All welcome!
(Please scroll down for Semester 2 seminars)
13th October (Tues, 12-1pm – Room: TBA)
Dr Rebecca Leach (Sociology, Keele University)
‘Generation and Consumption: Insights from the Baby Boomers Study’
28th October (Wed, 4.30-6pm – Room: TBA)
Prof. Dennis Smith (Social Sciences, Loughborough University)
‘Whatever Happened to Globalization?’
11th November (Wed, 4-30-6pm – Room: TBA)
Dr Dale Southerton (Sociology, The Morgan Centre, and
The Sustainable Consumption Institute, Manchester University)
Title: TBA
24th November (Tues, 12-1 – Room: TBA)
Dr Siobhan Holohan (Sociology, Keele University)
‘Representing the Mundane in Channel 4’s The Family’
8th December (Tues, 12-1pm – Room: TBA)
Dr Mark Featherstone (Sociology, Keele University)
'Living on the Edge in the Forgotten City: Utopia, Dystopia, and
Public Housing in Northern England'
9th February (Tues, 12-1pm – Room: CBA0.007)
Globalization and its Aftermath: Towards a New Sociology of Ageing
Chris Phillipson (RI Director, LPJ and LCS, Keele University)
17th February (Wed, 4-5.30pm – Room: CBA0.007)
Title: TBA
Anne-Marie Kramer (Sociology, Warwick University)
2nd March (Tues, 12-1pm – Room: CM0.12)
Flow, Enjoyment and High-Risk Autotelic Experiences
James Hardie-Bick (Sociology, Keele University)
16th March (Tues, 12-1 – Room: CBA0.007)
Moving Images: The Practices and Politics of Displaying
Family Photographs
Mark Davies (PhD, Keele University)
30th March (Tues, 12-1pm – Room: CM0.12)
‘Don't Rush to Mush’:
Infants, Food and Contemporary Childrearing Practices
Emma Head (Sociology, Keele University)
11th May (Tues, 12-1 – Room: CBA1.099)
Locating the Past in a Shifting Present:
Re-membering and Returning to District Six, Cape Town
Michelle Rickett (Centre for Social Genrontology, Keele University)
25th May (Tues, 12-1 – Room: CM0.12)
Title: TBA
Andy Zieleniec (Sociology, Keele University)
Showing posts with label Rebecca Leach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rebecca Leach. Show all posts
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Sixties generation heading for a conventional old age?
By Dr Rebecca Leach
Dr Rebecca Leach, who led the Baby Boomers' consumption patterns research project at Keele, was in demand last week as the press picked up on the idea that the Sixties generation might not be heading for a radically different old age compared to older cohorts. Rebecca and her colleague Professor Chris Phillipson, who also worked on the project, gave nearly 20 interviews to different local radio stations, interviews for the print media and had the research featured in the national and international press and on Radio 4's Today programme. (Listen again to the segment on R4)
Dr Rebecca Leach, who led the Baby Boomers' consumption patterns research project at Keele, was in demand last week as the press picked up on the idea that the Sixties generation might not be heading for a radically different old age compared to older cohorts. Rebecca and her colleague Professor Chris Phillipson, who also worked on the project, gave nearly 20 interviews to different local radio stations, interviews for the print media and had the research featured in the national and international press and on Radio 4's Today programme. (Listen again to the segment on R4)
The baby boomers - born during the explosion in the birth rate after the Second World War - are often lambasted in the media. They have been described as the 'selfish' generation, people who have 'had it all' and are pulling up the ladder behind them. Boomers themselves (now entering their late 50s and early 60s and facing retirement) certainly recognise their 'luck': born into post-war austerity, their lives ran alongside some of the most favourable economic conditions Western capitalism has ever seen. While the boomers' parents were categorically from a wartime, 'make-do-and-mend' culture, the children born post-war grew up out of rationing and poverty into full employment, the burgeoning consumer culture focused almost entirely on giving them their own consumer category, the 'teenager'. More importantly, it was the expansion of the Welfare State that provided the crucial safety net for boomers. Propped up by a free health service, social security provision and, crucially, the expansion of the universities in the 1960s, the boomers had opportunities for health, education and social mobility that simply were not available to previous generations. The grammar school and university opened up horizons previously closed to large numbers of those from ordinary backgrounds.
