1.4.2 Struggles over the SGP The real political struggles emerged at the end of 2003 when France and Germany were called to account by the Commission for overtly breaking the 3 per cent deficit rule. The background to this dispute can be seen in the data presented in Table 3. Clearly, although the EU-15 as a whole were ke
1.2.2 Summary The EU-15/25 is a large and prosperous player on the world economic stage. It represents a continental-sized economy, able to compete with the USA and Japan (and China and India, somewhere down the line). The new EU members who joined in 2004, and those lining up to join later, are at a different level of development to the EU-15. This will pose considerable challenges for those managing and governing the n
1.1 Managing the European economy after the introduction of the Euro In many ways the introduction of the Euro both begged the question of an integrated financial system for Europe (or the Euro-zone in the first instance) and was stimulated by its own success. This success can be measured in terms of a relatively low-inflation economy and, after a shaky start, the Euro's emergence as an international currency of some repute. Thus one of the first issues to deal with in this unit is the background to the institutional changes that Economic and Monetary Union (E
Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under licence. Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit: Figure 4 Institute of British Geographers; Tube
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4.3 Summary If social researchers are to be effective in understanding people, they need to be detached from common sense (the perspective of the person on the street). However, they should not be so detached that they fall into the trap of imposing their own categories upon the object without regard for the experience of those involved (the perspective of the expert). The standpoint of the ‘stranger’ provides a way of mediating between the detached position of the scientist and the personal ex
2.2 The challenge of methods The methodological challenges facing the social sciences are best outlined in the form of a series of questions about how we should engage in research and what kind of research attitude is appropriate. Should social scientists look to the assumptions and methods developed in the natural sciences or develop their own assumptions and methods? Do the objects which we study in the social sciences, such as the self, society, the economy, i
Introduction In a complex and rapidly changing world, social scientific study examines how we produce things, communicate, govern ourselves, understand our environments, and how to solve the problems we face in the organisation of social relations and processes. This unit provides a basic overview of how social science contains deeply embedded cultural assumptions and outlines the important relationship between philosophical thinking and practical research methods in social sciences. This material
10 Further resources A very useful overview of ‘migration’ can be found in Lewis (2003). A special issue of Critical Social Policy (2002, vol.22, no.3) on ‘Asylum and welfare’ focuses on refugees, asylum seekers and migration. Kushner's The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination (1994) and London's Whitehall and the Jew (2000) provide comprehensive analyses of UK approaches to refugees in the 1930s. In such a rapidly changing area of social policy, up-to-date information and anal
9 Conclusion In this unit we have explored the mutual constitution of personal lives and social policy through an analysis of the implications of different aspects of citizenship on the lives of refugees and asylum seekers. We have seen that legislation, social policy and practice concerned with asylum have profound effects on personal lives. Crucially, we saw that the very words used to describe people, their access to welfare, rights to work, legal status and the procedures for becoming a British citize
8.1.1 What kind of evidence has been used in this unit? We have used personal stories as evidence to support arguments about the mutual constitution of personal lives and social policy. The people in our stories all came to, or stayed in, the UK primarily because they saw it as a place of safety, not because of the welfare benefits or services they hoped to receive, and we have contrasted this with dominant discourses about (bogus) asylum seekers for whom welfare in the UK is said to act as a magnet. These dominant or official discourses, echoed b
3.3 Reasons for – and effects of – nationalisms and federalisation Most of these regions had their own distinctive history and culture, often including their own ‘minority’ languages. However, there were contemporary reasons for the nationalist or regionalist resurgence, including economic and cultural problems and changes in the power and authority of central state administrations. In some cases (for example, in Ireland and the Basque Country) inspiration was derived from the example of anti-colonial liberation struggles and newly independent (often sma
2.3 Diversity within states There is no simple or necessary correspondence between types of region and types of regionalism. But clearly-demarcated and long-established regions are a more likely basis for strong regionalist or nationalist movements, while top-down regionalisation often results in regions with little popular identity or awareness of the region by its own inhabitants. Pre-existing regional diversity provides an uneven basis for regionalising a whole state. For example, regionalising the UK is relatively e
10.2 Links to external resources Here we have listed some external Scottish resources, links to which can be found within various units of the OpenLearn Scotland collection. They are intended to be useful sources of further information and to support a broader understanding of Scottish culture and identity. Â This is the official website of the Scottish Parliament, whose founding principles are openness,
8.6 Poverty in Scotland Poverty in Scotland 2007 is the fifth in a series of books which, since the mid-1990s, have provided a comprehensive picture of the extent of poverty in Scottish society. Each of these books has been charged with making accessible what is often a complex world of figures, diverse measurements, competing definitions and contrasting interpretations of poverty – and identifying what should be done to address poverty. This book is presented as a pdf and was first produced in 2006.
8.5 Who belongs to Glasgow? There are many different ways of interpreting and representing the character and identity of a place – many different geographical imaginations. Identities of places are a product of social action and of how people construct their own representations of particular places. Thus this unit explores ideas about place and identity using the concept of ‘geographical imagination’. This is achieved by examining the images that represent a place, to reveal how those images came about and d
8.4 A Europe of the regions? What role will the ‘regions’ play in the emerging governance structures of the European Union? This unit examines the rise of the regions and regionalism in Western Europe. You will look at the possible development pathways for Europe: will it become a Federal super-state or a decentralised ‘Europe of the Regions’? The unit discusses the future of Europe, and it looks particularly closely at what may happen to the smaller political units presently existing below the level of the
2.1 Overview The Scottish education system is distinctive and has a long independent history. The units within this section cover the national curriculum framework in Scotland and give examples of learning in some Scottish schools. In teachers' professional development, The Open University works with The General Teaching Council for Scotland (the independent regulatory body for the teaching profession in Scotland) to develop courses and qualifications specifically tailored to Scotland's needs, e.g.
Introduction This unit provides a further opportunity for you to take notes using audio visual material. Before continuing to watch the clips, please ensure that you have already worked through DD208_1. Use the advice and guidance that you learnt in DD208_1 to take notes on the video clip presented in this unit. Use the note taking techniques you learnt, and remember that your notes need to reflect what each video is showing. You need to identify the nature of the debates and the arguments and ident
4.2 Introducing surveillance The videos in this section will introduce you to surveillance as an idea and a practice. The main theme of these videos is how surveillance can be viewed as double-edged: it has both protective and disciplinary aspects to it. This double-edged nature of surveillance is explored through a case study of a shopping mall – the White Rose Centre on the outskirts of Leeds. You will come across a range of different evidence, including interviews with an academic, a policymaker and different users
1.1 Introducing ‘family meanings’ Wendy: What's important about being in a family? Juliet: I've got mixed feelings in a way, cause I sometimes feel they are over-rated … You don't have to be suffocated in a two parents and a couple of kids situation. To me that is not the be all and end all. … Fred: … it's the natural flow of family life isn't it. You know that you get old
