Making a difference: Amy Chapman, Neil & Gina Smith Student of the Year 2011

The School of Sociology and Criminology are delighted to see the 2011 Neil & Gina Smith Student of the Year Award go to Amy Chapman, a Criminology Major in our School. Amy was a mature entrant via an Access course and the first in her family (from Crewe) to attend university.  As well as achieving academic excellence while supporting herself financially throughout her studies, she has played an important role in 'making a difference' to the lives of other local young people.  The Student of the Year award is given in recognition of outstanding academic achievement alongside outstanding commitment to public service, citizenship and/or overcoming hardship.  Students from our School - Danielle Hughes (Criminology) and Danielle Bremner (Sociology) were also two out of the three runners' up for this award.  Congratulations to all of you.

We are particularly pleased because Amy is the THIRD annual winner from our School in the six years that the award has been running.  Previous winners from our School are Rachel Cason (nee Wiggett) and the first winner Heather Phillips.  A prize of £5000 is made and both our previous winners have made good use of the fund to continue their studies at Keele.

Alongside Matt Bedding's national award this year for his work with Keele Nightline, it is clearer than ever that our students are graduating ready to put their studies in Sociology and Criminology to good use in 'making a difference' in society.  And we also know that for every exceptional individual who receives the awards and plaudits, there are many more of you who are working away at your studies while seeking to make things better in your communities, or those of people less fortunate.  This makes us very happy, because it is often one of the key reasons people study our subjects: that you are enabled to put this into practice while studying with us is a testament to your commitment and to the relevance of the teaching programmes in Sociology and Criminology at Keele.

Ray Pahl - RIP

We were saddened to hear of the death of Ray Pahl last week, just a few days after he donated his papers to the Keele University library, as an extension to the Foundations of Sociology archive.  Ray was - among many other roles - an honorary Visiting Professor in Sociology at Keele in the last few years of his life and he worked with a number of Keele staff (in particular Graham Allan and Chris Phillipson) as well as taking an active interest in the work of Keele's staff and students.  We were very pleased that he chose to leave his papers in the archives here, which will give future scholars at Keele and beyond the opportunity to explore further the enormous legacy he left to British sociology.  I am sure there will be many obituaries and plaudits for his life, his work and his contribution to communities across Britain, but for now, we'd just like to note a gentle 'thanks' for his engagement with us.

Two Months In

By Adam Snow, PhD Candidate at Keele

So here I am two months into a 3 year PhD and already the to-do list is piling up!  I started my PhD in April, I’m undertaking a funded study into “on the spot” fines and the future of the magistracy.  Fixed penalty notices are now the primary way in which most “crimes” are dealt with, accounting for over half of all punishments given out by the state.  They are the primary way in which “ordinary” people come into contact with the justice system, either as drivers, receiving FPNs, or social drinkers receiving PND’s (Penalty Notices Disorder).   My study aims to examine both the debates about the use of on the spot fines and the theories underpinning their use.

By now I had planned to have it all worked out, the reading planned out and a very definite direction.  I was so excited when I started that I thought 3 years, pah! I’ll get this done in 12 months no problem.  And then the books and articles started piling up and you realise just how much work is involved, I’m coming to the conclusion that there is literally a book for every idea that has ever been.

You start off with a very definite idea of where you want the study to go; you have completed your masterful research proposal.  Surely it’s just a matter of following this to its conclusion.  And then you begin reading.  That’s when it starts to kick in how naive your research proposal is.  You start off thinking that this study is going to shake the very foundations of knowledge, then soon start to fear that (within about a week) you’ll be lucky if anyone but your supervisor and external examiners will want to read it!

Having worked for years prior to starting my PhD was a blessing; I am used to the early mornings and work day monotony, following the Dolly Parton day 9-5.  It wasn’t like this as an undergraduate: I had friends, we had fun; now I have books and concepts to keep me entertained!  Only 34 months to go...

One question that I keep bugging the other PhD candidates with is when does the study start to take shape, when do you really know what you are doing?  A third year candidate told me to give them a ring if I ever find out because they haven’t found an answer yet.

