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Newsletter of the British Sociological Association - September 2014 Issue

You wait several years for a REF to arrive and then two come along at once. That’s how it feels to me at least. In addition to being BSA Publications Director and convenor of the BSA Sport Study Group, I have spent much of 2014 assessing outputs, impacts and research environments on the sub-panel for sport and exercise sciences, leisure and tourism (SP 26). It’s not possible for me to divulge anything about the process or content of the SP’s deliberations – the results will be announced a week before Christmas, as an early present for some, and full disclosure of procedures and submissions will come out at different stages next year – but I am pleased to report that a considerable number of the social science outputs to SP 26 have been sociological.

This has meant that I have read rather a lot of material this year. Again, very positively, much of the sociology of sport research carried out by UK-based academics is world leading and it is notable that some of the research ‘outputs’ had their first airing at events organised by BSA study groups. “Bang goes your research”, said one colleague when I was appointed to the sub-panel. I did not realise how true this remark would be. I certainly prefer it to “So, you’ve joined the thought police”, which another person quipped.

If the REF 2014 were not enough to test my resolve, then the debate surrounding the Referendum on Scottish Independence certainly has added to my concerns this year. For those of us who live ‘north of the border’ and work at an English university this ‘other REF’ has interesting consequences, not just for the structure of academic life and the BSA. Some discussion has been had about the personal and financial impact on ‘WILLIEs’ – people who Work In London and Live In Edinburgh. Although I have to attend a fair number of meetings of the BSA in London and half of the REF panel meetings have been held there too, my current university is in Preston, so for someone like me the acronym would be the rather ungainly ‘WIPLIE’. The consequences of the decision on 18 September remain to be fully digested, but it is clear that the political will be personal.

As mentioned earlier I am also currently convenor of the BSA Sport Study Group. This makes it not only in my leisure time, but also in my professional work, that I come across discussions of a third type of REF, one who is often disparaged when making the wrong decision. I hope that we have not made any of those on the REF sub-panel. Only time will tell what the outcome of the decision stemming from the Scottish Referendum means for Scotland, social relations across Britain and the BSA.

Prof John Horne
BSA Publications Director and Sport Study Group Convenor

This month, BSA Chief Executive, Judith Mudd welcomed the new AQA Sociology A Level, saying:

“Sociology teaches us what should be at the heart of every people-focused business, profession or organisation, which is to see how individual personal histories impact on social behaviour and the way society is divided and organised into social groups. An appreciation of the influence that factors such as class, ethnicity and family work history have on the way that individuals interact is a powerful tool in the workplace and an invaluable asset to employers. Students of sociology learn to look beneath the surface, to ask the right questions, to analyse and interpret responses in a critically useful way, and to suggest business solutions that are more likely to be accepted by customers or clients.

Sociology is a must for anyone thinking of a career working with people, whether that be as a nurse, a social worker, a police officer, a teacher, a receptionist, an investigative journalist, a politician or lawyer, in HR or commercially as a marketing or public relations executive. Crucial to the teaching of sociology are the teachers and the syllabus they teach. The A Level Sociology syllabus must combine subject history and theory with methods training and a range of practical examples to teach students about the wide application of sociology. The new AQA course offers just that – an excellent, solid grounding in the subject combined with topical updates that will help teachers fire up the sociological imagination of their students.

Clearly education has a major influence on many aspects of life and all sociology students need to be properly equipped and confident in the use of research methods so that they can investigate topics and analyse findings in an appropriately scientific way. The integration of theoretical perspectives and research methods into the teaching of topics is a key strength of this syllabus, and the BSA especially welcomes the inclusion of research methods and education as compulsory elements. It is particularly good to see an increased emphasis on globalisation, the explicit inclusion of migration, and the return of ‘work’ to the AQA syllabus, all reflecting major social and policy-relevant issues. Such changes will help teachers demonstrate the dynamism, everyday relevance and workplace applications of sociology and this can only inspire and attract students to the subject we love.”

Both AQA and OCR A Level syllabi now place greater emphasis on globalisation. This, amongst other changes, may help to bridge the gap between A Level and undergraduate study. BSA representatives acted as advisers to the syllabus review boards of both AQA and OCR and the Chief Executive has also written to OCR to welcome their syllabus changes (see last month’s eNews).

This month the Board of Trustees are preparing for a big Strategy Day, scheduled to take place on Friday, 17 October. BSA Council members will meet to agree on a series of overarching objectives as well as supporting work programmes for the next five-year activity cycle (2017-2021).

