"What is Social Research?"

 

Video by TheSocRes (The Social Researcher) encouraging

professionals and the public to partake in Social Research. Available on YouTube.

We have several videos available to support your Research work.

A healthier nation …. The real purpose of the 21st Century.

Our expansion into innovative technologies, new social policies, global exploration/space exploration has been vast. The news that our human population has now hit 7 billion individuals may have a significant impact upon our resources, our society, our wellbeing …. our health!

All age ranges are affected with many different mental/physical afflictions; obesity, cancer, alcoholism, depression – no family or community are immune to these ravages that many of us suffer. In recent news the ‘UK baby boomers’ are cited as requiring more help for alcoholism (in fact ten times more than the youth generation.) Statistics define that an increase in eating disorders is affecting many people (anorexia nervosa equating to 75% of the eating disorders)  

Obesity is continually on the rise in many countries and is something we should reverse the trend on. Health figures in the USA are also depicting that Strokes are happening in younger people now too. It is critical we all become more active …. The majority will respond to this with ‘easier said than done’ or in the real world we all face some massive social/health/built environment constraints that directly affect our personal health.

The threat of superbugs is communicated to the public does raise awareness. None of this news should be a reason to ‘give up and embrace the doom and gloom’ yet a reinforcement measure of why our personal health, our community health and our national society health is a priority

Many will interpret this as investing in more health services – when it may be an option to invest in our fitness services and community connection. ‘Planning like health matters’ is an agenda which is slowly moving up the political agenda and gaining acceptance that the manner our towns and cities are planned and built will either improve or deteriorate our health. Walking distance to everything is more desirable than using the car!

There are no easy answers – yet one thing is assured. Our national/international mental/physical health levels should be prioritised. Healthy body and healthy mind – is the foundation to a general healthier locality and international community.

Body image obsession and a miserable public give concern.

Body image obsession has been slowly permeating every part of human society in recent decades. Even with universal acceptance that celebrities images on glossy magazines are airbrushed, people in front of film cameras wear heavy make-up or 18 – 80 year olds who ‘look great’ as they’ve had ‘something done’; we acknowledge that it is not natural and heavily manufactured ……. A recent Government report illustrates that too many people in significant population proportionsfeel inadequate in their appearance.

Although not necessarily targeted by advertising campaigns (deliberating what is the ‘human physical ideal’ specimen and what you will have to go out of pocket to achievethis unrealistic standard) the majority of the public in the richer countries are victim to media imagery, local group peer pressures and irrational assumption of why they are physically inadequate.

People should not attack aesthetic plastic/cosmetic surgery as it has saved many people fromserious physical disfigurement from for example accident/malicious scaring or burns damage.

When interviewing a lady of an oriental ethnicity they reflected that in their own country/culture they fulfilled the criteria of being a ‘dragon’ in that they were deemed ugly and would not find a suitable partner in their own homeland; so were encouraged to go abroad to find a man from a white or black background who would find them to be attractive.

The average rational man, woman and child from any country will find the above statement quite harsh yet sadly it is a reality in many cultures.

It’s all well and good making an overall statement like: “We must ignore the fact that we expose everyone to imagery, advertisement, social expectation and societal judgement that many will always feel inadequate.” Many already know this deep down, yet nonetheless we are affected by everything we view around us and make self-judgement ( or worse judgement of others) in the aftermath of the wayward social body beautiful social phenomenon.

Long Term Strategy is a fundamental requirement if we are to rid ourselves of this social apprehension that holds too many good people back on a global scale. Social inhibition will inevitably lead to social downfall. If you are too ashamed of your appearance you will stop to function as a normal productive member of society.

Further research is required; reflecting our cultural background, our genetical pools, our lifestyles/stress and how it impacts our appearance. Or should that read how these factors impact our health? Society gets lost and what we should be focused on health and wellbeing – we misguidedly look at beauty and vanity. The difference is clear.

Obesity, stresses and other social health problems have jumped in volume on a global scale in the last one hundred years. Chances are many of these physical self-doubters have little wrong with them physically; yet are scarred by bullying based on body image – this is a lifelong lasting trauma that understandably many find hard to escape.

Perhaps a sensible physical model should be developed by the Government as a guideline of what is good physical health and what borders on unnecessary vanity which damages so much of society. Developing such a model will highlight to people what is the difference between physically healthy and needless vanity.

Such a model should not dissuade us from something perfectly normal like grooming (why should the monkeys not clean each other? Why should birds not eat the insects off elephants? Why should peacocks lose their tail feathers?) We should utilise use grooming in an appropriate manner and not letting it sway from two extremes of outlandish slobbishness and outright vanity extremes.

