This summary is designed for A level students studying the SCLY3 module in Global Development and outlines four persepectives on globalisation.

Optimist Globalism – Globalisation is mostly positive

1. More international trade, especially since the 1950s = Increasing wealth, health, education for most countries. Evidence below

• This Hans Rosling Video illustrates the relationship between increasing wealth (brought about by trade) and health
• The case of China’s economic growth – Use this ‘trading ecnomics’ web site to check out how China’s GDP growth over the last ten years (from 2001) appears to be directly correlated with its growth in exports (use the links to the right to change between graphs – you might need to change the years selection around too).
• China is not the only country benefitting from increasing trade (imports and exports) – China is just one of four nations known as the BRIC Nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) – 4 up and coming economies that are predicted to be wealthier than Britain by 2050. More recently, the CIVET nations are also benefitting from increasing trade. As an illustration of how these countries are increasingly integrated you might want to find out more about Brazil’s ‘Highway to China’ – which is talked about in this video- ‘The Chinese are Coming.’

2. Optimists argue that Tansnational Corporations are a force for good. Companies such as Apple, Sony, etc bring investment and jobs to developing countries.

• This video clip (approx first 15 mins) from Blood Sweat and Luxuries illustrates high tech manufacturing in the Philippines. The Optimist arguement here is that workers in such factories benefit from the wages – http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/View.aspx?ID=6092~4r~SEdwPGeV

3.    Patterns of consumption are becoming globalised – More people around the world are consumers rather than living subsistence lifestyles. Also people increasingly consume similar foods and brands (and shop for them in similar ways). Increasing global tourism is another feature of this. Evidence below…

• The first ten minutes from this Inside Out show illusrates the increasing number of Chinese people coming to Britain to shop http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/view.aspx?id=10237~5a~RR8KCyzLt4
• These photos of ‘what the world eats’ – Suggest similar consumption patterns.
• Coke’s advertising supports the optimist view of cultural globalisation – Advert 1 (I’d like t teach the world to sing…) and advert 2 – The Happiness Bus

4.  Sporting events such as the world cup and the Olympics have become more popular.

5. The spread of Democracy and respect for human rights since the end of WW2 – E.G. The end of colonial rule in Africa, the collapse of communism and the Arab Spring. This is also evidenced in the establishment of the United Nations and the growth of global social movements such as green peace.

6. The growth of social media (Facebook and Twitter) have lead more freedom around the world.

7. Globalistion increasingly means global cities urban centres which have highly educated, politically engaged middle classes.

Global Pessimism – Globalisation is mostly negative

1. Increased trade has had unequal benefits. Mainly Europe and America, lately Asia have benefitted, but most of Sub Saharan Africa is largely left behind.

• The graph otlining economic growth since 1800 in different continents on page 1 of the intro to GD document illustrates this point very well..
• For a good example of the pessimist view of globalisation read KT’s summary of ‘liquid times’ by Zygmunt Bauman – You only need read the sections entitled ‘surplus people’ and ‘the experience of inequality’. I suggest you read selectively and look for three examples that illustrate Bauman’s point: ‘when the rich pursue their goals, the poor pay the price’.   

2. TNCs pollute, extract resources from and exploit cheap labour in the developing world. E.G.s include Shell in Nigeria, Coke in India and of course the Bhopal incident in India.

• A case study of sweat shops – Apple in China - from the Daily Mail.
• a list of examples of Corporations accussed of doing environmental damages (just from KT’s Blog – focussing on the case of Union Carbide in India and Shell in Nigeria – you have probably looked at these as part of the Crime and Deviance Module)
• Mark Thomas’ documentary on Coca Cola illustrates how naughty this corporation is – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH0r84W3LgU

Also see the following video sources (you can search for both on estream)

• The Age of Stupid (section on Shell in Nigeria)
• Crude – The Real Cost of Oil (outlines Chevron’s pollution of the Amazon

3. Culture may be increasing global, but this mainly means Americanisation according to Pessimists. This takes the form of Cocacolonisation, and Dysnification – where American forms of popular culture and the shallow materialism this promotes erode local traditions. Another aspect of this is Mcdonaldisation

• this and this suggest possibly suggest one of the downsides of the spread of consumer culture…
• This illustrates the threat of Americanisation and Cocacolonisation very well – how some French people view Coca Cola as undermining their national identity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxjMqrZ6psw
• This site does a very good job of explaning what Mcdonaldisation is – http://www.mcdonaldization.com/

4.    Sport may be increasingly globalised, but just as with trade there are winners and losers, especially where the Olympics are concerned… 

5. Rather than the spread of democracy, it is more accurate to talk of the spread of U.S Military power, as outline by John Pilger in the War on Democracy, and the fact that the U.S. spends almost $700 billion on its military every year.

