bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Formation of the critical consciousness regarding mass media in Uruguay
Authors: Olascoaga Paulo
Published: March 2010

The rate of mass media per inhabitant is particularly high in Uruguay. Nevertheless, there aren´t many experiences in teacher training and formation of a critical consciousness. The actors involved in the educational process have considered the matter thoroughly. At the same time, a revolutionary experience carried out with computers is being attacked, due to the lack of a pedagogic and critical basis. This paper offers the different arguments and new proposals.

Uruguay es uno de los países con más medios de comunicación por habitante. Sin embargo, son pocas las experiencias en educación en medios y formación de conciencia crítica. Los actores involucrados en los procesos educativos se han planteado seriamente el tema. Paralelamente, se está realizando una revolucionaria experiencia en materia informática criticada por falta de sustento pedagógico y crítico. El trabajo presenta las distintas argumentaciones y una propuesta.
Television consumption and profiles of the hearings: a customized way to watch TV
Authors: Cabrera-González María de los Ángeles , Gómez-Aguilera Tamara
Published: March 2010

The design of TV programmes schedule according to the different profiles of the audience favours a customized television watching by selective audiences. This work determines the different types of audience according to age. Such work develops a methodology for the design of TV programme schedules fit to each type of audience, with the purpose of providing customized solutions that favour the intelligent consumption of television. In addition, the design of these pro-gramme grids means an advance in the knowledge of initiatives towards the customization of television contents. This is a very important social demand as a result of the influence of the interactivity generated by the Internet.

El diseño de parrillas de programación televisiva conforme a los distintos perfiles de las audiencias favorece un consumo televisivo personalizado por parte de las audiencias selectivas. Este trabajo determina los distintos tipos de audiencias según la edad, y desarrolla una metodología para el diseño de parrillas de programación televisiva ajustadas a cada una de esas audiencias, con el fin de proporcionar soluciones personalizadas que favorezcan el consumo inteligente de la televisión. Asimismo, el diseño de estas parrillas de programación supone un avance en el conocimiento de iniciativas dirigidas hacia la personalización de los contenidos televisivos, una demanda social cada vez mayor como consecuencia de la influencia de la interactividad generada por Internet.
The TV viewers associations facing the audiovisual communication challenge
Authors: Rosique-Cedillo Gloria
Published: March 2010

Due to the changes produced in TV programming, and also to the increasing importance of audiovisual media, TV viewers associations have been working for about two decades on the promotion of a critical attitude in TV viewers. They also fight for the viewers´ rights defence. These groups are a good example of the «social capital», necessary for a real change in TV contents.

Debido a los cambios ocurridos en la programación de las televisiones generalistas y por el auge generalizado de los medios audiovisuales en nuestra sociedad, las asociaciones de telespectadores vienen trabajando desde hace más de dos décadas a favor de promover una actitud crítica en los telespectadores y por hacer valer sus derechos como ciudadanos. Estos grupos dan muestra del «capital social» necesario para lograr un verdadero cambio en materia de contenidos audiovisuales televisivos.
The «TV baby sitter» phenomenon as a modern cathodic «Super-nanny»
Authors: Rius-Sanchis Inmaculada
Published: March 2010

In the last years a communicative phenomenon, the «TV Baby Sitter», has appeared on the most important mass media. This fact represents that TV is becoming an educational and fun substitutive tool on the youngest public, while traditional education symbols –mother and baby sitter– are declining. This phenomenon evidences social, cultural and educative sequenced effects. In the same way, programme planning disarrangement on the infantile TV time has accelerated those effects and helped to change the youth television learning and sociability manners. It has created a gap between baby and adults programmes.

En las últimas décadas asistimos al nacimiento de un fenómeno que hemos dado en llamar telecanguro, es decir, el medio audiovisual televisivo como sustituto educativo y de entretenimiento del público más joven, función tradicionalmente reservada a la madre o cuidadores del niño –los denominados canguros–. Dicho fenómeno constata una serie de efectos tanto sociales como culturales y educativos. Asimismo, el desajuste de la programación durante el hora-rio infantil, ha acelerado dichos efectos al tiempo que ha contribuido a cambiar los modos de sociabilidad y aprendizaje televisivo de los adolescentes, creando un vacío entre los programas para niños de corta edad y la programación de adultos.
The reception of soap operas and the genre perspective
Authors: Romero-Carmona Juan Bautista , Degrado-Godoy María Dolores
Published: March 2010

Soap opera is an entertainment phenomenon based on melodrama. Along its existence it has been considered as a mediocre way to entertain people. Its rating and success has been discussed, but the object of this research is to point out the representation of both sexes which is offered to children through soap operas. It reflects about the inequality between both genres, helping thus to think about a patriarchal and symbolic order; a representation that favours the male supremacy.

