Category: Sociology in the News

Sociology in the News 6 (Surveillance and Crime Control)

Last week, millions of mobile phones across New York City got a text alert. It read

“Wanted: Ahmed Kham Rahami, 28 year old male. See Media for pic, call 9-1-1 if seen”

The message related to a man suspected of planting the previous weekend’s bombs in New York and New Jersey, and he was picked up later that day.

Headline News - Suspected Terrorist Apprehended after the NYPD hijacked the WEA
Headline News – ‘Suspected Terrorist Apprehended after the NYPD hijacked the Wireless Emergency Alert System’

NYPD commissioner James O’Neill said the alert had given the police an edge, and hailed it as ‘the future’.

In most cases the WEA (Wireless Emergency Alerts) text alert system is used to warn people in specific neighbourhoods about dangerous weather or missing children, but this was the first time it had been used to hunt down a suspect for a crime.

The obvious pros of this crime control technique are that it worked – the suspect was apprehended, but there are also several downsides:

  • It could spread unnecessary panic – with the public already on edge about terrorism
  • People in the US are already routinely harassed for just appearing to be Muslim, this just adds to this problem – perpetuating the Muslim terrorist stereotype.
  • If it’s upscaled it could just become ineffective and people ignore such texts due to information overload.

This is a useful example to illustrate how the NYPD have essentially hijacked an emergency alert system and turned it into a technology of surveillance. You could also use it to criticise the theory that synoptic surveillance is mainly used to hold the authorities to account – this is in many ways the opposite of that. 

Grammar Schools – Arguments For and Against

Grammar schools have been in the news this week – Theresa May’s plans to reintroduce grammar schools is actually one of the most unpopular policies in her party  but despite this opposition, and more opposition from nearly everyone who knows anything about education, she seems hell-bent on bringing the grammar school back into the state system, so it looks like we’re going back to selective state education.

Hands up – I went to a state grammar school in Kent – so I’m a living, breathing example of someone from a working class background who benefited from a state-grammar education.

And get  this for a ‘school motto’ – ‘Knowledge is a steep which few may climb, while duty is path which all must tread’ (talk about hegemonic!) 

Despite appreciating the leg-up, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to expand grammar schools nation wide, despite widespread parental support for the policy.

What are grammar schools?

In short, they are schools which focus on providing an academic education based on selection by ability, typically through an entrance test at the age of 11.

The term ‘scholas grammaticales’ was first use in the 1500s when monarchs, nobles and merchants founded schools for ‘poor scholars’. In Tudor times, pupils were taught to read and speak Latin by learning classical texts from heart. School days spanned from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. and boys caught speaking in English were punished.

The big expansion of grammar schools came with the 1944 Butler Education Act, which launched the tripartite system – every pupil sat an IQ test at the age of 11 which determined which of three types of school they went to for the next 4-5 years –

  • Grammar schools were established for those ‘interested in learning for its own sake’
  • Technical schools for those ‘whose abilities lie markedly in the field of applied science or art’
  • Secondary modern schools for those who ‘deal more easily with concrete things and ideas’.

There was supposed to be ‘parity of esteem’ between these three types of school – which means difference but equal in principle.

How successful was the system?

Basically it was great if you were one of the 20% pupils who made it into a grammar school,  which tended to have a public school type ethos and prepared students for ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels, there is also  a commonly held view that these schools offered a ‘ladder of opportunity’ to bright, working class students, although this may be a comforting myth, rather than the reality (see below).

On balance, there seem to be more failings of the tripartite system:

  1. There was no parity of esteem because the secondary moderns were poorly resourced and pupils were taught a watered down curriculum.
  2. The system branded anyone who attended a secondary modern as a failure from the age of 11.
  3. The 11+ didn’t measure intelligence – it was easy to coach children to get higher scores, which benefited the middle classes.
  4. There was no equality of opportunity – In the 1940s and 50s few secondary modern pupils took public exams and when they started to take them, they were typically limited to CSE exams rather than O levels.

