Last post of the year so it's a big one.

There's been a few reports and things I'd like to mention to you before 2013 waves goodbye.

I don't usually stick different things together like this, but I thought one message might be easier on this occasion.

So the first thing is the annual report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) looking at poverty in the UK. If you're a first year this may be your first introduction to the JRF. As a word of explanation they're a charity who conduct excellent research in the areas of housing, ageing, poverty and welfare. The new report is a vast exploration of social exclusion in the UK and you can read (and save) it from here.

The second thing may be of interest for criminology students. There's been a study looking at re-offending rates which the Guardian has reported like this. I think the full thing may be out tomorrow so I'll draw your attention to it in the new year.

OK. One more. An academic called Jock Young died a few weeks back. You may have seen his most famous book on your reading list (The Drug Takers) although he's done many more recent things on criminological theory.

Here is a video of him discussing the concept of moral panic.

I'm now away until January 8th so please don't be offended if you don't hear from me until then. As fabulous as you all are I'm really looking forward to doing nothing more academic than eating cheese for a few weeks. Thank you for all your encouragement this year, I hope your Christmas break is everything you're hoping for.

Al

Second episode of Whatever Happened to Community?

I didn't intend mentioning this series again after I drew your attention to the first episode last week, but episode 2 last night was just brilliant. Such an intelligent 30 minutes of radio touching on nostalgia, architecture and far right politics and the sort of thing that Radio 4 does brilliantly.

In conclusion, do yourself a favour and listen to this.

Would you like the research to read itself to you?

You may have heard me say in the past that one short cut you can never take is with the reading. After all the clever searching, the tricks and the uses of technology, at some point you have to sit down and just read.

Well I've recently discovered that in some cases that isn't entirely true.

There are some journal articles on DISCOVER that'll read themselves to you.

Interested? Thought so.

Here's what you do:

1) Search DISCOVER as usual with appropriate keywords.

2) Select any journal articles that offer html (not pdf's) as a full text option.

3) Click on the orange play button to hear the article in a choice of accents. You can even save them as MP3's.

4) The screenshot below shows you what it should look like.

5) Don't make me regret showing you this! If I hear any stories from lecturers that students are only using articles that are html formatted I'll know why.

6) You're welcome.

Reminder of my next workshop

Hello.

I'll be in training room 1 (TR1) in the library on Wednesday afternoon from 2pm until 3pm.

You can turn up at any point during the hour and ask me questions about anything you like.
Not geography though, as I'm rubbish at it.

But anything else is fine.

New series on the nature of community

Nice quick one today, but thought this was worth sharing.

A three part series begins on Monday looking at what the notion of 'community' actually still means.

All the details are here.

Major new report from UoB on gang-related sexual violence

Two days ago a report, two years in the writing, was released on gang-related sexual violence in England. It was commissioned by the Office of the Children's Commissioner (OCC) and written by researchers working at UoB. I think it's one of the hardest hitting things I've ever read whilst I've done this job, but I'm proud to say that I work for the institution that produced it.

It details both the depth and breadth of sexual abuse that is perpetrated against young girls within the world of gang culture, featuring many hours of interviews with both victims and perpetrators. UoB reported the findings like this.

In addition there was a special report on Newsnight which is currently available on iplayer. The item (which begins 16 minutes into the show and runs for 17 minutes in total) will be accessible for another 5 days. I should also add that it includes strong descriptions of sexual and violent acts.

The full report, which is called "It's wrong...but you get used to it", is available here.

Finally, there are four films made by young people to accompany the report and they're available here.

If you have any questions at all about the research carried out then please do ask.

New report on the future of the police in the UK

Firstly, thanks to all you first years who've tolerated me showing you new things very quickly in the last few days. It'll all start to make sense soon I hope.

This post is of relevance to any of you studying criminology or law related subjects. Yesterday the Independent Police commission published the most wide ranging and in depth report on the future of policing in 50 years.

The full thing is over 200 pages long and if you're feeling brave you can find it here. Alternatively, the highlights were covered yesterday by the BBC, along with an interview from Lord Stevens who wrote the thing.

If you'd like help with how to reference something like this then feel free to email me.

My last ever post about referencing

Today has gone something like this;

Student 1: Can I reference videos?
Me: Yes.

Student 2: Am I allowed to reference websites?
Me: Yes.

Student 3: Are we allowed to reference TV progra...?
Me: YES.

Student 4: Can I...?
Me: Almost certainly.

So. Just to make this absolutely clear to all students reading this. That basically means both of you. And possibly Deena.

You. Can. Reference. Absolutely. Anything.

You really can. I once referenced Yoda from Star Wars in a social psychology assignment-got an A too. Not that I'm suggesting you can get an A purely from quoting puppets. You'll probably need some books and journals at some point, but there's genuinely nothing wrong with mixing things up a little as long as what you include is making a relevant point; YouTube, radio shows, newspapers, TV shows, emails, phone conversations, tweets, blogs and podcasts can be referenced. All you need is the correct format for each type of reference and the easiest way to find that out is to either use the library referencing guide, or get yourself a copy of this.

The key point here, as always, is to read widely from every relevant source you can find and if you do that and reference it correctly, then you'll produce good work.

Whose job is it to block images of online child abuse?

On Monday the story broke that Google and Microsoft are now actively blocking certain words and phrases from their search results. Although details of the exact words haven't been shared it's said to be as many as 100, 000 individual terms.

This led to further debates about what should happen next, the lengths that search engines should go to in preventing images from being found and some scepticism about whether the technology will even work.

The BBC reported the story like this, although the Daily Mail took a different approach and reported the story as a victory for...the Daily Mail. Personally, I think this 'victory' would probably carry more weight if they didn't carry so many non-stories about minor female celebrities turning 16.

The debate about whether the steps taken by Google and Microsoft will actually make any practical difference really begins now.