La telenovela es un fenómeno de entretenimiento basado en el melodrama. A lo largo de su existencia ha sido cuestionada y encasillada a una forma mediocre de entretener a los telespectadores. Se ha debatido el nivel de audiencia y el éxito de las mismas; pero el objeto de este trabajo de investigación es contribuir a señalar la representación de los sexos que se ofrece a niños y niñas a través de la recepción de telenovelas, una representación que refleja y recrea la desigualdad entre los géneros, contribuyendo a configurar un orden simbólico patriarcal; una representación que reconstruye la supremacía masculina.
Spain: bottom of the league regarding quality TV
Authors: Moreno-Rodríguez María Dolores
Published: March 2010

Describing television in terms of quality is difficult, even more when it comes to the Spanish television audience, which is divided into two main tendencies: on the one hand, there is a group demanding an educative, cultural and consequently quality TV and, on the other hand, there is a group labelling these products as boring. The large number of theories on quality TV agree that a combination of technical and communicative skills and a great diversity of topics, ideologies and genders are necessary. In this context Spanish TV is usually subjugated to audience ratings, although there are important exceptions such as «Los Lunnis», «Redes», etc.

La calidad es una etiqueta difícilmente atribuible a un medio como el televisivo, más en el caso de la audiencia española que se encuentra prácticamente polarizada en torno a dos grandes tendencias: quienes demandan una TV educativa, cultural y, en consecuencia, de calidad, y quienes adjudican a este tipo de productos otra etiqueta, la de aburridos. Entre las múltiples teorías sobre la televisión de calidad encontramos puntos de convergencia como la necesaria coincidencia de una competencia técnica y comunicativa, y una gran diversidad temática, ideológica y de géneros. En este marco, la española es una TV generalmente subyugada a las cuotas de audiencia, pero que cuenta con significativas excepciones («Los Lunnis», «Redes», etc.).
Education in mobility
Authors: Gómez-Aguilar Antonio , Martínez-García María de los Ángeles
Published: March 2010

Nowadays, digitalization of contents constitutes one of the keys of the development in the educational sector. The ubiquitous proliferation of mobile phones and portable devices, added to the development of the access to wide band, changes the scene of distribution of digital contents through communication nets, removing the need for the support and the physical delivery. Education in mobility implies the education of critical receivers, with skills in the new technologies (media literacy) in our global society.

La digitalización de los contenidos constituye una de las claves del desarrollo del sector educativo en la actualidad. La proliferación ubicua de dispositivos móviles y portátiles, sumada al desarrollo del acceso a banda ancha, plantea un nuevo escenario de distribución de los contenidos digitales a través de las redes de comunicación, eliminando la necesidad del soporte y la distribución física. La educación en móvil(idad) pasa por la formación de receptores críticos, diestros en las nuevas tecnologías (alfabetización mediática) en el seno de la sociedad global.
The deceitful sight: audiovisual dictatorship and democratic counterpower
Authors: Torres-Lana Esteban
Published: March 2010

This paper is based on the necessity for developing audiovisual democracy and for proposing specific practices for the deactivation of media persuasive elements as its consequence. It is known that the study and visibility of the main cognitive and emotive strategies of audiovisual persuasion allow minimization of their effects and a more balanced and independent interpretation. Without a specific training, a critical consciousness against media persuasion may only appear in a long term, may appear partially or even never appear. Literacy must have a space in the very same media with programming time devoted to that aim, incorporating certain proposed contents.

La necesidad de desarrollar la democracia audiovisual y proponer, como su corolario, prácticas concretas de desactivación de los elementos persuasivos del medio es el objeto de este trabajo. Es sabido que el estudio y visibilidad de las principales estrategias cognitivas y emotivas de la persuasión audiovisual permite la minimización de sus efectos y la lectura más equilibrada e independiente de los mismos. Sin un desarrollo específico de la conciencia crítica ante la persuasión del medio, ésta tarda mucho en aparecer, aparece parcialmente o no aparece nunca. La alfabetización debe tener su espacio en los propios medios con una reserva de programación dedicada a tal fin y unos ciertos contenidos propuestos.
TV online: different ways to watch and interpret
Authors: Nunes Ricardo
Published: March 2010

Traditionally, Education for Media has been oriented to individualized media as a function of their background identity: press, radio and television. In a context of hybridism and multimedia, the author outlines the new technological framework of the Internet Galaxy, suggesting new interpretative views of the media reality. The aim is concisely to interpret the phenomenon of convergence of the media and to suggest actions that facilitate a better use of the television product through the Internet. This is carried out particularly by examining the television online device.

Tradicionalmente la educación en medios ha sido realizada de modo que se dirige a los medios de comunicación social a nivel individual, de acuerdo con su identidad originaria: prensa, radio y televisión. En un contexto de hibridación, mestizajes y multimedia, el autor presenta el nuevo encuadre tecnológico de la Galaxia Internet, proponiendo miradas interpretativas de la nueva realidad mediática. Se presenta así, como objetivo central, interpretar el fenómeno de la convergencia de los medios, en particular a través del análisis del dispositivo televisivo online y sugerir modos de intervención que permitan un aprendizaje con vista al uso y descodificación del producto televisivo a través de la caja electrónica en Internet.
Screens’ societies: potentialities and limits for media education
Authors: Vicente-Mariño Miguel , Martín-Granados Ignacio
Published: March 2010

Social and technological transformations undergone during the last decades have lead to contemporary societies, where image has become one of the key elements. Although this process could be framed in qualitative dimensions, the simple observation of most of the citizens´ daily lives would lead us to conclude that the presence of screens is one of the main characters of our closer environment. The increase and diversification of audiovisual devices do not walk together with a parallel augment of media literacy, which is still one of the pending subjects of the educational systems in the economically developed countries.