• The second half of this video – The War on Democracy outlines America’s military invovlement in more than 50 countries since World War 2 – Evidence suggests that the USA uses military force to get rid of democratically elected leaders that are not pro-U.S. – http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/View.aspx?ID=4068~4s~tdt8zCqn  

6. The spread of global media really means the spread of massive media firms such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, with programmes such as Fox News presenting a pro-American view of the world. Also think of popular culture – X factor, and Hollywood and global advertising. The pessimist view on such aspects of the global media is that they lead to increasing cultural homogenisation.

7. Zygmunt Bauman argues that global cities are best described as ‘fortress cities’ – especially in the developing world cities are places of huge inequalities where the rich hide themselves away in exclusive gated communities and the poor are left to the slums.

• Read KT’s summary of ‘liquid times’ by Zygmunt Bauman- Somewhere in the article he talks about the concepts of ‘Fortress cities’  

The Transformationalist View of Globalisation

1. ‘Trade’ has many complex formations. So it is difficult to say that it is either good or bad. Besides Free Trade, Fair Trade is expanding, and there is also illegal trade – in drugs for example.

• The Fairtrade Foundation has many examples of how trade can benefit people the world over in all sorts of different ways (NB you may think this works better as an example of global optimism) – http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/
• The Global Trade in drugs is quite a good example of Transformationalism - It certainly can’t be regarded as something that benefits people, and it certainly isn’t something that benefits the West at the expense of the developing world. The global trade in drugs is not controlled by Corprations or Western governments – it’s controlled by international criminal organisations, and arguable this is a case of poor farmers in the developing world benefitting (relatively) at the expense of people in the West –   http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/drug-trafficking/index.html  

2. TNCs operate in dozens of countris. Clearly there are going to be winners and losers in different cases. Also governments the world over regulate international companies in different ways – Pollution laws, tax law, minimum wages, health and safety.

3. Increasing consumerism isn’t just good or bad – cultural globalisation is characterised by hybridity – new brands come into contact with local cultures and they are modified by those cultures, creating new products – Bollywood, Chiken Tikha Massala. A related concept here is glocalism…

• There are plenty of examples of cultural hybridity in music – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3JDH-hUJj0 (the guy from Brazil in the second half of this!) – All in all a very ‘global experience’ and a great example of ‘ground up globalisation’ – Hip Hop being transformed into something new and different as it mixes with different local traditions…

4. New sporting formations the world over are good examples of cultural hybridity

5. Globalisaion is characterised by new political formations, not just the spread of democracy or the spread of American dominance. E.G China is a Communist country that doesn’t allow voting but supports Capitalism, while many African ‘democracies’ are so corrupt they can’t really be called democracies. Also, many countries have proved more than capable of resisting American force – mostly in the Middle East.

• The Paradox of China – Apparently the Communist government is now commanding Chinese businesses to agressively pursue profit. http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/editors-blog/2011/1104/The-China-paradox-communist-capitalism
• This Glocalist Manifesto is an interesting e.g. of glocalism applied to politics – http://www.glocalisti.org/blog/the-glocalist-manifesto/ 

6. The spread of global media has lead to diverse uses – e.g. crowdsourcing, microfinance, and mobile phone use in Africa.

• http://www.kickstarter.com/ is a good example of a crowdsourcing site. It encourages people around the world to fund projects. Global flows of money funding local businesses = glocalism
• Microfinance – You can now fund local businesses in developing countries via sites like this – http://www.opportunity.org/what-is-microfinance/
• Mobile phone use in Africa – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/30/africa-digital-revolution-mobile-phones 

7. Anthony GIddens argues that ‘detraditionalisation’ is part of Globalisation – People increasingly challenge traditions as they come into contact with new ideas.

• Read KT’s blog post on ‘detraditionalisation’ and summarise Gidden’s view of what effect globalisation has on culture – Is this closer to the optimist or transformationalist view of globalisation?

Traditionalism – Globalisation is exaggerated

1. Trade is not truly global, it is regional. For example, about 60% of EU trade is within the EU. And Sub Saharan Africa is largely left out of global trade flows

2. Transnational Corporations do not operate in all countries, only secure ones.

3. Billions of people still live mostly subsistence lifestyles and simply cannot afford to take part in globalised western style consumption.