The Moral Maze this week

Just a quick plug for this week's Moral Maze which looked at foreign aid, charity appeals and whether it's better to 'look after our own'. This is a timely debate with relation to Children in Need and the current situation in the Philippines.

The show will only be available to hear via i-player for a week, but you can always download it as a podcast.

Click here to listen to it.

I am clearly rubbish at everything

When I got to work today I had a few things I wanted to achieve.
None of them were particularly difficult.
Admittedly some of the things I wanted to do I hadn't done before, but...you know what... I've been doing new things for ages now so I thought I'd be fine.

Turns out I was wrong.

I achieved precisely sod all due to a combination of technological breakdown, bad luck and my own sweet incompetence. So I reacted like any normal person would by deciding I was rubbish. Rubbish at everything. Forever.

Even buying chocolate didn't help.

Right before I finished work tonight I had another go. I was still rubbish at what I was trying to do but very slightly not as rubbish as earlier.

So here's the message of encouragement dear student. We all have days where nothing (including, seemingly our own befuddled mind) works.

Keep at it-tomorrow will be better.

Bias, prejudice, angle, theoretical approach or slant?

I have a list of personal biases and prejudices a yard long (anyone who calls football 'footie' can go straight to the top of the list for a start), but acknowledging and addressing bias in published research is a more serious issue.

Sometimes when I'm trying to explain concepts like evidence based practice or the nature of academic writing then I invent examples. Other times real world examples of an issue land in my lap and they're so perfect that all I have to do is pass it on. So here's an example of the thorny issue of subjectivity (bias?) and academic report writing.

A report was published this week by the Centre for Research and  Analysis of Migration (CReAM). If you want to read it, it's here. It's an investigation of whether immigrants are a financial drain on society or good for the economy.That's somewhat simplistic (false binary opposition social work first years?!?), but hopefully you take my point. It broadly decided that immigration was a positive economic factor. So far, so unremarkable.

However, on the same day Migration Watch (whose website is here) commented on the CReAM report as well as the new Office for National Statistics report on population (which you can read here) and recommended immediate curbs on immigration. Admittedly Migration Watch do say this sort of thing a lot, but it really struck me this time due to the timing of both statements.
Almost as if it was deliberate.

Or is that just the bias of a Guardian-reading, soft arsed liberal shining brightly?

Last night's Panorama programme on child protection

The BBC broadcast a TV programme last night looking at possible changes to the law in relation to child sexual abuse. I must admit I thought it was already illegal to not report suspected abuse, but this isn't the case.

It's available for another 6 days from here.

If, after watching it, you'd like to reference it for assignments then contact me and I'll explain how to do it.

First workshop of the year.

This is just a reminder that I'll be in TR1 from 2pm until 3pm this Wednesday 6th November to take questions/offer advice on anything you're having problems with regarding research.

The session is open to all courses and all years.

I'm not expecting 300 of you to turn up so hopefully we'll have room for everybody, but my advice is get there early as I will have to shut the doors if the numbers become unmanageable. That is unlikely, but I thought I'd better mention it.

Time to once again call in some favours...

Oh don't be like that, you don't even know what I'm going to ask yet!
Here's the thing; we're trying to work out how you use (or don't use!) DISCOVER.

So...myself and a couple of other librarians are running a full day researching the issue on Tuesday 5th November.

If you want to take part you just need to turn up in the LRC, head for the customer service desk and whoever's on there will point you in the direction of room 101b. We're running the research all day from 9am to 5pm, so if you've a free 10 minute slot (I promise it'll only take about 10 minutes to complete) at any point you can just turn up and help us out.

If you'd like to ask me anything about the research then please do email me.

Thank you.

Sharon Shoesmith compensation payout

Not that I'm particularly looking to create a heated debate here, but I'd be interested to know what you think of this one?

Some of you reading this are involved in protecting children at many different levels, although you don't need to be directly involved  in children's services to have an opinion I'm sure.

For any of you requiring a bit of background the Guardian reported the story like this.
I won't link to how the Mail reported it as my computer might melt.

If you'd like to leave a comment on the blog about the case then please do

A debate on immigration

Hello.
A few months ago I drew attention to a debate I watched online concerning whether pornography was good for society. The debate was hosted by Intelligence Squared who can usually be relied upon to come up with lively topics and entertaining speakers to argue their points.

The latest of these has just been made available and covers the pros and cons of immigration.

Once again it's 'lively' but quite entertaining and not just in a Jeremy Kyle sort of way which is a relief.

Why do journal articles have to be such hard work?

I know it can feel like that when you start reading them for the first time.
In fact it can on occasions still feel like that even in your final year. But the academics who write this stuff aren't a different species; they aren't even brainiacs remember. It's just because they've had lots of practice at writing in this particular style.

Your part in this dance between reader and writer is to learn the steps to reading journals. Which you mostly achieve with a combination of background research (you wouldn't try and drive an F1 car without having had some time in a Mini first!) from books and sheer dogged determination.

I'd also like to recommend a book that may help you get to grips with journals.

It's only in paper and we have loads of copies at the moment. The book itself is quite small, written with a very light touch and incredibly useful.

It's called How to Read Journal Articles in the Social Sciences and it's by Cho.
Chapters 4 and 5 are particularly useful I think.

Dear librarian...

...when have I got enough references?

There's three or four questions I get asked every year by every group I see;

1. Why haven't we got every book ever written?
2. Why don't you answer my emails within 10 seconds of me sending them?
3. Where do you buy your fabulous clothes?

And 4. When have I got enough references?
That's the tricky one.

The answer I give is always imprecise and maddening- "when you've got enough academic sources to answer the question originally posed". And that is the only answer I can give. The reason for this is simple in that for some assignments 10 references might do the job, whereas others may require four times that amount.

What I will say is this - if, during the searching phase, you reach the point where no matter what keywords you use you're still not finding anything new, then you've probably found everything useful already.

At that point stop looking for anything else and get on with writing the thing.

As a final piece of advice remember the 'find stuff, read stuff' suggestion.