Why was the Tripartite System Abolished?

The county of Leicestershire was the first to experiment with a new comprehensive system in 1957, to placate the parents of children who had failed the 11+, and by the late 1950s, there was mounting evidence that the 11+ was a flawed measure of intelligence and that secondary moderns provided a sub-standard of education.

In 1965 the then Labour government issued a circular requesting that all Local Education Authorities abolish  the 11+ and move to a non-selective, comprehensive system – effectively meaning they had to abolish grammar and secondary moderns and establish comprehensives.

However, it was only in 1976 that Labour brought in an education act that formally required all counties to go fully Comprehensive.

How did some grammar schools survive? 

Some local authorities dragged their feet and clung on until the Tory election victory of 1979, when Thatcher repealed the 1976 act. England today has 164 state grammar schools – Kent is one of the few which is wholly selective.

Arguments for reintroducing grammar schools 

  1. Proponents say they will provided a ladder of opportunity for poor, bright kids.
  2. Possibly the best argument – we’d see the withering away of private schools – whose going to pay £10K a year when you can get a similar quality of education for free?
  3. Comprehensives are not good enough – we need more, quality education to prepare our brightest kids to compete in a global job market.
  4. We already have selection by mortgage, grammar schools may help remedy this.
  5. There is strong parental support for more grammars.

Arguments against grammar schools

  1. Number 1 is a myth – the reason so many bright working class kids seemed to benefit from a grammar school education in the 1960s was because of a change in the class structure at that time – basically the decline of working class jobs and the increase in middle class jobs meant there was more opportunity to go up the class ladder. This no longer applied.
  2. It’s unfair on those who don’t get into them.
  3. The 11+ favours those who can afford private tuition – so all we’re going to see is the reproduction of class inequality, then again, if we have quotas, this may not be the case (fat chance of that actually happening fairly though?)
  4. Standards are currently improving, so do we need to disrupt schools AGAIN with ANOTHER policy upheaval?

 

Sociology in The News (5)

Care workers in Britain paid below the minimum wage

Seventeen care workers are suing contractor Sevacare for paying them below the minimum wage – The contractor had some staff in Haringey, north London, on a rate of £3.27 an hour – less than half the then minimum.

The workers were living as live-in carers, and were technically paid the minimum wage for 10 hours work a day, but were still required to live-in with the people being cared for for 24 hours a day, during which time they had to do caring duties.

Quite a useful example to illustrate the continued relevance of Marxist theory – demonstrating how employers bend the rules (‘innovating’) with their contracts to effectively pay below the minimum wage. It also demonstrates the relative powerlessness of these workers, and the importance of collective action – they put up with this for years because they needed the jobs, but eventually plucked up the courage to fight the company. If Marxist Theory is correct, the courts should side with Servacare.

David Cameron – Responsible for Fuelling War and Terror Around the World 

This is relevant to the war and conflict topic within Global Development (the topic every A level sociology teacher should be teaching IMHO) – This example is a useful illustration of how conflict and terror don’t just arise because of internal issues in foreign countries – military interventions sometimes have a role to play as well!

Britain’s intervention in Libya and the chaos and bloodshed that ensued sparked a “violent reaction” fuelling conflicts across Africa and the Middle East, as well as strengthening Isis and Al-Qaeda, according to a scathing report released by the Foreign Affairs Committee this week, which held David Cameron “ultimately responsible” for failing to stabilise Libya after the death of Muammar Gaddafi.

Following the fall of Gaddafi’s regime, opposition rebels and Islamists refused to lay down their arms and competition for territory spawned a second civil war that continues today , measing there is now a vast, mostly ungoverned space in the south of the country where jihadist groups are able to rest and resource themselves largely untroubled by external interference, allowing the smuggling of militants, weapons and refugees to neighbouring countries.

Libyan weapons have been found in more than 20 countries, while its conflict has fuelled war, insurgencies and terrorism in at least 10 other nations, and LIbya has also now become a major source of regugees which impacts on southern European countries.

