2.1 Attempting definitions A common foundation for any academic discussion – as you may be well aware – is to start by defining the key terms. Not only may this help towards clear thinking and communication, it can also itself constitute a very significant theoretical task, since concepts make up the basic framework for developing knowledge about any subject. 1.4 Structures of power & inequalities At the same time, such judgements and responses are not just personal matters: they are also embedded in all sorts of wider and interpersonal processes of power and inequality. These processes shape social policies, professional interventions, and representations in the media, as well as underpinning everyday social interactions in family lives and relationships. If we focus on family meanings, we may not always put issues of power, material inequalities, and moral evaluations at the centre o 1.3 Exploring values and assumptions As you progress through this unit, we would like you to consider how values and moral assumptions are deeply embedded in family meanings. A central argument of the book is that ‘family’ is a notion which is suffused with values, desires and fears. This results in ‘family’ being a powerful ideal to which we may all react strongly, with regard to both our own lives and the lives of others. It is therefore very rare for people to discuss families without making judgements. Some 1.2 Core questions The idea of ‘family’ is thus very powerful, at least in the contemporary cultures of Europe and the New World. At the same time, family lives have been under constant scrutiny from all sides – from family members themselves, politicians, professionals, and media pundits. And this scrutiny does not seem to be abating, as people and governments struggle to deal with anxieties about the complexities and uncertainties of changing and diverse communities in a globalising world. H 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 t Next steps After completing this unit you may wish to study another OpenLearn Study Unit or find out more about this topic. Here are some suggestions: 5 Conclusion Photographs can be used as documentary data in the social sciences. Although they may seem to have a special relation to the events they depict, the social processes of image construction must be considered when we look at photographs as documents. Photographs are depictions of what took place, but are produced through a series of operations that must be understood in terms of their social organisation. Only by understanding these operations, their social, economic, political and psycho Family meal photographs: 1930s and 1990s 4.2 Nation and identity Yet even if photographs are an ‘evidential trace’ of the reality they depict, they are far from perfect in this respect. Because a photograph could always have been made differently it cannot be ‘the whole truth’ about something (Becker, 1985, p. 101). If we think about photographs designed to inform (i.e. rather than art photographs in which questions of truth or reality are really not at issue) it will be obvious that the photographer's choices have determined what sort of 4.1 Are photographs truthful? In this unit, we've looked at several examples of the social processes of identity construction and a number of dimensions of identity. Our discussion has indicated that we cannot try to understand the role of images through one approach alone, but need to utilise both content and context analyses. It makes sense to ask whether the same sort of approaches can be applied to other types of image. How should we analyse ‘factual’ images which deal with social issues such as Looking at the family: the 1950s Family photographs may be taken as records, for advertising purposes, or indeed as mementos. Now look at an example drawn from the 1950s (Figure 6< 3.2 Looking at the family 3.1 Photographic content and context Can we analyse photographs to tell us something valid about gender, ethnicity, class and nationality? As the wedding pictures example begins to suggest, there are traces of social facts embedded in the images, as well as evidence of the social conventions and organisational practices that underpin their production and diffusion or circulation. What will be clear is that there is no simple interpretational tool or reading skill available to us that allows us to reduce the picture to a simple f The 1990s wedding photograph Lawrence Bailey - Market Research Valedictory Lecture - slides (as PDF) Biggest Challenge for Luxury Goods Checklist - Language Assistantship Discover maths for chemists The problem with parallax The life cycle of a seed
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A pdf of the slides used in Lawrence Bailey's guest lecture on Market Segmentation, Qualitative Research and Conversations Across the Garden Wall at Leeds Metropolitan University on 27 January 2011.
Leadership lessons from the C-suite with Dr.Ulrich Bez, Chairman and Former Chief Executive Officer of Aston Martin.
Under Dr. Bez's leadership Aston Martin grew its sales more than fourfold within thirteen years, moved to a new and state of the art factory, became a globally recognized brand, returned to competitive motorsport and launched of over 20 new models.
This is a resource released as part of the E-Portfolio Toolkit based on experience of developing the “Year Abroad E-Portfolio”, undertaken by the School of Languages at Leeds Metropolitan University.
Discover Maths for Chemists is a service from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) which aims to improve the mathematical skills of chemistry graduates by providing a single point of access for UK resources designed to assist students to combine mathematics with chemistry.
Students will increase their understanding of astronomical measurements by using parallax to measure distances on their school campus. They will also gain an appreciation of the difficulties with such measurements by statistically analyzing the class' results.
This lesson integrates science into the language arts block. Students will read about plant life cycle events and then write their own books about the life cycle of a plant.