Las transformaciones sociales y tecnológicas que se han sucedido durante las últimas décadas han desembocado en unas sociedades contemporáneas en las que la imagen se ha convertido en el elemento básico. A pesar de que este proceso podría enmarcarse en unas coordenadas meramente cualitativas, la observación directa de la vida cotidiana de una gran parte de la ciudadanía mundial nos lleva a concluir la presencia generalizada de pantallas en nuestro campo de acción inmediata. La proliferación y diversificación de estos dispositivos audiovisuales no ha caminado de la mano de un incremento en la educación en medios de comunicación, que continúa siendo una de las asignaturas pendientes de los sistemas educativos de los países económicamente desarrollados.
Hypermedia project: TV magnifying glass
Authors: Díaz-Gómez María del Rocío , Romero-Carmona Juan Bautista
Published: March 2010

«The television magnifying glass» is a multimedia project for secondary school students that use a Web site to offer advice and proposals for learning to watch television. The Web site is structured into two large blocks: information and participation. Each one is made up of different sections: television programmes database and movies; television schedule; the latest news; and Web site developments. This project tries to provide informative and communicative tools for teaching-learning television through a didactic-pedagogical, practical and critical perspective.

«La lupa televisiva» es una propuesta multimedia para aprender a ver la televisión dirigido al alumnado de Secundaria. A través de la creación de un portal en Internet donde se ofrece asesoramiento y propuestas para aprender a ver televisión. La web se estructura en dos grandes bloques: uno de información y otro de participación. Cada uno de ellos consta a su vez de distintos subapartados como: base de datos de recursos televisivos; parrilla; noticias de última hora; actuaciones y novedades dentro del portal; etc. Se trata con este proyecto de proporcionar nuevas herramientas informativas y comunicativas para la enseñanza-aprendizaje del medio televisivo desde una perspectiva didáctico-pedagógica, práctica y crítica.
Aesthetic education in television animation
Authors: Hidalgo-Rodríguez María del Carmen , Pertíñez-López Jesús
Published: March 2010

The analysis of the educational function of television should not be strictly limited to the contents of the programmes, but it should also examine the way in which these contents are presented. Cartoons, as an audiovisual medium especially designed for young children, are a vehicle that conveys culture and aesthetic values. The research carried out in our Drawing Department shows there is little variety in the artistic techniques used in animation, and that speed of production is more important than the development of techniques. This article examines the results of the research and proposes alternatives which are being developed in some high-quality animation studios.

La función educativa de la televisión no debe limitarse exclusivamente a los contenidos que ésta trasmite, sino que también hay que prestar atención a la forma en que se presentan. Los dibujos animados, como medio audiovisual especialmente dedicado a la infancia, sirven de vehículo para la transmisión de cultura y valoración estética. En esta investigación comprobamos cómo la variedad de técnicas artísticas con las que se realizan las animaciones es mínima, primando más la rapidez en su producción que el desarrollo de técnicas. Expondremos los resultados de la investigación realizada y propondremos alternativas que vienen desarrollando algunos estudios de animación de calidad.
Cartoon movies at home: animation films and TV
Authors: Loscertales-Abril Felicidad , Núñez-Domínguez Trinidad
Published: March 2010

Movies are one of the objects of study for Social Psychology because they are not only art or industry; they are a way of socialization. Therefore, movies show behaviour models, social values and norms, and make people react: movies are persuasive. A psycho-social analysis of films is necessary because movies can sometimes display prejudiced negative contents, which could be both explicit or very subtle, and therefore quite dangerous. The authors analyse ten well-known Dis-ney films from the gender perspective: How are men and women shown? What roles do they impersonate? Specifying contents and valuing subtle prejudiced stereotypes will help families to watch them from a different point of view.