Whatever is agreed will drive the work of the Association for the coming period. For example, one of the goals in the current strategy (2012-2016) is to strengthen BSA links with schools and FE colleges by 2016. Many steps have been taken to achieve this goal since 2012 including the following: building a database of all secondary teachers of sociology, connecting with secondary teachers via e-mail regularly, establishing a BSA Teachers Group, launching Regional Teacher Day Conferences, producing a promotional booklet/online resource with A Level teachers and students in mind, establishing a new annual Sixth Form Sociology Prize, and producing The Sociology Teacher magazine.

The Strategy Day will involve plenary sessions looking at current and possible strategies for the Association as well as ‘roll-your-sleeves-up’ working group sessions where participants will divide into activity areas, such as membership and conference. The group sessions will develop outlines of work programmes designed to help deliver agreed objectives, answering key questions like: What objective would we like to be included in the next five-year plan? How do we achieve this objective? What would need to happen to make this programme of activity work? How much financial investment might be needed to deliver this programme of work?

What would you like the BSA to achieve by 2021? Ideas and suggestions from members would be very much welcomed. Please send them to the Chief Executive Judith Mudd Judith.mudd@britsoc.org.uk

Nominations are being sought for the 2015 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize. The prize will be awarded to the best first and sole-authored book within the discipline of sociology published between 1 December 2013 and 30 November 2014.

The winner will receive £1,000, one year's free subscription to The Sociological Review (published by Wiley-Blackwell) and an invitation to the BSA 2015 Annual Conference, including conference registration, accommodation and travel (within the UK).

Visit the Philip Abrams Memorial Prize on the BSA wesbite for more information on the nomination process.

Closing date for 2015 entries: Friday, 5 December 2014.

The general criteria for eligibility:
- Nominated authors must be current, fully paid-up, members of the BSA.
- Nominated authors must be ordinarily resident within the UK.
- Nominated authors should be within the first seven years (or full-time equivalent) since starting their first academic post within the discipline of sociology.
- The nominated book must be the author’s first monograph. If the author has previously co-authored a monograph, they are not eligible for the prize. If the author has previously edited or co-edited a book, they are eligible.
- The nominated book must be sole-authored.
- The nominated book should be concerned with the discipline of sociology.
- There is an expectation that the author has observed the contents of the BSA’s Authorship Guidelines for Academic Papers (adopted April 2001).
- Nominations should comprise the official nomination form (duly completed), a brief curriculum vitae on the author and five copies of the nominated book.

For any further information please contact Margaret Luke at margaret.luke@britsoc.org.uk or by calling 0191 383 0839.

The BSA is pleased to welcome David Hetherington (pictured left), who has been appointed as the Association's new Communications Officer. David will be responsible for continuing the Association's marketing and brand development, including responding to member queries, contributing to membership development plans and ensuring a high level of member satisfaction with incoming and outgoing communications. He will also work closely with our study groups and specialist group convenors to develop close links with key stakeholders at academic institutions across the UK.

David comes to us after five years in Hong Kong working in financial journalism. He graduated from Kingston University with a degree in History and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Hong Kong.

David replaces outgoing Communications Officer, Lee Coleman, who leaves the Association after two years in the role. Lee enacted a great number of initiatives during his time with the BSA and was instrumental in the Association's recent re-branding. We wish him every success for the future.

Win an iPad Mini and £250 for your school by entering the 2015 BSA National Sixth Form and GCSE Sociology Competition.

The competition, sponsored by Polity Press, comprises a sixth-form contest for year 12 and 13 A-Level Sociology students and, for the first time, a GCSE contest for years 10 and 11. Sixth-form students must answer the question ‘Why might sociologists think social inclusion is important?’ in either a 2,000-word essay or 10-minute YouTube clip/podcast, while students studying for their GCSEs should answer ‘Why is Sociology important?’ in a 1,200-word essay or eight-minute YouTube clip/podcast.

The closing date for entries is Friday, 12 December 2014. For further details and an entry form, visit the BSA Teaching Group webpage.

If you are a teacher and are looking for new teaching methods and networking opportunities, the next BSA Teaching Group Regional Conference will be held at Northumbria University, Newcastle on Saturday, 1 November 2014. For further details, visit the BSA Teaching Group webpage.