In terms of consumption, the pop record and the mini-skirt were important but probably less so than the things that gave teenagers in the 50s and 60s a new sense of freedom: the public transport system, the motorbike and perhaps the coffee shop. Not only were teenagers able to spend their money freely in the shops on clothes and music just for them, they were also able to escape from parental culture and define their own spaces. The importance of consumption and style to this cohort was documented extensively in the work of the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies (the CCCS or Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies) between 1964 and 1991. Found by Richard Hoggart and later managed by the sociologist Stuart Hall (and spawning Keele's own Tony Jefferson and Paul Willis...), the CCCS publications Resistance Through Rituals (Hall & Jefferson, 1976) and Subculture: the meaning of style (Hebdige, 1979) identified the class dislocations and cultural shifts that made this cohort the first teenage subcultures.
It is tempting to speculate that what happened in the past had a formative effect on the future. Mannheim's notion of generation suggests that there are shared histories that create particular worldviews which become generational identities. Having lived through the same kinds of radical social change, indeed having pushed through some of those social changes themselves, the boomer generation ought to be showing up some of the evidence of generational culture that the CCCS thought they'd identified 30 or 40 years ago.
Our data demonstrates some 'generationality'. Certainly boomers feel their horizons were widened - they often see themselves as the 'lucky' generation: benefiting from the expansion of the welfare state in the post-war period, they had a social safety net in the social security reforms, expansion of higher education and health service that their parents had never had. The opening up of global consciousness with the advent of television and mass air travel means that boomers see themselves as cosmopolitan compared to their parents' generation. And certainly, they think of themselves as 'young' in outlook: taking responsibility for health and their bodies, caring about how they look (but not as much as they used to) and feeling more like their children than their parents, they believe they are not ageing like people used to.
But let's not forget that less than 10% of boomers have ever been on a political demonstration and only very tiny numbers now engage in the sort of 'alternative' lifestyles or politics that one associates with that generation. This just reinforces the point that while we can see some hints of generational identity, these things are often just as much about class and education rather than cohort. The retirement plans of boomers are limited: few have considered what they will do in later life, other than to keep working a bit and to keep healthy. The extent of ambition is often to spend more time with the grandchildren and do more in the garden. For some, the lure of the big trip calls; but for many, multiple responsibilities - often for adult children, for younger children (especially after remarriage) and for ageing parents - limits their horizons.
And for all the media hysteria about boomers 'SKI-ing' (spending the kids' inheritance) the reality is most of them ARE spending it, but ON the kids... Boomers are slightly more likely than older and younger cohorts to agree with the statement 'money should be spent rather than saved for an inheritance', but they are also funding their childrens' consumption, their university places, paying off student loans, supporting children's housing choices or helping out their parents. And equally, while boomers are a relatively wealthy generation overall, this is not universal: gender differences are a key point - many women 'missed the sixties' since the Pill was not available to unmarried women until 1967. This meant many women were already married and pregnant and often dependent on men's salaries by the time contraception, legislation and cultural shifts allowed women more freedom. For those women subsequently divorced and bringing up kids on their own, large numbers of them were left on low-incomes and will little pension provision.
So, yes, let's talk about the boomers as a distinctive generation. But let's look at the facts, and not base our assumptions on the people we meet. It's easy to generalise from our own milieu, imagining all the world is like us (especially perhaps if we're working for a media outlet in London and living in comfortable Chattering Class-Land in Stoke Newington).
It is tempting to speculate that what happened in the past had a formative effect on the future. Mannheim's notion of generation suggests that there are shared histories that create particular worldviews which become generational identities. Having lived through the same kinds of radical social change, indeed having pushed through some of those social changes themselves, the boomer generation ought to be showing up some of the evidence of generational culture that the CCCS thought they'd identified 30 or 40 years ago.