Perhaps the most direct outcome was the conflict in northern Mali, where the United Nations is currently operating the deadliest peacekeeping operation in the world.

 

Sociology in the News (4)

Three articles about the close and friendly relationship between politicians and big business caught my attention this week.

The three articles below all illustrate how the Marxist critical theory is still relevant, and also serve as good examples of why we have shifted towards neoliberalism – basically big business and government are tightly interwoven, so it’s no surprise that government policy is pro-business – whether we’re talking about the EU, or Ireland, a member of the EU, or the UK which is about to leave the the EU!

Theresa May ‘Banging the Drum’ for Free Trade at the G20 summit

According to this BBC news article, during her first international appearance since Brexit at the G20 summit Theresa May

“banged the drum for free trade, an increasingly lonely message as electorates around the world urge their leaders to greater protectionism”

It’s difficult to know precisely what this means – but it’s highly likely that this means more neoliberalismneoliberalism – lower rates of tax on TNCs, to attract them to the UK, more deregulation (cutting ‘red tape’) and more privatisation of public assets, (already raging under the Tories) – basically more of putting the needs of business and the capitalist class first.

Apple’s 13 Billion Euro Tax Bill…

Or the 13 billion bite!

The European Union recently decreed that that the Irish government should recover 13 billion Euros in bax taxes from Apple, whose headquarters are based in Cork.

Ireland already has one of the lowest corporation taxes in the world, at 12.5%, but it agree 25 years ago it agreed to give Apple a number of subsidies in order to attract the corporation to Ireland, which effectively means it has been paying 0.005% tax during that period.

The reason the EU is demanding that Ireland claim the money back is because the subsidies are against competition law – states aren’t allowed to give preferential treatment to one company over another – by giving them cash hand-outs for example, but allowing tax-breaks effectively amounts to the same thing.

This amounts to giving Apple 220 000 Euros for every year for each job located in Ireland.

The revolving door between Government and Big Business 

A third article by John Harris in the Guardian reveals that there are very close links between EU and British cabinet ministers and big business – basically what happens is that ministers spend a period of time in political office, which often involves dealing with big business, and once they leave politics, the go on to work for big companies, advising them on how to get privileged access so they can easily lobby those in the corridors of power – which makes it easier for them to get ‘sweat heart tax deals’ like Apple did.

The event which prompted the article was that former EU commissioner Jose Manuel Barroso took a job as a nonexecutive chairman and adviser to Goldman Sachs which helped cause the financial crash of 2008, but Harris points out that this is normal – between 2009 and 2010 alone, six out of 13 departing EU commissioners moved into new corporate or lobbying roles.

Harris also suggests that we ‘watch closely as the alumni of the governments headed by David Cameron exit full-time politics. Already, in fact, an odorous cloud has started to form. Earlier this year a Daily Mirror investigation found that 25 former ministers in the coalition government had taken paid roles in sectors they once oversaw’

Somehow I get the feeling quite a few of these news update posts are going to be about the further advance of neoliberalism!

Sociology in the News (1)

Application of sociological theories and concepts to contemporary news events*

Jamie Oliver’s in shock over the government’s child obesity strategy – childhood obesity, caused by lack of exercise and eating too much sugary food is an increasing problem in Britain, but apparently the government isn’t going to put bans on companies advertising junk food to children.

Supporting evidence for the continued relevance of Sue Palmer’s Toxic Childhood, and you also could interpret this as supporting evidence for the broad Marxist idea that fast-food company profits trump child well-being, or evidence of the impotence of governments to implement social policy in a post-modern age.

*A new theme I’m working on – to try and bash out a weekly-ish post applying some sociology to at least three news items once a week.

NB – I got the idea for a weekly round up from ‘The Week‘ which selects out the highlights of the previous weeks’ news with commentary – IMO it’s the most efficient way to keep up with news events because you miss out on all of the hype, anticipation, repetition and just non-news that you get with daily broadcasts.