Every year the BSA awards the Phil Strong Memorial Prize for post-graduate research in medical sociology. The BSA congratulates this year's winner, Rose Closson of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The winner was announced at the Medical Sociology Annual Conference in Aston University on 10-12 September.

This year's poster prize was won by Helle Kise Hjertstrøm for the poster titled Everyday tensions and working on one's own: an interview study among ICT advisors in heath care. The conference delegates voted on 28 posters and the winning author received £100 in book vouchers courtesy of SAGE Publications.

This year, MedSoc introduced a new prize for the best oral presentation and asked delegates to vote for each day of the conference. The winners were as follows:

- Wednesday: Emily Ross for her paper titled 'It's the One Thing You Really Want to Tell People; Understandings of Risk and "Keeping the Secret" in Early Pregnancy'.

- Thursday: Sarah Hoare for her paper titled 'Dying Spaghetti: Exploring Healthcare Practitioner Accounts of Hospital Admissions for Patients Close to the End of Life'.

- Friday: Catherine Theodosius for her paper titled 'Emotional Labour in Nursing, "What it is and What it is Not": A Critical Evaluation of the Application of Hochschild's Concept'.

The winners were each presented with a certificate and £100.

Congratulations to Professor Joanna Latimer who has been awarded the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize for the The Gene, the Clinic, and the Family: Diagnosing Dysmorphology, Reviving Medical Dominance.

The winner was announced at the BSA Medical Sociology conference, and is awarded to the author or editor of a newly published book which has made a significant contribution to medical sociology or the sociology of health and illness.

To celebrate this prize-winning title, Routledge are pleased to offer free access to the eBook until the end of October. Click here to start reading now.

BSA members can also buy the physical book at a special discounted rate (see Publications News).

Angel Productions create videos to support doctoral students and their supervisors, covering everything from making presentations to managing a doctoral project and completing it on time. More than 70 UK universities, and a growing number overseas, use Angel Productions' seven titles which were produced with partner institutions including Birkbeck, University of London and the Open University, with advice from Professor John Wakeford, formerly of Lancaster University.

Further details and playable samples can be found at http://www.angelproductions.co.uk/universities.htm.

Institutions can buy licences giving their students and staff permanent, unlimited access to the videos on DVD or online. And now, institutions of BSA members which have not bought any of the videos before can enjoy a special 20% discount off the standard price of a licence until December. Ask your head of department about this offer.

Simply contact sales@angelproductions.co.uk and quote 'BSA 20%'.

If you received your PhD in Sociology (or for work that used sociological analysis, regardless of discipline) we want to recognise your efforts on our website by including your name in our annual Honours List.

If you graduated in 2014, e-mail your name, thesis title and convocation date to Alison Danforth and we’ll publish the details in our 2014 Honours list. Equally, if you supervised or know of some deserving graduates, be sure to let us know who they are.

We are inviting new graduates to come forward for the whole of 2014 so please get in touch.

Our monthly book giveaway from SAGE Publications continues. Congratulations to last month’s winners: Adam Bodin, Scarlett Brown, Christian Morgner, Karen Hadley and Laura Cepkauskaite who were the lucky five chosen at random to receive a FREE copy of The Cultural Intermediaries Reader.

This month we have five copies of Making Sense of Reality by Tia DeNora (University of Exeter) to give away. Making Sense of Reality offers students and educators a guide to analysing social life, considering reality as we represent, perceive and experience it. It develops a performance-based perspective that highlights the ever-revised dimension of realities and links this perspective to a focus on object-relations and an ecological model of culture-in-action.

If you are interested in receiving one of these free copies, please email new BSA Communications Officer, David Hetherington with your name and postal address and we will pick five lucky winners at random. If you are not one of the lucky five, don’t worry. You can still get this book and other SAGE titles at a 30% discount* by quoting the promo code UK14SM0 at
www.sagepub.co.uk

*The discount is not applicable to trade customers and cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount offer.

Routledge - Special Offer for BSA Members

The BSA is pleased to announce a new discount for our members. We bring our members special rates on books and journals whenever possible and we are pleased to be working with Routledge on this latest offer.

In addition to our Routledge offer, BSA members can enjoy a special discount on these Policy Press titles and many more.

Policy & Politics Journal of Poverty and Social Justice

Evidence & Policy Families Relationships and Societies

Voluntary Sector Review Critical and Radical Social Work

Journal of Playwork Practice

BSA members can subscribe to any or all of the above journals (print only) for as little as £35/€46 (UK & Europe) or £45/US$73 (Rest of the World). Members can also sign up for a free trial before subscribing (excluding Journal of Playwork Practice), with one month online trials available for individuals.