Our data demonstrates some 'generationality'. Certainly boomers feel their horizons were widened - they often see themselves as the 'lucky' generation: benefiting from the expansion of the welfare state in the post-war period, they had a social safety net in the social security reforms, expansion of higher education and health service that their parents had never had. The opening up of global consciousness with the advent of television and mass air travel means that boomers see themselves as cosmopolitan compared to their parents' generation. And certainly, they think of themselves as 'young' in outlook: taking responsibility for health and their bodies, caring about how they look (but not as much as they used to) and feeling more like their children than their parents, they believe they are not ageing like people used to.
But let's not forget that less than 10% of boomers have ever been on a political demonstration and only very tiny numbers now engage in the sort of 'alternative' lifestyles or politics that one associates with that generation. This just reinforces the point that while we can see some hints of generational identity, these things are often just as much about class and education rather than cohort. The retirement plans of boomers are limited: few have considered what they will do in later life, other than to keep working a bit and to keep healthy. The extent of ambition is often to spend more time with the grandchildren and do more in the garden. For some, the lure of the big trip calls; but for many, multiple responsibilities - often for adult children, for younger children (especially after remarriage) and for ageing parents - limits their horizons.
And for all the media hysteria about boomers 'SKI-ing' (spending the kids' inheritance) the reality is most of them ARE spending it, but ON the kids... Boomers are slightly more likely than older and younger cohorts to agree with the statement 'money should be spent rather than saved for an inheritance', but they are also funding their childrens' consumption, their university places, paying off student loans, supporting children's housing choices or helping out their parents. And equally, while boomers are a relatively wealthy generation overall, this is not universal: gender differences are a key point - many women 'missed the sixties' since the Pill was not available to unmarried women until 1967. This meant many women were already married and pregnant and often dependent on men's salaries by the time contraception, legislation and cultural shifts allowed women more freedom. For those women subsequently divorced and bringing up kids on their own, large numbers of them were left on low-incomes and will little pension provision.
So, yes, let's talk about the boomers as a distinctive generation. But let's look at the facts, and not base our assumptions on the people we meet. It's easy to generalise from our own milieu, imagining all the world is like us (especially perhaps if we're working for a media outlet in London and living in comfortable Chattering Class-Land in Stoke Newington).
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Britain from Above...
By Dr Rebecca Leach
The BBC's expensive new flagship documentary series Britain from Above hosted by Andrew Marr launched on Sunday 10th August 2008 with a thrilling roller-coaster ride through 24 hours of British life. It was certainly excellent, if slightly terrifying, television: what would happen if the man in charge of sorting out electricity surges when Eastenders finishes were to sneeze at the wrong moment? And should we pity the poor man who has to carry a sick bag in the helicopter while spotting flaws in the overhead wire network, taking six months to do one patch only to have to begin all over again? And, god forbid, how does London cope when a lorry sheds its load on the North Circular: would civilization end?
Actually, it probably would. To be more precise (and sociological), the programme was such great TV because it was a graphic reminder of how dependent we are on each other and on the complex systems which make things, er, go. And stop. Is it a surprise that a series reminding us of how reliant we are upon complex organisations surfaces at a time when the management of risk has become paramount? Britain - like other complex, Western societies - has been more or less quietly gearing up for what the government likes to call new threats. Yes, bombs are still real threats (and a small paranoid bit of me was watching from behind the sofa, thinking 'No! Don't show us where the important buttons are... I don't actually want the general public to know how to switch off the national grid...') but in the current climate, perhaps the more salient risks are social, economic and environmental against which we must develop 'resilience'. Dull but crucial: the road haulage system was highlighted as being the most important and dependent service for our daily well-being. One shock to this fragile system (and we've seen only short and minor ones over petrol prices lately) which leads to food and basic necessities no longer being available and civil disorder may swiftly ensue.
How depressing this situation is. Depressing, first, because our just-in-time delivery system and economic turnover relies on such carbon-heavy resources. And second, depressing because many people who have watched the show experienced it as revelatory: 'I never knew how much went on behind the scenes' they say. Hmm. So you imagined that your exercise in individual consumer choice was just that? With no other implications, dependencies, systems of provision and distribution, costs and risks? I grudgingly accept that the BBC are doing a good educational job of showing these interdependencies, but it is still awful that people don't think about what 'society' and 'economy' really are when they go about their daily economic activities.