4. –

5. Some countries remain cut off from ‘global democractic and military force’ – e.g. North Korea and Iran. Also some traditional cultures still practise abuses that go against the UNDHR – see 7 below.

6. Governments still have the power to censor social media – e.g. the great firewall of China

7. Local traditions still remain in many cultures – For example it is estimated that 90% of women in Somalia have been circumcised. See the following video links for examples of traditional cultures. You should watch these and consider the extent to which these cultures are really cut off from Globalisation..

• Three episodes of Tribe with Bruce Parry – The final one on the Sanema is especially interesting – http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/View.aspx?ID=7673~4x~8CS58LtS
• This episode of Tribe sees Bruce travel to the remote island of Anuta – http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/View.aspx?ID=2116~4k~jDaFVfFT

This post is simply a list of good videos for teaching and revising research methods

Social Surveys

Doing Sociological Research - If you can get over the desperate attempt to be ‘down with the kids’, then the section on survey research in education offers a very useful explanation of sampling and operationalising concepts such as social class.

Experiments

Milgram’s obedience experiments (youtube) – Link takes you to a contemporary version of Milgram’s experiment, which reveals depressingly similar results to the original.

The Stanford Prison Experiment (youtube)

A good example of a field experiment measuring how the public respond differently to differnt ethnicities engaged in stealing a bike.

This is a second field experiment measuring how the public respond differently to differnt ethnicities engaged in vandalising a car from the everyday sociology blog (videos removed but a good explanation on the blog)

Unstructured and Semi-Structured Interviews

Many episodes of Louis Theroux are good for unstructured interviews – I especially recommend the following -

America’s Medicated Kids (Youtube) – Louis even talks about ‘being a T.V. interviewer in the introduction. Also it should be fairly obvious why ‘unstructured interviews’ are suitable for researching these children.

Louis Theroux Behind Bars (Youtube) In which Louis interviews a man sentenced to over 500 years in jail

This is an interview with Louis Theroux (Youtube) talking about why he likes ‘unstructured interviews’ – about 1.13 in

OK – It’s not a video, it’s a podcast - but from about 5 minutes in there are some interesting results from research based on interviews with 18-25 year olds on the question of ‘why they drink to excess’. Their insights tell you much more than stats ever can about youth binge drinking today.

Participant Observation

Tribe with Bruce Parry is a good, basic introduction to the advantages and Limitations of using Overt PO to research traditional societies in remote rural settings. I especially recommend the episode on the Suri in Ethopia.

For Covert Participant Observation, the standard ‘classic video’ from the late 1990s is Donal Macintyre’s research with the Chelsea Headhunters (link is to college’s estream and requires password)

Another ‘covert classic’ is the Secret Policeman – College estream link (needs password)

Official Statistics

The Office for National Statistics has a huge array of videos on youtube. Some of the most interesting include – (1) Immigration Stats (2) Household Wealth (3) Cohabitation in the UK (4) The Latest on the Labour Market, including unemployment stats

Secondary Qualitative Data

The Freedom Writers - (link to college estream, requires pass word) A film based on a true life story of a teacher who gets her disinterested English literature students to tell their own stories using diaries

The BBC’s who do you think you are is an accessible way to introduce the usefulness of secondary qualitative data. This is a link to one episode on estream (password required)

TED Talk – what we learned from 5 million books - using google ngrams to quantify the content of books

Longitudinal Studies 

The Marshmallow Experiment (Youtube)  - Measures deferred gratification in children and then tracks the children through childhood to see the effects of deferred gratification on future test scores in education.

Another classic is 7 Up – This is the original 1964 documentary and the trailer for 56 up 

Other Videos

It’s a bit long winded, and it is a cartoon – but this is a good xtranormal video (link to youtube) that goes over the pros and cons of quantitative versus qualitative research – using the topic of researching children with ADD as an example.

Whatever work you set your students this snow day, this is probably how most of them will interpret it –  

Bit rich calling it ‘New’ Criminology – since the term hails from the 1970s – but anyway, my enhanced podcast on the topic – You may also know it is as ‘The Neo-Marxist Perspective on Crime’ or ‘Radical Criminology’.