As a global society we need to move back towards healthier regimes, when physically we are in good physical condition (through regular exercise, work and play) inevitably we will look better (without artificially bolstering ourselves with make-up, airbrushing and surgery) and this better physical health will contribute positively to our wellbeing and longevity (without vanity perverting our perceptions of what constitutes looking normal/attractive/good) and more importantly booster our mental positive wellbeing.

Will School Inspectors ever get it right ?

The National BBC News  have broadcasted that The British School Inspectorate is to give one day’s notice before turning up to schools to undertake inspections. This is a positive step forward to attempt to raise the quality of teaching in all British schools.

One long term study that is being concluded by TheSocRes was based on covert ethnographic research (2003-2013) undertaken in several challenging state secondary schools for a period of several years each. This led to some startling discoveries from observation, interviewing and participant observation.

In one instance a school that suffered severe discipline problems made major alterations to (as they had months/years to prepare for the impending inspection) the school for one week, getting rid of the worst children and creating a very artificial environment where there were no evidence of the usual hordes of disruption, poor discipline and pupils charging around the corridors and interrupting others people’s lessons.

When the final inspection report was made available, the ethnographer constantly caught high numbers of staff all reading the same paragraphs which they later stated where utter lies and that the Inspectors were incompetent to uncover the terrible state / work conditions.

The end result being the Inspector report hailed the Head Teacher as role model head who led by example when in fact the staff utterly rebuked and hated everything the school leader did and were well apprised that they could never rely on the Head Teacher when the situation in the classroom would get dangerous or the staff were assaulted.

When the staff were challenged by the ethnographer as to why they did not reveal to the inspectors their true beliefs and concerns; the universal response was they did not want to lose their job.

An unexpected epilogue to the work was that the Ethnographer was able to conduct research into an upcoming school inspection at a very highly rated school in the UK. This led to unexpected findings. The end result of the inspectors report stated that the school was a paragon of educational excellence and gained much high praise.

In the wake of the ‘excellent inspection report’; with recorded statements from the majority of the staff stating their great displeasure and widespread recognition that morale was utterly decimated, quality teaching was suffering  and that the school was run in a very disorganised fashion. It does beg the question whether school inspectors were competent in actually uncovering what really does transpire in educational establishments. Are the reports a factual and true representation of what really does go on in said inspected educational establishments?

Perhaps this one day warning is a positive change. Where schools have been allowed time to hide many things in the past – by having just one day’s notice the Inspectors should be able to catch the school dynamics as they truly do function on a daily basis.

Perhaps this ‘one day warning’ new system will force all schools that high standards must be maintained on a daily basis to the greatest quality of education that our children and teenagers deserve.

TheSocRes report is due out in 2014.

Organisation within chaos - how effective will the Data Collection be?

Anyone who has partaken in Data Collection in 'the field' (be it Observing a street activity, Interviewing Office staff or Participant Observer of an organisation) will know how chaotic it can be.
TheSocRes has created a little 'chaos video' (for a bit of a fun activity) for conveying how challenging in real terms it is to collect data when one's research may be ethnographically based and undertaking unstructured interviews, observation, participant observation or any other format of raw data collection.

The real world is chaotic and unorganised; the Social Science Researchers must be properly prepared in their methodology and being effectively grounded. It is always recommended a pilot scheme/research data collection trial be undertaken to see how effective you will perform in research fieldwork.

What can be done to reduce the chaos? How can you discipline yourself to pick out the gleanings of necessary data for the Social Science Research? What hardware can help you? How much time to collect, collate, analyse? Is the Research project undertaken too overwhelming.
Has this video helped highlight these issues?

2020: technology, voting transparency and public engagement

With the threat of a double-dip recession possibly still looming, it would seem millions of people are quickly losing faith in their respective Governments and local authorities. Will the media report the disheartening effect and we’ll see so many of the public turning to escapism of drugs, alcohol or suicide to escape the difficult situation billions of us are now in?

There are cutbacks everywhere – people are being forced down avenues they had not considered before, yet these do not have to be painful living conditions/learning arcs. People can find innovative measures to improve their home/food/travel/work efficiencies and arrangements.

With the threat of increasing energy bills, people are not travelling as far as they may have previously done so on a whim a mere five years ago. Now so many have to double check themselves, think twice – do I really need to do this? Or is it I just want to do this?

In this increasingly technologically connected digital world – it would seem to be apparent many people feel very disconnected and abandoned. Perhaps greater understanding of life’s processes (the economy, political planning or local authorities initiatives) that will evolve over the next few years.

The older generations speak of a ‘lost generation’ amongst our children, when we should have more faith in what they can actually pull off. The younger generation have greater access to information than any of us in generations before had. Greater informed consent can be attained on a wider scale and possibly start at a younger age than ever before.