Having said all that I would still choose a PhD over work every day of the week and twice on a Sunday.  The freedom to determine what you do on a day to day basis is a precious liberty and one that will not be afforded to you at work!

I still count my blessings every day that I obtained this position, Keele is a wonderful place to work and study and the people are incredibly friendly.  The best tip I can give, with all my 2 months of experience, is to get a good supervisor! (I have) It makes all the difference.  I remember a friend of mine telling me how when she was training to become a surgeon her supervisor would boast how he was unhappy if he did not make his students cry at least once a day.  Luckily Dr Wells, my supervisor, doesn’t subscribe to this mantra. Well, not yet anyway.

Anyway it’s time to get back to work: there are books to read!  I’ll keep you posted throughout my study as to how things are developing.

Adam’s project is partly funded by the Magistrates’ Association, and is linked to their ongoing seminar series ‘The Magistracy in the 21st Century’. It is being supervised by Dr Helen Wells, Professor Barry Godfrey and Dr Mary Corcoran. If you are interested in Adam’s project or his experiences as a new PhD student at Keele, you can contact him at a.j.snow@ilpj.keele.ac.uk.  He is looking for volunteers to take part in focus groups or interviews later in the study, so if you have ever received “on the spot” fine he would love to hear about your experience.

Keele: (Virtually) a Top 20 place for Sociology and Criminology...

Wow. Our rating for Sociology in the Complete University guide has moved up a whole 9 places, moving us into 21st spot.  This is fantastic news and is no doubt partly due to the brilliant feedback we've been getting in the National Student Survey over the years.  Criminology (included as Social Policy - see below for why) is also in 20th place, so I think this means we can just about claim we're in the Top 20 of places in which to study both subjects.  Well, almost.

But while we're on, just a note about League Tables.  Sure, they help you decide where you want to study; sure, they tell you a bit about the places you're interested in, and their reputation.  But nothing really beats coming for a visit, talking to staff and students about what is important to you.  Our Open Days are just that: open - you can speak to staff and students of the two programmes first hand to find out what it is really like.

One of the things about League Tables that makes a difference to us here at Keele is they can never have a 'perfect' methodology.  It matters, in fact, because the clumsiness of the methodology doesn't always show us in our best light.  For example, the National Student Survey only asks you ONE set of questions; yet still many if not most of our degrees at Keele are dual honours.  Unless you've had EXACTLY the same experience in both your Schools, this fine-tuning of your views won't be reflected in your answers.  There has yet to be any form of league table or 'rating' of University courses that can adequately reflect the Keele degree properly.

In addition, people often ask about the research rating for our subjects, since it is confusing.  In some league tables you will see NO research rating for Sociology and/or Criminology.  In others you will see we end up at the top end of the ratings!   Sometimes, I've seen blogs, facebook comments and replies on The Student Room which highlight or question this. Why does this confusion arise?

Well, it is all to do with HOW research was assessed at Keele.  Most of the School of Sociology and Criminology staff whose research was included in the last Research Assessment exercise (a process by which the quality of research in Universities is measured every few years) were submitted under the heading of 'Social Policy'.  There isn't a separate 'Criminology' heading, and most of the sociologists (which was most of us) who were submitted went in Social Policy, which is quite common across the country.  I won't bore you with the reasons these choices were made but you can rest assured that ALL staff in the School are research active.  Keele was ranked 12th in the country for Social Policy - an excellent outcome- and criminology and sociology research in our School contributed to this along with research by members of other Schools (such as Public Policy and Professional Practice).

Now, some league tables have managed to reflect this complexity accurately, and have included part of the Social Policy score in their calculations for Sociology and Criminology.  But some have not.  So if it shows up a research score of 'zero', then take it with a pinch of salt.  If you want to know what kind of research we actually do, and how good it is, look at the list of books on our Facebook page, the publications and research details on our individual homepages and so on.