This is really for A2 Sociology students studying crime and deviance. Enjoy the enthusiasm in my voice…

It annoyed me that I got to the end of term this year and struggled to think of relevant Sociology films I could show. Hence this end of year list – All packed full of Sociological relevance (well, mostly)…

In no particular order…. (And links to analysis to follow)

1. Fight Club – The most obvious reading is of this as a classic critique of the false consciousness and alienation the working classes suffer under consumer capitalism, but no doubt there are other interpretations out there.  
2. A Bug’s Life –  Useful for illustrating basic Marxist concepts.
3. Black Mirror: The National Anthem – Charlie Brooker’s short film – The Prime Minister has to have sex with a pig live on T.V. to save the life of the nation’s princess whose been kidnapped. This is the best film, hands down, to convey the meaning of ‘hyperreality’.
4. Catfish – About a guy that meets a girl on Facebook, and on taking a trip across the States to meets her realises she’s not as good looking as her photos suggested. Most people who’ve gone on a date can relate to this, just maybe not to this extreme. (P.S. I’m calling it fiction, I simply don’t believe it wasn’t set up, just don’t tell the kids before you show it them.)  
5. Lord of War – A nice introduction to the module on Global Development – Set over a ten year period from the mid ‘80s to the mid ‘90s Nicholas Cage plays an arms dealer who comes into own selling ex-Soviet military hard-ware to African Dictators and rebels. Quite a nice introduction to the history of international conflict post Cold-War
6. Hotel Rwanda – A bit slow, and a not so nice introduction to Global Development – set around the Rwandan Genocide – Especially useful if you are going to teach conflict as an aspect of development given the ongoing concerns in neighbouring DRC in 2012-13
7. The Freedom Writers – Based on a true story a teacher encourages her marginalised, mostly ethnic minority students to get into literature by telling their stories in diaries. It may be based in ‘90’s America, but you find another film that’s about education and research methods and I’ll eat my diary.
8. Visitor Q – O.K. It’s an 18, so I’m not recommending you show this to your teenage students in class – but let’s just say if you thought gay marriage was contentious or divorce-extended families somewhat unusual, by the standards of the family in this little gem, the rest of us are all pretty much singing from the same song sheet.
9. Threads – Really not that much to do with anything I teach, but this is simply the most harrowing movie I’ve ever seen. The fact that it’s set in the in Sheffield in the 1980s is scary enough for starters, and it gets worse as it imagines what a real life nuclear holocaust would actually be like. Unlike most other films there is no happy ending, so if you have a burning hatred for a particular class or have just had a stressful year and want to end the term by putting the students on a downer – this is the video to choose.  
10. Kung fu Panda – Simply the best film ever made period. Richly layered with many levels of meaning, and deeply, deeply moving.  

A jumper on the golden gate bridge

1. The Golden Gate Bridge in California - Where more than 1500 people to date have jumped the equivalent of 25 stories and 49/50 succeed due to the massive internal injuries they typically receive on impact.

Compare the high drama of the bridge-jump to the Forest – A much more secluded and isolated space where the Japanese choose to die by private methods – The woods in fact being notorious for the ease with which one can get lost because of the density of the trees and the lack of trails. Normally one would associate poisoning as a softer method more associated with a plea for help than the blunt force trauma of the bridge, but I’m inclined to think the opposite is the case here as the isolation of the forest makes it unlikely that one will be found.

A documentary film by Eric Steel - The Bridge

Schizophrenic people are more likely to jump from bridges

The Suicide Paradox in America 

Japan’s Suicide Forest

The Economist – Suicide in Japan

Suicide in Japan’s Forest

Top 10 suicide sites in the world

Top Ten Suicide Sites in the world 

Summary of a report  by the Prison Reform Trust (2010) -  Punishing Disadvantage: a profile of children in custody -

The research asked a straightforward question: “Who are the 2,000 to 3,000 children and young people serving sentences or on remand in Britain at any one time?”

A more complex, and extremely significant, question the study also asked was: “How do these young people come to end up in custody?”

In answer to the first question, research revealed the widespread disadvantage and unstable lives endured by children and young people serving time. It found that

• 75% had absent fathers
• 50% came from deprived backgrounds and a similar proportion had run away from home at some point.
• 33% had absent mothers
• 25% had been in care,
• 20% had self-harmed,
• 11% had attempted suicide, and
• 12% had been bereaved, losing either a parent or sibling. It also found that around three-quarters had absent fathers, while a third had experienced their mother’s absence.

If you want to find out answers to the second question – click on the link

I Quite like translating the A2 Sociology specification into ‘easy pop questions’ about a topic – here are a few for crime and deviance… Roughly in line with the order in which we teach. They’re short enough questions to tweet, too.

These are the kind of questions students can just be let lose on to find out info about…. preferably with a few sources as guidance.

OK in fairness some of them aren’t actually ‘pop questions’ but sometimes the spec. is hard to simplify.