Oh, and the answer to question 3 is Next. You're welcome.

Thinking Allowed

I haven't pushed Thinking Allowed for a while. I know I have mentioned it in the past but such a great show deserves to be mentioned more than once a year. For those of you new to the show, Thinking Allowed is a weekly radio show on all things sociological. It usually focuses on newly published research, but it's not dry in the slightest.

However, recently the show spent three weeks looking at theorists; Foucault, Goffman and Benjamin (which you can find on the website) and placing them within a historical context. The whole archive of shows are available for the foreseeable future from here.

In my opinion the easiest way to keep up with new shows is by subscribing to the podcast from here.
If you'd like any help with podcasts or in fact any other information about Thinking Allowed you've only to email me.

New report on 15 minute care visits

I was listening to the Today programme earlier and heard John Humphries talking to a housebound woman called Sally Lubanov, concerning what she currently receives as local authority care. He went on to ask her what she needs to improve her situation. The item was as a result of new research commissioned by the Leonard Cheshire Disability Organisation. They've been looking into the increase in 15 minute 'flying' care visits over the past five years.

The report is downloadable in full from here.

As for the John Humphries interview with Mrs. Lubanov and the subsequent interview with the Care minister Norman Lamb, they'll both be available for seven days via the link here.

This year's workshops

Hello.

This has only taken me about three years to sort out so...you know...I'm improving.

I've booked a whole years worth of workshops in training room 1 in the library.
They'll be every 4 weeks on a Wednesday afternoon from 2pm to 3pm.

The dates are as followed:

6th November
4th December
8th January
5th February
5th March
2nd April
30th April
28th May
25th June

It'll be first come, first serve and we'll see how it goes.

New academic year, new ways to support you.

Welcome back if you're a returner and a general welcome if you're here for the first time.

You may have noticed I've not been blogging during the Summer and that's mostly because so few of you are around. It also took me most of the Summer to tidy my desk. But now you're back so I'm returning to the blogging fray.

This is a short explanation of what I'm planning to do this year to support you.
Firstly, there'll be monthly workshops in one of the training rooms. It looks like these will be on a Wednesday afternoon but I'll let you know when that's confirmed. In addition I also want to offer online training sessions via the blog. It'll work something like a messageboard I hope.

I've also had some new ideas for inductions which involve more standing up for you and table tennis bats.

Trust me. It's going to be a fun year.

Well done.

I'd like to say a huge well done to all of you who are graduating today.

It's been fun.

New report investigating absent fathers

I've been wondering recently if my childhood was entirely typical. Not that it was idyllic or anything but more that it was fairly balanced and...well...fine really. I don't recall many of my friends at school having divorced parents or absent fathers.

With that in mind, I was genuinely shocked this morning when I read some sections of a new report from the Centre for Social Justice. It's been written to highlight the number of children who have no regular contact with a recognisable father figure and the potential effects of this. I say 'potential' because I've no intention of falling into the trap of assuming that single parent households cannot be terrifically good environments. They clearly can. However, this report does highlight an issue that's on the increase so I thought you might like to take a look at what it's claiming, both for the effects on children and the potential effects on the single mothers who are alone in bringing up children.

The full report is here.

Is the Internet making us dumber?

Or should that be dumberer? Sorry Couldn't help myself. Not funny, I know.

In previous teaching sessions I may have mentioned a book that has had quite a big impact on my thinking and learning in recent years. It's called The Shallows by an author called Nicholas Carr and looks at how Internet use can change our brain physiology.

It was in my mind again today because of a news story I'd seen on how kids prefer to read from screens than via paper resources. The methodology could charitably be described as shaky, but I thought I'd share it, if for no other reason than to give you the opportunity to look at its flaws. The BBC reported the study like this.


I also wanted to guide you towards the video I've posted here though. It's Nicholas Carr talking about the issues in his book, such as how the Internet fractures our attention, how Google ranks its results but also how it can improve hand/eye coordination.

I'm always keen to talk with students concerning the arguments surrounding attention, access and how you can make researching online less problematic, so contact me if you want to discuss any of these issues.

Why I am a massive hypocrite, by Alan Wheeler

Firstly, Alan's bit
One of the bits of my job that gives me the most satisfaction is when enthusiastic but technophobic first years leave three years later as confident, research-savvy and informed third years. If I play a small part in that transformation then I'm happy. You can't be any good at research now without at least some idea of how to use IT. Luckily for me I finished my undergraduate degree in '98, just on the cusp of when the Web became indispensable. Otherwise I would have really struggled.

Me, Eve and Alex at university

You might misconstrue this as false modesty so I've asked two friends from university to tell you in their own words exactly how bad I was at this stuff. Neither of them can frankly believe that what I do now is help other people with this stuff...


Eve's bit
What are are my memories of Alan, during the time I spent with him studying at university?
Alan was a bit 'rubbish' with technology. I'm not sure he ever successfully turned on a PC in all the time I was at uni with him. Yes, he may have sat down and tried to use one which was already booted up and ready to go. But if I'm honest, that's when the fun really started.
He had to ask how to open a document, create a new one or save one. 
I once received an email from Alan...once...and granted it began 'To Alex..." but you get the gist.
Everyone struggles from something at uni...even Alan! 

Alex's bit
You may have heard the term 'early adopter'? When we were at uni, Alan was whatever the opposite of an early adopter is. He wasn't a luddite , he wasn't resistant to change at all, it was more that when it came to IT he just let it flow round him, sweeping others along, while he stayed where he was. I know when it came to his final dissertation he managed to convince some very generous soul to type everything for him. 

I think by this point though, he had maybe seen that his days as an IT refusenik were numbered. While it lasted though, it was a sight to behold. I don't think think anyone who ever saw it will ever forget the vision of Alan lying on the floor of his room, pages of handwritten work strewn around him, literally "cutting and pasting" work.

Alan's bit again
So there you are. 
I was spectacularly rubbish at all the computery stuff and now on a good day I'm passable. 
And that's simply my message today. 
Don't give up, because the frustration is worth it in the end.