El cine es objeto de estudio para la Psicología Social porque no sólo es arte o industria; es socialización. Porque muestra modelos de comportamiento, valores sociales y normas, produce reacciones: es persuasivo. Este aspecto es el que mejor justifica el análisis psicosocial. También en muchas ocasiones, el cine presenta unos contenidos con prejuicios negativos poco explícitos, muy sutiles y, por tanto, bastantes peligrosos. Analizamos diez conocidas películas Disney desde la perspectiva de género: ¿Cómo se presentan hombres y mujeres? ¿Qué roles representan? Explicitar contenidos y valorar estereotipos con prejuicios sutiles ayuda a las familias a ver con otra mirada.
Functional Characterization of the Recombinant Human C1 Inhibitor Serpin Domain: Insights into Heparin Binding
Authors: Rossi Véronique , Bally Isabelle , Ancelet Sarah , Xu Yuanyuan , Frémeaux-Bacchi Véronique , Vivès Romain R. , Sadir Rabia , Thielens Nicole , Arlaud Gérard J.
Published: March 2010

Variants of the human C1 inhibitor serpin domain containing three N-linked carbohydrates at positions 216, 231, and 330 (C1inhΔ97), a single carbohydrate at position 330 (C1inhΔ97DM), or no carbohydrate were produced in a baculovirus/insect cells system. An N-terminally His-tagged C1inhΔ97 variant was also produced. Removal of the oligosaccharide at position 330 dramatically decreased expression, precluding further analysis. All other variants were characterized chemically and shown to inhibit C1s activity and C1 activation in the same way as native C1 inhibitor. Likewise, they formed covalent complexes with C1s as shown by SDS-PAGE analysis. C1 inhibitor and its variants inhibited the ability of C1r-like protease to activate C1s, but did not form covalent complexes with this protease. The interaction of C1 inhibitor and its variants with heparin was investigated by surface plasmon resonance, yielding KD values of 16.7 × 10−8 M (C1 inhibitor), 2.3 × 10−8 M (C1inhΔ97), and 3.6 × 10−8 M (C1inhΔ97DM). C1s also bound to heparin, with lower affinity (KD = 108 × 10−8 M). Using the same technique, 50% inhibition of the binding of C1 inhibitor and C1s to heparin was achieved using heparin oligomers containing eight and six saccharide units, respectively. These values roughly correlate with the size of 10 saccharide units yielding half-maximal potentiation of the inhibition of C1s activity by C1 inhibitor, consistent with a “sandwich” mechanism. Using a thermal shift assay, heparin was shown to interact with the C1s serine protease domain and the C1 inhibitor serpin domain, increasing and decreasing their thermal stability, respectively.
Polymorphisms in α- and β-Adrenergic Receptor Genes, Hypertension, and Obstructive Sleep Apnea: The Skaraborg Sleep Study
Authors: Bengtsson Boström Kristina , Hedner Jan , Grote Ludger , Melander Olle , von Wowern Fredrik , Råstam Lennart , Groop Leif , Lindblad Ulf
Published: March 2010

The sympathetic nervous system and the adrenergic receptors play an important role in regulation of blood pressure. This study explored the associations between functional polymorphisms of theα2B-,β1-, andβ2-adrenergic receptor genes and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in hypertensive patients and hypertension in patients with OSA in a populationbased sample of 157 hypertensive patients and 181 healthy control subjects. Only the Arg389Gly polymorphism of theβ1-adrenergic receptor gene was associated with increased risk for mild OSA in hypertensive patients (Arg/Arg versus Gly/Arg/Gly/Gly, 2.1, 95% CI, 1.02–4.7). Hypertensive men carrying the Arg389Arg genotype had higher crude and age-adjusted AHI than carriers of the Arg389Gly/Gly389Gly genotypes. When adjusted also for BMI this difference became borderline significant. This difference was not observed in women. The risk of hypertension in mild OSA was associated with increasing number of Arg-alleles (Arg/Arg OR 5.4, 95% CI 1.4–21.2).
A Critical Analysis of the Medical Model as used in the Study of Pregnancy and Childbirth
Authors: van Teijlingen Edwin
Published: March 2010

One key concept in medical sociology/anthropology for the analysis of approaches to health and illness is the medical model. However, this medical model is not only applied at the analytical level, i.e. as a sociological tool, but it also appeals to health service providers at a practical level as a model of working practice. This paper challenges the uncritical use of the medical model by practitioners and social scientists alike.

The purpose of this paper is to separate and analyse the three different levels of understanding expressed in any model of childbirth, whether medical or social: (1) the practical; (2) the ideological and (3) the analytical level. Social scientists are advised to reflect on the question: ‘At what level am I using the medical model as a theoretical concept in my work?’ This is necessary not only to avoid further confusion, but also to ensure that our sociological tools maintain their ability to analyse the social world appropriately, without becoming ‘blunt’ due to the uncritical use.
Understanding the Symbolic Idea of the American Dream and Its Relationship with the Category of ‘Whiteness’
Authors: Madriaga Manuel
Published: March 2010

This article examines the impact the category of ‘whiteness’ has on individual interpretations of the American Dream. Via twenty-five life-history interviews, this article presents how US military male Veterans have varying interpretations of the collective idea according to their ethnic and racial background. The evidence presented in this article shows that the idea of the American Dream has racial dimensions or aspects. It suggests that ‘whiteness’ is taken-for-granted in this symbolic idea. For most ethnic minority respondents, this association between American Dream and ‘whiteness’ places them in a position to straddle the boundaries of American-ness and Otherness. This has implications in their everyday lives and sense of belonging. This article highlights a wider question regarding the extent ‘race’ shapes the boundaries of American national identity.
From ‘Goods’ to ‘Bads’? Revisiting the Political Economy of Risk
Authors: Mythen Gabe
Published: March 2010