To take advantage of this offer, e-mail sales@portland-services.com quoting your BSA membership number and the journal you wish to subscribe to.

Survey - Assessing the RCUK's Open Access Policy

Last month we asked for your experiences of Open Access. We are still interested in hearing from all members and all sociologists. After last month's request for information, three people got in touch to describe how they have engaged with Open Access publishing for this work. These responses, along with feedback from our four journals and data gathered about the subject fed into our official response to RCUK's call for evidence on the implementation of their Open Access policy.

To see what we have been finding so far, view our response to the call. To contribute to our findings, fill in our short survey or send your views to BSA Publications Officer, Alison Danforth at alison.danforth@britsoc.org.uk.

In order to give members who were away over the summer the chance to apply, the Call for Applications has been extended. The deadline is now 17:00 (GMT), Friday 10 October 2014.

Work, Employment and Society is seeking 10 new members of its Editorial Board to serve for three years from January 2015 to end of December 2017.

Full details and the application form are available on the BSA website: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/publications/pubsvacancies.aspx

For further information, please contact Sophie Jaques, BSA Publications Assistant, via wes.journal@britsoc.org.uk

WES has published its latest electronic special issue titled Re-Engagement with the Employee Participation Debate: Beyond the Case of Contested and Captured Terrain. In their introduction, Paul J Gollan and Ying Xu are 'concerned with the question of whether employee participation really brings employees increased voice and well-being, or whether it is simply an agenda that promotes the interests of employers.' This collection showcases employee participation research in WES over the last few decades and looks to set an agenda for future research.

WES e-Special Issues serve as a way to bring fresh perspective to debates in WES and revive important articles that still have much to offer. Readers can find other e-Special Issues on managerial control and workplace regimes; informal economic activities; unemployment in prosperous welfare states; and the role of the customer in service work social relations via the e-Specials homepage.

BSA journal Sociology (SOC) is currently looking to recruit new members to its Editorial Board for three years from January 2015 to December 2017.

The Call for Applications is open to UK-based academics and SOC welcomes applications from any cultural or academic background with experience of sociology to contribute to the diversity of research published by the journal, however expertise in Social Theory and Quantitative Methods is particularly sought after. Application forms can be downloaded from the BSA website and all applications must be submitted by 17.00 GMT, Tuesday 21 October 2014. To apply, please e-mail a completed application to Sophie at sociology.journal@britsoc.org.uk

There is still time to submit an abstract for the BSA Annual Conference 2015 in Glasgow via the BSA website. The deadline is Friday, 17 October 2014.

The theme of the Conference is ‘Societies in Transition: Progression or Regression?’ and will take place at Glasgow Caledonian University on 15-17 April 2015. Participants can present on any sociological research topic and the BSA welcomes suggestions for grouped sessions within all streams. BSA Study Groups are also strongly encouraged to contribute posters/papers and other activities, while there will also be an opportunity for study groups to meet independently at the conference. If you have any further queries regarding abstract submissions, please email the BSA Events Team.

Meanwhile, if you didn't attend this year's BSA Conference in Leeds, or if you want to refresh your memory, head over to our Vimeo page to watch highlights from the conference, including full keynote plenaries and in-depth interviews with keynote speakers Steve Fuller, Evelyn Ruppert and Monica Prasad.

After a highly successful programme of events in 2013/14, the BSA is now inviting expressions of interest from postgraduate students interested in organising regional postgraduate days in 2014/15.

In 2013/14 we were delighted to support six successful one-day events throughout the UK, with each event expressing the diversity and dynamism of the postgraduate experience. This year we are looking for postgraduate organisers to co-ordinate with speakers and organise events at their institutions, which the BSA will support with up to £1,000 in funding. This grant can be used to pay for room hire, speakers and lunch, while organisers are encouraged to seek a contribution from their host institutions for free accommodation or a financial contribution towards refreshments. Any proposed events should be charged at £10 for BSA members to attend and £25 for non-members and the BSA will help publicise and promote the event via the BSA website and members’ eNewsletter.

If you are interested in organising a regional postgraduate event in your area, please email expressions of interest to events@britsoc.org.uk and address all correspondence: BSA Regional Postgraduate Events. The deadline for proposals is 17.00 GMT, Friday 10 October 2014.