The DSM debate continues

On Friday I was listening to Radio 5 live in the morning and happened upon an interesting show concerning the diagnoses of mental disorders. The 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) has thrown into sharp relief the problematic nature of diagnosing mental illness.

The show featured psychologists, patients and psychiatrists and centred on the power relationship between the 'diagnoser' and the 'diagnosee'. It also talked about how it is for social workers to walk the line between protecting the public and protecting the individual who may have a serious diagnosis.

Whilst the show does feature other items besides mental health and diagnosis, I really do think it's worth a listen.

It'll be available until May 23rd and the show is here.

New report from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has just published its annual report. This specialist police unit monitors how well civil court orders work in preventing sex offenders from re-offending after being released from prison. The report states in no uncertain terms that the current measures fail to protect children, and suggests a simplification of what is currently on offer would help prevent further abuses.

To view how the BBC are currently reporting the issue then go here or to view the full-text CEOP report click here.

If you need help with referencing this kind of report (especially if you think it would be appropriate for a late insertion into your dissertation!) then email me as soon as possible.

Save the Children report on mothers and childbirth

Hopefully there'll be plenty of media attention given to a new report that's been published today. It's on the relative safety of childbirth across the world and provides a league table of countries, looking at survival rates for newborns.

The report's called Surviving the First Day and provides excellent statistics on midwifery provision and a whole host of related issues. If you're a CAS student this would make a terrific resource to examine, plus the attached reference section includes an extensive list of reports and statistics any student could use for researching childbirth as a worldwide issue.

The full report is available here.

Pornography and society debate at the Royal Institution

A few weeks back I heard Germaine Greer mention an event she was due to speak at. It was a debate on the positive and negative effects of pornography in society, and it has just been made available online. The whole thing is hosted by Intelligence², who have been hosting these debating evenings for a while now.

Some of you may have studied on the unit The Social Body which touches on some of these issues.

This particular debate is 'lively' and inevitably features language which is both graphic and confrontational. It also made me laugh on a number of occasions, so there is light and shade in there. My advice would be if you're likely to be offended by the content, then don't watch it.

One more thing - the debate doesn't feature any pornographic images so I think you'd be fine to watch this anywhere providing you're using headphones.

The Intelligence² website with the current debate and a nice archive of older debates (there's a good one on the current relevancy of Marxism in relation to austerity measures) is available here.

As always, if you'd like advice on how to reference anything you find on YouTube then just ask.

Time to call in some favours

I enjoy helping people.
It's why I do my job.
Well. That and my frankly enormous salary, obviously...
And I help students without asking for anything in return, because, again, that's the deal.

But now I've got a favour to ask.

I'm part of a university project who are looking at how students use DISCOVER and we need some students to volunteer for the trials we're running on the 9th and 16th of May. I reckon each student wouldn't be required for longer than 15 minutes.

So think of this as your gift for all the times I may have helped you! How's that for potentially shameless, guilt-induced participation?

If you're interested in participating on either day, email me directly and I'll explain in more detail what the study involves.

Alan

E-books on demand project is now finished

Hello.
The clue's in the title with this one.
The e-books project has now run it's monetary course, and we'll be reviewing what was bought and rented by students since Christmas over the coming months.
What I can say already is that over 1000 e-books were purchased, which is amazing and very encouraging for the long term prospects and possible future return of the project next academic year.

If you rented any titles then thanks for taking part.

BBC1 programme on the prison system.

I watched the first episode of a four part series on the prison service this week.
I didn't really intend to watch it all, but I found myself wanting to know what would happen to the individuals who featured in the show. It highlighted many of the usual issues relating to short stay prisoners; drug problems, homelessness, lack of support on leaving prison. Despite that, it was on the whole a surprisingly optimistic programme (maybe overly so?) and I'll be watching the other episodes.

Have a look here to visit the BBC website for the programme and to view last week's episode.

Psychology and Sociology; why can't they just get along?

You've probably heard me say before that I'm a psychology graduate. This supposedly gives me a psychological (as opposed to a sociological), approach to life. In reality, I'm not sure it quite works like that. In my case I was always drawn to theoretical approaches that had no problem with criticising the shortcomings of mainstream science. Hence, I found myself attracted to what's broadly known as the social constructionist approach. This standpoint suggests that language is the driving force behind everyone's wholly individual view of reality; that language actively creates reality and doesn't just describe it. This is still pretty much my view.

Psychology symbol

The reason I'm sharing this today is that I've been listening to some great archived radio shows which describe the history and impact of seminal psychology experiments. And I got to thinking about whether I should promote these shows to you. The conclusion I came to was that I should; not because I'm looking to wilfully confuse you (although I've been accused of that more than once...), but because there are occasions when it's an awfully thin line between what's defined as psychology and what counts as sociology.

The social sciences just aren't that tidy. If the family of social sciences were a real family they'd be awfully prone to getting drunk and fighting each other. The Daily Mail would label them as 'FAMILY OF SHAME'. Put it like this; if they had a party there'd be a lot of individuals not prepared to sit next to each other because of some supposed slight uttered in 1935.  

However, my reason for suggesting you look at these radio shows is simpler than that. The social sciences are partly defined by each other-to know what sociology isn't you need to know what psychology is. Also, these shows are very easy to listen to as well and feature key experiments by theorists such as Maslow, Piaget, Ainsworth and Bandura, all of whom are known as psychologists but who you've probably come across on your sociological-based course.

OK. Enough. The radio show is called 'Mind Changers' and you can find the archive of shows here. If you want to reference any of them in assignments just ask for help.

Anthony Giddens lecture

If you're not doing anything important at 1pm on the 17th April you could do far worse than go to a guest lecture by Anthony Giddens. You may well have read some of his theories previously; if you're studying sociology then you certainly should have! The lecture is due to cover a whole range of issues related to living in the 21st century, including the nature of uncertainty and the balancing of optimism and pessimism. I'm sure it'll be fascinating stuff.