German social theorist Ulrich Beck has consistently maintained that the logic of social distribution in western cultures has been reconfigured over the last three decades. Beck believes that, in the first industrial modernity, political and economic energies were directed toward the dissemination of ‘social goods’, such as healthcare, employment and wealth. By contrast, in the second modernity - or risk society - the positive logic of goods distribution is displaced by a negative logic of ‘social bads’, exemplified by environmental despoliation, terrorism and nuclear accidents. Critically, whilst the logic of goods is sectoral - some win and some lose, some are protected, some exposed - social bads follow a universalising logic which threatens rich and poor alike. This article interrogates and challenges these core claims by fusing together and developing empirical and theoretical criticisms of the theory of distributional logic. Empirically, it is demonstrated that Beck draws upon a narrow range of examples, is insensitive to continuities in social reproduction and glosses over the intensification of traditional inequalities. Theoretically, the paper asserts that the risk society perspective constructs an unsustainable divide between interconnected modes of distribution, neglects the way in which political discourses can be used to reinforce hegemonic interests and overlooks uneven patterns of risk distribution.
Are We All Europeans Now? Local, National and Supranational Identities of Young Adults
Authors: Grundy Sue , Jamieson Lynn
Published: March 2010

The continued expansion and deepening of the European Union state raises important questions about whether there will be a corresponding development of pro-supranational feeling towards Europe. This paper is based on data drawn from a European Commission (EC) funded project on the ‘Orientations of Young Men and Women to Citizenship and European Identity’. The project includes comparative surveys of ‘representative samples’ of young men and women aged 18-24 and samples of this age group on educational routes that potentially orient them to Europe beyond their national boundaries. This comparison of samples is made in paired sites with contrasting cultural and socio-political histories in terms of European affiliations and support for the European Union. The sites are: Vienna and Vorarlberg in Austria; Chemnitz and Bielefeld in East and West Germany; Madrid and Bilbao in Spain; Prague and Bratislava, the capitals of the Czech and Slovak Republics; Manchester, England and Edinburgh, Scotland in the UK. This paper examines patterns of local, national and supranational identity in the British samples in comparison to the other European sites. The typical respondent from Edinburgh and Manchester have very different orientations to their nation-state but they share a lack of European identity and disinterest in European issues that was matched only by residents of Bilbao. International comparision further demonstrates that a general correlation between levels of identification with nation-state and Europe masks a range of orientations to nation, state and Europe nurtured by a variety of geo-political contexts.
‘I Love you to the Bones’: Constructing the Anorexic Body in ‘Pro-Ana’ Message Boards
Authors: Ward Katie J.
Published: March 2010

With reference to an ‘online ethnography’ (Ward, 1999) carried out in the ‘Anagrrl’ [1] pro-anorexic (ana) asynchronous [2] web based community, I explore the radical, underground web-based pro-ana movement. The ‘pro-ana’ movement challenges established biomedical ideas surrounding the treatment of anorexia, based on the ‘normalisation’ of the body shape and weight. For participants of the pro-ana movement, the anorexic condition represents a form of stability and control: a state to be maintained. The group offers non-judgemental support and guidance in managing anorexia. Referring to feminist writers such as Bordo (1993), MacSween (1993) and Brain (2002), it is suggested that feminism enables a conceptualisation of anorexia that prioritises social and cultural discourses, which emphasise the bias in the West towards representations of female beauty focusing on the slim, lean body. Feminist approaches to anorexia have also highlighted the emotional and psychological factors inherent in anorexia and building on this integrated approach I use the data to illustrate the way in which the pro-ana movement enables the emergence of an embodied anorexic ontology and epistemology. It is suggested that the emergence and perpetuation of this group offers a model of ‘being’ and ‘knowing’ that facilitates the emergence of a coherent anorexic subjectivity. This is sustained by the development of an ‘ana-language’ and the formalisation, legitimation and validation of ana rituals and behaviour patterns.
Social Change and the Family
Authors: Harris Chris , Charles Nickie , Davies Charlotte
Published: March 2010

This paper explores the social change of the past 40 years through reporting the results of a restudy. It argues that social change can be understood, culturally, as involving a process of de-institutionalisation and, structurally, as involving differentiation within elementary family groups as well as within extended family networks. Family change is set in the context of changes in the housing and labour markets and the demographic, industrial and occupational changes of the past 40 years. These changes are associated with increases in women's economic activity rates and a decrease in their ‘degree of domesticity’. They are also associated with increasing differentiation within families such that occupational heterogeneity is now found at the heart of the elementary family as well as within kinship groupings as was the case 40 years ago. Thus the trend towards increased differentiation identified in the original study (Rosser and Harris: The Family and Social Change) has continued into the 21st century. This is associated with a de-institutionalisation of family life and an increasing need for partners to negotiate participation in both productive and reproductive work.
The Reproduction of Exclusion and Disadvantage: Symbolic Violence and Social Class Inequalities in ‘Parental Choice’ of Secondary Education
Authors: Conway S.
Published: March 2010

