My previous blog concerned C. Wright Mills and The Sociological Imagination. Here I want to go back to another influential book from the 1960s, Peter Berger's Invitation to Sociology, published in 1963. While Mills was writing mainly for fellow sociologists, Berger was offering an introduction to the subject for prospective students and anyone else curious… Continue reading Peter Berger: An Invitation to Sociology
Category: social-science
Revisiting C. Wright Mills and the Sociological Imagination
Having spent much of the past year writing about research methods, I found myself returning to a book I had not read properly for many years: C. Wright Mills's The Sociological Imagination. Published in 1959, it is still surprisingly fresh, especially when Mills turns from criticising sociology to explaining how researchers should actually go about… Continue reading Revisiting C. Wright Mills and the Sociological Imagination
The Thing Around Your Neck
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer principally known for her novels and short stories while her TED talks on ‘The Danger of a Single Story’ [1] and ‘We Should All Be Feminists' [2] are widely viewed. Her most well-known novel is ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ [3] which deals with Biafran independence and the ensuing… Continue reading The Thing Around Your Neck
The Autism Curve
A series of programmes on BBC looked into the huge rise in diagnoses of autism in the UK [1]. The programmes gave space for various academics (as well as other professionals) to explain this ‘autism curve’ and speculate as to its consequences. All spoke in a balanced and open manner and you ended up feeling you… Continue reading The Autism Curve
The reporting of social science
Few studies carried out in the social sciences are reported in mainstream media so that it is always interesting to see ones that buck this trend. The latest example was a small scale study that looked at ‘how well a spectrogram can pick out voice features which would identify the speaker as being alcohol intoxicated’… Continue reading The reporting of social science
Why do some people wear a Fitbit?
I was thinking back to a conference that took place some time ago on the theme of data capture, in particular to the presentations on wearable physical activity devices or trackers [1]. These were still fairly new at the time and I quickly picked up that the people in the audience, most of whom were… Continue reading Why do some people wear a Fitbit?
The ethics of social research
I teach research methods courses and when it comes to sessions on ethics we normally go over the classics: Milgram's experiments with obedience; the Stanford prison experiment; poor Alfred and the white rat [1]. All very startling but on the whole students do not get as excited as I do. I think this is first… Continue reading The ethics of social research
Academic writing retreats: are they worth it?
The university in which I work puts on two-day writing retreat events – these are not residential but just an opportunity to work on something in a dedicated space, in the presence of colleagues all doing their own writing. I try to go to these when I can, I find I can concentrate better in… Continue reading Academic writing retreats: are they worth it?
In praise of theorising
[This entry supports a recent talk on the subject to research students] Over the last couple of years I became interested in theory and theorising in social research. I have done this not because I started with a great deal of confidence, or indeed background knowledge, of theory as a concept but, quite the reverse,… Continue reading In praise of theorising
Do the drugs work?
I was struck the other day by the reporting in the press of an academic paper on antidepressants and their impact [1]. According to these reports antidepressants were now officially verified as very effective and should be taken by more people. But was this really what the study was saying? This is the story. In… Continue reading Do the drugs work?
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