Now, more than ever, it seems the sociologists Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens are being proved right: are societies re-ordering themselves so that relative risks become the key variables (compared to, for example, social class)? And with such high dependency on incredibly complex, technological but fragile systems as the national grid (in which high-tech solutions have to be juggled alongside cultural behaviour such as TV watching), have we truly entered a phase of reflexive modernisation (according to Beck and Giddens, in which the limits of the modern are fundamentally questioned)?
The BBC's expensive new flagship documentary series Britain from Above hosted by Andrew Marr launched on Sunday 10th August 2008 with a thrilling roller-coaster ride through 24 hours of British life. It was certainly excellent, if slightly terrifying, television: what would happen if the man in charge of sorting out electricity surges when Eastenders finishes were to sneeze at the wrong moment? And should we pity the poor man who has to carry a sick bag in the helicopter while spotting flaws in the overhead wire network, taking six months to do one patch only to have to begin all over again? And, god forbid, how does London cope when a lorry sheds its load on the North Circular: would civilization end?
Actually, it probably would. To be more precise (and sociological), the programme was such great TV because it was a graphic reminder of how dependent we are on each other and on the complex systems which make things, er, go. And stop. Is it a surprise that a series reminding us of how reliant we are upon complex organisations surfaces at a time when the management of risk has become paramount? Britain - like other complex, Western societies - has been more or less quietly gearing up for what the government likes to call new threats. Yes, bombs are still real threats (and a small paranoid bit of me was watching from behind the sofa, thinking 'No! Don't show us where the important buttons are... I don't actually want the general public to know how to switch off the national grid...') but in the current climate, perhaps the more salient risks are social, economic and environmental against which we must develop 'resilience'. Dull but crucial: the road haulage system was highlighted as being the most important and dependent service for our daily well-being. One shock to this fragile system (and we've seen only short and minor ones over petrol prices lately) which leads to food and basic necessities no longer being available and civil disorder may swiftly ensue.
How depressing this situation is. Depressing, first, because our just-in-time delivery system and economic turnover relies on such carbon-heavy resources. And second, depressing because many people who have watched the show experienced it as revelatory: 'I never knew how much went on behind the scenes' they say. Hmm. So you imagined that your exercise in individual consumer choice was just that? With no other implications, dependencies, systems of provision and distribution, costs and risks? I grudgingly accept that the BBC are doing a good educational job of showing these interdependencies, but it is still awful that people don't think about what 'society' and 'economy' really are when they go about their daily economic activities.
Now, more than ever, it seems the sociologists Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens are being proved right: are societies re-ordering themselves so that relative risks become the key variables (compared to, for example, social class)? And with such high dependency on incredibly complex, technological but fragile systems as the national grid (in which high-tech solutions have to be juggled alongside cultural behaviour such as TV watching), have we truly entered a phase of reflexive modernisation (according to Beck and Giddens, in which the limits of the modern are fundamentally questioned)?
Friday, 25 July 2008
Bring back mothers?
By Emma Head
Sociologists have long been interested in the transition to motherhood. Perhaps the best known study of this important time in a woman’s life was Anne Oakley’s work Becoming a Mother (1981), based on in-depth interviews she conducted with women in the 1970s. Earlier this month (July 2008) the Modern Motherhood conference in London focused on first-time motherhood and reported the findings of two research projects, The Making of Modern Motherhoods project led by Professor Rachel Thomson and Dr Mary Jane Kehily (Open University) and Becoming a Mother project led by Professors Wendy Hollway (Open University) and Ann Phoenix (Thomas Coram Research Unit at the Institute of Education). Throughout the day various contributors made the point that while politicians and policy documents now tend to refer to the gender-neutral ‘parenting’, this doesn’t reflect the social reality as the bulk of caring for children continues to be carried out by mothers.