I don't know how many tickets are left, but to try and book a seat you need to email Helen Connolly.
Her address is helen.connolly@beds.ac.uk

Hopefully see you there.
 

The legacy of Margaret Thatcher

I have to be careful on this one but here goes...

First thing's first; former PM Margaret Thatcher has died. You've probably heard already, but just in case I'd better make it clear what I'm talking about. Many of the reports on her death and subsequent media discussions have used the word 'divisive' to describe her. Personally I can think of no politician in my lifetime who has so elicited such profound adoration and hatred. Your own reaction to the death of Margaret Thatcher may be indifference. I strongly suspect that your reactions, should you have one at all, will be governed partly by your political leanings, your age and more personal values.

To those of you who are bemused by the vitriol and adoration which has spewed forth since her death I'd like to guide you towards just a couple of issues (with appropriate links) which occurred during her tenure.
The first of these was the Poll Tax Riots in 1990 which is widely considered to be the beginning of the end for her Premiership. In addition there was the residual anger left over from the Section 28 legislation which banned the 'promotion' of homosexuality in schools. David Cameron apologised for this undertaking in 2009.

As a student of the social sciences (I'm making an assumption here) you may well have a view on her assumption that, "there's no such thing as society". The providence of this quote has been fought over for many years, so can I suggest you listen here (fast forward to 50 minutes and 30 seconds if you want to go straight to the piece) to hear an interview with the journalist who Margaret Thatcher actually gave this quote to.

It's a fascinating insight into her values and also how words, when taken in isolation, can be used to subtly alter an intended meaning.

We have lots of books in the library on the history of British politics and Margaret Thatcher will be mentioned in all of them, which pretty much demonstrates her significance no matter you may think of her personally. I'd suggest browsing the shelves at 320.941.

If you'd like any other recommendations then just ask.

Welfare reform

I was struggling a bit to come up with one angle on welfare reform. I could have gone with any number of links to The Telegraph, The Guardian or the pointless and diverting campaign to get Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53 a week.
And then the Daily Mail did a typically vitriolic and obfuscatory job on their front page yesterday and my point became easy.

Sometimes, individual, extreme cases are used to make political points in the wider context of social policy by people who require 'evidence'.

But I would argue that Mick Philpott is no more typical of parents who claim child benefit than Abu Hamza is of Muslims.

Or Boris Johnston, David Cameron, Sir George Young, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Oliver Letwin and Zac Goldsmith are of men who went to Eton.

The big book of mental illness

The Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) is a massively important book. It's the big book of symptoms which allows psychiatrists to categorise and diagnose mental disorders.

I heard a nice 30 minute show about the history of the DSM at the weekend.
You've got 4 days left to listen to it from here.

When is a word not a word?

When Google says so. That's when.

Okay. I'll explain. Late last night I heard about a disagreement that had occurred between Google and the Swedish Language Council (SLC) and the connotations of it made my head hurt.

The story goes like this. The SLC is the body who officially decide whether a new word is added to the Swedish lexicon. They recently gave their seal of approval to the word ogooglebar which means something that cannot be found by a search engine; literally, 'ungoogleable'.
So far, so uninteresting.
But then Google got sniffy and told the SLC that they wouldn't recognise the word in their searches. The reason they gave is that didn't want Google to be a byword for all searching. However, Google hasn't had a problem since 2001 with people saying 'Googling' instead of searching, which has led to the suspicion that Google doesn't like the actual idea behind ungoogleable. It would be like the vacuum cleaner manufacturer Hoover suddenly getting uppity about the term hoovering and insisting we say vacuuming instead.

At the time of writing this the SLC has refused to change the meaning and instead have withdrawn it from their proposed list of newly recognised words. So where does this story go next? Frankly who knows, (incidentally, the Guardian covered it like this) but it has to be a worrying development in language and search technology when the search engines think they can control things to this extent.

One more thing on the nature of ungoogleable itself. I've seen a lot of dissertation students recently and most of those sessions have gone fine.
However...

Occasionally a student will meet with me and when I ask the topic they've chosen the answer will be, 'I really want to look at the issue of social exclusion in nomadic goat herders, but I only want UK research published in the last 4 hours and the authors all have to be called Kevin'. At this point ungoogleable as a word is the least of my problems, because I can already tell that this will be impossible. But how can you tell if the research doesn't exist or if it's your research skills that aren't cutting it? Or put another way, how do you spot the absence of something?

The simplest solution is if after trying various combinations of words and phrases you still aren't having any luck then contact me. I may be able to suggest something. Just don't expect me to suddenly find loads of peer reviewed, UK based research on nomadic goat herders with exclusion issues. Well not written by a Kevin anyway.

My next blog will be in about a week when I'll be getting some old friends from university to tell you how useless I was at all things technological. They're somewhat excited at the prospect.

Hope you have a great Easter.

Funding cuts to youth clubs

Heard about this story because a friend of mine who I went to university with now works in this area. She directed me to the story in the Guardian which focuses on funding cuts in Sheffield, but surely the point is that it could be any city or town in the UK. The perception is that youth clubs are seen as a soft service as opposed to core which seems a bit short sighted to me.

Anyway, the story is here and if you're studying youth work it's worth a look. In related news, Sir Merrick Cockell, chairman of the Local Government Association (LGA) has gone on record here to highlight proposed council cuts and the likely effects this will have. It also mentions youth clubs as well as adult social care, libraries and child protection services. It makes for grim reading, but many of you require figures to back up what might happen next for assignments, so I thought it worth sharing.

The future of... well everything really

In a week where my favourite news story related to something that happened over 13 billion years ago, this seemed like the perfect time to also think about the future too. I haven't blogged about technology for a while (believe it or not, some people only subscribe for the occasional tech stuff I discuss) so this seemed like an opportunity to combine the two things.

