SOUNDINGS最新文献

{"title":"When does a book launch become a meeting?","authors":"Leila Prasad","doi":"10.3898/soun.84-85.rev03.2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/soun.84-85.rev03.2023","url":null,"abstract":"This is an account of a discussion between Sita Balani, Amardeep Singh Dhillon, Gail Lewis and Adam Elliott-Cooper on Sita Balani's book, Deadly and Slick: Sexual Modernity and the Making of Race, offered as a means of sharing its insights and exchanges among a wider community of activists and organisers. The origin of the book was Sita's observation of two dynamics at play at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s. The first was the fracturing of British Asian identity in the early years of the 'War on Terror', as Muslim became a racialised category in and of itself. The second was the rapid rise in 'gay rights': until 2003, Section 28 had criminalised the teaching of homosexuality as a 'pretended family relationship'; in 2004, civil partnerships had been introduced. Sita recognised that the moving around of these categories of sexuality and race was not merely coincidental. To help understand this she has introduced the concept of 'sexual modernity', which also has two parts: the promise of self-realisation through the pursuit of romantic love, the nuclear family and sexual adventure, and then - what 'stalks' this possibility - all of the sexual conduct and sexual practice that is disavowed and excluded from this. The book charts the state's racial taxonomies alongside its mobilisation of categories of sexuality and gender, in both the historical colonial context and the contemporary imperial centre. Panellists discussed some of the contradictions of these developments. These included the inclusion of police officers in the Gay Pride parade; moral panics about - and violence against - asylum seekers and drag queens; the 'problem' of the Black boy being attributed to not-enough-patriarchy, while for South Asian Muslim women it is a question of too-much-patriarchy; in an historical context, sexual violence being the norm in Jamaica but a source of paranoia in the colony of India. Through showing us the field of battle and its character, Sita gives us a tool with which to help build aligned constituencies of opposition and vision","PeriodicalId":45378,"journal":{"name":"SOUNDINGS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136360574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A university in Buxton - a place of extinguished chances or a promise delayed?","authors":"David Davies","doi":"10.3898/soun.84-85.04.2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/soun.84-85.04.2023","url":null,"abstract":"The University of Derby opened a new university campus in Buxton in 2000. The aim was to produce a socially desirable outcome - better prospects for jobs and lives, and more freedom through learning. The university would help people overcome limits on their lives by openly examining them: the true purpose of education. It represented a challenge to the neoliberal idea that the vitally important social and economic function of learning could be left to market forces. Like many former industrial centres, the town needed to re-invent itself and find creative ways to adapt to the new economic realities. Buxton was different from almost anywhere else in the UK because it offered further and higher education on a single campus, with a unified staffing structure and a single academic management. It offered vocational degrees such as Tourism and Hospitality, Outdoor Pursuits and further education teacher training. In November 2019, however, it was announced that all HE courses at the campus would be closed. The story of this abrupt volte face raises many questions about the way higher education is run in the UK today. The decision was made as if the central university was a business with different cost centres. The article explores the background to this story: it covers wider issues such the chaotic marketisation of higher education, which appeared to offer choice but in fact was managed in such a way as to privileged existing elite institutions; the rules of a numbers game that favoured approaches based on conservatism and corporate uniformity, so that campuses are no longer able to reflect the diversity of our communities; the running of universities as businesses, so that educational concerns are excluded from decision–making; the centralisation of control by those who restrict to themselves the ability to collect and analyse the metrics which are used to legitimise and justify decisions; and the arbitrary power of Vice Chancellors. Ultimately, the closure was the result of a management system that was no longer commensurate with the university's stated commitment to the opening up of higher education to a wider range of people.","PeriodicalId":45378,"journal":{"name":"SOUNDINGS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136360575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Starmer's scuffle to the Siege of Ottawa: the resistible rise of the anti-vaxxers","authors":"Steve Iliffe, Jill Manthorpe","doi":"10.3898/soun.84-85.14.2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/soun.84-85.14.2023","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses the energy and aggressiveness of the campaigns against mitigating transmission of Covid-19 during the pandemic, and especially against vaccination. These campaigns have brought anti-vaxx sentiments into the limelight with a vengeance. The aim of the article is to seek a