back and add things as you read through the article):

·  Reviewing existing literature

·  Qualitative methods (general)

·  Sampling

·  Sampling for difference

·  Mixed methods in qualitative research

·  Criticisms of qualitative methods

·  Contact and bias in participant observation

·  Ethics

·  Situation ethics

·  Politics of research

·  Data analysis

·  Five ‘take home’ messages — it is really worth copying these out and looking at them frequently when considering sociological methods.

Cybercrime and online dating (p. 12)

For students

You could use the information in this article when discussing ‘the dark figure’ of crime, as it is an example of a crime that is almost certainly under-reported.

Note that the author used a relatively new form of data collection — she looked at 200 posts about this type of crime collected from a public website. What might be the advantages and disadvantages of this method?

Note the importance of ‘cognitive dismissals’ and ‘rationalisations’ used by victims, which help to explain why such crimes are under-reported and why the victims often allow the scam to continue.

The article provides a useful and interesting background to this type of crime — how many people are now using the internet to find their ‘ideal partner’? Note the concept of ‘grooming’, more often used in the context of the abuse of children and young people.

Note that this is an area of crime as yet relatively unexplored by sociologists and criminologists. The ability to discuss it in an exam, even briefly, will be very useful, provided, of course, that it is relevant to the question.

How long should young people remain in school? (p. 22)

For teachers

This article is useful for a discussion and revision of some aspects of education.

Students should be reminded of the various stages by which the leaving age was raised, in particular the importance of ROSLA in 1972, amid views that it would lead to social breakdown, and that some young people were simply ‘uneducable’.

Students should look at the two views of education as a ‘cost’ or an ‘investment’ and be asked for their views. Ask them to consider the policy implications of each different view.

Students should be asked to consider changing views of ‘childhood’ and how these might be linked to the legal age for leaving full-time education.

Finally, they should consider the implications of RPA — bearing in mind that over 90% of 17-year olds are already still in education. They should be encouraged to consider that different areas of the country have very different participation rates and different opportunities for young people.

There is a useful discussion of this and related policies on the following site, to which interested students could be directed:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23925033

Religion: the birth of the ‘modern’ period (p. 30)

For students

This article provides an interesting discussion of ‘modernity’ and links it to religion. Read the article carefully and write answers to the following questions, which will provide you with a useful summary of some of the main points.

(1)  Explain in your own words what is meant by ‘an evolutionary view of history’.

(2)  Why is it difficult to understand what sociologists mean by ‘modernity’?

(3)  What is meant by ‘the Enlightenment’? (Give approximate dates!)

(4)  Name four ‘beliefs’ that characterised ‘modernity’.

(5)  Why was it thought that there was a ‘high degree of predictability’ in people’s ‘journey through life’?

(6)  The author states that in the modern era working-class people ‘tended to be more deferential’ than they are today. What evidence can you think of to support this view?

(7)  Why could it be claimed that modernity was ‘a time of absolute values’?

(8)  Briefly explain what is meant by: (a) totalitarianism, (b) imperialism, (c) expansionism.

(9)  What is meant by ‘the substantive definition of religion’?

(10)  Why was Darwin’s On the Origin of Species a direct challenge to the authority of religion?

(11)  What evidence is given to cast doubt on the view that modernity led directly to secularisation?

(12)  In what way can much Western religion be said to be ‘monopolistic’?

(13)  What features of the modern era, it is suggested, helped to limit ‘religious pluralism and personal choice’?

(14)  In what way is it suggested that religions became ‘more philosophical and less literal’?

(15)  What is meant by ‘a macro-structural view of society’?

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