This is a positive step as closer interconnectivity of our communities occurs. With many complaining about the inefficiency of the Census each decade, or people feeling voting is a waste of time, even those who had to wait late into the evening to be then told the voting booths were shut …. And as for international events of potentially riddled corrupt rigged elections. Too many may lost faith too quickly.

Let us look at a new option. The planet’s innovation and technology is about to move into the 4G era (and within a decade 5G technologies) which basically means extremely quick transmission of information via the internet.

The majority of people all over the world are technology users/owners and will turn their phones/smart phones/PDA’s/Tablets/televisions/radios – all these PCD’s [Personal Communication Devices] on a daily basis. We get instantaneous access from central sources who distribute all the information.

We have established two way communications – so now it should be pushed to go further. Instead of voting at polling stations, the technology is available for all registered/unregistered voters to vote on the phone.

If set up properly – the systems in place will not crash and over the course of 24 hours everyone can use their phone to vote. Or partake in surveys, or Census each ten years – more and more people will be given easier access and easier use to partake in important decision making. Instead of a poll each few years – people can partake in giant national surveys, not pitiful biased ones with small samples of several thousand when technologies will allow us to partake in our millions of persons.

Pipe dream? With results published almost immediately after the ‘PCD votes’ the public will be more engaged as they will see a true representation of people getting involved – this will encourage more people to get involved. Within ten to twenty years we could have near 100% social inclusion and near 100% people our countries voting, participating, engaging the politicians etc.

All the same questions will be used, yet additional ones can be added and a deeper understanding of our public psyche will be gained. The social dynamics of our society changes will be more easily monitored and recorded, academics, local authorities, industry will be able to react to these potential market conditions more easily and with a copious amount of raw and reliable data at hand. The cost saving measure by industry and the government (of tomorrow year) for undertaking these voting/survey methods will be cheaper to administer than present election set up’s.

Greater transparency will be evident. Any manipulation of the statistics will be held accountable by various independent organisations involved with the phone vote applications. Too many have given up faith, it explains why people are looking more and more gloom on the shopping high street, why people become more paranoid about everything going wrong and taking the economic downturn very personally. Greater transparency will lead to a more positive outlook for all, not the negative downtrodden chaos that the news keeps beaming into our living rooms of PCD’s.

Humanity is reinventing itself – we have a long way to go, yet a western world indulgence of the last half century is now just feeding back in on itself and collapsing under its own weight. Reinvention of our very lives is what can possibly fix all the global problems within 25 years. Many believe we will reorganise into smaller localised co-operatives, this again can take full advantage the phone-vote systems that may be put in place. Organisations on the other side of the planet can look at what we do here, and us observing the fashions and trends they undertake over there.

Responsive high speed communications of 4G/5G technologies, transparent stronger survey systems and global transparency will help gauge the direction we are going in on local, district, national and international levels. So who will be the first to create this innovative PCD voting system?

Lost the will to love? Child sexualisation and the knock on effect into adulthood.

One of the on-going ethnographic research studies is interviews with adults who discuss the impact of television, the media and their general upbringing in regard to premature Child Sexualisation, sexual objectivity of other people and it’s future impacts on their social skills and pair-bonding development as adults.

With pornography, ‘lads mags’, sexually driven advertisement campaigns and other contentious areas of the media [unwittingly?] driving millions of young un-matured minds down a pathway that will inevitably damage their adult development and the ability to function competently in society, it is impossible to make suggestions which may actually make things worse.

To create outright bans on sexually explicit material will inevitably drive it underground and make it more sought after than before. With easier access of such adult/sexual material on the internet we may be suffering what is a fundamental disconnection from society, as the younger minds are warped by such graphic material and the possibility that making love is replaced and driven by sexual gratification where teenagers and twenty-something’s believe that pornographic sex is the norm and should be conducted in such a manner when they are involved in sexual activities.

Is it a concern that many, particularly males will refused to use the term ‘make love’ and use coarser terminology to define their activities.

There are forums and websites out there requesting the general public to make their voices known with regard to concern of Child Sexualisation. Where does society go from here though? The build-up of adult material over the last four to five decades has made it prolific and ubiquitous and widely available – particularly to very young children.

Perhaps as opposed to repressing it, parents, teachers, youth workers and other responsible people who deal with children should be prepared to discuss things more openly and explain to the children that they cannot allow themselves to be swayed and corrupted by such adult materials. Children and teenagers should be supported that their instincts and intuition is right – the guilt and moral issue that their conscience flags up is something that is protecting them from viewing or socially incubating such impacting material in their lives. Yet when they see how adults react to such issues in a somewhat potentially neurotic and overzealous state – it peaks the children’s curiosity which makes things ever worse.

So …. Is open communication and the courage to discuss such issues of child sexualisation the best format to help our new generation make the right choice and not let child sexualisation impact so heavily upon theirs and our lives.