better understanding of the forms that the contemporary anti-vaxx movements can take and what is fuelling them. It has three parts. The first describes recent anti-vaxxer actions in the UK, France, Austria and Canada, highlighting the siege of Ottawa. The second part draws on the history of anti-vaxx movements in the UK and the USA for insights into their militancy; and in the third part there is an exploration of ideas about what makes anti-vaxx platforms so attractive and who is drawn towards them. Countering anti-vaxxer propaganda requires an understanding of the pathways by which the information spreads. False narratives will move from anti-vaccine echo chambers to mass audiences via social-media sharing, as well as coverage in local and mainstream media. Countering this misinformation all along the pathway requires a whole-of–society effort that is multifaceted, tolerant of short-term setbacks, and persistent even in challenging conditions. The NHS faces the whole of society. Could it, in its present state, be the vehicle for engaging the anti-vaxxer movements?","PeriodicalId":45378,"journal":{"name":"SOUNDINGS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136360580","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Higher education policy and a future Labour government: distinguishing the probable from the possible","authors":"Howard Stevenson","doi":"10.3898/soun.84-85.12.2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/soun.84-85.12.2023","url":null,"abstract":"There is now the very real possibility of a change of UK government before the end of next year. This articles looks for clues as to what a Labour led government might mean for the higher education sector, at a time when substantial and radical change is desperately needed. It seems that Labour's approach to the university sector will be dominated by a focus on the economic role of higher education, combined with a fiscal conservatism that will further undermine more radical options. A longer-term transformative project remains a possibility, but its proponents must look beyond the lifetime of the next government. The realisation of any aspirational project for change will depend on the development of a broad and progressive alliance that is able to articulate, and organise around, a more hopeful and optimistic vision of the public university. There is potential for such a movement to emerge from the current industrial disputes in the sector, which have clearly exposed the limitations of the neoliberal university; but such a movement must also transcend any tendency to a narrow economism and link to a much broader political agenda","PeriodicalId":45378,"journal":{"name":"SOUNDINGS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136361159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The reflections of a health-practitioner on entering academia","authors":"Amy Morton","doi":"10.3898/soun.84-85.05.2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/soun.84-85.05.2023","url":null,"abstract":"This personal and experiential account reflects on the transition the author has made from working as a midwife and health visitor to becoming a clinical academic within a university setting. This was a shift between a profession with a very clear sense of itself and one where there are a large number of spoken and unspoken issues - of status, professionalism, class, gender, to name a few. These can reinforce a sense of imposter syndrome among people whose trajectories into academia have not been traditional and unilinear. A commonly-shared difficulty in internalising academic success, reinforced by dominant ideas about what academics are/should be like, is embedded in the institutional discourses that circulate in academic environments, particularly for working-class academics. 'First in family' students are much less likely to attend a Russell Group university, and are also more likely to drop out; and this filter means that many fewer become academics. Certain subjects are also perceived as being of higher value; for example English Literature is held in higher esteem than a vocational course such as nursing. Indeed, this notion of being 'lesser than' also applies to higher education institutions: the author's place of work, Birmingham City University, with its roots in a former polytechnic, is supposedly inferior to its geographical neighbour, the University of Birmingham. In reflecting on the current neoliberal landscape in HE, the author argues that a recognition of the equal value of vocational courses is urgently required - for students, for academics, and for the future of the whole sector. There is also discussion of the usefulness of the pedagogy of vocational training for other areas of teaching. The article includes an exploration of some of the wider problems in the current neoliberal higher education landscape. It also discusses another, more particular, source for a personal sense of dissonance for HE academics in this field. The narrative from the university is that students are customers: they pay considerable fees to complete the course and should leave with a degree and a professional qualification. Academic regulations are skewed towards delivering a commodity to the students, sometimes to the detriment of what is surely the key priority - to ensure that future practitioners are qualified, and possess the skills and attributes necessary to deliver safe, patient-centred care.","PeriodicalId":45378,"journal":{"name":"SOUNDINGS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136360216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Class