DD101 Introducing the Social Sciences - Week 8

The suggested time table for Week 8

     Introduction to 'Connected :Lives' strand of Making Social Lives  (45 mins)   
     Chapter 4 of Making Social Lives (7 hrs)
     Online activities 16 & 17 (2 hours)
     Studying Identities' (Audio CD 2, 30 - 45 mins)
     Learning from Feedback (Audio CD,25 mins)

     'Reflections on Material Lives' (Audio CD 45 mins) 
     Online Quiz - Making Social Lives, Chapter 4 (10-15 mins)

To be completed by 1st April.

Well, that was a bit of a slog. Partly because I'm still suffering from the 'post submission slump', partly 'cos there was loads of football on the TV this weekend and partly because it reads like Stephanie Taylor, author of Chapter 4, was paid by the word. There seemed to be a lot of reading that was going over already trodden ground. However, it was well written and must have sunk in as I managed 5/5 in the end of chapter quiz, so no complaints really.

Section 1 introduced identity, how people can have several identities depending on the situation and audience. The theories of Goffman and Garfinkel were discussed, and this is probably worth noting for the TMA. There was a bit about how identity is constructed (nature v nurture) and is it fixed or evolving.

Section 2 discussed negative value identities and group identities through the example of New York 'Street People'. This introduced the ideas of 'unmarked identity' and 'Othering' and how this could lead to discrimination. The identity 'given' through race and ethnicity was also discussed, and why this is far from clear cut.

Section 3 was about identity through 'place' - where you live, were born, came from etc. and also brought up the notion of the 'performing self' and 'impression management', alongside the statement that in modern society we have to make an identity for ourselves as traditional identities have disappeared or lost validity.

Section 4 was the hardest going. It discussed identity through family photographs, generation and gender hierarchy as well as re-enforcing heterosexual stereotypes. It also showed how photos can fix an identity to a location or give an idea of tradition.

So that's this week 8 out of the way, less than a week ahead of schedule now, so need to crack through chapters 5 & 6 and then get down to the TMA03 which is in two parts.

Part 1 is about working with quantitative data and having been given a range of tables the question is "What can you say about the identities of the people of Stratford, based on the tables provided". With only 500 words that should not be too difficult, but it is for half the marks so you may have to look behind the obvious to bring some insightful findings to the assignment.

Part 2 is a page and a half of text (not read it yet) and we're asked "Based on the information contained in the text and photograph below, what can you say about the identity of Stratford, its residents and prospective visitors?". At 1000 words the assignment will be longer than this text, so I guess we need to see what identities are written about and reference this back to theories and concepts in Chapters 4,5 & 6.

Both parts have their own challenges, I think it may be easy to over simplify Part 1, and Part 2 is about sorting the useful information from the dross and then seeing how that relates to theories in these chapters.