News

Sam Lyle, one of our PhD students, was recently on local radio talking about the social class aspects of the recent royal engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton.  To catch up go to:    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00c3gqf#synopsis

 

Sam says "Speaking on BBC radio, local or national, is one of the more interesting ways that I get to engage people in sociological issues. It's great when events such as the impending royal wedding capture the popular imagination as it's an opportunity for sociologists to stimulate their own and the general public's sociological imagination."

Dr Eric Jensen co-organised a groundbreaking public engagement event at Durrell Wildlife Park in Jersey (Channel Islands) on the 25^th October 2010. Commissioned by the world-leading conservation society Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (www.durrell.org) and the European Commission-funded EU-Zoos-XXI project (www.euzoos-xxi.org), Dr Jensen presented on a meta-analysis of previous research on learning in zoos and facilitated the successful event. Twenty visitors spent just over five hours giving their views on how zoos could better communicate a conservation message to other zoo visitors. Their views will be analysed by Dr Jensen and form the basis of a ‘demonstration project’ in which their ideas will be put into action at Durrell through a complete re-design of educational materials in the Reptile and Amphibian House. This unique project aims to shift the direction of zoo education towards a more two-way, dialogical approach that takes account of public input and ideas to better engage visitors with wildlife conservation.

Sociology at Warwick is reaching wider audiences and increasing its global impact across the social sciences.  Professor Steve Fuller's recent lecture at the University of Uppsala on evolution vs intelligent design has been discussed on 29 September 2010 the Swedish 'thought for the day'.  For more go to : http://sverigesradio.se/sida/arkiv.aspx?programid=1165&date=2010-09-27

Here is a video clip of a field trip that members of a recently completed ESRC-funded project on ‘mimetic factors in individual behaviour’ (PI: Steve Fuller) took to the Bristol Robotics Lab, where the team examined first-hand how robots imitate each other’s behaviour. This visit helped to inform larger future projects that will explore mimetic processes in social ecologies co-habited by humans, animals and robots. The film was produced by Roger Stotesbury of ‘Jump Off the Screen’ and edited by Frances Griffiths (Warwick Medical School), an investigator on the project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxaRHcHziec

http://www.foodethicscouncil.org/node/465

Publication of Food Justice: report of the Food and Fairness Inquiry - a year-long investigation into social justice in food and farming, undertaken by a committee of respected and influential figures from across the food sector.

Dr Gurminder.K.Bhambra spoke on Wednesday 11th August on Radio 4's Thinking Allowed on Black ideas of Emancipation. You can listen to the programme here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tbgwr

Hilary Pilkington, Elena Omel'chenko and Al'bina Garifzianova

Russia’s Skinheads: Exploring and Rethinking Subcultural Lives provides a thorough examination of the phenomenon of skinheads, explaining its nature and its significance, and assessing how far Russian skinhead subculture is the ‘lumpen’ end of the extreme nationalist ideological spectrum.

Click on the link below to listen to the podcast by Professor Hilary Pilkington about the book.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/podcasts/media/?podcastItem=hilarypilkington.mp3

Dr Karen Throsby, Associate Professor, has been training to swim the channel as part of her auto-ethnographic work into sporting bodies.  You can find out more by logging on to this Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jul/19/research-extreme-sports

 

We are pleased to announce the publication of the Fourth Edition of the bestselling research methods text How to Research.  Co-authored by Professor Christina Hughes, this has been designed for first time researchers and contains everything you need to know about starting and completing a research project, writing your dissertation and beginning your PhD.

A new issue of the International Journal of Social Research Methodology (2010; 13:3) and associated text has been published by Christina Hughes and Rachel Cohen.  This explodes the myth that feminists don't use quantitative approaches in their research.  Take a look at this ground breaking work at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g922967824 Or buy the text:  Hughes, C and Cohen, R (2010) Feminism Counts: Quantitative Methods and Researching Gender, Oxford, Taylor and Francis