But firstly, something about history. One of the things that librarians help to do is archive the past. We do this by maintaining manuscripts and collections, providing the public with access to all sorts of materials that can be of hugely important historical significance.

If you ever wonder if these things really matter can I recommend a film I saw last year. It details how the head librarian, along with others at the national library of Sarajevo, risked their lives again and again to save history books from being destroyed during the civil war in 1992. Their bravery quite frankly is hard to comprehend. YouTube, as so often, has provided me with the opportunity to say watch the film by clicking here. I hope you'll be astounded.


Now the technology bit. I read a great piece by John Naughton recently about how nothing lasts forever. He writes about technology for the Guardian. This is what got me thinking about the Sarajevo film and how we 'protect' the past. Facebook, as it is recognisable now, won't be around in 20 years. I'm so confident of that prediction I'm prepared to write it down. Time will naturally reveal all. I also think Google will one day be confined to history books. And that's where things get interesting. Because where will those history books be stored? They won't be on Google Books because it won't be there any more. The John Naughton article reports a meeting with representatives of Google and a librarian who was involved in the Google Books project. The librarian asked them 'what happens to all these digitised books when you're gone?' They were apparently stunned by the mere idea that Google would one day not exist.

That's the thing with librarians. We tend to ask awkward questions and expect other people to know the answers. So that's what I'm going to do now. When you buy an mp3, an e-book for your Kindle or a downloaded game for your xbox, are you thinking about how you'll access it 10 or 20 years from now when the hardware has long moved on?

The John Naughton piece is here.

If you'd like to have a chat about any of these things you know how to find me.

Australia's forced adoption past.

Back in 2011 I blogged about a film called Oranges and Sunshine, which detailed the quite astonishing undercover practice of separating babies from single mothers in the UK and sending them to Australia to be adopted. The film, which must be unique as it features the social worker as a hero, is online in full from here.

I mention this again because the PM of Australia today apologised to all the women in Australia who'd had their own children taken away from them for the 'crime' of being unmarried. It is quite frankly stunning that this went on right into the 1970's. For any of you under the age of 30, the 70's might feel like a long time ago, but to me it's my childhood.

If you'd like to hear more about this issue there was an interview on the Today programme this morning between presenter Sarah Montague and Lily Arthur who's one of the women this actually happened to.
You can listen to it here.

Ignorance-based practice.

I've decided to invent a research approach.

If Dave Questionnaire and Mary Quantitative can do it then so can I. So I've decided on Ignorance-Based Practice (or IBP for short). It's partly based on closing my eyes and pointing at things and partly based on how Michael Gove appears to construct education policy.

The most important element, as opposed to Evidence-Based Practice, is that there's no good quality research available to back up any decision I make about anything I do from one minute to the next. Using evidence to make decisions is just so 2005 don't you think? It was so much better when doctors just tried things out and waited to see what happened. Sometimes people died, but not often.
Well not always anyway.
And the alternative was about sharing something called 'best practice' which frankly sounds like something Olympic athletes should be bothered about.

So until I write my book on IBP (I think 'Ignorance is Bliss' has a nice ring to it) you might have to make do with all the evidence based stuff instead. I suppose you could have a look here if you'd  like an entertaining, enlightening, explanation of what evidence based practice is.

But don't forget to buy my book when it comes out.





 

Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist

Tim Harford is one of those people who is able to make complicated things sound simple. He presents a show on Radio 4 about statistics called More or Less. There's a whole archive of shows available here and lots of the shows mention social issues which you'll have discussed in class.

The reason I'm blogging about him now is because he wrote a piece this week on migration and welfare. You can read it here and it's great.

Bear in mind it's an opinion piece; it isn't peer reviewed and it makes no claims to be objective.

The Welfare System assignment

There is a certain assignment that every year causes ASS second years some 'consternation' (for consternation read  FULL FAT, NO HOLDS BARRED TURMOIL), but I assure you it's not as bad you might think.
Think of it as a rites of passage.

Here's four suggestions to make the welfare systems assignment more manageable...

1. Don't get hung up on the phrase 'Welfare System'; if you use "Welfare State" in its place you'll probably find.some material too.

2. The 'Ebooks on Demand' project is still running. I sat with a student this week who rented two e-books for herself covering welfare, one on Nigeria and one on China and it's really helped.

3. You almost certainly WON'T find one single journal article covering the three countries you're looking for. So don't look for it. Instead do separate DISCOVER journal article searches for three countries and then compare them yourself afterwards. You'll write a better essay as a result.

4. Marketline is a database you probably won't have used before, but it has 'country profiles' which might be useful to obtain statistics on population and social provision. They're known as PEST reports which stands for Political, Economic, Social and Technological. Go here to see previous blog posts I've written about it. It's look has changed a little, however you can still search for individual countries via the geography option.

Finally, remember that 2000 words for this assignment is quite tight, so be precise in your analysis.

If you want to see me for some further support regarding this assignment be sure to contact me soon.

Find stuff, read stuff, find stuff, read stu...

I've talked to a few of you recently about the importance of having a viable system for conducting research.

One of the things I've come to realise the hard way is that searching for materials without taking the time to read along the way tends to lead to this.


The downside is that the pile of material then looks so intimidating you want to avoid reading anything.

This then leads to the thought, 'I know, I'll do some more searching instead because that's still work.' Sort of.

So my suggestion is simply this; once you've found and saved 5 articles, stop searching and read those 5 pieces. That way, you get the benefits that increased knowledge brings (mostly importantly, increased confidence, a wider vocabulary and general encouragement) and you can prune what you don't want to keep as you're going along.

Go on. Just try it.

New report on human trafficking and slavery in the UK

The Centre for Criminal Justice have become one of those think tanks that always produce interesting and well researched reports. I don't necessarily agree with their findings, hardly surprising considering they were founded by Iain Duncan Smith, but I do always make a point of reading what they put out. That said, it would be remiss of me not to mention that they describe themselves as non-partisan, and do include contributors from across the political spectrum.