The real issue in the league tables though is surely how good we are as educators, how much students appreciate what they get from us when they're here, and what difference it makes to them in the long term - in terms of employability and just general life-changing experiences.  Hopefully, these rather arbitrary measures can get better at reflecting what you really get in the School of Sociology and Criminology: excellent, research-active teaching staff, who know and care about their students, teaching relevant and interesting courses that help develop you into all-round graduates.

Funded PhD studentships available in Social Sciences and Humanities

Keele University

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

World-class interdisciplinary research

PhD Opportunities and Funding 2010-11

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Science is the largest Faculty in the University and is home to world-class scholars and research groups working across a range of topics and themes. The Faculty is proud of its success in the 2008 RAE, where 85% of the research assessed was classified as world-leading and of international importance. Research and postgraduate supervision is organised through Research Institutes which support a number of major research centres. The University has made a substantial investment in an exciting new building –The Moser Centre – to support high quality research and postgraduate work in the humanities and social sciences. There is now a strong commitment to expanding postgraduate research as a vital part of the University’s identity as a research-intensive institution.

Research Institutes: research interests and themes

Humanities (www.keele.ac.uk/research/humanities)
Cultural and social history from the local to the global; Musicology since 1900 and creative applications of music technology; Literature, science and environments; literary and cultural theory; interdisciplinary approaches to life writing, Modern America and early modern and modern England.

Law, Politics and Justice (www.keele.ac.uk/research/lpj)
Politics; International Relations; Law; Ethics; Criminology; Sociology and Philosophy -with particular interests in: Environmental Politics, European Politics, Crime, Security and Justice – and multidisciplinary fields such as postcolonialism, cultural studies, globalisation, urbanisation, environmental sustainability, racism, ethnicity and migration, professional ethics, legal identity and bioethics.

Public Policy and Management (www.keele.ac.uk/research/ppm)
Economics; Education; Management; Marketing; Health Policy, and Industrial Relations with particular interests in: Ethnographic and critical management studies; Public policy and the regulation of public service quality; Work and work cultures; Gender and organisation; Managerial, organisational and inter-organisational practices; Consumption; Economics of ageing and retirement; Stability of banking systems; Microeconomic analysis, Finance and development.

Life Course Studies, (www.keele.ac.uk/research/lcs)
Social Policy; Sociology; Social Work; Social Gerontology; Applied, Social and Cognitive Psychology; Health and Rehabilitation - with particular interests in Ageing; Families and Social Relationships; Children and Childhood; Communities; Gender and Sexuality; Consumption; Health, Rehabilitation and Well-being.

Studentships Available
We have funding to support up to 30 full-time and part-time postgraduate students across the Research Institutes. Fee waivers for UK and International Students are also available. We welcome expressions of interest from well-qualified applicants who wish to be supported by Keele in making an application to ESRC or AHRC for funding for MRes or PhD programmes. ESRC Quota Awards are available in Criminology and in Public Policy and Management. Part-funded applications with the public or private sector are also encouraged.

Closing date for applications is 28th February 2010. Applicants are strongly advised to discuss their interests with the relevant Research Institute or Research Centre and Prospective Supervisors. Helen Farrell should be contacted in the first instance for advice on the most appropriate contact point h.farrell@ilpj.keele.ac.uk or ring 01782 733641.

Or - if you're specifically interested in Sociology or Criminology PhD opportunities and grants, come direct to the School of Sociology and Criminology: contact the Postgraduate contact for Sociology Dr Emma Head, e.l.head@appsoc.keele.ac.uk , or the Postgraduate contact for Criminology, Prof Tim Hope, t.j.hope@crim.keele.ac.uk , who can direct you to the right person - there are many fields of expertise which don't quite fit into the categories in the RI list above so it is always worth exploring individual staff interests more comprehensively. You can find more about potential supervisors and their areas of interest in Sociology here, and in Criminology here.

Applications
Full details and application procedures can be found on the Graduate School website: www.keele.ac.uk/gradschool

Email gradschool@keele.ac.uk or ring 01782 734368 for the Graduate School Prospectus

PhD Grant Success for Keele Sociology graduate!

