Joseph Rowntree Foundation reports on the 'forgotten' white working class.

As you may have heard me say before in training sessions, I'm a big fan of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). They publish well researched, robust and interesting reports which are highly respected by the sector. Their latest deals with the contentious issue of white working class attitudes towards community cohesion.

It may not make easy reading, but it is revealing so feel free to take a look at the full report or watch the BBC video covering the report's release.

Email is dead. Apparently.

I haven't blogged about technology for a while, but email is something that affects all of us and the latest proclamation by the inventor of Facebook predicting that email is soon to be replaced I found intriguing.

My work email regularly reaches 90% capacity (resulting in warning messages telling me to delete something  or else!), my personal Gmail account which I've had for about 10 years has over 5000 unread messages, as well as a work Gmail which exists somewhere, unloved and undisturbed.

So the news that email as a form is dying doesn't quite have the ring of truth about it when I encounter my own weight in BREO messages on a daily basis. I've had conversations with students who unsurprisingly are struggling under the sheer number of messages they receive and developing strategies to manage electronic correspondence can certainly make studying less stressful.

The evidence that emailing is on the wane is due to a decline in the number of emails sent by young people, who prefer to communicate via social networking sites. This may be true but with 3.1 billion email accounts currently live (it's expected to be 4.1 billion by 2015) email is clearly not going to be superseded any time soon.

And the irony of writing a blog post about email overkill which probably arrived to you by email is not lost on me, I assure you. My messages, as difficult as it is to admit it, cannot be separated from the overall issue.

Right. I'm going to try and get on with making those training videos I've promised you... although I suppose I'd better answer these emails first...

Topics for training videos.

I need help. This may not come as a surprise to any of you but it needs saying.

When I saw some of you in groups recently I mentioned that I was about to start making some simple training videos. Well I'm hoping to start playing with the software in the next couple of weeks. So I thought it only fair to ask you what you'd like the videos to be about?

These videos will be 'click here, now click here' style presentations. They won't be my usual 10 minute rambles about why YouTube videos make me cry, or how anonymity is killing online communication.

So what Id like you to do is put a comment at the bottom of this blog post. So to do that you'll need to visit the actual blog website which you can do by following this link. You don't have to put your name on the comment, all I want is a sentence from you about a library resource topic suitable for a 3 or 4 minute training video. It could be about access or searching or anything to do with finding resources.

Below every post I write there's a line that says 'posted by Alan' and then the time and then (usually) 0 comments. Click on the comments bit and tell me what you want.

Now if you really don't want to do it as a comment I will of course be glad of feedback via email as well. I just saw this as an opportunity to 'encourage' you to use the comments options on posts as well as the more typical email feedback.

The Criminal Brain

I was listening to the trailer for a radio show this morning on how some scientists are trying to 'cure' the criminal brain. It brought to mind the clip below from Frankenstein, where the pathologist is comparing a criminal brain with a 'normal' brain.

The radio programme, part of a month long series focusing on the human brain, is called 'Brain Science and the Law' and looks at the evidence for criminal behaviour being 'hard wired' and therefore touching on big philosophical questions relating to free will. The programme will also look into how brain scans could be used in court proceedings.

The show is on Radio 4 today (Tuesday, 15th) but you'll be able to catch it on the BBC iplayer listen again for the next week.

As someone who studied brain physiology for my psychology degree I find these ideas quite intriguing, especially when you hear debates in the media touching on criminal behaviour being passed on genetically.
Have a listen and let me know what you think?

Thinking Allowed

I'm a bit embarrassed.

I really should have mentioned 'Thinking Allowed' to you ages ago, but it kept slipping my mind. Anyway, I'm putting it right now. 'Thinking Allowed' is a programme on Radio 4 about new developments and research findings in the social sciences. When Radio 4 came to UoB a couple of years back 'Thinking Allowed' was one of the shows recorded on campus. The photo above is proof of this happening. It's fronted by the quite marvellous Laurie Taylor and if you ask me nicely I might even tell you about the time he spoke at a librarian conference I attended.
Yes, I'm afraid there really are librarian conferences.

The great thing about 'Thinking Allowed' and indeed many other Radio 4 programmes, is that there's a massive archive available online. The Thinking Allowed' archive is divided into the following searchable sections:

1. Sex and Death,
2. Politics and Economics, 
3. Work and Play, 
4. Men and Women, 
5. Crime and Deviancy, 
6. Race and Class 
7. Culture and Belief. 

There's some brilliant stuff in the archive. If you like what you hear and would like to subscribe to the podcast of the show, just email me and I'll explain the procedure.

All babies count

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) today released a report which will ruffle a few feathers. It concerns the use of 'early intervention' in cases of abuse or neglect.

As always, when approaching research, you need to think about the old favourites 'subjectivity versus objectivity'; the inherent issues of bias and what the research is actually trying to say. The NSPCC wears its heart on its sleeve - it's a charity whose primary purpose is to raise awareness of issues relating to child welfare. This clearly does not make it impartial, so your job, should you decide to include the report in an assignment, is to carefully read the methodology and make a judgement on whether it's robust or flawed.

I suspect the phrase from the report which will get the media talking is mention of a 'toxic trio' of parental risk factors - mental illness, substance misuse and domestic violence. I'd keep eyes and ears open for some lively debates over the next couple of days.

So the report is called All Babies Count and if you want to discuss any issues related to using (or indeed not using) the report in an essay, you know where I am.

A word about words.

I talk to you a lot about words; about getting the keywords right, about putting "speech marks around anything that moves", about sppelling thigs prooperly, about using keywords imaginatively and being succinct.

One issue that's come up a lot recently is the changing nature of words. Because you're all searching platforms (quick search box, database or web) of one kind or another this is an issue for all students.

Every time you search for information on a topic where the terminology changes quickly, such as race, sexuality, mental and physical illness or equality, then be aware that you might need to use search terms that are not currently acceptable. You really don't have to go far back in time before coloured replaces black or non-white, homosexual is more prominent than gay and so on.

Of course ultimately it's your choice on what keywords you choose for any search, but don't assume that just because the terminology isn't the most recent that the research is no good.

There. And I managed to get though this whole post without mentioning political correctness. Oh blast.
  

New research examining the 'NEET' problem.

It was pure coincidence, but I asked a group of students today what assignment they were 'supposed' to be working on and they mentioned an essay on the NEET (young people 'Not in Education, Employment or Training') issue.

Then this evening I was playing catch up on some listen again radio coverage and the NEET issue just happens to have been discussed in three reports on the Today programme. They're only short (about 3 minutes each) and bear in mind the links won't work forever but right now you can listen to them from here, here and here.

There's also been new work published on the NEET issue. Called 'The Forgotten Half', it examines, from a dual centre right/centre left perspective how the 50% of young people who are not destined for university are expected to cope in the short and medium term. Whilst the report isn't aiming to be objective, do bear in mind that it's coming from a political think tank. That doesn't mean you can't use it in an assignment, but it is important you acknowledge any bias in the writing style.

The unashamedly left-wing Guardian acknowledged the new report today which would suggest it's unlikely to be too far from the centre left ground.

As always, if you need help with referencing anything in assignments, just ask.