2.1 The challenge of change We are living in a very complex and rapidly changing world. Social science does not exist in a vacuum: by its very nature, social scientific study directly considers those things in life which are close to our concerns as human beings – how we produce things, communicate with one another, govern ourselves, understand our varied environments, and how to solve the problems we face in the organisation of social relations and processes. The social sciences offer a way of dealing with all of the
1 What does the philosophy of the social science offer? Why study the philosophy of the social sciences? Before we can answer this question we need to ask briefly a whole series of preliminary questions, such as: Why do we study social phenomena? How do we study social phenomena? How does theory help us to deal with complex evidence? Which theory is the most appropriate? Which concepts are most useful for the task? How do
Introduction This course 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 course. 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 i
Conclusion This free course provided an introduction to studying sociology. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.
5 Further reading For further discussion and explanations of events in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, G. Squires and C. Hartman's (eds) There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster (2006, Routledge) brings together a series of social sciences essays and commentaries around different dimensions of the disaster. There are many books and studies detailing the evolution of council estates in Britain and focusing on the many problems facing some of the residents who live in them. Tony Par
2.2 Welfare and law enforcement The conservative focus on, and allegations of, widespread crime and social disorder were contradicted by other eyewitness accounts. In the extract that follows, two white paramedics from San Francisco talk about their experiences in trying to escape from the flooding in New Orleans across a bridge connecting the mainly black New Orleans City to the largely white suburbs of Jefferson Parish. 2.1 The shaming of America I begin our story with a case study relating to one of the most momentous episodes of environmental catastrophe in the early 2000s, Hurricane Katrina. On 29 August 2005, Katrina, a category 5 hurricane with 290 kph winds, hit the Gulf of Mexico coast of the southern USA, bearing down on the state of Louisiana and in particular on its main city, New Orleans (Author(s): 5 Additional learning resources Video resource If you enjoyed the theme of the videos in this course watch the video below to find out more about the OU course DD208 Welfare, crime and society. 5.1 How did we get here? We began this course by posing the question: what is a crime? Shouldn't we be finishing with a clear and unambiguous answer to this? Well we are sorry to disappoint you, if that is what you were expecting, but it doesn't look to us as if there is a simple, unambiguous answer. At the very least, according to Sections 1 and 2 of this chapter, there are: legal and normative definitions of crime; recorded and unrecorded crimes; the crimes we fear and the crimes that fascinate us; and stories of c Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: identify criteria to evaluate the politics of racial violence. Acknowledgements The material below is contained in chapter 1 of Economics and Economic Change Microeconomics (2006) (eds) Graham Dawson, Maureen Mackintosh and Paul Anand which is published by Pearson Education Limited in association with The Open University. Copyright © The Open University The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and not subject to Creative Commons Licence and used under licence (see terms and conditions). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources: 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 Learning to learn: Exploring learning Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: illustrate how cities can be represented as dangerous places to live give examples of the place of crime in representations of cities. Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence Course image: Author(s): 8.2 Example of a university registration data model Here is a statement of the data requirements for a product to support the registration of and provide help to students of a fictitious e-learning university. A UK-based e-learning university needs to keep details of its students and staff, the courses that it offers and the performance of the students who study its courses. The university is administered in four geographical regions (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Information about each student should be initially 7.3 Review the whole process Before you file away your assignment and return to your current study, spend a little time reviewing the whole process of preparing, exploring, implementing and reviewing your assignment. Review what you did and how you did it in each of the four phases. Trying to identify just one thing that went well and one thing that you could have done differently can help you in your future study. Remember that your review should focus on the process of the preparation 6.1 Implementing This is the phase when you complete your assignment. In some courses and for some assignments, the exploring and implementing phases may merge or overlap; in other courses, considerable exploration is needed before the actual assignment can be done. If there are several parts to your assignment, part of your planning might be to move back and forth between exploring and implementing - studying for and then completing part of the question, then returning for more study before tackling the rest 5.3 Monitoring your progress Of all the components in the learning how to learn process, this is probably the most difficult. As you study, you need to make a conscious effort to monitor your progress while working on the course, always with the main task in view. This is where a flexible plan devised in the preparation phase can be revised, particularly if you meet a difficult patch. Knowing when help is needed and where to go for it is important, especially if you discover that your learning skills need improving. Sour 2.3 Your learning history You do not need to explore this in detail - just pause for a moment and think about:
In this free course, Learning to learn: Exploring learning, we encourage you to consider two additional perspectives that can illuminate your learning. The first is the perspective that other people you know can provide; the second is the perspective that can be provided by academic theories about learning. We think that these two perspectives can help you prepare for personal change. PLEASE NOTE: this course is currently being reviewed. An updated and improved version of the course can be found
Activity 3