We are delighted to announce that Rachel Cason (nee Wiggett) has just been awarded a prestious ESRC Studentship for her PhD. This is a real achievement for her (and for Keele) as the Open Competition awards are extremely difficult to come by and Rachel is one of only 77 students nationally to receive one in the whole of the Social Sciences in the UK.

She is just completing her Masters in Research in Sociology, taught by many members of the School of Sociology and Criminology, and prior to that she achieved a First Class degree in Sociology and French from Keele. She also won the Neil and Gina Smith Student of the Year award (the second Sociology student to do so in 2 years!) for her all round commitment to Keele University. Rachel will be supervised by Professor Pnina Werbner and Dr Dana Rosenfeld, both from the School of Sociology and Criminology. If you would like to find out more about studying at Keele, you can find information about our Undergraduate degrees, Masters' degrees or Doctoral opportunities by clicking on the links above, or you can find out about Sociology staff supervision expertise by looking up individual research interests by clicking on staff names.

Here's what Rachel herself has to say about her background and how this led to her interest in her PhD project:

I came to Keele University having lived "full-time" in England for only three years. In fact, I was close to being listed as a foreign student (which would have been of great financial inconvenience!) unless I had completed my three years residency. I was born in Niamey, Niger Republic, West Africa to missionary parents. My father worked at a leprosy project, local market, mission treasury, and as mission director. My mother homeschooled me and my sister alongside several other missionary children, and later worked as mission pastorial director - providing support and acculturation advice to new missionaries.

We lived on an African compound away from the mission compound, and my parents dressed and, in many ways, adopted the cultural habits of their neighbors. When I was 11 years old we moved to the capital, where I was enrolled in the private mission school there. It was this melange of cultures and countries that developed in me a over-whelming curiousity in how societies "worked".

Keele University was not threatened by my questions, nor did it let me get away with stereotypying or cliched "answers". Now, in my fifth year here, I have been granted the amazing opportunity to study more about people who, like me, are constantly re-defining and re-living their identities in ways that cross occupational, national, gender, race, and local boundaries. I am a Third Culture Kid but this ESRC grant will allow me to theorise this personal experience in way that is meaningful across the sociological and anthropological disciplines. I feel very blessed and challenged by this unique opportunity.

The PhD proposal: Third Culture Kids

Third Culture Kids (TCKs) are people who have spent “a significant part of their developmental years outside their parents’ culture” (Pollock and van Recken 2001). They are the children of expatriates employed by international organisations as, inter alia, development experts, diplomats, missionaries, journalists, international NGO and humanitarian aid workers, or UN representatives. The ‘third culture’ they possess is the temporary, nomadic multicultural space they inhabited as children, within an expatriate community and international school. It is distinct from their parents’ homeland culture (the first culture) and from that of the country in which they spend their formative years but of which they are not native members (the second culture). The “third culture” they claim for themselves does not unite their first and second cultures but comprises a space for their unstable integration (Knorr 2005), although how and when this is achieved remains an open question, despite some preliminary research on this group.

TCKs are situated ambiguously in current transnational and identity theory, falling outside conventional sociological and anthropological paradigms. They thus provide an opportunity to expand the relevant literatures’ current theorisation of the deterritorialisation of identity (Debrix 1998; 14, 18) the relation of identity to place (Appadurai 1990 and 1996) and the ‘new’ cosmopolitanism (Werbner 2008). The formative experiences of those who have matured outside of their country of origin are likely to shape how they negotiate their identity, roots and social relations across the life course, nationally and transnationally. For some TCKs, the only ‘home’ to which they can return is that of an expatriate itinerant. Much remains to be understood about identity formation and development as our traditional reference points of national borders begin to dissipate and citizenship becomes increasingly flexible (Ong 1999). The life histories, social relations, and identities of TCKs can thus allow for a critical expansion of current theories of diaspora and transnationalism, and of ideas surrounding double-rootedness, identity and ways of belonging in navigating cultural worlds (Werbner 2002; Levitt and Glick-Schiller 2004). The project will explore the McLachlan’s (McLachlan 2005) argument that the adaptability, perseverance and multilingualism typically developed in TCKs contribute to a cosmopolitan sensibility and therefore demonstrate TCK's growing significance to a global society.