politics","authors":"David Byrne","doi":"10.3898/soun.84-85.rev02.2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/soun.84-85.rev02.2023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45378,"journal":{"name":"SOUNDINGS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136360437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"If we are to fix the education crisis the dominant ideological approach must be changed","authors":"Stuart Cartland","doi":"10.3898/soun.84-85.10.2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/soun.84-85.10.2023","url":null,"abstract":"The dominant discourse around education in the UK has to be challenged. We need to rethink the aims of education, so that it is seen as a public good for society and a democratic right for students: equal access to higher education should be seen as a central aim of an equal and democratic society. This requires a shift away from the idea of students as consumers, acquiring qualification assets for themselves and skills that the labour market needs. Before we can think about specific policy solutions there needs to be a fundamental ideological, philosophical and discursive shift in how education is viewed within society, including its very purpose. Education is not about 'investing in one's future'. The monetisation of education and the implementation of taken-for-granted ideological approaches to education have been an unmitigated disaster, judged by any key metrics for those involved; there have been increased strikes, a high turnover of staff, plummeting morale, student disengagement, and a huge increase in attainment inequality rates. Education has the potential to be a motor for egalitarian change within society, yet if we do not challenge the currently hegemonic neoliberal narrative, its potential will never be realised","PeriodicalId":45378,"journal":{"name":"SOUNDINGS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136360576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The politics of government intervention in the HE market: Andrew McGettigan talks to Kirsten Forkert","authors":"","doi":"10.3898/soun.84-85.11.2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/soun.84-85.11.2023","url":null,"abstract":"The last twenty to thirty years have seen a big push to create a market in higher education, but there have been frequent interventions by governments both to sustain the 'market' and to alter its operation for policy reasons. The sector has massively expanded since the 1990s because of a cross-party consensus that the country needed more skills - though this view is now less popular; however, there still seems to be consensus that higher education should be substantially funded by (capped) domestic student fees (the price of a degree for international students is largely unregulated). A big subprime market has developed in Higher Education; and there has also been an increase in third-party private providers: much recent regulation is necessitated by adapting the system to these providers. The market is frequently set aside when it comes up against the establishment privilege of Oxbridge and the Russell Group. And tweaks to the market made since 2010 have largely been designed to steer more resources to already privileged institutions. For example the recent announcements about capping foundation year fees, and limiting dependant visas for international students, will have a greater adverse effect on non-elite institutions because of the kind of recruitment they're involved in, and the kind of offer they make to students. The same logic applies to removing the cap on recruitment to elite universities, and the reduction of funding for Foundation Years. The 2023 announcement that the government wished the regulator, OfS, to make more use of its powers to restrict funding for 'low-value' courses was accompanied by culture wars rhetoric, but should be understood as an attempt to limit university autonomy, even while it also addresses concerns around the 'new providers' that have been allowed to access government-backed loans since 2010.","PeriodicalId":45378,"journal":{"name":"SOUNDINGS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136360446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What constitutes a democratic university: a German perspective","authors":"Mark Schmitt","doi":"10.3898/soun.84-85.09.2023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/soun.84-85.09.2023","url":null,"abstract":"This article engages with the idea of a democratic university in the light of the current academic protest movement at German universities. It considers the unique situation of labour rights in the context of German laws and their imminent reform, as well as the birth of new kinds of academic protest in the wake of the recent Covid lockdowns. The article recalls Jacques Derrida's 1998 proposal for a democratic 'unconditional university' and critically reviews Derrida's arguments vis-á-vis the current situation","PeriodicalId":45378,"journal":{"name":"SOUNDINGS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136361157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sugar–rush politics","authors":"B. Schwarz","doi":"10.3898/soun:81.editorial.2022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/soun:81.editorial.2022","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45378,"journal":{"name":"SOUNDINGS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72520425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}