This is a point taken up in a new report from the National Families and Parenting Institute (NFPI) titled Listening to Mother: Making Britain Mother-friendly. The report states that “The language of parenting has not always equalised the relationship between men and women: it has sometimes masked inequalities which have not been properly thought through or tackled”. The NFPI report goes on to argue that talking about ‘parenting’ in such a generalised way obscures the particular needs of mother, such as the needs for support services in the period immediately after childbirth. Britain has a shortage of midwives and a review of NHS maternity services has identified “serious flaws” in care, including a lack of support for mothers who have given birth. The numbers of health visitors, a group who provide support and advice to new mothers, are also in decline. The report identifies the way that the transition to motherhood has a far greater effect on the lives of women, than becoming a father has on men.
So how important is language? Is it time to stop talking about ‘parents’ and to give fuller recognition to the ways that the roles of mothers and fathers do differ in contemporary Britain. Or would an emphasis on mothers serve to perpetuate the difficulties women are facing in getting men to take on more caring tasks and also be exclusionary to those fathers who are increasingly involved in the care of small children?
At Keele, the motherhood and parenthood agenda is a hot topic: modules on the changing nature of the family and parenting relationships are on offer at levels 2 and 3 on the undergraduate programme, as well as modules on parenting and consumer culture. We also offer advanced Sociology of the Family as part of our Masters' in Research in Sociology.
In our research, there are a number of activites relating to the shaping of modern motherhood and parenting: Lydia Martens has an ongoing interest in this field, with specific reference to the ways consumer cultures shape motherhood, babyhood and children; Emma Head is also working on parenting styles and motherhood; the two of them, with Rebecca Leach, are developing a new project in this field. Lydia has recently been awarded (with Pauline Maclaran in Marketing at Keele) an ESRC seminar series on Mothers, Markets and Consumption.
Sociologists have long been interested in the transition to motherhood. Perhaps the best known study of this important time in a woman’s life was Anne Oakley’s work Becoming a Mother (1981), based on in-depth interviews she conducted with women in the 1970s. Earlier this month (July 2008) the Modern Motherhood conference in London focused on first-time motherhood and reported the findings of two research projects, The Making of Modern Motherhoods project led by Professor Rachel Thomson and Dr Mary Jane Kehily (Open University) and Becoming a Mother project led by Professors Wendy Hollway (Open University) and Ann Phoenix (Thomas Coram Research Unit at the Institute of Education). Throughout the day various contributors made the point that while politicians and policy documents now tend to refer to the gender-neutral ‘parenting’, this doesn’t reflect the social reality as the bulk of caring for children continues to be carried out by mothers.
This is a point taken up in a new report from the National Families and Parenting Institute (NFPI) titled Listening to Mother: Making Britain Mother-friendly. The report states that “The language of parenting has not always equalised the relationship between men and women: it has sometimes masked inequalities which have not been properly thought through or tackled”. The NFPI report goes on to argue that talking about ‘parenting’ in such a generalised way obscures the particular needs of mother, such as the needs for support services in the period immediately after childbirth. Britain has a shortage of midwives and a review of NHS maternity services has identified “serious flaws” in care, including a lack of support for mothers who have given birth. The numbers of health visitors, a group who provide support and advice to new mothers, are also in decline. The report identifies the way that the transition to motherhood has a far greater effect on the lives of women, than becoming a father has on men.
So how important is language? Is it time to stop talking about ‘parents’ and to give fuller recognition to the ways that the roles of mothers and fathers do differ in contemporary Britain. Or would an emphasis on mothers serve to perpetuate the difficulties women are facing in getting men to take on more caring tasks and also be exclusionary to those fathers who are increasingly involved in the care of small children?
At Keele, the motherhood and parenthood agenda is a hot topic: modules on the changing nature of the family and parenting relationships are on offer at levels 2 and 3 on the undergraduate programme, as well as modules on parenting and consumer culture. We also offer advanced Sociology of the Family as part of our Masters' in Research in Sociology.
In our research, there are a number of activites relating to the shaping of modern motherhood and parenting: Lydia Martens has an ongoing interest in this field, with specific reference to the ways consumer cultures shape motherhood, babyhood and children; Emma Head is also working on parenting styles and motherhood; the two of them, with Rebecca Leach, are developing a new project in this field. Lydia has recently been awarded (with Pauline Maclaran in Marketing at Keele) an ESRC seminar series on Mothers, Markets and Consumption.
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