Criminology Summer School at Grenoble, France in July 2009

Five Keele students who have been studying in Australia and five Australian students who have been studying at Keele, have successfully participated in a three-week Criminology Summer School at the Institute of Political Studies in Grenoble, France. In all, 30 students from Keele, Maribor University (Slovenia), Grenoble University, Flinders University (South Australia), Monash University (Victoria), University of Western Sydney and Griffith University (Queensland) met with lecturers from these universities for a Summer School on the theme of Security: local, global and supranational. The students heard lectures on topics as diverse as people trafficking, child sexual abuse, transnational policing, local safety councils in Slovenia and security policies in France and Italy. The Summer School concluded with a student conference at which all students made presentations.

The Summer School was part of a three-year Criminology programme funded by the EU, in which students from the seven universities named above exchanged for 6 months before all meeting up at the Summer Schools, the first two of which were held at Keele in 2007 and Slovenia in 2008. The students received full funding for the whole of the programme and have reported that it has been the experience of a lifetime. In addition to their studies, they had a great social life and have made new friends from other European countries and Australia. The top photo shows all the students and several staff; the bottom photo shows five Keele students and four Australian students who studied at Keele, with lecturers Professor Susanne Karstedt and Professor Anne Worrall. The programme has been run at Keele by Criminology staff in partnership with the Centre for International Exchange and Languages. Other Keele staff who attended the summer school were Professor Philip Stenning, Dr Annette Kratz and PhD student, Clare Jones.

Criminology and Sociology research excellence at Keele...

Staff in the School of Sociology and Criminology are delighted today to hear that their research has been rated as excellent in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)* for 2008. The large bulk of staff submitted to the RAE from the School went under the Social Policy and Administration category (covering all of Criminology and some Sociology, as well as other bits of research, for example Social Work and Gerontology). This research grouping scored one of the highest scores in the university as a whole, and nationally, Keele is ranked 12th in the country in this field. This is an excellent result for us since it means Keele is at the forefront of international research in this area, with a large number of scholars of not only international reputation (65%), but also 'world leading' in their field (15%).

In our School, we are particularly proud to have achieved this given the commitment to high quality teaching. At Keele teaching and research are interdependent and we believe strongly in both. This means that students are taught directly by experts in their fields and have access to the best, newest research. At the same time, students are still the backbone of a university and without the best efforts of committed lecturers, our joint successes in teaching quality and research would not have been possible. The School of Sociology and Criminology for example features highly in examples of good teaching practice within the university, almost all of our staff have a Higher Education teaching qualification, our student feedback is fairly consistently good (including in the National Student Survey) and our support systems are efficient and, well, supportive! One of the things that isn't often discussed in the debate about the balance between research and teaching is the way in which teaching students can really enrich and develop research ideas. Most staff in our School teach options in their specialist research areas and this means that students themselves are contributing to the body of knowledge from the university.

Of course, the area where research strength makes the biggest difference is to postgraduate opportunities. World-class staff and a supportive research culture with appropriate resources make a big difference to postgraduates. Keele has a number unique advantages for postgrads.

First, it can rightly claim its place alongside the big hitters in research in these fields and since the choice of postgraduate degree is often based on supervisor's reputation, scoring well in the RAE is crucial here. Keele is a friendly and vibrant place to be a postgraduate student with plenty of research projects ongoing and the small size of the university means it is very easy to tap into the expertise of others. To find out more about the specialist areas of the Sociology and Criminology staff at Keele, please follow the links.

Second, Keele has a well-developed research infrastructure to support postgraduates. The two Research Institutes that cover staff in Sociology and Criminology are the RI for Lifecourse Studies and the RI for Law, Politics and Justice. Each has dedicated space for postgraduates to work, meet, attend a multitude of exciting research seminars, to access funding support for research activities such as conference attendance, and provision of high quality equipment and software. Keele's Graduate School also provides important support for postgraduates, ensuring the process runs smoothly and students are provided with appropriate supervision and resources.