Following the enhancement of parental choice through the 1988 Education Act, an increasing body of educational literature, aside from describing parent wants and the implications for internal organisation and external marketing, includes criticism of it as yet another way of privileging the middle class over the working class (eg. Halstead, 1994). This paper argues that parental choice is a social field where social relations are reproduced, reinforced and mediated. As such, it is an important area for sociological study which, to date, has been neglected. Drawing on some preliminary analysis of a research study, this paper critically examines the merits of using the work of Pierre Bourdieu to facilitate a sociological analysis of parental choice. The paper concludes that parental choice is a new aspect of social reproduction that clearly demonstrates Bourdieu's explanation of the interrelation between ‘habitus’ and social ‘field’.
Codes of Cultural Belonging: Racialised National Identities in a Multi-Ethnic Scottish Neighbourhood
Authors: Virdee Satnam , Kyriakides Christopher , Modood Tariq
Published: March 2010

This qualitative study investigates the relationship between race and nation in an ethnically mixed neighbourhood in Glasgow, Scotland. It finds that Scottishness has a historically founded racialised referent at the level of the neighbourhood but that this referent is undermined in everyday life by syncretic codes of cultural belonging represented by signifiers such as accent, dress and mannerisms. However, these cultural signifiers that contest the racialised referent are, on occasions, themselves challenged by negative ascriptions such as terrorist and extremist which reinforce, though never completely, the original racialised referent of Scottishness as whiteness. We conclude that whiteness is an unstable identifier of Scottishness, and Scottishness is an unstable identifier of whiteness, such that a negative view of Islam as antithetical to imagined conceptions of Scottishness, cannot easily be sustained in areas of relatively high racialised minority settlement.
‘Are My Bones Normal Doctor?’ the Role of Technology in Understanding and Communicating Health Risks for Midlife Women
Authors: Green Eileen , Griffiths Frances , Thompson Di
Published: March 2010

Contemporary medical science is increasingly saturated with risk and uncertainty, uncertainty which health professionals are obliged to manage in everyday consultation situations, but which patients presenting with specific health problems, want resolution to. This paper provides an overview of literature concerning the medicalization of women's bodies via health interventions such as screening, including the role played by medical technologies in defining degrees and forms of risk and uncertainty which are embedded within and generated by the screening processes themselves. We draw upon an ESRC funded study into the use of health technologies in women's midlife, in order to demonstrate how empirical research can illuminate the links between screening for osteoporosis and the recommendation and subsequent decision by women to use therapies such as hormone replacement therapy (HRT). The paper explores the centrality of bone densitometry in decision-making about potential risk. Drawing mainly upon data from 24 consultations in specialist clinics, 10 follow up interviews with the women concerned and 7 interviews with linked health professionals, we focus upon the interpretation and significance of the bone scan results. We conclude that, although the technological results are open to flexible interpretation, they seem to confirm the ‘at risk’ status of many of the women. The scan results appear to assume centre-stage in the consultation discussions, leading both women and clinicians to over interpret their significance as an indicator of risk.
The British Crime Survey Sample: A response to Elliott and Ellingworth
Authors: Lynn P.
Published: March 2010

In this journal, Elliott and Ellingworth (1997)reported their attempts to assess the impact of certain sources of survey error on the British Crime Survey. This article attempts to correct some flaws in their article, to place their results in a wider context, and to provide some further - arguably more robust - estimates of the impact of non-response bias.
Seduced or Sceptical Consumers? Organised Action and the Case of Fair Trade Coffee
Authors: Webb Janette
Published: March 2010

This article brings together research on political consumerism, social movements and markets to analyse the phenomenon of fair trade coffee. It does this to demonstrate the influence of organised consumers in shaping markets, and to show that people are not inevitably individualised and seduced by the power of corporate marketing. The case of fair trade coffee is used because of the pivotal role of coffee in the global economy. ‘Organised consumers’ are treated as comprised of three inter-connecting, fluid, components: an activist core, responsible for building the campaign and its alternative trade networks; a widely dispersed alliance of civil society and social movement organisations, articulating the connections between trade justice, human rights and wellbeing; and an ‘outer edge’ of quasi-organised consumers acting as part of a largely imagined group by using economic capital to express cultural and political values. Despite saturated markets, and oligopoly among suppliers in a highly rationalised supply chain, such consumer movements have been instrumental in an emerging new trade paradigm, which has influenced the business and product strategies of trans-national corporations. The creation, and rising sales, of Fair Trade products are evidence of the role of consumers as sceptical actors, challenging consumerism and the ethics of a supply chain which impoverishes coffee farmers. Although the future trajectories of fair trade campaigns and products are uncertain, their growth indicates that people continue to draw on sources of social identity beyond that of ‘consumer’.
The Meanings of Sleep: Stories from Older Women in Care
Authors: Davis Brooke , Moore Bernadette , Bruck Dorothy
Published: March 2010