Today they've published a major report on trafficking in the UK called It Happens Here. This research has taken 18 months to compile, took evidence from nearly 200 sources and is an in-depth look at the current systemic failings which have allowed the problem to grow. The police and social workers (just for a change...) do come in for particular criticism.

I can't claim to have read the whole thing - it is over 200 pages - but for any of you who are studying child trafficking this report is brilliantly well timed. You can download the whole thing from here.  Alternatively, if you fancy making do with an overview, the Observer did a pretty good job of summing up the findings yesterday.

If you've the time however always go to the original source.

Proposed changes to how child sex abuse allegations are handled

There was a major announcement yesterday by Keir Starmer, Director of Public Prosecutions, suggesting changes as to how allegations of sex abuse should be handled. Broadly this came down to potential victims being treated more seriously from the first moment allegations are made. This is clearly a hugely important issue and any fundamental changes in the perception of victims' credibility could affect any number of areas in which you may work. 

I'm old enough to remember the investigations on Orkney in the early 90's and distinctly recall the distress that dozens of families endured when children were removed without any hard evidence of abuse occurring. I've heard it said by student social workers and others how difficult it can sometimes be to do nothing, even when you've nothing but an unsubstantiated feeling that something isn't right in a family setting.

The newly proposed guidelines suggest a definite shift back towards 'let's assume potential victims are telling us the truth', which many have suggested is a clear reaction to what happened with Jimmy Savile.

The BBC covered the story in great depth yesterday so if you need some background information I suggest that's where you go. It's balanced reporting and makes the point that although many have welcomed the proposed changes, the spectre of being falsely accused can also ruin lives.

This is a tremendously difficult issue and any of you who work with children or adults in this area have my admiration and support.

The BBC coverage can be found here.    

New statistic shows the scale of forced marriage in the UK

The Forced Marriage Unit has today released figures showing it was involved in nearly 1500 cases during 2012. There was a piece on the Today programme this morning about this issue including an interview with a spokesperson from the Freedom charity who campaign against forced marriage. Listening earlier, the debate touched on issues of child protection, domestic violence, sexuality and culture; a combustible mix indeed.

If you'd like to hear the interview then it's available here and the Freedom charity website is definitely worth a look too. If you'd like more information on this issue then I'd be glad to offer some recommendations.

The National Student Survey

I know forms are nobody's idea of a good time. My wife on occasions has resorted to filling in forms for me and giving me the pen to sign my name at the bottom, just to get the things done.
Now I think of it this is probably why she has all the money.

Anyhow. Can I ask any final year students who haven't yet filled in the NSS form to please do so?
We find that as a rule the more students fill in the form, the more accurate the picture becomes as to how happy you are.
When the response rate is lower it's possible to get a false picture. A bit like when there's a low turn out in elections and UKIP end up being taken seriously. Please don't let that happen.

So get it filled in and tell us what you think. It's how we learn to improve things.

Thanks.

Dyslexia and all that.

One of the things I've learned whilst doing this job is that 50 people who have dyslexia can be as different as 50 people who have a car. Or a cat. Or an Adele CD. Actually scrub the Adele bit, but you take my general point.

The symptoms are different from person to person and so is how someone may react to a diagnosis of dyslexia. The two extremes of which seem to be shame and elation. The reaction of elation is reminiscent of someone coming out as they embrace their dyslexia with both hands (I've seen it and it is terrifically entertaining!), but those aren't the people this post is really aimed at. I've met with a few students recently who seemed quite upset by their new found status as dyslexic (personally, I prefer to say that someone has dyslexia) so to those students and to anyone who has dyslexia I'd like to say this;

You are as smart and fabulous as you were the day before your diagnosis.

Now. If you think you may be dyslexic or are interested in seeing how the university supports people with this issue, have a look here.

Women's rights in India

I'll keep this one short as I'm on holiday.

I was listening to Women's Hour this morning and it turned out to be about the protests of women in India following the much discussed gang rape of a woman on a bus.

It's very moving and you can find it here.

A green paper on education and young offenders

I saw this story in the newspaper today and thought it worth sharing.

Frankly, I'm glad to find ANY story which don't don't involve horsemeat at the moment.

Anyway. Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, is about to release a green paper proposing major changes to how youth offenders may be educated whilst in detention.

You can read the Guardian's take on the story from here. 

You just know it's one of those policy decisions that's going to create a stink, but I'll link to the green paper when it's released in a few days time.

E-books on demand update

Hello.

This is (yet) another reminder to exploit the hell out of the scheme we've currently got running whereby you can rent/buy your own e-books. We're expecting the money to last about 3 more weeks, but don't quote me on that. There will be an official announcement when the money's gone.

I've sat with a few final year students recently who've found highly relevant books for their dissertations and rented them through Dawsonera. So I can know this opportunity can really pay off.

I don't want you to miss out, in fact I'm a bit surprised that more people haven't used the scheme already; free e-books. Forever. On the subject that you want. What's to think about?????

Now go in through DISCOVER and get renting.

*whispers this bit* and remember it needs three of you to click on the same book to trigger an automatic purchase...

Troubled families online discussion

Hello.
I missed this when it was live, but it's still worth a look if you're interested in the government's 'Troubled Families' scheme. The Guardian does these 'online discussions' (a panel of experts answers questions from the general public) quite often and they're usually good value.

You can reference it of course as a webpage if there's anything in there that is worth including in assignments.

Now I've explained what it is, you can read full online discussion here.

Radio programme on Multi-agency Safeguarding Hubs

I'm a Radio 4 kinda guy.
This is hardly a revelation as I'm always pushing their output in your direction.

However, yesterday morning whilst working at home I heard an episode of Victoria Derbyshire's Radio 5 programme, and I'm very glad I did too. Amongst all the usual travel updates and news there was a long report on the development of Multi-agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASH makes such a good acronym in this case) which I'd read a little about, but didn't really know how it was supposed to work.