The ESRC is currently seeking applications from leading academics to serve on its governing Council.

The Council’s Appointments Panel is seeking applications from senior academics in the area of economics/finance or experienced individuals from the voluntary/charitable sector, to fill two vacancies on its governing Council. These vacancies are for part-time, fixed-term membership and the total time commitment would be 20-25 days per year. All reasonable travel and subsistence expenses to meetings will be reimbursed.

The closing date for receipt of applications is 16:00 hours on Monday, 6 October 2014.

Further information about the ESRC and the current vacancies is available via the ESRC’s website. Alternatively, please contact Marie Lloyd on +44 (0) 1793 413132.

HEA 'New to Teaching' Workshop - This Thursday

The Higher Education Academy's New to Teaching Workshop will be held on 2 October at Leicester Conference Centre.

The day-long event combines a keynote presentation from former Head of Learning and Teaching Policy at HEFCE, William Locke, on the changing nature of academic careers in higher education, with two two-hour new-to-teaching sessions.

This event is for anyone who is new to a career in teaching, regardless of their discipline. It will be especially useful for postgraduates and PhD students involved in teaching, and learning support practitioners. It will also provide guidance and advice to anyone who may be seeking initial engagement with the UKPSF at Associate Fellow (AFHEA) and Fellow (FHEA) level.

Tickets cost £95 for HEA subscribers or £190 for non-subscribers. Click here to book.

The tenth annual Battle of Ideas festival will take place on 18 and 19 October at the Barbican in London.

The festival is a forum for free-thinking, debate and discussion organised by by The Institute of Ideas. More than 2,000 delegates will attend more than 80 sessions and hundreds of speakers from around the world will tackle some of the most pressing issues of our time.

This year's programme features keynote debates such as Should we Fear Democracy?; Why are we Afraid to Judge?; Hashtag Feminism: Radical or Banal?; Big Data: Big Danger? and After Gaza: the Return of Anti-Semitism?

Full programme details can be found here and tickets can now be bought here.

E-mail schoolschampion@instituteofideas.com for details on special offers.

The ERSC will hold this year's Festival of Social Sciences on the theme of Superdiversity and Recent Immigration. The festival will be held in London on 5 November and Birmingham on 6 November.

Urban areas in the UK and beyond have seen significant changes in patterns of immigration, leading to profound diversification. This diversification is characterized by the multiplication of people of different national origins, but also migration histories, religions, educational backgrounds, legal statuses and socio-economic backgrounds. This event will present findings from a five-year ethnographic research project in the London Borough of Hackney, showing that diversity in this context has become commonplace.

The event will address increasing public, political and policy interest in examining social cohesion in superdiverse contexts. These discussions will be linked to the development of a new project, which forms part of a Marie Curie Fellowship and which comparatively looks at the settlement of recent migrants in two superdiverse areas: Handsworth in Birmingham and Hackney in London.

To register for the London event (5 November), please email a.bolstridge@bham.ac.uk and visit the website.

To register for the Birmingham event (6 November), please click here.

If you have any questions or need any further information, please contact Dr Susanne Wessendorf at s.wessendorf@bham.ac.uk

Germany's Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology is offering up to six Start-up Scholarships for international MA graduates for the summer term of 2015.

The scholarships will last four months and are available to MA graduates looking to pursue a doctoral degree in History, Sociology, Anthropology or Political Science. Applications must be submitted online by 26 October.

Click here for further information, terms and conditions and application documents.

The international refereed journal, The Sociological Review, is seeking proposals for two monographs to be published in January/February 2017.

The Sociological Review Monograph Series publishes edited collections of outstanding and original scholarly articles on issues of wide sociological interest written by emerging as well as established academics.

If you would like to propose a monograph, e-mail Professor Chris Shilling by Monday, 1 December 2014. All decisions will be made by the end of January 2015.

Proposals should be no more than seven pages long (double-spaced, Times New Roman, size 12 font) and should include names and details of editors and contributors, rationale for and aims of the collection, provisional titles and abstracts of papers, an account of the appeal of the collection to readers of The Sociological Review, and marketing justification for the collection (e.g. distinctiveness of collection in relation to existing publications).

All articles published within the monographs are fully refereed, have the status of journal articles, and are included within the ISI Journal Citation Reports and the Social Science Citation Index. The usual length of final completed collections (after refereeing decisions have been made) is 80,000-100,000 words.

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