This paper analyses data from a two phase project which utilizes a mixed methods design to investigate the construct of ‘good’ and ‘poor’ sleep quality amongst older women in Australian residential care. Phase one of the study demonstrates the lack of congruence between quantitative measures of sleep behaviour and self categorizations by the participants as ‘good’ or ‘poor’ sleepers. This lack of congruence is explored in the second phase of the project where semi structured interviews investigate the process by which self categorizations emerge. Interview data ratifies the findings of phase one identifying that the process of self-categorization is not necessarily linked to sleep behaviours, as many of these phenomena such as nocturnal disruption, or early morning awakenings were similarly described by self-categorized ‘good’ and ‘poor’ sleepers. Rather, it appears that these women, through the process of upward and downward social comparison, construct ideas about ‘normal’ sleep, and it is this normative definition, rather than the sleep phenomena experienced, that the individual uses to provide a benchmark for their self-categorization of sleep quality.
‘If the Food Looks Dodgy I Dinnae Eat It’: Teenagers’ Accounts of Food and Eating Practices in Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Families
Authors: Wills Wendy , Backett-Milburn Kathryn , Gregory Sue , Lawton Julia
Published: March 2010

This paper examines how young teenagers living in socio-economically disadvantaged families perceive everyday food and eating practices within the home. From in-depth interviews with 36 Scottish teenagers aged 13-14 years, we analysed teenagers’ accounts of contemporary ‘family meals’. We found that food and eating practices were negotiated amidst complex family arrangements with extended, resident and non-resident kin. Parents were often reported to provide food ‘on demand’, a flexible arrangement which seemed to reflect both teenagers’ and parents’ lifestyles and personal relationships. Teenagers often contested the consumption of particular foods which sometimes reflected and reinforced their relationship with a biological or non-biological parent. Teenagers could differentiate themselves from others through their food preferences and tastes and food consumption therefore helped shaped their identity. Many teenagers claimed that parents set rules regarding food and eating, thereby creating boundaries within which their consumption choices had to remain. We discuss whether and how these findings are a reflection of the socio-economic status of the participating families and conclude that exploring food and eating practices is a powerful lens for the examination of family life.
White Memories, White Belonging: Competing Colonial Anniversaries in ‘Postcolonial’ East London
Authors: Wemyss Georgie
Published: March 2010

This paper explores how processes of remembering past events contribute to the construction of highly racialised local and national politics of belonging in the UK. Ethnographic research and contextualised discourse analysis are used to examine two colonial anniversaries remembered in 2006: the 1606 departure of English ‘settlers’ who built the first permanent English colony in North America at Jamestown, Virginia, and the 1806 opening of the East India Docks, half a century after the East India Company took control of Bengal following the battle of Polashi. Both events were associated with the Thames waterfront location of Blackwall in the east London borough of Tower Hamlets, an area with the highest Bengali population in Britain and significant links with North America through banks and businesses based at the regenerated Canary Wharf office complex. It investigates how discourses and events associated with these two specific anniversaries and with the recent ‘regeneration’ of Blackwall, contribute to the consolidation of the dominant ‘mercantile discourse’ about the British Empire, Britishness and belonging. Challenges to the dominant discourse of the ‘celebration’ of colonial settlement in North America by competing discourses of North American Indian and African American groups are contrasted with the lack of contest to discourses that ‘celebrate’ Empire stories in contemporary Britain. The paper argues that the ‘mercantile discourse’ in Britain works to construct a sense of mutual white belonging that links white Englishness with white Americaness through emphasising links between Blackwall and Jamestown and associating the values of ‘freedom and democracy’ with colonialism. At the same time British Bengali belonging is marginalised as links between Blackwall and Bengal and the violence and oppression of British colonialism are silenced. The paper concludes with an analysis of the contemporary mobilisation of the ‘mercantile discourse’ in influential social policy and ‘regeneration’ discourse about ‘The East End’.
Understanding the Patterns and Processes of Primary Care Use: A Combined Quantitative and Qualitative Approach
Authors: Rogers Anne , Nicolaas Gerry
Published: March 2010

This paper addresses the combined use of quantitative and qualitative methodology to understand the relationship between need, demand and use of primary careservices.

The study conducted in three different areas in the North west of England was designed to, link health status to subsequent use of health care in a waywhich might be used for service planning and the allocation of resources, and to provide data to inform a long term programme examining the relationship between need and demand for primary care. The study was in two stages, a survey and diary study designed to ascertain frequency of health care utilisation and health status of households, followed by a linked qualitative study consisting of in-depth interviews on a subset of people experiencing a range of common complaints seen in primary care. The mixture of methodologies gave a broader understanding of the dynamics of health utilisation in the localities studied. The survey and diary data showed the way in which key variables can be used to map the patterns of primary care utilisation in a population and the extent of self care actions and lay management of illness undertaken within households. We found that ill people are far more likely to use self care than professional health care services, and when they do use formal services, this tends to be in addition to self care practices. The qualitative data illuminated more about the processes of health care utilisation, particularly the way in which the past experience of illness and service contact coalesced with peoples’ more immediate decision making about using primary care services. The findings suggest that health care use is most appropriately viewed as an interplay between agency and structure rather than the outcome of ‘expressedneed’, individual decision making or ‘supply induced’ demand.
The Selectionist Paradigm: More Implications for Sociology
Authors: Marsden Paul
Published: March 2010