The programme sat in with a unit and looked at how it was created to improve communication between all the different social agencies and departments. Because it's on iplayer the programme will disappear in 6 days, but you can always download it to keep it for longer.

You can listen or download from here.

A book to help you understand journal articles

I spend quite a lot of my working week looking for books to buy for you. This can be a trawl at times because authors rarely write books on exactly the subject I'm after on your behalf. Authors are like that. They rarely do what I tell them.

But occasionally the right book gets written and I'm able to tell you about it. This is one of those occasions. If you're a first or second year (or even a final year student who should seriously know better!) who occasionally struggles with journal articles this is the book for you. It's called 'How to Read Journal articles in the Social Sciences' and may be exactly what you're looking for.

It's simply written (tick), is quite short (tick), tells you how to analyse abstracts and method sections (big tick) and has some nice tips on how to avoid going word blind when confronted with too much material. Chapters 4 and 5 are particularly useful and suggests a coding system to record what you read. 

I'm even going to tell you where it is in the library; go to the 3rd floor and find shelf 300 CHO (the author is called Chong).

What are you waiting for? Go get one...

The newly published report on Jimmy Savile

I must be honest with you. I've written two or three posts already about the unfolding Jimmy Savile story and  didn't post any of them. This was because the whole situation has made me so angry I couldn't even pretend to be dispassionate and subjective. I just find the misuse of power to exploit vulnerable people in society the most vile of crimes.

The reason I'm writing this post now is due to the publishing of the NSPCC/Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) report into Savile's crimes called 'Giving Victims a Voice'. A major finding of which is the damning claim that the victims who spoke out at the time were simply not believed. The report makes clear that Savile used his fame to 'coerce or control' his victims, but goes on to suggest that things have improved in the reporting of such incidents. That said, the report, which you can find in full by clicking here, clearly states that there is absolutely no room for complacency.

One more related point.
I've bought many books for the LRC in the last few years on Safeguarding and Child Protection.
However, with the 'E-books on Demand' project currently running, there's nothing to stop you having a look on Dawsonera and seeing what e-books you can add to what we already have.

Are you working on your dissertation?

Do you know you can order journal articles for your dissertation to which the LRC doesn't have full-text access?

Do you want to know how to do it?

Of course you do.
Here goes...

There's two parts to the process; the first bit is downloading the software from the British Library (BL) to your home PC/laptop which you can find here.

The second bit is the online form which is here.

You do need to read the terms and conditions bit too which explains how you can save it. This is important because there are some restrictions as to what you can do with the article.
The other important point is that you can order 5 articles at undergrad level and 15 articles at postgrad level, so read the abstracts carefully before ordering anything. This isn't M&S - if you don't like what you've ordered you can't swap it for another.

If you need any help with this you know where I am.

The library that never sleeps.

The library will be open from now until July. Without shutting.

This is in response to repeated requests from students for longer opening hours, so we've gone the whole hog and decided to never close. Well until July anyway. Then we'll review things again.

So if (and I do use the word 'if' with some trepidation...) you want to come to the LRC and start writing your assignment at 3am you can.
But don't expect me to be in the building to help you. I'll be at home. Sleeping. Or more likely playing Minecraft on Xbox live.
If you want to see who will be in the building look here for some more details of how it'll work.

The serious point is if any of you do start using the library at night time feel free to email me and say why it works for you. We are interested in how and why students will use the extra hours on offer. As I often say, none of you are just students; you have many other roles to juggle alongside the not inconsequential task of striving for a degree. So if these extra hours make it easier for you to fit everything in that's clearly a good thing. But try not to become purely nocturnal as keeping something back for the lectures and seminars isn't a bad plan either...

Important News: E-Books on demand is now live

It is good to be able to tell you about new developments, especially when I know it's going to potentially make a lot of people happy.

Well this is one of those occasions, so forgive me if that sound you can hear in the distance is the library blowing its own trumpet.

We've given you, dear student, a load of book money to use as YOU see fit.

Here's how it works; for a limited period (basically this means until the money runs out...) you'll see e-books on Dawsonera that you can rent, alongside the e-books that we've already bought. The screenshot below shows you how it will look.

The books that have the purple 'Request Rental' tab are the books you can rent for 7 days. The thing is, if 3 people rent the same book it automatically gets bought. Forever. Which is nice. I'm going to be visiting as many lectures as possible to promote this over the next few weeks and show you exactly how to access what's on offer, because I want you to get as much benefit as possible from the service.

That's it really. If you have any questions about E-books on Demand at this stage just ask.

Intoxication programme on radio 4

I've mentioned 'Thinking Allowed' before, the show on Radio 4 about sociology. In part because UoB broadcast the show a couple of years ago.


Well a show first broadcast on Boxing Day (oh the timing...) is an 'Intoxication special' covering binge drinking and illegal drugs. Entertaining is probably the wrong word, but it's a very illuminating and lively show covering all aspects of why and people take drugs.

The show can be heard here and I'd very much welcome your thoughts on the subject. Naturally, all communication would remain confidential.

New printers in the library.

I rarely do general library updates, but this is worth it as a quick advance note.

The library has updated its printers so from Monday you'll notice a few minor changes which will improve things. The new machines are all printers/photocopiers/scanners in one. Which is nice.

The usual help will be available if you have any questions about how they work, but I was given a quick demo this morning and it all looked pretty straightforward.

Radio programme on Evidence Based Practice

Firstly, happy new year. I hope 2013 is kind and gentle and holds the door open for you now and again.

I've a few things to blog about over the next few days, but Ben Goldacre's radio programme about Evidence Based Practice (EBP) and social policy comes first. I've mentioned Goldacre before on here; he's a doctor who writes about the importance of reliable research and good reporting of 'the facts'.

For any of you unsure of what EBP is then this show would be a great introduction. Equally, for those of you that have already studied some EBP then rest assured there's enough detail here to give you some new things to think about.

Anyway, the show is available from here on BBC radio i-player for another 5 days, so don't wait too long to take a listen.