Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions). This content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence This extract is taken from D218: Social policy: welfare, power and diversity, produced by the BBC on behalf of the Open University.
Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able: identify the value and best way of note taking.
1.3.4 Databases At a basic level, a database is a collection of information which can be searched. It is a way of storing, indexing, organising and retrieving information. You may have created one yourself to keep track of your references – or your friends' names and addresses. They are useful for finding articles on a topic, and can be used to search for many different types of information. You may find some of the following databases useful for your topic. They contain different types of informatio
1.3.1 Introduction You can find a lot of information about society on the internet. To find this information you might choose to use: internet resources; search engines and subject gateways; books and electronic books; databases; journals; encyclopedias.
1.1.2 Key resources When you need to find information in society, how confident are you that you know the best places to search (e.g. search engines, subject gateways, online databases, etc.) to find the information you need? 5 – Very confident 4 – Confident 3 – Fairly confident 2 – Not very confident 1 – Not confident at all How familiar are you with journal articles
1.1.1 Assessing your current level of knowledge
If you explore all the resources and activities in this unit, you might need to allow between two and nine hours to complete it.
Before you read this guide, why not use the self-assessment questions on the following screens to rate your current level of knowledge? Print or save these questions and for each question, mark the most appropriate number on the scale. When you have finished, you can review your answers. A score of three or less might indicate a gap in your know
1 Poverty in Scotland Poverty in Scotland 2011 provides a detailed overview of poverty and anti-poverty policies in Scotland. It provides a comprehensive account of the state of poverty in Scotland, highlighting the main trends and the impact poverty has on people and places. This unit comprises a PDF document produced originally by Child Poverty Action Group, in association with Glasgow Caledonian University, The Open University and Poverty Alliance. Poverty in Scotland, (250 pages, 789 KB)
Learning outcomes By the end of this unit you have an understanding and awareness of: the measurements of poverty in Scotland; living with poverty in Scotland; groups vulnerable to poverty in Scotland; rural poverty, community-based responses, financial exclusion, local taxation, employability and health.
2.3 Watching the programme There are two main themes to consider as you watch the programme: (a) Image and identity Note down examples o 2.2 Postscript A headline-grabbing weekend of ‘midsummer madness’, when six murders occurred in (parts of) Glasgow over the weekend of 5–6 August 1995, reinforced the ongoing nature of contestation and debate about the issues discussed in the programme. As noted in The Scotsman (8 August 1995), the legacy of the imagery of No Mean City was quickly resurrected by the press – for example, ‘a darker side to that much-vaunted transformation of Glasgow from No Mean City to Culture City’ 2.1 How the programme progresses The programme takes the form of a visit to Glasgow. We talked to people and asked about their image(s) of Glasgow and whether these had changed – what was the ‘old’ image; what is the ‘new’; how has it changed; what will it be like in another ten years? The five main participants have different experiences of Glasgow and these are represented in the images which they hold and aspects of the city's character which they highlight. The themes and ideas behind the programme are al 1.3 Constructing a new image The image ‘Glasgow's miles better’ was deliberately constructed by the City Council, avowedly to make Glaswegians feel better about Glasgow but in fact largely on behalf of business. But it begged a question – ‘miles better for whom?’ Certainly, the city centre was better for shoppers and visitors and the new roads were literally ‘miles better’ for motorists, but the spiralling problems of the housing schemes provided stark counter-images. In other words, as with all images, the 2.3 Activity 1: Flora Macdonald temp – ground stewardess – office manager – accountant 4.2 Questions for review and discussion 3.2 The benefits of the new economy The benefits claimed for the new economy are mainly concerned with technological change, productivity and economic growth. Manuel Castells (2001) argues that we have entered a new technological paradigm centred around microelectronics-based information/communication technologies. The development of the internet, in particular, is said to have profound implications for the organisation of economic activity and for increasing productivity. The internet provides a new communication medium 3.1 Introduction As well as looking at the behaviour of firms and the industries and markets to which they belong, economists also engage in a different style of inquiry, thinking about what economic change means for the lives of the people involved. Once again there is a variety of interpretations and different ideas but this time they concern the desirability of economic change. What benefits does the ‘new economy’ bring and what costs, or negative effects, does it impose on people? In analysing these b 2.4 Information and communication technologies The new economy is much more than a shift from manufacturing to services and the increased integration of economies on a global scale. It is also strongly linked to the development of ICT, which has facilitated the development of new processes and products, especially ‘knowledge goods’ which are described below. The internet has increased the ‘connectivity’ or interconnectedness between economies by making textual communication possible in real time as well as providing a new me 2.2 The shift from manufacturing to services in industrialised economies There was a profound restructuring of economic activity in ‘older’ industrialised countries in the last quarter of the twentieth century from manufacturing to service activities. There are several reasons for this restructuring. First, the long-established industrialised countries such as Germany, the USA, Japan and the UK have faced increasingly intense competition as more countries have industrialised. Second, productivity, or output per worker, has increased in manufacturing industries Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able to: appreciate different understandings of the new economy; understand claims about the benefits and costs of the new economy. Introduction This unit considers four ways in which some social scientists have claimed that there might be a ‘new economy’ coming in to being: the switch from manufacturing to services, globalisation, new technology and flexible labour markets. The good and bad points of economic change, its benefits and costs, are discussed. For example, what does it mean for people trying desparately to balnace the urgent demands of work and life? This unit is an adapted extract from the course Author(s):
Activity 1: Watching the programme
Question 1