This paper argues that despite 50 years of empirical research, the phenomenon of social contagion is still poorly understood. Social contagion research has produced an eclectic, largely confused and jumbled body of evidence that lacks any comprehensive organising principle or conceptual framework. Whilst the great majority of this empirical research has identified and confirmed existence of the social contagion phenomenon, results have been undermined because the phenomenon itself has been variously and ambiguously defined and operationalised. This has meant that the potential radical implications of social contagion research findings for an orthodox understanding of the human individual as a rational Cartesian agent, have been largely ignored. It is suggested that the emerging evolutionary paradigm of memetics may providea novel conceptual framework for understanding and explaining the empirical phenomenon of social contagion, by understanding it as the observable action of selfish memes replicating through a population. The article concludes by proposing a memetic theory of social contagion, and ends with a call for the synthesis of the two bodies to create a comprehensive body of theoretically informed research.
Tilly's Technical Accounts and Standard Stories Explored in Financial Markets: The Case of the Istanbul Stock Exchange
Authors: Tarim Emre
Published: March 2010

In this article, I follow the lead opened up by Tilly (1999, 2002) who was interested in people's storytelling. I do so by looking at sense-making and the legitimacy narratives of market actors in the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Tilly (2006, 2008) himself walked the narrative path and investigated Why and how people give reasons and how people attribute Credit and Blame to other's actions. These books provide insights into people's storytelling in the everyday situations of the home, courtrooms, hospitals, and so on. Nevertheless, Tilly's faith in the prevalence of technical accounts as modes of explanation in intra and inter organisational settings, and superior stories as mode of communication between expert givers and non-specialized receivers, seems to ignore informational uncertainties, intra and inter organisational hierarchies and conflicts pertinent to organisations. It is these factors that push standard stories (Tilly, 1999) into the forefront at the expense of technical stories within the story exchanges of market actors. I demonstrate this by presenting a sample of story exchanges from the Istanbul Stock Exchange under situations of informational uncertainties and organisational conflicts.
The Number of the South African War (1899-1902) Concentration Camp Dead: Standard Stories, Superior Stories and a Forgotten Proto-Nationalist Research Investigation
Authors: Stanley Liz , Dampier Helen
Published: March 2010

Tilly extols the power and compass of ‘superior stories’ compared with ‘standard stories’. However, things are not always so clear cut, as the case study discussed here shows. A 1906 – 1914 research investigation headed by P. L. A. Goldman, which has initially concerned with the enumeration and commemoration of the deaths of Boer combatants during the South African War (1899-1902), and later with the deaths of people in the concentration camps established in the commando phase of this war, is explored in detail using archived documents. Now largely forgotten, the investigation was part of a commemorative project which sought to replace competing stories about wartime events with one superior version, as seen from a proto-nationalist viewpoint. Goldman, the official in charge, responded to a range of methodological and practical difficulties in dealing with a huge amount of data received from a wide variety of sources, and eventually produced ‘the number’ as politically and organisationally required. However, another number of the South African War concentration camp dead - different from Goldman's, and also added up incorrectly - concurrently appeared on a national women's memorial, the Vrouemonument, and it is this which has resounded subsequently. The reasons are traced to the character of stories and their power, and the visibility of stories about the concentration camp deaths on the face of the Vrouemonument, but their anonymity within Goldman's production of ‘the number’. Tilly's idea of an ‘in-between’ approach to analysing stories by historical sociology is drawn on in exploring this.
Neopagan Narratives: Knowledge Claims and Other World ‘Realities’
Authors: Delamont Sara
Published: March 2010

The late Charles Tilly argued that good social science required both detailed analyses of the minutiae of everyday life and of the big structures and large social processes. This paper argues that analyses of social scientists’ everyday practices, and particularly of their autobiographical narratives, are one way to illuminate the large-scale social processes that are ongoing in the social sciences. The specific focus, ethnography on neopagans, leads to a discussion of four ‘big’ questions of the type Tilly advocated. The inextricable links between academic textual conventions, the use and abuse of narrative data, and ‘access’ to the ‘realities’ and ‘knowledges’ of believers in other worldly phenomena in other dimensions or times, are explored. There has been a rapid growth in neopaganism in all the industrialised Anglophone countries since the 1960s. Ethnographers, particularly women, have conducted fieldwork in such groups, exploring the cosmologies and practices of neopagans. An analysis of the published accounts of such fieldwork raises questions about ethnography, gender, and particularly how claims to authenticity are made in academic texts. The specific topic - who can speak about neopaganism? - has wider applications when other types of narrative are explored.