Third, Keele has an amazing self-contained environment. One of the most beautiful rural campuses in the UK, we have acres of parkland and woodland in which to create those big thoughts. We have fully equipped sporting facilities, cultural facilities such as the art gallery and a full programme of music events from the Bach Choir and Keele Philharmonic to big-name bands in the students union, award winning coffee shop (and some of the best cakes - and Staffordshire oatcakes - in Staffordshire!). We have our own bookshop, our own nursery, an excellent school in the beautiful conservation area of Keele village, and even purpose-built housing for staff and postgraduates, as well as undergraduates. Keele is currently establishing new developments to build on our research expertise in Environmental Science/Policy and our amazing campus resource in order to develop Keele as a landmark 'green' campus.

Fourth, Keele is a good place to be, especially if you're visiting the UK from overseas. We are less than an hour from the major cities of Birmingham and Manchester, and Manchester Airport (50 minutes drive away) is a major international hub you can fly into from just about anywhere in the world. London is just under two hours away on the fast train service. We are - literally - minutes from the M6 motorway which can get you to the Lake District within 3 hours, and Scotland within 4.5. More locally, Chester, the Potteries, the beautiful English countryside of Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire and even Wales are well within an hour.

*[The RAE is a measure of the quality of research output and research culture at universities. Every few years academic staff submit examples of their best publications and the research environment is measured by assessing how much funding for research projects staff bring in and how supportive of research the university is. ]

Good turns to excellent: National Student Survey results for Sociology

The National Student Survey results for 2007-8 have just been published and in just about every category, Sociology at Keele has shown a significant improvement. In some areas, scores have improved by 5 or 10%.

These excellent improvements for Sociology contributed to the overall 3% percentage increase in student satisfaction with Keele University as a whole. Students graduating from Keele show a satisfaction rate of 88%, considerably better than the national average.

Lecturers in Sociology are delighted that students agree strongly that staff are very enthusiastic about teaching, an excellent outcome for a research active group.

Programme Director for Sociology, Mark Featherstone said: “We’re delighted with the improvement in levels of student satisfaction. This is the outcome of lots of hard work by staff to listen to students. We are also reaping the benefits of investment in staff in Sociology over the last couple of years, which means that students get more time being taught and advised. For example, students now get more tutorial time in the first year than they did a few years back, and turnaround times for essays are getting quicker. We have also implemented improved personal tutoring systems so that students know who to turn to if they have a problem.”

Sociology student wins Student of the Year (Neil & Gina Smith Prize)

We are delighted to announce that Rachel Wiggett (Sociology/French) has won the Neil and Gina Smith Prize for Student of the Year. Rachel has been an outstanding student in Sociology achieving very high firsts in all her modules. Her dissertation challenged the distinction made by contemporary social theorists between 'the pure relationship' and the idea of 'romantic love' and drew on her strengths in both subject areas, Sociology and French. Her background as the daughter of missionaries working in Niger and her experiences of the developing world and being part of an international cohort of young people in a unique kind of transnational communityhave informed the subject of her chosen topic for study at PhD level. Rachel will be coming back to Keele next year to do the MRes in Sociology as the first step towards a doctoral degree.

This is a great accolade for the Sociology group and our students. This is the second time in only three years of this award that a Sociology student has won this prize: the first winner being Heather Phillips, who studied both Sociology and Criminology and who went on to do the Masters in Social Work at Keele.

The Neil and Gina Smith prize is a cash award of £5000 and is open to all undergraduate finalists who have made an outstanding contribution to Keele University life as well as achieving highly in their academic studies.

Welcome to the new Sociology and Criminology blog...

We hope you like the new blog. This will be somewhere to find out what is happening in the School of Sociology and Criminology at Keele University, pick up news, hear from some of your lecturers (or lecturers-to-be, if you are thinking of coming here), find out information and ask questions.

We also hope it will help to inspire you, support your learning (whether you're already studying with us or doing preparatory studies before coming to University) and sometimes perhaps make you laugh.

Please post your comments, ask questions about our courses and our School and make suggestions about the blog.