1. How much Crime is there in England and Wales?
2. Why did recorded crime rise so rapidly in the 1980s? 
3. Why has crime in the UK been going down every year since 1995?
4. What are the lowest and highest crime rate areas in the UK?
5. What are the highest and lowest crime countries in the world?
6. Why are there spikes in violent street crime at weekends in city centres in the early hours of the morning?
7. Why does the media exaggerate the extent of violent crime?
8. To what extent does the media shape our perceptions of crime?
9. Is crime necessary?
10. Is ‘bad-parenting’ to blame for crime?
11. What types of people are the most likely to end up in jail?
12. To what extent are ‘blocked opportunities’ to blame for crime?
13. How much crime is gang-related?
14. Which social class commits the most crime?
15. Are the crimes of the elite more costly than street crime?
16. Are the poor more likely to be punished than the rich?
17. Does Capitalism ‘breed crime’?
18. Is there such a thing as an inherently deviant act?
19. Do agents of social control ’cause’ crime to increase?
20. (Philosophical) – If no one catches you commiting a crime, are you actually a criminal?
21. Are the police racist, sexist, ageist, classist – are they more likely to negatively label some groups compared to others?
22. Are criminals actually the sensible ones?
23. Are criminals heroic?
24. Does the government deliberately exaggerate moral panics to divert attention away from its own immoral activities?
25. What is the most effective way to control and reduce crime?
26. How important is the role of the community in reducing and controlling crime?
27. What is the role of the police in modern society? What should it be?
28. Does zero tolerance policing work?
29. Does prison work?
30.  Why do men commit more crime than women?
31. Why is the female crime rate increasing?
32. Is the criminal justice system biased against women? (Rape/ domestic violence/ prostitution)
33. How does crime vary by ethnicity? 
34. Are the police racist?
35. Who are the victims of crime – why are some people more likely to be victims than others
36. How has globalisation changed crime and crime control?
37. What is state crime? How do we explain it?
38. What is environmental crime? How do we explain it?
39. Why do people commit suicide?

As a seperate research strands you could also research the following types of crime

• Violent street crime
• Burglary
• Gangs and gang related crime (not all gangs commit crime)
• Drug dealing
• Rape and Domestic abuse
• Hate crime (including race crime)
• Corporate Crime, especially fraud.

Hi – I haven’t posted for over a month because I’m ensconced in reading and writing a short book on Buddhism. Once I’m done, I’ll resume blogging again, although I’m not sure when that will be: The deeper I go into things, the deeper I feel I need to go, and the deeper I go the less I feel need to say! Anyway, in the meantime (or possibly the final word) here are some useful sources on Buddhism…

Useful sources for finding out more about Buddhism in general and The Noble Eight Fold Path in particular

My recommended starting point is The Buddhist Society, based in London, which has a number of excellent resources online and runs an excellent ‘introduction to Buddhism’ course and a whole load of other courses for those wishing to take Buddhism deeper.

Buddhism online

There are a number of excellent podcasts on Buddhism -

Sangharakshita’s (1968) The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path is a good in-depth introduction to the N8P, although it does get quite esoteric towards the end of the series. Sangharakshita is an ordained Buddhist monk and founder of The Friends of the Western Buddhist Order.

Ryu Cope’s Bad Buddhist Radio Podcasts are a good layman’s introduction to Buddhism and the N8P – He’s not a monk, but I like his down to earth interpretation of Buddhist wisdom. Most of the series was put together between the years 2006-9 and consists of more than 50 short podcasts. The first dozen or so on basic Buddhism are especially worth a listen.

Based in British Columbia, the D.I.Y. Dharma sangha is a peer-led community of freaks, geeks, queers, trans-folk, rebels, outcasts, stream-enterers and their friends, who meditate together in the Buddhist tradition. It’s not the easiest site to navigate through, but it does have a good selection of audio podcasts (link sorted by popularity) and you can join up to the virtual community and ‘log your sits’ which I kind of like…

There are also some excellent sources online more generally – most of the above sites have written resources, and one more is The Big View is about ‘Philosophy in the widest sense’, so is about more than just Buddhism, but it has some good, brief summary notes on the basics of Buddhism including this summary of The Noble Eight Fold Path

Three recommended books for beginners

Rahula Walpola  (1997) What the Buddha Taught

Bhikkhu Bodhi (2006) Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering

The Buddhist Society : The Dhammapada (This is a short book which outlines the basic teachings of the Buddha)

No comment, sometimes things just need to be shared…

Thanks to the friend of a friend who forwarded this on, whoever you are!